observe as you leap…
As I leaped out of IBM just before they laid off 60,000 people, I was fortunate to land a job at Fannie Mae. Their Vice-Chairman saw a Business Week article (remember that magazine…) about Software Reuse, and directed the CIO to pursue it. It makes sense – write software well once, and Reuse it over and over. Business people observe this quickly – Return on Investment is much higher. So here I was with a new job as Director of Software Engineering, and a charter to get us at least 70 programmers trained by the end of the year…. and it was the end of March. And… my job was “speculative” – ie, if I didn’t do it, the position was not permanent… Check. Missed that in the interview process.
… Virtues can be a trap…
Bach’s solo Cello Suites are immensely difficult because he was determined to make the instrument sound self-sufficient. They vanished for years from the repertoire, only to be rediscovered and subsequently celebrated. The great Catalan cellist Pablo Casals proved that they were not, as previously thought by some, merely studies. The suites have daunted players and delighted audiences ever since. They turn the cello into a veritable orchestra, and range from the gloriously affirmative No.1, the introspection of No.2, to the brilliant, high-flying 6th. I am a learner in the classical domain, and this site has been where I have been finding music that fits the plan for the week.
What made the challenges at IBM so tricky is that their Virtue had become an Achilles’ heel. Guaranteeing lifetime employment eventually became less Virtuous. Other computer companies became faster and more nimble and were charging forward at a pace that IBM couldn’t match. I was exposed to it, and the dissonance from the Executive Suite to the bottom was palpable, and I knew I needed to move on. I was fortunate to get this position, something that plausibly I wasn’t qualified for, but it was the start of an incredible journey of learning on multiple levels that continues to this day.
… until you observe easy ones…
Landing at Fannie Mae, I encountered software that would also change the world – Object Technology. The key thing about Objects is that they have a simple outside interface – what is inside doesn’t matter. You use that simple outside interface, and trust that “it” will do what is needed without knowing how. A study in Trust as a Virtue, they found that laziness is a core Virtue—not writing code is what you want. Constructing systems out of already tested and proven modules would be much faster, cheaper, and more reliable. Using them was very similar to the hardware components that were used to put a man on the moon, and in fact, I did know something about that 😉
Steve Jobs saw them first at Xerox PARC, and by this point had taken an enormous gamble on them – forced by his own flaming leap from Apple. Unlike me jumping, he was fired, and forced to find a new approach to everything. Betting on Objects was the path for him, along with a band of pirates he accumulated along the way. The Virtue they embraced was everything needed to be designed from the ground up differently. Most of what you’re using came from this, including the ubiquitous USB port – the little thing on the side of your computer. I first saw one on a “new” keyboard and mouse they shipped on the NeXT slab in 1993. And – every computer came with a speaker and a series of sounds. Steve assumed that multimedia was going to be included in everything. And the Objects that came with NeXT did that… which meant sound, and music became integrated with computing…
… and may not need words…
….which is a long way of getting to today’s track by Yo-Yo Ma. I am sure he was a thing before the ’90s, but the first time I heard him was on a NeXT slab. You can select sounds, and here was this “Yo-Yo Ma” thing…. what the heck is that? Just about the most beautiful thing I had heard. The track for today starts with this quote “Culture – the way we express ourselves and understand each other – can bind us together as one world.” Steve built that Virtue into his computer, and thus, into our consciousness.
Much has been said about Steve and his Virtues, but I was proud to be around to see music become integrated into everything. He had a baby about then, and the email he sent out to his team was simply a video of the new child, and Yo-Yo Ma beneath. No words, no text, nothing but… Virtue. It changed him, and it changed computing, and it changed me in ways that are still just becoming clear. Enjoy this track from Bach played by the master…. and observe the Virtue you need to bring to the world around you. It may not be 6 suites, but start with this 1 and see ….
