Conference 7.286::digital

    All in all, the ratings look pretty realistic to me...

    What's the scale?
    

    What is the reader focus of Upside magazine?  Is it business,
    lifestyle, general news, political, etc.?

    One thing to keep in mind in these ratings is that the point of view
    and the interests of shareholder, employee, customer, etc. are not
    exactly the same when a company is under the sort of stress Digital is
    under.

    Customers don't want products they have purchased from us "orphaned".

    Employees want an end to the absolute uncertainty of "who's next" in
    the layoff lottery, or better still an end to the layoffs.  (How could
    employees give anything but a "F" to an employer who does this?)

    Shareholders see these two as costs, and with Digital unable to match
    growth to the employee level of 90,000, or obtaining growth from much
    of the current product catalog the shareholders like the certainty of
    savings by laying off more employees and shrinking the product
    offerings.

    A Digital with a smaller employee population is far more attractive in
    any case if the ultimate strategy is an acquisition.
    

  >  Employees want an end to the absolute uncertainty of "who's next" in
  >  the layoff lottery, or better still an end to the layoffs.  (How could
  >  employees give anything but a "F" to an employer who does this?)
    
    
    As as shareholder and employee, I give him a C because he has cut too
    little, to late.
    
    bill

    
    How fast do you want him to do it? He has only been in position to do
    such things for 10 months. 
    
    Mary
    

    Where can I buy a copy of this magazine? (I live in southern NH.)
    
    Barry 
    

re .6:

I don't know where you can buy it, but the ZKO library has it.

    The article was realistic and the ratings were fair, but you failed to
    mention the most "interesting" aspect:  the cover was an absolutely
    dead-on caricature of BP that was hilarious!
    
    I hope he has a sense of humour, because the cartoon shows him in a
    sharp suit, crisply tailored, and he's holding up a hand mirror and
    admiring himself in it!
    
    Very rich, people around here loved it instantly when I showed it to
    them.
    
    The magazine Upside is subtitled, The Business Magazine for the
    Technology Elite.  I got my subscription approved by listing my title
    as VP Marketing and Sales.
    
    

	On a scale of A-Z this looks excellent

    	On a scale of A-C, it looks pretty poor.
    

	What is the scale, or what to B+ or C actually mean?

	Thanks,
	Heather

    re: Scale
    
    A - F 
    
    F for failure
    
    

>                      -< What scale is used in England? >-


	I don't know for businesses, but for exams {GCSE} it's A-H


	Heather

    RE: Scale This is the scale used fairly widely in the US. When
    converted to a 1-100 scale it looks something like what follows.
    Though different schools may have some variation. B+ is a "high B"
    while A- is a "low A."

    A 90-100
    B 80-89
    C 70-79
    D 65-69 (sometimes 60-69)
    F Failure

    In graduate school in the US one only gets credit for C and above
    though a B average must be maintained.

    			Alfred

	and there's  no E


	so. it's a 4 level grading,  plus one fail grade


	Heather

    
    hummmmmmmmmmm... not sure but where these test, true/false, multiple 
    choice, fill in the blank or essay???

In some US schools, "E" is the worst and there is no "F".

Lee (Such is the policy where my kids attend. Thankfully, I cannot
     back this up with personal observation!)

     A classic example of grade erosion.  When I went to school anything 
less than 70% was failing.

re: .16

Yeah, and 93-100 = A, not 90-100

Bob

	RE: .16 & .17 I said there was variation. I too attended a high
	school where 70 was passing while cohorts attended one where it
	was 65. This is not new.

			Alfred

    How typical!  Instead of UPSIDE, it should be INSIDE or INWARD!
    Reading down the list, we start with Digital and end with the
    customer.  
    
    When I described the "re-engineering" of our company to a cust.,
    he replied that it was akin to "re-arranging the deck chairs on
    the Titanic".  As for "Resurrecting Sales and Marketing" the grade
    of C- is closer to an F.  The best and brightest in our salesforce
    are sprinting for the exits.  These folks are not the whiners and
    malcontents.  They have simply had enough.  No matter what spin
    management trys to put on the new compensation plan, it is viewed
    as a PAY CUT.  The spin-doctors say that there is a tremendous
    opportunity on the UPSIDE(There's that word again) if someone
    overachieves against budget.  The problem is that for the most
    part the budgets are extremely high and have no basis in reality.
    BP committed X% growth to the board, and BY GOLLY, WE'LL DO IT!
    
    The WALL STREET JOURNAL had an article that described the sales force
    as "demoralized".  What do they expect!  We are the focus of blame
    for Digital's ills.  BUSINESS WEEK(8/30) had a really inspirational
    article on sales.  Let's see......we are described as "SLEEPY",
    "NOTORIOUSLY WEAK", "LAID-BACK", and responsible for the "DISMAL
    TREND" that DIGITAL is suffering.  That is why we hired another
    ex-IBM sales guy, ED LUCENTE.  He is going to try and fix us.
    HMMMMM.....This is the guy that headed U.S. sales and marketing
    at IBM.  Let's hope he can work the same kind of magic that he
    worked at IBM.  OH!, to soar at the dizzying hieghts of success
    now being enjoyed by IBM will be thrilling!  
    
    By the way, Q1 is looking terrible.  Can you spell TFSO?  
    
    What is the UPSIDE at Digital?  Please, please, PLEASE don't say
    Alpha, unless you consider being 35,000 employee chip-maker the
    upside.
    
      

    Following the rathole a little further -- at the high school
    I attended, A was 90, but passing was 75.
    
    					andrew

    Where I grew up, the grading system was E, S, M, I, F,
    as I recall. (E=excellent, S=superior, M=medium, I=inferior,
    F=failing)  Went to the "standard" grading system when I
    entered jr high.  Something like that ...
    
    Steve

    In elementary school there were no grades. Unless you
    consider, 8-) 8-| or 8-( grades.
    
    Word/paragraph evaluations would be given instead of grades
    at the end of a term. The concept was rather a good one and
    one which my parents and I enjoyed. It was dropped a couple
    of years after I entered secondary school.
    
    Jim C.
    

    Continuing down the grade rathole ...
    
    When I was in elementary school, we had E(xcellent), G(ood),
    S(atisfactory), and F(ailing).
    
    In Jr. High and High, the standard A-F.
    
    In college, A-F, with A=4 to F=0. It took three As to counter one F.
    Several years after I graduated, the school went to A-C. If a person
    were getting a D, it was automatically converted to an F, and Fs no
    longer counted. Further, the entire core curriculum was discarded as
    "racist" and students were actually allowed to take whatever they
    wanted for four years, with Ds and Fs not counting, and then decide for
    themselves what they wanted their degree in -- called BDIC (Bachelor's
    Degree with Individual Concentration). The Individual Concentration was
    in such things as Art Appreciation, Skiing, and Oppressed Peoples
    Studies (I am not making this up). Not surprisingly, my alma mater is
    no longer in the Top US Colleges list.
    
    In the Naval Flight Training, grades were straight percentages of
    correct answers or manuvers performed, with a minimum passing grade 
    of 75% (later raised to 83%).
    
    After I left the Navy and went to Business School, grades were again
    A-F, with a 3.0 minimum for graduation (and Ds and Fs counted). A few
    years after I left B-School, it, too, went to a quota admission system
    by race and sex, and grades went on a curve.
    
    
    kbs
    

    Grading scales are a fiction.  You can ask easy questions or tough
    ones; you can look for minituae or important trends; you can
    concentrate on analysis or you can concentrate on technique.  It's how
    you design the tests (and how you grade them)...I took lots of
    technical courses where a 40 could be an A!
    
    (Yes, they were grading on the curve).

    ANGLIN::ROGERS
    
    	Can you please fax me (DTN:552-2939) a copy of the Upside Manazine
    Cover Cartoon with Mr. BP in it.
    
    		Will appreciate.

    Any chance of getting this note back on the main subject?
    

    A friend of mine took many linear algebra courses.  The profs had a
    preference for true-false test structure, with 5 questions each worth
    20 points.  That is, if you got them right.  They cost you 20 points
    if you got them wrong.  You got zero for no answer.
    
    Of course they graded on a curve.  Grades are fairly challenged when
    they are arithmetically derived from zero-based scores made up of
    questions which cannot (in many humanities courses) be based on
    anything except opinion, on exams whose answers, let alone whose
    questions, have not been proven, double-blind, to be relevant measures
    of competence.
    
    One prof in Computer Science crowed over his students' score
    distribution.  "See," he said, "there's a cluster over 90%, then
    the rest show they haven't got it by spreading over all the lower
    grades."  Well, in Tech-U, as well as in the military (lives depend
    on competence), I would sort of expect this attitude.  Elsewhere,
    though, teachers are committed to teaching, stretching each mind. I
    can understand an attitude which boosts the final grade of those who
    risk, or have pluck, to grow.  These considerations can be argued
    endlessly.  
    
    I'm happy to be able to understand both sides, and not often to be 
    called on to judge.
    
    /rich

re: .3

>    What is the reader focus of Upside magazine?  Is it business,
>    lifestyle, general news, political, etc.?

The magazine is targeted towards CEO, CFO, CIO and Technical Director
(aka business) levels.  It's even subttitled:

	"The Business Magazine for the Technically Elite"

The Technical Director of the Business Partner I support considers this, 
Forbes, Fortune 500 and one other (I forget) as must reads.

- Taylor