

Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo  - ashishbharthi
http://allthingsd.com/20120825/sweet-mayer-declares-that-its-peanut-butter-jelly-time-at-yahoo/

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ghshephard
One element of the memo I was happy to see, was the dogfooding of Yahoo!
Mail/Calendar, as in, people at Yahoo! will start using it rather than
Microsoft Exchange. Sometimes I think powerful personalities at Yahoo! IT,
with a bit too much money and people working for them, have caused a not
insignificant amount of the downfall at Yahoo! by treating the company like it
was a financial firm, or the Department of Defense, instead of a digital media
destination. The Blackberry was an awesome communication devices from
1999-2005, but, 2008/2009+ (and certainly not 2012) is not the appropriate
smartphone for a company that wants to be using the same system as their
"digital media savvy" customers.

Those two steps will tell me if Mayer, a supposedly "technology" focussed CEO
will be able to go head-head with Yahoo! IT. (It should say something that I
even have to suggest the CEO of the company needs to go "head-head" with the
IT organization)

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sriramk
When at Yahoo, I had multiple flame wars with the exec in charge of the
Blackberries decision. I was told in no uncertain terms how it was the only
option due to security/other concerns and this person just didn't care much
about the loss in productivity. Happy to see Marissa sorted that out in her
first month.

~~~
rdl
Blackberries were the only reasonable choice at some point in the past. It's
not reasonable to compare blackberries vs. other phones in 2006 or 2008 vs.
2011 or 2012.

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sriramk
No excuse to not switch when 2010 rolled around, especially when mobile became
one of Yahoo's top priorities.

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rdl
Yeah, I think the transition point was 2009-2010 with the 3GS and commercial
MDMs. Deploying iPhone/Android _today_ without an MDM is actually still worse
in a corp environment than using blackberry+BES, and when the first iphones
and androids came out, there was no MDM available.

I don't remember 2008-2009 all that well, but I think Airwatch was 2009, and
there was some weak Zenprise support in late 2008.

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mgkimsal
Wondered why they were calling her "Sweet Mayer". The title was "Sweet!
Mayer... "

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brown9-2
The missing exclamation mark makes quite a difference.

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jhermsmeyer
Honestly one of the more impenetrable articles I've read lately. Just not very
clear or well written. I'm not even entirely sure there is anything news
worthy here. Just some dire need on Swisher's part to make a connection
between PB and J and the famous peanut butter memo. That's not enough to
justify an article.

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rdw
It's like the article-writing style at The Onion: the (amazing) headline comes
first, and the actual content, if any, comes after.

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rocky1138
Asking people for their thoughts is a great way to get only as much real
feedback as people think they're allowed to say without being at risk for
losing their jobs.

A real question would be "What do you have to do against company policy in
order to get your job done?"

~~~
pnathan
> A real question would be "What do you have to do against company policy in
> order to get your job done?"

Now that's a real good question.

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pdeuchler
Meta: Is it just me, or is tech journalism becoming exponentially more vapid
every day?

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stock_toaster
Not just you.

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exyahoo
Seems like a lot of rearranging the deck chairs. Hopefully the real work of
significantly restructuring the company is happening behind the scenes where
allthingsd can't see.

~~~
jpxxx
Part of the restructuring this particular business is convincing your talent
that they are no longer working for patronizing bean-counting tightwads.

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michaelhoffman
Can someone explain the parking barrier and turnstile changes for me in more
detail? I don't get it.

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christianwright
"turning off the turnstiles in building D". Building D traditionally has held
the HR Department. I may be reading in too much but I think she's put a halt
to the practice of firing a full-time employee and then hiring them back as a
contractor or FTE again with a higher salary. As for the parking barriers, I'd
just be guessing. It could be unlocking gates or it could be removing assigned
spaces.

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joshu
I seem to recall literal turnstiles.

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smartician
Maybe I'm becoming cynical, but reading memos like this makes me resent the
cubicle world of Corporate America more and more. How about Hawaiian Shirt
Friday? Can you change corporate culture by removing turnstiles and parking
barriers?

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mindcrime
_Can you change corporate culture by removing turnstiles and parking
barriers?_

Try asking yourself the opposite question... "Can you change culture by
_adding_ turnstiles and parking barriers?"

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jlarocco
Maybe it's just me, but I would answer "no" to the question phrased either
way. Honestly, neither of those seems like a very big deal. I'm actually
surprised people would even bother complaining about something like that.

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mindcrime
Interesting. I expect most people would immediately see the "adding" scenario
as a sign of a worsening culture. In my mind, if a company is becoming so
bureaucratic as to need to add turnstiles and parking barriers, it would be a
clear step on the path to a very toxic culture. It all has a very "big
brother" feel to it.

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jlarocco
I'd agree with you if the turnstiles and parking barriers were added solely to
track employee movement.

I don't know if that was the case at Yahoo, though, and I'm willing to give
them the benefit of the doubt that they were originally meant for something
more useful, like making sure there were enough parking spaces open for Yahoo
employees.

~~~
mindcrime
_and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were
originally meant for something more useful,_

Aaah, there you go. See, I'm way to cynical for that. Too many years of
actually working for (or with) stereotypical Initech[1] style companies.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space>

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Hominem
Some of this reminds that small things can have large repercussions on morale.
There is a passage in The Illuminatus Trilogy that describes an act of culture
jamming where a sign reading "no smoking" is replaced by a sign that says "no
spitting" in an upscale department store. The customers and employees begin
the resent the management, after all why would the management assume they
would spit on the floor of an upscale department store.

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catfish
As a long long time user of Yahoo services like Mail, and Groups, I have a ton
of ideas that I wish I could offer. But, alas I am not an employee, just an
old fart coder dog and business owner. After 32+ years in the biz what could I
possibly know?

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blantonl
Did Yahoo never internally adopt Yahoo Mail and Calendar? if so, that would be
analogous to Google using Lotus Notes internally.

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X-Istence
As far as I have read so far they use Exchange internally.

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andrewflnr
How did this _not_ happen before? Was it not obvious to previous CEOs that
this level of bureaucracy was a problem?

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Toshio
I've said it before and I'll say this again: Kara Swisher needs to openly
admit she has a serious grudge against Yahoo.

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defen
Her ethics statement should give you a clear understanding of why she is not a
neutral observer.

