Re: Kiss of Death and the Maturity Model

[Denise Fritch <dfritch -at- INTELLICORP -dot- COM>]

> Military personnel do, indeed, seem unwelcome in startup
> companies here. And
> upon further reflection, I think it's because those companies are
> what JoAnn
> Hackos characterizes as Level I: chaotic, short-term, ad-hoc. Military
> personnel don't tend to fit in as well here, probably because of their
> typical preference for order and predictability.

<lolrof> Sorry, I can't resist responding to Tim Altom's comments above. As
I mentioned in my Friday afternoon post, I am retired military and DO NOT
now (or have I ever) worked for a defense contractor. And yes, I'm a tech
writer with 15 years experience since my retirement from the military.

Most of my employment during the past 15 years have been with Level I and
even a few Level 0 companies, many start-ups, here in Silicon Valley. I'm
currently working for a company that dissolved its documentation department
about 1994, using very limited WinHelp until 1997 that was written by a
part-time writer who lives in Oregon. Does anyone have any idea what such a
situation might involve, with little WinHelp, no paper pubs, and no idea
that HTML existed?

Does such a picture match the "From what I've seen, military personnel fit
best when a company is Level II
and beyond. At Level III and above, organizations begin to resemble the
military, itself, and it actually welcomes the disciplined worker."

My suggestion is to stop attempting to stereotype people with military
experience and try (and I do say "try") to start judging people by who they
are. Personally, I've experienced enough discrimination (on another matter,
not my military background) during the past couple of years to last a
lifetime. I'm speaking of refusal to provide medical care, a passport issued
for only one year and not renewable, as just two examples.

     Denise L. Fritch
     Sr. Tech Writer
     IntelliCorp, Inc.
     Mountain View, CA


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