Read Online Learning Curve by Michael S. Malone - Free Book Online

it’s especially difficult to make decisions about the future of the sales force without once consulting your vice president of sales.”
    Dan didn’t reply.
    â€œSo that’s it, eh?” Tony slapped his hands on the desk, and pulled himself to his feet. “You know it won’t work, don’t you?”
    â€œWhat won’t?”
    â€œYour new plan. Even if you manage to put a net services program in place—and nobody’s pulled it off yet—it’ll take you at least two years. And you’re going to lay off your sales force now? Are you fucking crazy? What are you going to do for that year in between? Go door-to-door and sell the shit yourself?” Tony D. planted his hands and leaned over the desk until his face was just inches from Dan’s.
    â€œYou’re going to fail, Danny Boy, and everything you’ve accomplished with this company—not to mention your oh-so-perfect reputation—is going to come crashing down on your head. And you know what, asshole? I’m going to be standing there, watching it happen, and laughing my fucking head off.”

v.2.0
    A lison Prue sat back in her Breuer chair and tried to look as presidential as was possible with a blue stripe in her blonde hair and her knees as high as her chin. Why, she asked herself, did I ever go for this ‘Icons of Design’ look for the décor? Has anybody ever actually sat on the de Stijl chair?
    They were in eTernity’s Harvey Milk conference room, hard by the Emperor Norton game room, the Allen Ginsburg videoconferencing center. and the Owsley snack room. The walls in the Milk room—it sounds like a kindergarten, Prue thought, which isn’t far from the truth sometimes—were painted matte black, as were the exposed pipes and ductwork above her. It all gets so very damn precious sometimes, she thought. We’re trying too hard not to look like the real company that we’ve become.

    In front of her on a forty-inch plasma display, Tipo—spiked hair, facial piercings, indeterminate gender—was discussing the re-design of eTernity’s home page. Tipo tapped a key and up came Google. “The lesson that Google taught the industry,” he said in an affected lilt, “is the sacredness of the home page. It must remain inviolate, pristine, untouched, and pure. It is comforting because it is predictable. It is your safe launch pad. It is, as the name suggests, home. The only changes we should make are purely decorative—like transforming the font on Arbor Day, or such like—never functional.”
    He clicked the key again to show a familiar but obsolete image. “ETernity’s home page began with the same underlying philosophy, but…” He clicked again, and the once-simple image filled with images, boxes and text. “We have lost our way. Our home page has become precisely what we set out not to become.”
    Tipo folded his pale arms across his black t-shirt, which bore a white image of Arthur Rimbaud. He pursed his lips with frustration, then said, “What we need now is a return to our First Principles, the philosophy on which…”
    He didn’t have time to finish. In the doorway stood Armstrong Givens. Even after two years, Givens’ gray temples, square jaw, and conservative suit and tie were still a shock in this company of trendy twenty-somethings. “The only gay person in a gay company,” he had once described himself, and Alison ruefully knew it was true.
    â€œIt’s on,” said Givens, his normally languid Southern voice surprisingly sharp. “And you’re not going to believe it.”
    The entire team jumped to its feet and trotted down the hallway, led by Givens and Prue. The Jerry Garcia room was already half-filled with eTernity employees. “I Tivo’d it,” said Armstrong, leading Alison to a seat in the front, “but from what I saw, it’s everything the