Author: lux

New Year, New Gig

I’ve been waiting not-too-patiently to be able to blog about how my job has changed in 2012, and finally I can.

I’m still at Adobe, and still focusing on community, but that’s about all that’s the same.

I’ve moved to a different part of the company and have a new focus. Instead of working with just one segment of the many communities at Adobe — the fantastic designers and developers who belong to the Adobe Community Professionals and the Adobe User Groups — I’ll be working to create a “Community Center of Excellence” for all of Adobe’s various community programs. Essentially, I’ll be applying Jeremiah Owyang’s “hub and spoke” model for social media in corporations to community.

via @jowyang

It’s a big challenge and an exciting one. There’s just one small drawback – having to step away from the community I’ve spent almost 4 years supporting. Being able to work with such a supportive, energetic, and engaged group of people has been both a privilege and a pleasure, one that I will miss very much.

Luckily, I won’t be going too far. And I also get the pleasure of getting to learn about a range of communities I haven’t had much interaction with so far – like the vibrant Web Analytics community that has grown up around Adobe SiteCatalyst over in the Digital Marketing side of the house.

On my one-year anniversary at Adobe, I wrote this:

What a ride it’s been.

I can’t find the scene on YouTube & don’t have time to rip it from my DVD, but there’s a snippet from early in Season One of “The West Wing” where new White House employee Charlie Young is watching his first Presidential TV taping from the back of the Oval Office:

Charlie: I’ve never felt like this before.
Josh: It doesn’t go away.

I know the feeling.

A lot has changed since then, but I still know that feeling. And as long as I do, I’ll continue to think I’ve got the best job in the world.

So here’s to a new chapter!

On The Human Costs of Apple Products

The New York Times has a very lengthy and disturbing report tonight on Apple’s much-vaunted supply chain and the human costs that go into the manufacture of their iconic product lines.

It’s worth reading. If the Times got the story right, it paints a picture of an Apple that is well aware of the human costs they’re inflicting to produce their products, but rather than doing anything about it, continues to squeeze every penny it can out of its suppliers.

For example:

In January 2010, workers at a Chinese factory owned by Wintek, an Apple manufacturing partner, went on strike over a variety of issues, including widespread rumors that workers were being exposed to toxins. Investigations by news organizations revealed that over a hundred employees had been injured by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause nerve damage and paralysis.

Employees said they had been ordered to use n-hexane to clean iPhone screens because it evaporated almost three times as fast as rubbing alcohol. Faster evaporation meant workers could clean more screens each minute.

Apple commented on the Wintek injuries a year later.

The laptop I’m writing this on is a Macbook Pro that will be three years old this summer. When my AppleCare contract runs out I’ll likely replace it. Whether I’ll replace it with a new Apple computer is still an open question.

I’m not a fool. I am well aware that my phone, and my cameras, and a huge swath of the rest of the products in my home and closet are also made in China, and not all in pristine conditions. Why single out Apple?

Apple is getting the lion’s share of the criticism in part because of their brand image – a widely admired company shouldn’t have such a dark underside, right? And for my part, I find it particularly disconcerting because Apple sits on a huge stack of cash and brings in tens of billions of profits each quarter. They could easily give suppliers more favorable margins that would allow them to cut fewer corners, and still rake in huge profits.

When you’re in a position of such great power, a truly great company would use that power to not just rake in huge profits, but to do some good as well. Apple could earn every plaudit 10 times over if they not only led the way in product design, but also in how they treat their supply chain.

Wouldn’t that be even more amazing?

As 2011 Winds Down

Here’s a few things that are on my mind as I think about the year that is soon to end.

This time last year:

  • Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, and Kim Jong Il were all still alive. Also Steve Jobs.
  • Hosni Mubarak was still President of Egypt
  • The ‘Arab Spring’ and the Occupy movement hadn’t started
  • the 8-year US war in Iraq was still ongoing
  • Google+ hadn’t launched

Scott and I rang in 2011 in the company of a few close friends. Sadly one of them is no longer with us.

And on a much less important scale (except to me) – this time last year I was 20 pounds heavier.

2011 was also my most-travelled year ever. I flew more than 65,000 miles and visited 7 different countries (8 if you count airport connections). I don’t think I’ll be on the road quite as much in 2012, but you never know….

As for 2012 – I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. Most of them are ignored by the end of January anyway. Changes, especially the big kind, don’t fit into neat and easy packages. It’s what you do on any given Tuesday that matters more than what you decide on some arbitrary starting point. So I won’t be making any this year.

What I do want for myself in 2012 is to stay open to the new. It’s so easy to get locked into what’s safe and comfortable, but if you do that too much, you find that the most dangerous choice of all is to play it safe. I don’t think I’ll start jumping out of airplanes or be moving to Katmandu 🙂 but it’s a big world out there and there is still so much I haven’t seen, done, or learned.

So thanks 2011, and here’s to a great 2012!