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This really takes me aback.
Posted 42 months ago.
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hear hear ryan. well put.
Posted 42 months ago.
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It's hard to imagine Flickr without George.
Posted 42 months ago.
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It was actually really had to look for a photo of her to include without getting a bit sentimental.
Stewart and Caterina leaving is one thing... often founders move on rather quickly from project to project, or have issues with new ownership etc etc. But this one gets to me.
Originally posted 42 months ago.
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clickykbd edited this topic 42 months ago.
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There is the significant difference between 'leaving' and 'being shoved out the door', too of course.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Well being shoved out is more like being fired. This is more like. Guess what, the last 3 digits of your social security number came up in our layoff lottery. :-(
Posted 42 months ago.
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I'm just extremely pessimistic about this, and wish that Flickr would release some sort of statement about it. Not that it's very realistic they do so, based on leaked yahoo memos and yang's blog post.
But George? I'm sorry, this makes little sense to me and gives me a sense of foreboding about the future of Flickr.
Posted 42 months ago.
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*gasp*
Wow. Flickr without George. That's just wrong. :(
Posted 42 months ago.
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It only makes sense in the business world from a short term "fire-control" perspective (as being a 0-day staffer, George perhaps had a nice salary)... it makes absolutely no sense from a forward thinking product development perspective. This paradox is the origin of the "foreboding" sensation.
I'm fairly certain flickr is elastic enough to bounce back from such things, but... only if it is given the chance to. That is the worrisome part.
Posted 42 months ago.
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maybe i'll piss off someone at yahoo by saying this, and they'll shrug it off as some silly user not understanding the pressures they are under to lay off staff, but this decision looks and feels braindead to me.
1] george might not have been working on flickr design anymore, but she was absolutely instrumental in establishing the design ethos which was critical to flickr's success. yahoo has a design track record that vacillates wildly between the austere and the ridiculous, and i think that having her "voice in the room" is pretty important to maintaining flickr's successful design ethos.
2] george moved from design, to being in charge of the flickr commons project. we have Barack Obama on the television set EVERY FRICKIN' DAY tell us how important it is to realize that americans and the rest of the world have been through tough times in the past. this is clearly a very important time to be re-examining and re-cementing that link to the past. i'm hard pressed to think of anything that does this better than the flickr commons project. this is EXACTLY THE TIME to be accelerating this kind of project.
so on at least two levels, this is yahoo's way of saying "screw the past". well, screw you, yahoo. the past you should be trying to avoid is a history of arbitrary, braindead decision making that's put you in the lousy position you are now, financially. that's the past you should be shunning, not one of the few fragments of past and present excellence in design .. and certainly not an INCREDIBLY CULTURALLY RELEVANT program which serves to help us reforge our ties to the past in the way we're being encouraged to do from the President on down.
it is incredibly ironic to me that the person in charge of a program which, among other things, helps us better understand and personalize past struggles like the great depression and world wars, is the very first casualty of our similar, present struggle.
i am extremely, extremely unimpressed.
Originally posted 42 months ago.
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striatic edited this topic 42 months ago.
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SF Lights [deleted] says:
I propose that everyone take a photo of a sign saying "You will be missed, George", and then create a group to upload them to. I really can't think of a better farewell.
Posted 42 months ago.
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i'm not sure she'd want being laid off to be so publicly paraded. this thread may already be uncomfortably public enough, who knows .. but i do think it is important to point out somewhere why this might be a silly decision on yahoo's part, and flickr ideas is a good venue for that.
it's also not a wake, really ; ) i mean, it's not like she's dead, and i think people are pretty excited to see what she does elsewhere.
i am, anyway.
Originally posted 42 months ago.
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striatic edited this topic 42 months ago.
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SF Lights [deleted] says:
No but I mean it gives more light to the fact that they really picked the wrong people to lay off of the staff, and I'm sure the nod of respect and admiration would at least make George feel better that so many people care.
Posted 42 months ago.
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yeah .. well i could see it being very good or very weird.
basically because i don't think any of us know george well enough to know whether she'd feel weird about it or not. i'd feel better if staff did something, and we could follow that. they know her personal feelings much better than we do.
Posted 42 months ago.
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On the other hand, she could waltz into any design job she wants.
Still a dumb decision by Yahoo, but I imagine rubbing along with Yahoo may not be all that easy for the originals.
Oh look. My glass is half full....
Posted 42 months ago.
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I'm stunned. It is short sighted on flickr/yahoo's part. Unbelievably short sighted
.... and her profile already says I used to work here. So sad
Originally posted 42 months ago.
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~Cath G~ edited this topic 42 months ago.
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"On the other hand, she could waltz into any design job she wants."
yeah, i have a feeling that someone other than yahoo is going to to benefit from this a lot.
here's an interview i did with george for the utata ink blog a while back, where we talked about the "gamma" re-design:
www.utata.org/ink/2006/18959.php
i liked her last answer, about what she liked about flickr: "The bigger Flickr gets, the more I'm seeing it as a huge historical corpus of our lives. Particularly interesting to me is the visible history of the mundane on a massive scale - dude on couch with mates, bee up close, the back fence, my new pants, etc. I think the thing I like most is that I can see so much of the world: both from an individual's perspective and through the lovely, incidental collections that "just happen" through things like tags and time. In a way that just wasn't possible before." i mean, isn't someone who understands the importance of that collective, personal history exactly the right person to work on a project like flickr commons, which helps us see the past in a similar way? grrr.
Originally posted 42 months ago.
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striatic edited this topic 42 months ago.
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i'm not sure she'd want being laid off to be so publicly paraded, this thread may already be uncomfortably public enough, who knows
The logic behind posting it HERE, and not in FlickrCentral. ;-) Although I'm sure it will be all over soon enough. I'd feel a little weird about a tribute group, but the thought of one crossed my mind as being rather inevitable. Every disliked "change" has a tribute/protest group doesn't it? It just won't do a heap of good in this case except to make her more sad about the situation.
and i think people are pretty excited to see what she does elsewhere.
Indeed! I'll be paying close attention. But I advise her to take a much deserved vacation first. ;-)
Also, I wouldn't really put that much weight in "The Commons" really being an instrumental factor to the decision. It honestly feels like there were NO factors other than financial. I hope it finds a new champion at flickr and thrives despite the circumstances.
Originally posted 42 months ago.
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clickykbd edited this topic 42 months ago.
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The flickr team is very small (was only 12 people when they moved to SF). Not sure how much it grew after Yahoo bought flickr. George will really be missed. I don't know who the other 2 are but they could very well be important developers too. But if it was not them, then it would have been three others, and maybe they are just as important on the team. Layoffs are always very hard, especiallywhen you have a great small team. :(
Posted 42 months ago.
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"The flickr team is very small (was only 12 people when they moved to SF). Not sure how much it grew after Yahoo bought flickr."
it grew quite a bit. you can count 52 people on the flickr about page now.
Posted 42 months ago.
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SF Lights [deleted] says:
49 now.
"It just won't do a heap of good in this case except to make her more sad about the situation."
I disagree. I think sometimes something like that, where you could get so many people on flickr to show their respect and honor of you is something that can really make you feel like you've accomplished something, and that's a feeling that everyone deserves.
Posted 42 months ago.
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SF Lights
I sent her a personal message that showed I respect her and her accomplishments at flickr. To which she actually replied.
I'd think that, although perhaps overwhelming if many do it, more touching than "just another flickr tribute/protest group" approach.
Posted 42 months ago.
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i'm stunned.
given her lucidity and calm yet enthusiastic demeanor, even when playing the occasional role of mollifier in Help, nevermind her technical contributions here, this is a sad day for George, and will be seen as one for flickr.
so... this is just business, but is it "just" business? shame...
good luck George. maybe Tuenti is looking for your talents... ;)
Posted 42 months ago.
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From Day one it was George and Caterina who were in flickr live greeting everyone.
whoever George decides to go work for will be a truly lucky company.
and George you rock, HARD!
Posted 42 months ago.
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Wow. Just found out. That is terrible. And I am in agreement with the sentiments expressed above: this does not bode well for Flickr.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I agree ellipse. Never having met her in person I still had this unshakable feeling that George was by far the most "approachable" staff member. This decision also seems to fail the "community is everything" mantra/test that has been a such a core flickr design consideration. If you want another failed buzz phrase. "Content is King"... since, other than flickr members themselves, George was heading up the only "other" content division flickr has.
Posted 42 months ago.
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:(
I am sucking donkey balls in protest.
Posted 42 months ago.
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eww...
not magic ones, i hope...
Posted 42 months ago.
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Bloody hell. This is a real shock. George is a huge part of Flickr, and laying her off seems to me a very very bad idea.
But, as many others have said, the company that gets her will be very lucky indeed.
Posted 42 months ago.
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There's been huge suckage around the Yahoo layoffs, and no sense that there's been any ... sense to how they were done, from a corporate perspective. Shutting your innovation incubator in this day and age? Absurd. The only thing that's felt good in all this, as I watched it Wednesday and Thursday on the various social- and business-networking sites I use, is that there are dozens and dozens of companies out there practically begging to hire the talent that Yahoo has decided that somehow it doesn't need. I hope George and the others find themselves somewhere exciting and fresh.
Posted 42 months ago.
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Just found out. Bummer. Really crappy time of year for it as well. I hope she does (more) great things.
Posted 42 months ago.
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I hope George and the others find themselves somewhere exciting and fresh.
I think their CVs will speak for themselves. Others will benefit greatly from Yahoo's short-sightedness.
Posted 42 months ago.
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