Research associate

 1977 to 1981

Getting published: I entered graduate school in the field of Experimental Psychology and began looking for a ‘killer topic’ for the master’s thesis. I knew I couldn’t just write a paper – it had to be a research project. This meant coming up with a theory and collecting data to support it. Furthermore, it had to be interesting enough to get published in a professional journal. I had no idea what I was going to do but I didn’t have much time. While preparing for a presentation I was giving at a seminar in learning theory, I ran across a study showing how reading scores dramatically improve once children start making ‘inferences’. For instance, when a child reads the sentence “The paratrooper jumped out of the door” it helps if they make the inference “The paratrooper jumped out of the plane”. We were not teaching children to make inferences and that was one of the reasons why Japanese students were outscoring American students. It interested me so I made a copy for future reference. Later that year at a seminar in linguistics, I listened to one of the presenters describe how inference-making can have undesirable consequences. At the Watergate hearings for instance, when President Nixon said “No one told me John Mitchell was behind the break-in.” People came away with the impression that he said “I did not know John Mitchell was behind the break-in.” I thought, how ironic ..the same process that helps children learn to read can become a source of misunderstanding between adults. It was an intriguing theory but even more important – it was a ‘killer topic’. After getting my thesis committee to approve, I began running tests measuring adult speech and reading comprehension. What I found is that people really are susceptible to misleading inferences. Over two-thirds of the time, they mistake the inferences they make for something they either heard or read before. After listening to short passage containing sentences like “The karate expert hit the cement block”, subjects swore they heard “The karate expert broke the cement block.” Relying on inferences can actually lower adult reading scores. I thought I was on to something. Inferences are stored in a manner that is indistinguishable from information conveyed by direct assertion. I found examples in courtroom testimony and deceptive advertising. I presented my findings at a conference of the Western Psychological Association in Los Angeles where I managed to get my thesis published [link]. Then, someone approached me and said that my research would be useful in another field .. developing speech recognition systems for the computer. So in 1981, after the Reagan Administration began cutting funds for the kind of research I was doing, I completed the master’s degree and I went to work for the computer industry. I remember my colleagues telling me I was ‘selling-out’. I never lost interest in psychology and always thought I’d come back and complete a doctoral degree.

Computer industry

 1981

Outlook: What did I know about computers before going to work in the computer industry ..? Next to nothing. Well, that’s not exactly true. I did know a thing or two. I remember that, before graduate school ..I wanted nothing to do with computers. The ‘load-sheets’ and ‘punch-cards’ I saw other students carrying around with them did not appeal to me in the least. Nor could I see myself working in a ‘computer-room’ that resembled the inside of a space-ship ..like where HAL was located in the film ‘2001 Space Odyssey’. Furthermore, textbook and media images I saw of women working in computer industry looked like they came out of a 1950’s issue of Look magazine. However, graduate school changed all of that. Now I had a revised outlook:

1. Computer programs sure beat manual number-crunching.
2. The folks working on speech recognition systems for computers at UCI took an interest in my thesis.
3. I envisioned a day when people would share data on a computer located somewhere else, which meant I wouldn’t necessarily have to work inside a computer room.
4. I took two computer courses taught by the same instructor. He required us to do a systems analysis study of each business operation first, then submit it along with any programs we wrote. The programs had to fit the operation.
5. The instructor told us that this would lead to greater job mobility. You can often go to work for the client company simply because, like an auditor .. you get a real good look at their business operations.
6. He was right, each organization I studied for my programming assignments ..offered me a job (a gas station, a paint-supply store and an survey organization for the health-care industry).
7. It didn’t look like I’d be confined to a computer lab after all, which meant I could get a better look around .. hopefully see women who didn’t look like models from the ’fifties.

Information analyst

1981 to 1984

Overcoming obstacles: Douglas Aircraft was losing thousands of dollars a day in deferred revenue because they couldn’t respond fast enough to customer changes. Information wasn’t reaching the work centers on time resulting in production delays and missed milestone payments. They couldn’t rely on standard work instructions anymore because every customer wanted something different. Douglas said that they needed a system that was more ‘flexible and responsive to change’. So, they hired a group of executives from the automotive industry ..and put together a team of analysts from IT. I was chosen because I had experience ‘pulling text out of a database’. I had no idea what this meant in the aircraft industry ..but that didn’t seem to matter. The new execs explained the concept of a ‘virtual assembly line’. This meant moving the work instead of the planes ..and required an information system to coordinate things differently than before. This worked in my favor. Since I had no experience with the way things worked before .. I had no pre-conceived ideas. I was an ‘active listener’ ..paraphrasing practically everything I heard. I went: “Sounds like you want the fuselage to stay in one place ..but keep the information moving, in ‘assembly line’ fashion, through the workstations ..(?)” Now everyone was looking at me and I didn’t know whether they were going to yell at me for impertinence ..irrelevance ..or stupidity. I felt the blood drain from my face. Then they shouted: “That's EXACTLY RIGHT..!!!!” When the blood returned; I calmly replied “Oh yeah ..we can do that.” Now my boss was looking at me in disbelief.

Information analyst

1981 to 1984

Overcoming obstacles (continued): When I looked at the database; I was scared shit-less. Now I wondered what I could’ve been thinking. It didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before. There were records for building aircraft sections that were so large, they took weeks to write and revise. There was no way we were going to keep information like that ‘moving’ the way I’d envisioned. Now my boss was pacing the floor and chain-smoking and the word ‘sell-out’ kept echoing through my head. That reminded me of something else I’d heard in graduate school: a chain of small data packages is faster to process than a large chunk of information. With the help of Industrial Engineers, we broke-up records for completing sections into smaller records for completing ‘operations’ that were easier to revise, store and retrieve from the database. Now Engineers could create custom work packages using a library of ‘component operations’. Information began moving through the system more rapidly and arriving where it was needed on time. Work packages could be revised and published in a day. When I think about it now, what we actually did was create a system that helped make people more ‘flexible and responsive to change’.

Senior information analyst

1984 to 1986

Overcoming discontent: I was a mercenary now. It was the eighties, business was booming and the money was good. I no longer thought about becoming ‘Joe great psychologist’. But, I wasn’t all that happy with what I was doing. Then I remembered advice I had received from a former IT director. He warned me against becoming a ‘technical guru’. He said it could make me obsolete real fast. The future was in ‘business apps’ .. not the latest device coming out of IT. He recommended that I learn as much as I can about business operations. Things like sales and shipping. However, I was in no position to learn business operations. I was spending most of my time solving day-to-day ‘technical’ problems. Meanwhile my colleagues with business degrees were already forming start-up companies. One colleague successfully developed software that could keep a company’s ‘haz mat’ instructions in-compliance. Another developed a method to help suppliers deliver composite materials with less spoilage. The people I saw getting ahead were the one’s using their knowledge of information technology to solve business problems, not technical problems, just like the IT director said.

Finance specialist

1986 to 1988

Creating opportunity: I felt like I was behind the curve and needed to catch up. I decided to take time out each day and go talk to people in other departments under the pretense of seeing how their computer system was working for them. I quickly discovered how much Accountants know about business operations. So, when a position opened up to work on accounting systems ..I took it! Then, when accounting needed someone to audit shipping and receiving operations ..I volunteered! At first my superiors in IT balked. So I convinced them we needed to generate ‘good will’ with accounting to get their ‘buy-in’ on future projects. Consequently, I got tapped to lead a project installing a new General Ledger system. When installation was complete, I felt like I had enough experience, as well as confidence, to make a career change. I applied for a position directly with Finance. It actually required more experience than I had, but the managers in Accounting felt like they had invested enough time in me already so they petitioned the General Manager to waive the ‘years of experience’ guideline and I got the job. This put me in a position to participate in a broader range of business activities. I got to analyze business operations, set budgets and report progress to the Controller’s office. Although I would eventually return to information services, I now had greater latitude in choosing jobs I wanted, as well as the possibility of creating my own.

Finance specialist

1987 to 1988

Finding the killer app: By 1987, Northrop was a major player in the aircraft industry and subcontracting most their work. However, their legacy computing systems were not handling the job of ‘subcontracting’ very well. A subcontract order is a collaborative effort between different organizations. It contains engineering specifications and financial schedules in addition to the terms and conditions worked out between buyer and seller. I felt ‘client server’ technology would be better suited to the task. Each organization could prepare it’s own section on a desktop computer (client) and submit it to a Subcontract Administrator. The Subcontract Administrator would assemble different sections, at their workstation (server), and create the completed agreement. It sounded like a ‘killer app’ to me. However, client server technology was relatively new and management considered it risky. I prepared a cost-benefit analysis showing how much money they could save by eliminating one nagging task – re-typing standard inspection-notes on every purchase order. In return, I received a small budget to build a working demonstration.

the story continues ~> [ link ]

Finance specialist

1987 to 1988

Promoting the killer app: There was only one person around who knew anything about client server technology. His name was Nick and he wasn’t even an employee. He was a consultant. Between Nick’s role as consultant, and my new role as spiky-hair manager, we were not able to find enough time to sit down and prepare a demonstration. Nor could I find a VP who was willing to sponsor the project and release us from our day-to-day responsibilities. However, Nick and I were sufficiently motivated to devote our own time to it. I was interested in making Director, which I figured a project of this magnitude would entail, and Nick was interested in making Partner at his Consulting Firm. So, on weekends we would commandeer a large table at a restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean and, over beer and clams, we proceeded to draw network plans, with crayons and paper tablecloths. Next, we found vendors willing to ‘buy-in’ and contribute networking equipment for free, or ‘on spec’, in hopes of receiving a substantial payoff later. It was this way we were able to produce a working demonstration and show Buyers they could publish a subcontract order on a desktop PC, something they had never seen before. The Buyer Workstation project was officially approved and we were awarded funding for limited-deployment. This meant we could roll-out Buyer Workstations in just few departments, mainly the ones that purchased general supplies (pencils, paper and whatnot). Not exactly what I had in mind, but they were playing it safe, the way conservative companies generally do.

the story continues ~> [ link ]

Manager

1988 to 1990

Reaching first base: I was promoted to Manager of General Procurement (not exactly what I had in mind) and Nick was promoted to Principle at his Consulting Firm (not exactly what he had in mind either). Nick’s firm, along with a growing network of suppliers, were willing to continue working ‘on spec’ with the hope of participating in a contract for full-scale deployment somewhere down the line. This arrangement, as I was about to discover, did not come without it’s own set of less-than-desirable ~ and in some cases ~ downright fucked-up consequences. Needless to say, there’s more to this tale [ link ].

Manager

1988 to 1990

Deploying the killer app: Being manager of general procurement meant that, in addition to buyer workstations, I was responsible for a department that bought office supplies. Definitely not what I had in mind. While some of us were stocking supply cabinets, others were ordering network equipment. Nick was setting up buyer workstations and purchasing agents were dealing with network suppliers to see how long we could avoid paying them. In the meantime, I was playing a shell-game to cover expenses and routinely dealing with Nick’s account manager to see how long I could avoid paying him. Accounts payable was calling me every week about unpaid invoices. Controllers were calling me everyday to get budget estimates and a spreadsheet was telling me I owed $1,250,000 in network supplies and consulting fees. In addition, my boss was on my case every half-hour about performance reviews ..and the cafeteria was complaining that they were low on salt.

the saga continues ~> [ link ]

Manager

1988 to 1990

Stealing second: I felt like I was trying to manage chaos. Then, after less than a year, Northrop announces a re-organization. They’re combining departments and eliminating levels of management. Since I was the newest kid on the block, I was on the phone with recruiters almost every day. Everyone was panicking. No one knew where the chips were going to fall. Even though I had submitted my budget plan, it was frozen. Then ka-boom, they decide to retain managers based on a system of merit rather than seniority (and it helped that I had a college degree which many of the senior managers didn't). What didn’t help was that many of those senior managers were now reporting to me and I had no idea how to deal with it. I was responsible for departments I’d never heard of: Facilities (building and maintenance. Record Keeping (document retention), Security, Video Teleconferencing (cool) and Data Entry. Basically every department except the ones I thought would benefit most from buyer workstations, which is what started me down this path in the first place. In the words of Karen Blixen “This is not what I thought would happen to me now.”

and continues ~> [ link ]

Manager

1988 to 1990

Fallout: The former head of security (who reports to me now) wants permission to go undercover and bust an industrial spy ring ..operating out of Las Vegas. The next day his wife appears and pleads with me to turn down this request ..she warns me not to believe a word he says. My boss hires Rick, an expert in network computing, to help me with buyer workstations. When it turns out that Rick knows squat about network computing and refuses to do any other assignment I can think of; I initiate steps to have him either transferred or fired. When my boss finds out about this, he tells me not to worry and promptly puts Rick on his administrative staff. When members of my staff find out, I have a morale problem because it looks like the price for doing nothing is a promotion. Later, my boss asks me to do Rick’s performance review (because he still reports to me on paper). I refuse. Next my boss asks me to sign one that he wrote .. and I refuse. This time he threatens to fire me . I tell him to go ahead ~ my first ever act of brinkmanship. Shortly thereafter, funding for buyer workstations gets slashed ..and the consulting firm, as well as all the network suppliers, threaten to sue (I owe them over two and a half million dollars now). I feel like the buyer workstation project is doomed. Late one afternoon, I’m sitting at my desk making out a requisition for a gun to shoot myself, when the secretary asks if I want to take a call from someone in Santa Barbara. I had sent my resume there before the reorganization ~ flash ~ I’m looking out the window of my new office in Santa Barbara ~ deer are grazing in a nearby eucalyptus grove and I can walk to the beach for lunch. A former colleague from Northrop calls and asks how I’m doing. I tell him I feel like a kid at summer camp.

Project manager

1990 to 1995

Overcoming resistance: I figured if things didn’t work out in Santa Barbara, I might be able to get a job with one of the high-tech firms in Silicon Valley. I also thought it would help it I had more experience with enterprise systems (ERP), and SBRC was giving me an opportunity to do that. ERP is like an information network that links the operations of just about every department to help ensure the company meets it’s earnings’ forecast. The Santa Barbara Research Center needed an ERP-like system so that accounting had up-to-date information for progress-billing ..and the Controllers’ Office could regularly check their financial status. The first obstacle I encountered was resistance from accounting. They didn’t want to be connected with operations .. too disruptive they said ..their manual methods worked just fine ..change would only subject them to more audits and penalties for things they couldn’t explain. The second obstacle was the attorney they hired to represent them. I tried explaining to accounting that the new system would actually reduce clerical effort and help them produce more timely billing statements. Sounded too slick. Then I met with members of the clerical staff to assure them that their jobs were safe ..and that they would be reporting to the Controllers’ Office where their knowledge of the new system would make them indispensable. They were, like: “Yeah, right-O ..new guy.” Then I tried convincing the attorney that a one-time demonstration was all it would take to get the system certified ..and keep the auditors off their back. She goes: “Oh yeah ..? How’s it going to keep track of salvage operations ..? Mis-charge those, buddy, and someone ends up going to jail.” Nobody is going to jail, I said ..and we were given the OK to begin. I was already exhausted.

Project manager

1990 to 1995

Team work: I needed accounting to show me what they did whenever a transaction occurred that affected the cost of doing business. They released members of the accounting staff to help (which is why I had to assure them that this wasn’t an exercise in job-replacement). We met every morning and, with the help of an Operations Expert, simulated the activities of doing business, everything from purchasing and receiving to shipping and delivery. After each transaction, we’d stop and they’d describe what they did at that point. I stood at a white board and drew what that would look like in terms of T-accounts. I actually saw a light go on in the room. Many of them had never seen double-entry bookkeeping before and they were intrigued. Everyone except for the Operations Expert. To her, this looked nothing like the kind of operations she was used to dealing with. It was going over her head and I wasn’t slowing down to explain (big mistake). One day, during a conference call with Engineering, the Operations Expert stormed out of the room, went straight to management and demanded that I be removed from the team. When the Attorney caught wind of this, she quickly halted the project to get to the bottom of it. Apparently the Operations Expert thought my role was to trouble-shoot computer programs ..not invent them. So, the Attorney allowed the project to continue, but disbanded the team. Fortunately, I had enough information from accounting to get programming started. A few days later the members of the accounting staff appeared at my door thanking me and promising to be available whenever I needed help. I was moved. Now I felt confident this project was going to succeed.

Project manager

1990 to 1995

Resolving conflict: One morning I walked into a shit-storm. The CFO had suspended the project and his Attorney was in my boss’ office shouting at me, going: “You CANNOT allocate costs like that. What were you thinking..?” I told her I thought it would be hard NOT to. When you've got several people working on several orders at the same time, the best you can do is allocate. “That’s UNACCEPTABLE..!!” she screamed “ ..either you find some way for them to charge direct or this project is canceled” and she stormed out of the office. My boss and I were stunned. She told me not to waste my time trying to figure out a way to do this. Instead, she said “Go to the beach and think of a way to respond to this.” Apparently she’d found out where I did my best work. I knew that whatever I came up with had to sound official, like it was coming from someone other than myself. That way it wasn’t me they were disagreeing with but with sensible advice. So, I went to the university library, looked up ‘Generally Accepted Accounting Principles’ (GAAP), read some case studies and called my dad. They all said the same thing: “Allocation is perfectly acceptable when the alternatives are too costly.” I wrote a single-page reply, citing my distinguished references, and handed it to my boss, who immediately submitted it to the General Manager, fiendishly going “Lets see what happens next”. Frankly, I was afraid of what was going to happen next and imagined myself being eaten alive by the CFO, his attorney and a mythical wildebeest. The next day my boss comes running in, pumping her fist, going “Eureka, they bought it ..!!” And I’ m like “Yeeahh..!” I felt like I still needed ERP experience as well as more time on the beach. I was feeling like a kid at summer camp again.

Project manager

1990 to 1995

Completing the loop: No sooner had we installed the final ‘link’ to the Controllers’ Office, the Controllers were standing inside my office pounding on the desk going “The system doesn’t work..!” The cost of items, that went on equipment, that had already shipped, was missing. Missing cost meant incomplete profit/loss statements. P&L’s are like the Holy Grail. Hearing this sent a shock through my system. I told myself to stay calm and went searching online, with the Controllers right behind. Starting with the customer order, we looked back in time to see when the components were due. The trail ended at the receiving dock. It looked as though the items were ordered but never received. They shook their heads “..no way.” They couldn’t have delivered incomplete equipment. OK, the parts were installed at no charge. We gave the customer a discount (!?) “Not funny”. OK, the receiving dock is the point of entry for component cost. Obviously, the items had been physically available so, it looks like they bypassed receiving/inspection. We went out to the warehouse and sure enough, the paperwork was there but hadn’t been entered to the system. A Production Manager had picked up the package but left the packing-sheet behind. A Warehouse Inspector saw a packing-sheet without a package and put it in suspense. Since it didn’t stop production; no one complained and it never cleared suspense. Until now that is. To me, this was a sign of success. An ERP system was in place and working..! The Controllers’ Office had visibility like they never had before. They just didn’t like what they saw.

Consultant

1995 to 1999

Negotiating settlements: In 1995, SBRC outsourced its IT department to the Computer Science Corporation (CSC )and CSC immediately put me to work at their client site. This meant the possibility of consulting with companies around the world. I was delighted. Although I never made it to places like Paris or Tokyo, I did get to see horse racing in Kentucky and taste fried scallops in Boston. One of my last gigs was with Western Data Systems (WDS), a software developer located closer to home (Calabasas). They were way behind schedule on releasing their next-generation ‘enterprise system’ – and there was plenty of blame going around. WDS was accusing the customers of delaying the beta-test while the customers were accusing WDS of shoddy work. They didn’t feel like it was their job to find system problems. They felt their responsibility was to ensure compliance. Now they were both pointing the finger at me for slowing things down even more. The line from a Bruce Springsteen song was going through my head “I’m caught in a cross-fire that I don’t understand.” I didn’t feel like a consultant at all. I figured the best thing I could do was roll-up my sleeves and start testing in-house, instead of waiting for the customer. WDS agreed to let me do this and even lent me a staff of QA folks. Now, the QA folks were good at testing things like graphical interfaces, but they didn’t have experience testing enterprise-software. I had us begin by simulating business operations (like ordering, shipping and billing) then started breaking down each operation into a set of business rules we could test for (like order-fulfillment and revenue-recognition). The QA folks were actually enjoying this while I was afraid we were getting farther behind. We couldn’t exhaustively test every possibility. I arranged for us to meet with the software developers and had them point out where the upgrades were made, especially the ones that changed the way the system was originally designed to work. Experience told me that this is where problems are most likely to occur. We went back and refined the test plans to target those areas for repetitive, scenario-like testing, while reducing everything else to a one-time set up. It worked. We were testing the system where it was most likely to fail, identifying more problems and getting faster turn-around from programming. At the same time, I was banking on the beta-site customers finding errors that we weren’t catching, and hoping we could get away with saying things like: ‘those are out-of-scope’ or ‘that’s best dealt with in the next service pack’. It was a bluff, but it worked. It even made us sound a little like Microsoft, which they considered to be a center of excellence (?) and it made me feel like a consultant again.

Consultant

1999 to 2001

Demolition expert: I have a theory about the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve weren’t cast out ..they blew it up themselves. When I first arrived in Santa Barbara, I felt like a kid at summer camp. Our offices were within walking distance of the beach and a major university. I found that I could develop computing systems in my head while sitting on the bluffs. I had a talented group of co-workers ..and an account manager named Sherry who was our best promoter. We were at the top of our game ..none of the other consulting groups won as many contracts ..or contributed as much to the revenue stream. Nobody screwed with us. I went out on medical leave in 1999. While I was gone, Sherry retired to Arizona to take care of her ailing husband. With her gone, people from headquarters in Los Angeles saw an opportunity to take-charge of a kick-ass consulting group. Little did they know they were stepping into foreign culture. They brought in a manager named Pete ..and shortly there-after most of the ‘talent’ bailed. Next Pete set out to demolish our relationship with the local customers. Pretty soon they were complaining to CSC headquarters that they were not getting the service they were accustomed to (and paying for). When I returned in 2000, headquarters asked me to step-in and help since I was the only one left after the exodus. I talked to the customers. They told me they had awarded us contracts worth millions of dollars, and were waiting on bids for several more. They said it felt like their requests were falling into a black hole ..and they were frustrated. I sat down with Pete, but he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. I started thumbing through a stack of folders on his conference table and found one that said ‘Request for service: Inventory shortages’ and another that said ‘Request for proposal: Supply Chain System’. I went “Hey Pete, here they are!” He said he had no idea what they were asking for and wasn’t about to risk assigning them to anyone (!?) When I suggested I could help, he got visibly angry and said I could help by ‘sweeping the floor’. Pete was under pressure from headquarters to reach the same level of billable hours as we were doing before. So he had everybody doing what he knew best. I called it ‘sweeping the floors’ but it was actually things like rewriting low-level code, changing file handling protocols and reporting progress on technical issues that made no difference to the customer. Meanwhile requests for service were being ignored. Pete hated meeting with the customers because he said he could never understand what they were talking about and were a waste of time. He had technical issues to deal with. Reminded me of the most valuable lesson I learned: it’s all about customer service and business applications ..not the latest device coming out of IT [link]. I thought that could definitely apply here, but it was too late. We had already lost several big contracts and CSC was forced to shut down the Santa Barbara branch. I felt we had everything providence could bestow ..and blew it up.

to be continued ..