Rageboy on Intranets
Clifford Urr
curr at smtpinet.aspensys.com
Thu Jun 19 11:08:31 EDT 1997
For those who have not encountered him or his writings, Chris Locke
(aka "Rageboy") has some very, very interesting things to say about
many facets of IT and the Internet that I think would strongly
resonate with librarians doing web work. Below is a recent copy of his
newsletter, including an interview he did in which he says some
interesting things about Intranets. Although below he refers to
business organizations, I think most or all of what he says applies to
all organizations. His writing style in his newsletter may strike some
as a bit strong, sarcastic or profane - but don't let that bother you,
if it does, as its just his way of making his points. His many other -
and more conventional - writings are as straight-forward as anything
you'd find in Business Week (only a lot more interesting). Enjoy!
(Disclaimer: Chris is a good friend, but he didn't ask me to show this
to anyone.)
Cliff Urr, Senior Manager, Information Services
Aspen Systems
2277 Research Blvd. MS-2A
Rockville, MD 2050
1-301-519-5828
curr at aspensys.com
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From: Christopher Locke <clocke at panix.com>
Subject: EGR Special - Firewall My Ass!
ENTROPY
GRADIENT
REVERSALS
All Noise - All the Time
Firewall My Ass!
So here's what happened. We were going to do a new edition today.
Honest. Then RageBoy came bursting in and shoved us off the terminal.
He likes the new Pentium II 266 a lot it seems. And he was all excited
about this new book, as you'll see below. He got his name in print
somewhere other than some 9th-rate website and he was nearly wetting
his pants with joy. He even stuck a big ad banner at the top of the
EGR homepage, then went to Amazon.com and posted a book review posing
as an IS Professional. Pathetic really.
Still, this particular episode of mania seemed less potentially
injurious to the Fabric of Society than yet another extended reminisce
about his acid days, so we let him run with it. Since this thing is
full of ugly URLs, you could do yourself a real favor right now by
bailing out of mail and hitting:
http://www.panix.com/~clocke/EGR/intranets.html
Much prettier. And while you're at it, check out the front page. We
just hit 1200 subscribers (whoopee). Also, be sure to click the
embedded sound control -- near all that Free Speech crap -- for a
Special Message from the Religious Right to all 1200 of you Heathen
Hosers.
Without further ado then, and for what it's worth, here's RB blowing
his own horn one more time...
Intranets: What's the Bottom Line? [book
cover]
by Randy J. Hinrichs
Published by Prentice Hall and Sun Microsystems Press
Available from Amazon.com Books
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0138411980/3230-2564917-166554
Prentice Hall blurb
http://www.prenhall.com/ptrbooks/ptr_0138411980.html
Sun Microsystems Press blurb (much better)
http://www.sun.com/books/books/Hinrichs/Hinrichs.html
Table of Contents
http://www.sun.com/books/books/Hinrichs/TOC.html
Selected Quotes from the Book...
From the interview with Larry Geisel, CIO at Netscape:
Hinrichs: Who else do you consider visionary in thinking about
technology?
Geisel: Chris Locke comes to mind. He is an absolute brilliant
visionary trying to push boulders up hills in corporations.
From the interview with Chris Locke, better known to readers of EGR as
RageBoy:
On the Organization...
I'm reminded of an excellent cover story on intranets that Business
Week ran a while back -- this was just around the time the buzzwords
were emerging into general parlance. Several CIOs were quoted as
saying they had so many thousand web pages behind the firewalls. And
they were kind of crowing about it. But my take was that this content
didn't get created top-down by the IS organization. Instead, these
pages sprang up overnight like a crop of magic mushrooms on a rich
motherlode of corporate horseshit.
On Corporate Anarchy...
Randy: Well, yes, but how does all this get coordinated? Doesn't this
turn into anarchy?
Chris: Yeah, it does, and you start instigating it. It's bizarre. What
I've always been really interested in is revolution. A real one, not
some bogus "revolutionary" flavor of the month management obsession
like "downsizing" where everybody gets screwed but the top dogs. Where
do you think the fervor came from to produce that first wild-oats crop
of intranets? It surely wasn't from the CIOs who got quoted in
Business Week. Look, workers at every level have had it with
repressive organizations. Markets have had it with hyperbole-laden
corporate rhetoric that's 99 percent hot air. Why not put them both
together and kick some serious butt? About time, don't you think?
Randy: And you say you worked for IBM?
Chris: It was a short marriage.
On Cell Block #9...
The companies at highest risk are not wonderful places to be working
in -- at any level. Their prospects could be very bright if they'd
just decide to stop being prisons with nasty wardens.
And if they choose not to... well, I don't have much pity for them.
Companies that are harming themselves out of genuine ignorance can,
with a little humility and a lot of hard work, begin to learn and
change. I've seen it happen and it's an impressive thing. On the other
hand, companies that are harming the people who work for them out of
cowardice, greed and willful stupidity richly deserve whatever fate
may have in store. Passion is a two-way street, you know. It doesn't
always refer to love.
On Gonzo Business Management...
Randy: You've mentioned several cases where things are radically other
than they appear, almost as if a new kind of logic is emerging, or
needs to.
Chris: Yeah, I call it gonzo business management -- paradox become
paradigm. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto, and we might as well get
used to it. The opportunity here is to keep your day job but at the
same time to indulge your human creativity and self expression.
Companies that try to prevent this sort of thing within their
firewalls -- as many do -- need to have their collective heads
examined.
On Entropy Gradient Reversals...
...you've got to get down to the underbelly of the thing -- way down
below the hype and hoopla, there's something very different brewing.
It has to do with living, with livelihood, with connection and
community. This isn't some smarmy New Age mysticism either. It's tough
and gritty and it's just beginning to find its voice, its own
direction. This is hard to communicate -- you have to see it for
yourself. You have to live in the net for a while.
At the risk of sounding self-serving -- a dirty job but someone's
gotta do it -- you could take my own Webzine, Entropy Gradient
Reversals, as an example. This might be shocking stuff to some
corporate denizens, but they'd probably be even more shocked by the
subscriber list. It includes some of the best minds in the on-line
business.
Related Links
RageBoy as Member of the Editorial Board, IEEE Internet Computing
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
http://computer.org/internet/9701/contrary9701.htm
NC: An Acronym Revisited
http://computer.org/internet/9702/contrary9702.htm
RageBoy as Intellectual Capitalist
Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations
http://members.aol.com/thosstew/index.html
RB appears in the Acknowledgments for various contributions to this
important new book from Thomas A. Stewart, a member of the Board of
Editors of Fortune magazine. RageBoy's exchanges with Tom over the
last five years consisted mostly of various rabid raillery involving
Frederick Winslow Taylor's turn-of-the- century notions about
"scientific management," and were also the source of the analogy about
organizations as nested Russian dolls (page 48).
Order it from Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0385482280/3230-2564917-166554
RageBoy as RageBoy
something in the way
http://www.panix.com/~clocke/EGR/totalny.html
"Don't give up; dig deeper. Down to the fuck-it sites that never
entertained the hope of Buck One." RB wrote this for Total New York
-- http://www.totalny.com -- but they haven't run it yet, so don't
tell anyone you saw it here or he might never get paid. And wouldn't
that be tragic.
Stay Hungy. Stay Free.
Entropy Gradient Reversals
All Noise - All the Time
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Disclaimer
Nothing to disclaim at this time.
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Entropy Gradient Reversals
CopyLeft Christopher Locke
clocke at panix.com
http://www.panix.com/~clocke/EGR
"reality leaves a lot to the imagination..." John Lennon
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