Monday, February 27, 2006

Is MySQL AB experiencing a bozo explosion?

"Bozo explosion" seems to be buzzing around the blogosphere. Started by Guy Kawasaki, who gave some great tips on avoiding the bozo explosion, many others including Scobleizer and Jeremy have jumped in on it.

I don't work for a really big company that could be suffering from a bozo explosion but was really interested in asking MySQL employees about whether they think MySQL is experiencing a bozo explosion. I think they will come back and say no, but that will give us folks a look inside the company's culture.

My favorite pieces:

1. The two most popular words in your company are “partner” and “strategic.” In addition, “partner” has become a verb, and “strategic” is used to describe decisions and activities that don't make sense.


Correct me if I am wrong but I haven't seen as much of "partner" and "strategic" talk from MySQL. I guess the two most popular words at MySQL are "features" and "Oracle" .

Guy Kawasaki: #9: "An employee is paid to do nothing but write a blog."

To which Scoble said:
"#9 got a little close to home. ;-) *"

My wife also takes that statement a little personally ;-)

Scoble also adds:

"#15: If you are a software developer and if you spend more time in meetings than writing code you might be in a bozo explosion"

And last but not least:

#12. Your hire a big name consulting firm who brings in MBAs with one year of experience to re-think your corporate strategies.

So folks lucky to work at MySQL AB, what do you think?

Frank

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nah, don't think so.

ZUrlocker said...

I'm a big fan of Guy Kawasaki's work and I think he's dead on with a lot of his comments. As we grow it's important not to let layers of BS creep into the company.

There are probably a couple of folks with MBAs in the company, but we don't hold it against them. :-)

--Zack

Anonymous said...

Many of us work from a home office, and I don't drive a car. I think that poses a couple of problems to start with.

I sympathise with the companies experiencing that (to some degree, I think I used to work for one), but I don't think that's MySQL.


- Morgan

Anonymous said...

I'd second arjen, zack, and morgan. Only been here a couple months, but I've seen no evidence of any of that.

then again, I only work two hours a day. ;) just kiddin'

-jay

Frank said...

Jay, you are a funny man ;)

I didn't think a bozo explosion was being experienced at MySQL but I wanted to ask anyway.

Watch out, they will assign more hours to you ;)

Frank