I just do not understand. We're at the point now where all of our commit messages are on display. How could anyone seriously argue:
"Our findings suggest that remote workers might be further handicapped by perceptions that they are not as responsible or committed as other employees. To avoid such unfair perceptions, managers who implement telecommuting and flexible hours should revise their performance appraisals to measure mostly objective outputs, such as number and type of projects completed or expert evaluations of project quality."
Rather, we're _already_ doing this. Check the commit logs. Obviously one can make trait-inferences based on commit logs. If one can infer a "life story model" from a Facebook profile, one can infer a "worker commitment model" from a github profile.
And "... remote workers might be ..."? Seriously? This is the kind of argument coming from MIT? Look, I'm not going to argue the difference between a theory-might-be-true and a theory-is-probably-true. Nor will I argue that they're _just_ working with theories, the just-theory argument. I don't want to bore you to death, but you obviously don't need _evidence_ to corroborate a claim that _might_ be true. I mean, c'mon... A lot of "findings" might be true. That said, who's to say their explanation establishes any causal connection at all. All sorts of things lead to the perception of lack of commitment, but most notably, that someone fails to perform unit tests, or doesn't document, etc. -- but "hallway conversations"? This presupposes that the content of the conversation is even contextualized by the work itself that is to be done. I mean, with such a "finding" there are an infinite number of provisional assumptions which can be thrown in, when there's already a perfect focal point for determining commitment, etc. -- again, the commit(ment) logs.
Is this just bad writing, or am I missing something?
"Our findings suggest that remote workers might be further handicapped by perceptions that they are not as responsible or committed as other employees. To avoid such unfair perceptions, managers who implement telecommuting and flexible hours should revise their performance appraisals to measure mostly objective outputs, such as number and type of projects completed or expert evaluations of project quality."
Rather, we're _already_ doing this. Check the commit logs. Obviously one can make trait-inferences based on commit logs. If one can infer a "life story model" from a Facebook profile, one can infer a "worker commitment model" from a github profile.
And "... remote workers might be ..."? Seriously? This is the kind of argument coming from MIT? Look, I'm not going to argue the difference between a theory-might-be-true and a theory-is-probably-true. Nor will I argue that they're _just_ working with theories, the just-theory argument. I don't want to bore you to death, but you obviously don't need _evidence_ to corroborate a claim that _might_ be true. I mean, c'mon... A lot of "findings" might be true. That said, who's to say their explanation establishes any causal connection at all. All sorts of things lead to the perception of lack of commitment, but most notably, that someone fails to perform unit tests, or doesn't document, etc. -- but "hallway conversations"? This presupposes that the content of the conversation is even contextualized by the work itself that is to be done. I mean, with such a "finding" there are an infinite number of provisional assumptions which can be thrown in, when there's already a perfect focal point for determining commitment, etc. -- again, the commit(ment) logs.
Is this just bad writing, or am I missing something?