Conference 7.286::digital

    Patrick,
    Although I only know you through the many notes you authored which
    I have read, I can confidently state you will be missed and your
    departure is a regrettable loss to Digital.  Your knowledge and
    insight were both keen and provocative.  Best of luck in your future
    endeavors.
    
    Warmest regards,
    
    Mike Parise
    
    

    
    
    		..for the insights, opinions, and progress reports..
    
    			HAPPY HUNTING, and may
    			you always find a safe
    				home.
    
    				Pablo
    

    Pat,
    	I'm sorry to see you go.  I'm quite sure you will VERY successful. 
    Remember to ALWAYS ENJOY LIFE, for there is life after DEC.

    Jim Morton

    Pat,
    
    Best wishes for your future; it pains me to say it but YOU are
    the winner here.  I've always followed your notes with keen
    interest.
    
    Karen
    

    Pat, from us in the south-west part of the country, best of luck !!!
    We got a saying in my country, hope you will like this one.
    
    		Walker, there is not road.....
    		You, made the road, when you walk thru it.......
    		

    Pat, you could always raise hell with your current equivalent of an
    Area manager and get UN-TFSO'd as many 'politically correct' folks in
    the old southern area have done.... yes, it does and still continues to
    happen.....
    
    In any event, I've enjoyed your notes and wish you the best of luck.
    Go out there and find work for a marketing firm who hopefully will be
    contracted by DEC (ooops, digital)!
    
    Later, Ds.

    Pat, I'm really sorry to hear that you're leaving DEC.  I've learned a
    great deal from you, and I'm not alone.
    
    Sorry we missed meeting up at the last DECworld, and when I visited NYO
    in a "previous life" in the Field.
    
    May you prosper, may your family be a source of joy and sustenance to
    you.  Please ship back an electronic address when you get "settled."
    
    We're far the poorer for your departure.  Kudos to whichever farsighted
    outfit snags ya!!
    
    Respectful regards,
    
    Dan

    Pat, your comments, although hardly popular :^), were to the point, and
    usually dead-on.  I've never met you in person, but through Soapbox,
    Digital and Marketing, I've found you to be an astute source of
    information and perspective.

    Good luck in your future endeavors and if you're in NYC, pls stop by
    the booth at future PC Expos.  I'll be the one demonstrating new
    Pentium/PCI technology.

    Regards,

    Mark Lefebvre.

           <<< HUMANE::DISK$DIGITAL:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DIGITAL.NOTE;1 >>>
                        -< The Digital way of working >-
================================================================================
Note 2658.0               Pat Sweeney to leave Digital                 7 replies
SDSVAX::SWEENEY "Keep back 200 feet"                 62 lines   8-SEP-1993 15:52
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   After 18 years and 18 weeks, I am leaving the employ of Digital
   Equipment Corporation, actually it's Digital that's leaving me
   [TFSO].  It's been a exciting and wonderful time to participate in
   the growth of Digital from 20,000 employees and $500 million in sales
   when I joined the small software support staff New York to its
   current size.  Even in 1969 when I experienced the PDP-8 as a high school
   student, I knew my life was changed. 

   I was the first software specialist to be sold under a standard
   consulting contract.  I was the youngest person to be promoted to
   Software Consultant in the field at that time.  I was the first
   Software Consultant in the field to be part of a patent application.
   I demonstrated the first purely commercial application of workstation
   at an early DECWORLD.  At one point or another I've been to most of
   the New York customers working on everything from the classic 18-bit
   computers to Alpha.  Digital had me living in Hong Kong and Tokyo for
   a few months some time ago, so I got around technically as well as
   geographically.

   The real business that I've been part of for the last several years,
   namely solutions for Wall Street firms and large banks has seen a
   long and steady erosion of marketshare away from Digital.  Digital's
   de-facto withdrawal from a market that is growing and profitable to
   other hardware manufacturers and other system integrators has a wider
   meaning though:

   Time is running out for Digital to return to customers.  That means
   going to the customers and matching the enthusiasm and confidence of
   our competitors with a sense of urgency.

   I thought that the process of restoring Digital to growth and
   profitability would include me.  It doesn't.  It includes you.

   New York lost its local management in 1989 and with the too-frequent
   re-organizations no true teams were created and the necessary sense
   of mission was lost.  The old newsletters with a congratulatory group
   photograph and people holding up some plaques that cost a buck each
   created the cohesion that kept Digital people motivated and excited
   at the local level.  The only sense of community and even peer
   recognition that one has outside of the immediate working group is
   what ever one can obtain from mail and notes.

   I didn't make a conscious decision in 1983 or 1984 to become one of
   the most conspicuous employees in the company through the EASYNET
   product-related and employee interest DEC Notes Conference.  It just
   happened.  If I had the time I'd like to add up all the time I was in
   front of a VAXstation II, VAXstation 3540, or DECstation reading and
   writing Notes while some work-related task was pending.  Multiple
   windows on one system made Notes-without-guilt possible.

   Quite a few of you, who I only know from Notes, met me by visiting
   Two Penn Plaza or I've passed you in a hall in the Mill and you've
   seen my badge.  I hope to stay in contact through Internet or
   Compuserve.

   I approach my job search with a sense of confidence and enthusiasm
   that I'm ready to serve another employer into the next century.

   For me, it's been fun and it's been a challenge.  I hope that it
   works out for all you whatever happens to Digital.

   Patrick Sweeney

    Re .0
    
    Pat,
    
    Sorry to see you go. I've always valued reading your notes and although
    I've never met you in person but feel I kind of know you through notes
    and the occasional mail message. I've always learned a lot from your
    financial related notes. I wish you good luck in your next job, Digital
    seems to be TFSOing a lot of good people lately.
    
    Digital will be a less fulfilling place without  us being able to enjoy
    and learn from your contributions.
    
    Dave

    Pat,
     
    
    Best of luck in the future. I have enjoyed our
    conversations.....although I do which that an in-person meeting could
    have been arranged.
    
    Keep the Faith!
    
    Marc H.

    Pat,
    
    We will miss you. I have known Digital and Marketing notes for a short
    time, a keen reader, and your entries are the ones most replied to, for
    their insightful thoughts. 
    
    Thank you for all you have done. I wish you the best of luck!
    
    Regards,
    Fung Siong

    When I joined Digital in NYC some 16 years ago Pat Sweeney already
    had a strong reputation in  the organization. I left NY and Digital
    a couple of years later and rejoined Digital 11 years ago. Finding
    out that Pat was still in NY and still supporting NYC customers and
    sales efforts was, I believed, a very good sign about the health and
    future of Digital in New York. Frankly, if Pat had quit and Digital
    had let him leave without a fight would have been a bad sign. The fact
    that Digital is actually asking Pat to leave and giving him the TFSO
    package is a serious blow to my hope for the future of Digital as a
    computer company.

    I know Pat will do well. He'll have to pick and choose from job offers.
    I wish him luck but he will not need luck. He has the skills and
    talents that any good company would and will pay highly for. 

    			Alfred

    
    
    	Ditto all the previous...we will miss your keen insights.
    	Makes me wonder what we're doing as a company when we TFSO
    	people like Pat.
    
    	John
    

    Pat -
    
    You, and your cogent comments on Notes, will be missed. I suspect your
    departure is the result of the continuing Intel-ization of DEC rather
    than any reflection upon you. And no, you are not the only one to
    notice the replacement of former employee-oriented (if occasionally
    woolly) newsletters with the current smattering of bland, homogenized 
    material that reflects the trend in corporate pasteurization.
    
    Best of luck to you.
    
    ken
                                                  

    Another sad day in the history of a once great Company.
    
    Good fortune in the future Pat as luck will not be needed.
    
    Jim C.
    

    Very sad news.  You have to wonder just how small our company intends
    to get when it ejects people such as Pat, George Van Treeck, Ian Waring
    or Tom Welsh, to name a few.  Pat will no doubt do just fine without us,
    but we lose one more essential constituent.  Best wishes Pat!
    
    /Harry Crowther

    Pat, first and most importly let me add my best wishes. 
    
    	This is difficult to take gracefully, and I am struggling how to
    convey this. But here goes:
    
    	The pros and cons of Digital's new organization aside, we can not
    succeed without people like Pat. His capacity for critical thinking and
    conveying those thoughts so well has been so apparent within Notes.
    In the near future and at all levels of the company, Digital will need
    ( and need badly) people with minds like Pat's. As those minds leave
    and their experience depart, our chances of success dwindle greatly. 
     
               

    Cousin --
    
    Best of luck to you in the future.  The loss is Digital's.
    
    Nancy
    
    p.s.  If you ever get upstate, look for a goose with your last name.

    Pat-good luck,but with your track record,you are unlikely to need luck
    just to be employed.I am astounded that you were TFSO'd(what does this
    actually mean??).Come over to Europe and just take your pick about
    where you work and for whom.
    However-let me take exception to .14.As an ex-Intel employee,I detect
    that Intel-isation is not seen as a good thing.Well,since Intel-isation
    means a level of customer orientation that Digital can only dream
    about,an ODP policy that works,a management process which is sane and
    clean(One-on-ones etc),vision,profit,honesty and kicking out people who
    don't perform(I resigned to go and work in France and stupidly wouldn't
    wait the two years until Intel moved me there)-is this so bad?.Do you
    know,they have metrics which don't change every month,VPs who visit
    clients,no reorganisation every six months,JPR's which have
    objectives(yes real ones) with agreed measures on how you met them(no
    of your 'make six million dollars when you aren't even in sales'-or
    sell 500 DECwizs when the product is crap and as a sales guy you have
    no influence over the product).
    Yes,little things which make for high motivation and success.
    Plus-they don't screw around with people like Pat.
    Just one more thing-Andy Grove and any of his managers will a)always
    respond to a request for a customer visit-no question and b)they will
    never refuse an employee request to take action-you can send a note and
    its done-just don't send Andy a note complaining about the price of
    coffee or he'll chew you over.
    Try that here
    

    
    I know Pat only through his notes, but I think that's enough
    to guess that he has a keen, agile mind.  As someone else
    said, it would be bad enough for us to let him go without
    counter offering, but to *TFSO* him?  That really frosts me.
    
    Glenn

>     <<< Note 2658.16 by SISDA::HCROWTHER "Got to move these color TVs!" >>>

>    Very sad news.  You have to wonder just how small our company intends
>    to get when it ejects people such as Pat, George Van Treeck, Ian Waring
>    or Tom Welsh, to name a few.  Pat will no doubt do just fine without us,
>    but we lose one more essential constituent.  Best wishes Pat!
    
  I sent Pat mail which he may or may not have been able to read.  Oh well. 
  There's always CompuServe.

  The thought hit me when I read the above note: Can you imagine all of the
  above people winding up at the same company?  Even if they don't all work 
  for the same company, odds are they will work for a competitor.

  	mikeP

    
    Pat,
    
    You were one of the first field specialists I met at Digital, back when
    you made the occasional call to the TOPS-20 hotline (about a hundred
    years ago :-) ...when I finally made the move from engineering to the
    field myself, your insightful comments in this conference were critical
    to my success.  Your input has had more wide-ranging effects than you
    can possibly know.  Thank-you; your contributions will be sorely
    missed.
    
    					Rita Tillson Vasak
    					South Central SPS
    				

    Thanks for the correction. I meant to convey the thought that DEC is
    stumbling in circles so fast toward being a chip-maker and integrator, 
    a la Intel, that it is jettisoning almost everything it will need to 
    _get_ there and calling that jettisoned "excess" or "waste" or "cost 
    control." TFSOing Pat is like tossing the navigator out of an aircraft 
    mid-way over the Pacific to "save weight while we look for our 
    destination."
    
    Perhaps a more precise phrase would be "the chipification of DEC."
    
    kbs
    

    I'm still around for a day or two.
    
    A Digital that is mainstream and broad-based and a source of innovation
    in how computers are used is the Digital that's being down-sized.
    Market segement by market segment and product segment by product
    segment _that_ company is shrinking while _the_other_ is building up
    the volume in mail order/telephone sales of PC's and other products.
    
    In a way, it's the combination of software giants like Microsoft,
    Novell, and Lotus and small startups that are the source of innovation
    in how computers are used.
    
    Some time ago I wrote a scenarios note.  The Intel-Compaq-EDS model may
    ultimately be a profitable one for Digital.  The customers and
    employees who aren't part of the model will find new vendors and new
    employers.

    I knew Pat from Marketing Notes,
    
    I read a lot about TFSO in Digital but I really don't understand
    how a good and talented person like Pat doesn't have a place in
    Digital. But I believe you will have a better place in your new
    career.
    
    s/NT
    Pre-Sales Support in a small sales office in Asia
    
    N.O.T.E	"Every Acts of creation is first of all
                an act of destruction"
    
                Picasso

    Goodbye Pat,
    
    I continue to see the best technical minds leave the company for a 
    variety of reasons.  It affects my morale to know that such folks
    (and more) are no longer in the infrastructure.
    
    Why isn't it affecting the moral of the middle managers in this
    company?
    
    Best of luck, and much success,
    
    John Wisniewski

        Farewell, Pat!

        And thanks for that mini-tour of mid-Manhattan -- and so much
        more in your notes through the years.

        Bob

    Pat,
    
    I am a recent Note reader and first time Note writer.  I feel sad
     that my first word in Note is "Good by" to you.  Even though I did not
    know about you very well, you left a strong impression on me in several
    occasions, especially on Quick Project which were not materialized.
    I feel frustration on why you have to go.  We may see you again same
    place.  Good Luck!!!
    
    Goichi

Pat,

What a shame this decision is.

Best of fortune and happiness in the future in whatever you do.

Steve

    
    Pat,
    
    Good luck. We will miss you.
    
    Bharat S. Shah

    That project [Quick] was the first really big project where, even
    though a VMS expert and a relative UNIX novice at the time, I insisted
    that we listen to the customer and bid the UNIX solution they were
    asking for.
    
    I got a trip to Japan in the process, so I recall it well.
    
    Pat Sweeney

    
.26>    Why isn't it affecting the moral of the middle managers in this
.26>    company?
    
    Because they're not the ones losing their jobs?
    
    ------------------
    
    Best of luck, Pat. I can't help feeling you got the better part of this
    deal.
    

    There's a cloud of suspicion over people who are enthusiastic about
    computers and enthusiastic with the people who are as well.

    As long as 13 or 14 years ago, people noticed that the culture of Apple
    and other small companies was different from Digital.  Over the years
    such differences have increased.

    Just as the Digital employee-enthusiast is shunned, the
    customer-enthusiast is bewildered.  Why don't these Digital people
    really like their products, use them, and know them?

    A shift to indirect selling means that there may no longer need, for
    example, to train, equip, and empower technical specialists in field to
    be advocates of the products of Digital in one-on-one selling
    situations.

    One of the things that I'll miss leaving Digital is the opportunity to
    discuss technical issues among people who share a common purpose which
    is excellence without compromise.

    I doubt that other companies with a large technical staff are supportive
    of the open collaboration that's only possible through groupware
    applications like DEC Notes.

    I would never have been so productive in so many areas simultaneously
    like SQL, Motif, C++ without the ability to read the discussion of the
    the programmers who came before me and to engage my peers in
    problem-solving or even the merits of a strategy.

    Pat,
    
    Let me add my regrets to the pile.  I only know you through Notes, but
    think your loss will be felt.  When I saw your byline, I always knew it
    would have insight and energy and a touch of independence.  I usually
    agreed with about 80% of what you said!
    
    Best of luck, I know you'll do well.

I met Pat when I was a high school hacker in the late 70's when he was a 
DECsystem-10 System Manager at the State University of New York at Stony 
Brook. I have followed his diatribes in this and other conferences with 
interest. There have been times I have disagreed with his comments, but I have 
always respected his position. I agree that we cannot afford to lose people 
like Pat, but this company is going through incredible changes and they are 
not about to end soon. Best of luck Pat.

Jim

re: .16

>		You have to wonder just how small our company intends
>    to get when it ejects people such as Pat, George Van Treeck, Ian Waring
>    or Tom Welsh, to name a few. 

You also have to wonder to what extent the willingness of such knowledgeable
folks to state their sometimes contrarian opinions in Notes may have helped
lead to their no longer being employed by Digital.  (Without wanting to seem
Oliver Stone-ish about it:-(...)
								- paul

    re. 37
    
    	"Critical questioning is the last thing those in positions of power
    who are autocratically seeking to retain the status quo wish to see."
    
    Quoted from "Developing Critical Thinkers" by Stephen D. Brookfield
    pp.65. ISBN 1-55542-356-6
    
    	fred deady

For those of you who want to stay in touch with Pat, he may be reached
on CompuServe.  From VAXMail, his address is

DECWRL::"[email protected]"

Given that there are already 37 replies here, plus those in the other
conferences Pat frequented or moderated, I suspect that there are lots of
folks who will want to keep in touch.

BobW

    Keep in mind that Pat will have to pay to receive your mail on
    Compuserve.  All mail received from an external source is paid for by
    the recipient.
    
    tom_p

    If you receive from Internet to Compuserve or send from Compuserve to
    Internet, you pay. If you don't read it (delete before reading), you
    don't pay.

all mail from Compuserve to the Internet you pay for. Incoming mail 
you get 60 or so free messages a month.

    re: .36
    
    Hi Jim,
    
       "I met Pat when I was a high school hacker in the late 70's when 
        he was a DECsystem-10 System Manager at the State University of 
        New York at Stony Brook."
    
    Ah, Pat and the rest of the gang (me, too) were more like system 
    _manglers_.  Well, maybe not Peter M.  :')
    
    Rich
    ex-system mangler of KA10 #233.  (early 70's, actually.  I think we
    shut it down in the summer of '75).
    

> Very sad news.  You have to wonder just how small our company intends
> to get when it ejects people such as Pat, George Van Treeck, Ian Waring
> or Tom Welsh, to name a few.  Pat will no doubt do just fine without us,
> but we lose one more essential constituent.  Best wishes Pat!
>    
> /Harry Crowther
    
    To answer my own question, small enough that it has no room for me
    either (& I'm a much smaller person that those I've mentioned.)
    
    Good bye & best wishes.  /HDC

           <<< MR4SRV::NOTES$DISK:[NOTES$LIBRARY]MARKETING.NOTE;1 >>>
                                 -< MARKETING >-
================================================================================
Note 57.7                 Pat Sweeney to leave Digital                   7 of 13
32956::graham                                        61 lines  27-OCT-1993 15:09
                    -< Pat Sweeney lands in "realityville" >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have been in touch with Pat Sweeney.  Here is his latest update....he makes
no bones about me passing this on.

Kris...
--------------

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 14:56:26 EDT
From: [email protected] (Patrick Sweeney)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Please add to my farewell note in Digital
Cc: [email protected]
Content-Type: X-sun-attachment

It seems fitting that I would be writing to my former colleagyes at
Digital on the anniversary sixth anniversary of my Software Services
Excellence Award and the sixth anniversary of the market crash of 1987.

First, let me set your minds at rest that I was able to find a job.  I
have joined the Wall Street firm of Lehman Brothers where I am a group
manager of software development for a segment of the trading floor.

The job market in New York for people with UNIX, C++, and Sybase skills is
particularly strong so results may vary in your location. 

Digital as evidenced by the earnings report released this month didn't return
to profitable growth.

There's special insights that can only come from interviewing and taking
a new job that I'd like to share with the employees of Digital, or at least
the ones who still care.

There are companies that talk about it and there are those who
just do it.  "It" refers to the common corporate virtues of putting
the customer first, care for the employees, empowerment, etc. Digital is
all talk.

Digital "rationalized" itself out of servicing a growing market in which
corporate spending on information technology is at
record levels and corporations have had years of consecutive profitablity

Yet, that happenned to me and my former manager, so it's impossible for
me to guess what other market segments wouldn't be "rationalized" out
of existence from Digital's point of view at least if you are in the field
creating solutions for customers.

The flip side is Digital itself is approaching a sort of irrelevance to the
open systems market.  If Digital vanished the open systems market (ie
UNIX and Intel-based PC's) would hardly notice.  Lehman Brothers with
about 8,000 employees has about 1,800 Sun workstations and servers.
Other firms where I interviewed had a high saturation of PC's.  Where Digital
was in the picture at all it was in a "transition" so some sort of
UNIX- or PC-based system.  And perhaps if Digital continues to downsize it
will be sucessful in a small way with small pieces of the UNIX and PC hardware
pie sold through distributors and mail-order.

Patrick Sweeney
[email protected]