“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”  - Jean giraudoux

I liked one of Google’s recent blog posts about “The Meaning of Open“.

Below is a summary of that article:

• At Google we believe that open systems win.
• They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses.
• There are two components to our definition of open: open technology and open information.
  • Open technology includes open source, meaning we release and actively support code that helps grow the Internet, and open standards, meaning we adhere to accepted standards and, if none exist, work to create standards that improve the entire Internet (and not just benefit Google).
  • Open information means that when we have information about users we use it to provide something that is valuable to them, we are transparent about what information we have about them, and we give them ultimate control over their information.
• The conventional wisdom goes that companies should lock in customers to lock out competitors.
• There are different tactical approaches — razor companies make the razor cheap and the blades expensive, while the old IBM made the mainframes expensive and the software … expensive too.There are different tactical approaches — razor companies make the razor cheap and the blades expensive, while the old IBM made the mainframes expensive and the software … expensive too.
  • They can also deliver well-designed products in the short run — the iPod and iPhone being the obvious
  • examples — but eventually innovation in a closed system tends towards being incremental at best (is a four blade razor really that much better than a three blade one?)
• In an open system, a competitive advantage doesn’t derive from locking in customers, but rather from understanding the fast-moving system better than anyone else and using that knowledge to generate better, more innovative products.
• Open systems have the potential to spawn industries. They harness the intellect of the general population and spur businesses to compete, innovate, and win based on the merits of their products and not just the brilliance of their business tactics. The race to map the human genome is one example.
• Networks have always depended on standards to flourish. When railroad tracks were first being laid across the U.S. in the early 19th century, there were seven different standards for track width. The network didn’t flourish and expand west until the different railway companies agreed upon a standard width of 4′ 8.5″. (In this case the standards war was an actual war: Southern railroads were forced to convert over 11,000 miles of track to the new standard after the Confederacy lost to the Union in the Civil War.)
• Next, we need to make it easy for users to find out what information we gather and store about them across all of our products.
• Finally, we must always give control to the user.
• Closed systems are well-defined and profitable, but only for those who control them.
• Open systems are chaotic and profitable, but only for those who understand them well and move faster than everyone else. Closed systems grow quickly while open systems evolve more slowly, so placing your bets on open requires the optimism, will, and means to think long term.

I just read an interesting blog post from Benjamin Bran who says cubicles are the phone booths of the future. I don’t agree with everything he says but in the end I think he is mostly right. Every morning I get up, shower, put on a shirt and tie, take my dog outside, and take my son to daycare the mornings I have him. From daycare (or straight from home) I usually sit in traffic round trip for 40 to 60 minutes a day. Don’t get me wrong I try to make the most of the time I am in the car by listening to podcasts but I’m still not as productive as I could be.

The days I work from home I get so much more accomplished. I work on a campus of over a thousand people and interestingly only need to meet with .001% of any of them on a given day. Of the people I see I could just as easily talk or video conference with them when necessary.

I’d much rather work on a Linux system and could probably do everything I need on my home machine. I’m more than happy to buy my own coffee, heat and A/C, electricity, broadband, computer, uniform (t-shirt and jeans) and more when I’m able to work from home. I also think working from home can have its drawbacks if you are not careful. If telecommuting is not properly managed I’m sure it could turn into a nightmare but for the most part I think it is inevitable in the very near future. What do you think?

We made it to Portland this morning and Tyler did fantastic.  He loved every minute of it, even the turbulence.

A new version of WordPress was released and here is a video highlighting the new features.