Ron Lindeboom
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COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Chris Blair] “In addition to not being able to turn a sheep into a star, from our experience, you cannot even get them to significantly improve their skills, despite being given every opportunity to do so.”
Boy, do I ever have to agree with that one!
We had one guy who worked for us for years. No matter what we did, no matter what raises we gave him, no matter how many seminars and conferences we paid to send him to and increase his skills — he came back and did the same thing he was doing before. I tried everything to motivate him: I tried the positive reinforcement tact; I tried the set goals and give him milestones and targets trick; I tried the spiffs and perks trick; I tried the get heavy and put his job on the line trick — and NONE of it worked.
YOU CANNOT MAKE A SHEEP A ROCKSTAR. PERIOD.
The old saying is that “Do not try to teach pigs to fly. It is counter-productive and, besides, it annoys the hell out of you and the pig.” True.
On the other hand, when you find a rockstar, give them the kind of feedback and compensation befitting someone of their caliber.
Yes, creative types are hard to work with and they have big egos — but at least you do not have to stick a mirror under their nose to see if they are still breathing.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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[Michael Bozik] “I will not stop asking why things cannot change – and “Life isn’t perfect” is not acceptable to me. (At least not on this thread. It is after all, a rant.)”
A sure recipe for frustration and one you are welcome to. Many of us here tried it and wore out, learning pragmatically that stockholder-led companies have agendas of their own and these agendas are not always in line with the expectations of the users of these tools.
[Michael Bozik] “I suspect that profits are at the bottom of that equation – Why fix what is current when you have a deadline to meet for your next version? It all just gets shoved under the rug. Not to mention that all our current technology is being slow-fed to us in the name of profit (Instant-Obsolescence…one of the ugly faces of Capitalism) – but that’s another issue.”
See comment above. Seems that you already know this but somehow feel that it’s going to change, it isn’t — not only will it cut off future profits for companies but will also add to “no longer working” contingent around the world.
As to the merits or inequities of Capitalism, that is an argument for another site and we don’t bother with such things here at the COW; our discussions are about less headier subjects, like video, audio and the like. Sorry to disillusion you.
[Michael Bozik] “Obviously, writing my own code cannot be a solution because “It’s not my job”… It’s the job of some programmer out there pulling down $250,000 a year.”
Personally, I don’t know any programmers that are pulling down anywhere near a Quarter Million a year. In fact, one of the reasons that jobs are getting scarcer and scarcer is that many of these jobs are being outsourced to countries where wages are much less than in Europe and North America, for example.
BUT THE REAL POINT IS…
MOST people are getting their work done. Everyday there are tons of projects that are discussed and tweaked with information from the COW and its members.
The tools work.
Yes, the tools work to varying degrees of perfection but what once took over a million dollars in equipment and investment to create a TV show, for example, now takes MUCH less than $10,000 in many cases.
Complain if you wish but there is a plus-side to all of this, if you just look.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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[Michael Bozik] “Your forums are filled with questions about crippleware that rarely get answered. Nothing is getting solved!”
Michael,
Everyday these forums deliver answers, solutions, ideas and support. If they didn’t, they’ve have died long ago.
What can’t be solved or fixed is often the domain of “workarounds” and over the last many years, many a workaround was developed on these forums.
Rarely gets answered? Hardly. If that were true, as I said, these forums would have died long ago.
What doesn’t change is that some (and I wouldn’t include the Vegas team in this) software developers do not truly fix what’s wrong in their software and so, short of the aforesaid workarounds, the same problems come up day after day. The same workaround gets paraded out. And everyday a new group of people show up with that same problem. Thankfully, some people are mighty patient and do the parading out.
Crippleware? Only to the blind. Hobbledware might be more accurate. While not perfect, I have been making a living with hobbled tools for about two and a half decades now. Nearly everyone has to learn to deal with software that attains varying degrees of perfection and prowess and it is the pros that learn to make a living with these tools — those that wait for perfection die along the roadside. It has been happening this way for decades now.
The only perfect and bug-free editing system was a razor blade. In software, Vegas comes mighty close. Everything else falls in line somewhere behind it.
[Michael Bozik] “So here is my question to all you Phd’s out there… Is this fourm doing anything Pro-Active to lean on the product manafacturers to provide fixes for all the stupid defects that are wasting 70% of my time? Or is this forum just an excuse to put up banner adds?”
You want a direct answer, eh? Well you came to the right place — we do straight answers here at the COW. ;o)
Over the years I cannot count the number of solutions that users here at the COW have helped create while interacting with manufacturer reps, etc.
It happens all of the time still and the savviest companies have their reps strategically interacting throughout the site. Many companies, including Sony reps, do this.
Who doesn’t? Apple, for one. (Oh, they *watch* these forums and their people write us and ask why so-and-so said such-and-such. So we know they are there but their official policy keeps them from participating directly.) Adobe does, in part but not as much as they used to since the Macromedia takeover. If they did, they’ve have to admit things like the activation nightmares that their new policies have foisted off on legitimate users. I miss the old Adobe. And I still use CS3 out of fear of what is going to happen when I try to install CS4. I plan to keep my current computer dedicated to the magazine, using the current OS I am on and CS3. I won’t upgrade this machine. My new recording studio will use a new machine and Steinberg Nuendo. Do they advertise? No. I like them anyway and it’s what I use. I love it.
God bless companies like Sony who do listen to their customers.
There are many others in the COW that also do and thankfully, many things change when as many voices get raised as sound off around these parts.
An excuse to sell banner ads? For the first six or seven years that we have been doing this (we have been at it now for nearly 14), we had few banner ads. But we grew to the size that we had to have them or shut the site off. Especially if we were going to give away free magazines, 1000s of tutorials and podcasts, and support a site that now gets nearly 1.3 million unique users a month. That is a HUGE amount of bandwidth to have to support and so I say God bless our sponsors, too — without them, this site would have collapsed under the weight of this kind of bandwidth long ago.
No, we are not afraid of the hard questions here, nor of getting our toes stepped on — nor of stepping on a few toes ourselves. And while we do ask a respectful balance here and that things be treated fairly, if you visit the link above (and many others over the years) you will see that we do not subscribe to a policy of being owned by our sponsors. We are fair, not bought.
And that’s the straight answer you weren’t expecting.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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[Tim Wilson] “b) Avid said it was leaving Mac? Never happened. The guy who said that thing was left for dead by Avid soon after. I have no idea if anybody knows where he is these days.”
It happened at NAB 1998 where the announcement was made and then Avid back-pedaled like beasts to undo the damage when Avid-L and other hotbeds of Avid contempt sprung into action.
Now that my NDA has expired, I can say that I got hired for 18 months right after the announcement to help undo some of the damage and consult with them on marketing efforts to both broaden the base into Windows and to help soften the “nasties” caused in the wake of the 1998 announcement at NAB.
So, was it made? Yes. Was it ever enforced? Never.
But it did happen, I was there when it was made and I heard it with my own ears. And I worked with some mighty highly placed Avid VPs and the like for something that never happened.
Just to clarify,
Ron Lindeboom
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[Rick Wise] “when one runs up against an app with such poor customer support on every level, it is worth noting.”
Final Cut Express is a consumer app that competes with programs like Premiere Elements and the lower end of the market. Traditionally, these programs get no real support and if you call Apple, Adobe and others, they usually refer you to the web for solutions.
[Rick Wise] “The differences between FCP and Vegas have been noted several times before in other threads. But the explanation for the commercial success of one in comparison to the other remains a mystery to me. I have to guess it’s all about clever marketing.”
My guess would start with the fact that Final Cut started life as the brainchild of Randy Ubillos, the creator of Supermac Reeltime (which later became Adobe Premiere) and who had many years of reputation that helped launch the perception of Final Cut — which started long before Apple bought it and it was called Key Grip and was developed on Windows NT and was owned by Macromedia. The fact that Randy stated publicly on a number of occasions that he was gunning for Avid didn’t hurt the expectancy leading up to its release.
Lauren Herr, onetime head of Pinnacle’s video pro products and the head of the TargaCine and Cinewave product lines, once gave his blessing to Key Grip. John Molinari, then president of Media 100, also gave his blessing to Key Grip and said that it would be the front-end of Media 100’s Windows system.
Both of these guys were very respected at the time and helped give a perception of expectancy and anticipation to the release of what would one day be Final Cut.
When it took years more than planned to release, Macromedia looked in another direction (jumping to become a web company) and dumped all of their dynamic media applications, including OSC Deck (that they had acquired), SoundEdit that they had developed, Key Grip and others. Key Grip had taken so long that even Media 100 lost interest and developed their own PC-based system, called iFinish. (Note: Media 100 had the chance to buy Key Grip and turned it down. They kicked themselves in the butt until they were black and blue with bruises following that decision, I am sure.)
The sound apps sold right away. But Key Grip went nowhere and finally Apple bought it — an odd move, based on their longtime record of “not developed here” syndrome — and worked to clean up the code and get it to market when no one else rescued it. Why? Lauren Herr gave a clue to it when I spoke to him about it once: it was the fact that even though it was written in Windows NT originally, it was using Quicktime as its core. Apple was protecting its interests because in the late 90s Apple was in trouble and needed to make sure that companies like Media 100, Avid and others couldn’t opt for another core — as they were speaking then, even Avid announcing that they were leaving the Mac and Media 100 saying they were thinking of doing the same.
So Apple put a lot of work into FCP. Is its perception fair? Probably not. Life rarely is.
The rest is infamy.
[Rick Wise] “I am told by those who seem to be in a place to know (take this with many grains of salt) that Apple is seriously looking at spinning off FCP and the “Express” version. Compared to the gazillions Apple is making on their cell phones, ipods, laptops etc., FCP brings in chump change. Should that happen, one could hope that whoever takes it over will have a keener sense of customer support. Avid learned the hard way — they used to have terrible customer support. FCP’s inroads into their market taught them to pay attention to the pain they were causing.”
This apocryphal legend has been going around for years now and if you believe it, then everyone from Grass Valley to Avid, Adobe to Panasonic and many others, are going to be the new owner of Final Cut — for various reasons depending on whom you mention.
Avid *used* to have terrible customer support? I have plenty of Avid friends who would strike the word “used to” from that sentence. Most of Avid’s wounds were self-inflicted and had been in the process of building to a head long before FCP came along. Avid’s problems were well documented years before FCP was even in the market.
Add this formidable power to the Final Cut legend that it could strike fear in the heart of Avid and inflict damage even before it was released. Now, *that* is quite a tool!
(That last part was intended to be funny as the truth is more that Apple took advantage of Avid’s situation more than they caused it.)
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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Steve,
Our policy has been, from the beginning 13 years ago when we started doing this, that people are free to tear apart products to their heart’s content. We have always drawn the line at people.
But in fairness, if I hung every tool or company based on comments that I have read from the people on forums that don’t know much about the tool or what a tool is or does, I daresay that any tool would be safe.
I don’t care if it’s an Avid, FCP, Adobe, Sony, etc., I’ve yet to see a perfect tool or operating system. At the end of the day, it’s what can YOU do with it, that matters — not what someone else else can do or not do with it.
I have seen plenty of great productions made with a razor blade.
That too, is my point.
Ron Lindeboom
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[Rick Wise] “It did seem to me that you yourself were mocking a bit, but perhaps I misread.”
Oh no, you didn’t misread, Rick. Not at all.
When people think it’s okay to mock people, I feel no compulsion to spare them the same treatment — especially when it comes from members who have been around this site for years.
All of this stuff is just bits and bytes and silicon and plastic, to me. No one I know has an environment or user experience that is perfect. Therefore, I have always subscribed to the belief that people are welcome to choose their tools and rip into the comparative analysis of them like wolves on sheep. But when it crosses the line into personal affronts and chiding the users of other tools as if they are morons, then I parade out the mirror — and oddly enough, no one seems to like it when I take the other side of the image.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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If someone told me this, I would — as Nick and David have already stated — tell him that he is neither a professional nor a man likely to survive long in this business due to having absolutely no measurable standard of integrity in his business. Not only did he fail both you and your client, as well as himself, by having no back-up in place, but he assumes no responsibility for that. That is business idiocy, without a doubt.
Now, he can either grow up and pull his thumb out of his mouth and deal with the situation, or he can act like a child and say that you have to eat the job as he has already stated. If he stands by this posture, go away as fast as you can and leave this idiot to self-destruct as you will never be able to put weight on them. They will always be unreliable. And stupid.
As Bob Zelin would say: and anyone that wants to agree with this guy is just as stupid and needs their business to die, too.
You may have to eat part of this and take responsibility for it to keep your client. If you do, choke down the bitter lesson willingly and — to quote Faromir in the Lord of the Rings — show your quality.
This is the kind of stuff that separates the men from the boys.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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[Rick Wise] “Ron, you’re missing the point here. It’s not a Mac vs PC issue. In fact, I edit Vegas on a Mac, using Bootcamp. The point is the software: FCP vs Vegas. The first is very clutzy and difficult to use in comparison to the latter.”
Rick,
I took no issue whatsoever with what you said (although I think it’s a configuration error likely, as I can’t recall Final Cut ever working that way for me when I used it).
What I did take as laughable was John’s comments as I regularly read those kinds of comments across the COW, far more than I ever see saffron-robed Apple devotees handing out tracks at airports.
Beating up on software is quite okay in the COW. Mocking people is another matter altogether and me I find it funny when saffron-robed devotees of one silicon persuasion want to have a holy war with those wearing a robe of another cut.
That was my point.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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[John Frey] “I have been dealing with Mac-Heads for many years, now. I have had employees, often college students in training, who are so taken by the Apple doctrine, that it borders on hilarity! You really have to let them know that you are a PC shop when interviewing them. Plenty of clients, who don’t know Final Cut from Final Notice, just have to tell you that they’ve heard that “You really can’t even edit a video unless you have the latest Mac.” But we still hand them the finished project that came from Vegas on a PC. Next time they are in for a project, the subject never even comes up!”
Man, I have to laugh at this thread. I expect comments like those above from children just out of school, but the same kinds of things from grown men? It’s all just silicon, plastic and a little metal, guys. Silly.
As someone who owns more Linux boxes than anything else and has both Macs and PCs in his studio, I have to grin when reading people who are every bit as religious about their “doctrine” of “PC-superiority” as any Machead I ever met.
I can’t recall EVER reading these kinds of comments (that I have quoted you on above) on the Mac forums around here but I regularly read these kinds of anti-Apple comments on the PC forums.
Go figure…myself, I gave up long ago.
Maybe you guys ought to take this conversation to Platform Wars and Axe Grinders forum, that’s why it’s there — to keep the kids out from underfoot of the grown-ups.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.