reviews and guides on management, open source, content and *random topic*

At the beginning of the year, I made a selection of books on strategic management from scientists — I would like to expand the format and share materials on management in a broad context. From scientific articles that will help understand the essence of technologies like large language models, to books on management and practical analyses of what content marketing can be without advertising. The result is a compact and diverse selection.

Content Management

>> Corporate Content Extremes [разбор]

There are two opposing approaches to content production that are typical for large technology companies in Russia. Both produce average results, but due to the fact that they require virtually no attention from a management perspective (as managers themselves often think), they are used by a good half of cloud providers, integrators, and software development firms.

The first can be conventionally called the “soil-based approach”, when companies write only about their own achievements and events, the second – the “Western approach”, when they publish mostly translated materials about space, the history of Tetris, anniversaries and things very remotely related to the companies and the needs of their audience. Roughly speaking, if content marketing is not managed, or is done in a routine manner, then most likely it will gravitate towards one of these approaches.

This analysis is recommended for managers who would like to check themselves for excessive use of the “soil” or “Western” approach in order to identify errors and organize work on content in an optimal way.

>> Why Branded Illustrations Are a Waste of Money [мнение]

The desire to “make it look good” is becoming the Achilles heel of tech companies. They are increasingly preparing branded illustrations for posts. The effect of such KDPV is highly questionable, and the time and money costs for preparation (including for agencies) — when calculated for dozens of publications — are quite significant.

Therefore, managers should not always follow the example of colleagues and competitors who rely on bright covers of publications. On the contrary, it is worth remembering that people come to technology platforms primarily for texts: with detailed case studies, stories about technologies, in-depth research.

>> Building work on an IT company blog from scratch [гайд]

The material has a practical focus — it is suitable for IT editors, marketers and PR specialists who not only take part in content marketing management, but are also immersed in the direct preparation of text materials. The guide contains an analysis of the most common formats (expert column, interview) and recommendations for working with them (what to pay attention to, what nuances there are). By the way, to help your editors and marketers with content preparation in general, you can also adapt (or use as is) this checklist.

Handbooks and wikis for managers

>> Employee onboarding from Valve [книга — англ.]

I remembered about the classic handbook Valve and decided to share it. The first version of the employee navigator book is more than 12 years old, so not everyone may know about its existence. The 50-page corporate mini-book is designed to help with the onboarding of newcomers – it helps them understand what the work process looks like in general, what to focus on in the first months, what to expect from the company as a whole. If you know of examples of Russian tech organizations with similar guides for employees (in the format of books, wikis or regular posts), share them in the comments.

>> ReadMe for the manager [вики — англ.]

If in the case of Valve we were talking about corporate approaches, then this is an example of a wiki on the personal professional principles of a top manager. The document allows you to understand how he evaluates his work, what he expects from colleagues, what situations he would like to avoid in professional interactions. Also, the personal ReadMe gives instructions on communication with the manager – for example, on planning meetings and communicating online. If you have seen something similar from Russian managers, share it under the post.

Easy reading on LLM topic [= random topic]

>> Large models of what? [научная статья — англ.]

A fresh and detailed work by Irish colleagues is for those who would like to understand why large language models (LLM) and the wide possibilities they provide in various GPT-like services are fundamentally incapable of reproducing full-fledged work with language. Twenty pages of detailed analysis and argumentation regarding the place of language in human communication, what qualities its native speaker possesses in the communication process, and what is currently available at the LLM level – for comparison. The article is recommended for those who are overcome by BPI regarding the LLM hype of the last two or three years, as well as for those who like interesting things in English (there are no complex linguistic specifics and terminology here, the text is accessible for easy reading).

>> Neurons in the hands of scientists [разбор — англ.]

A kind of continuation on the chosen random topic – briefly about the result of mass use of ChatGPT in work on scientific articles. As follows from the title Delving into “delve”with the advent of such services, scientific papers began to often include specific words that scientists previously used extremely rarely. For example, the word “delve” began to appear more often – even in scientific papers by native speakers.

Considering that it is now easier to bypass such moments that clearly reveal the use of neural networks at the prompt level (for example, filtering certain words and modifying writing styles), we can confidently say that the benefit of “experienced users” of ChatGPT in science will continue.

Open source and management

>> Key analytical reports for two years [разбор]

A compact analysis of the main points from six analytical reports on open source, including a couple of Russian ones. One of the most notable findings: managers often don't understandhow exactly things are with the use of open source in their organizations. Not to mention full participation in open communities and open sourcing of their developments. Such findings were discussed with lawyers, authors of the reports themselves, representatives of Russian universities and leading companies developing open technologies in the format of expert comments.

>> Open source release by alarm clock [разбор — англ.]

A detailed story about how the approach called Delayed Open Source Publication (DOSP) appeared and what it implies. It involves releasing a solution or technology into open source after a certain time from the moment of launch in a proprietary format. For example, the DOSP approach implements the Business Source License (BSL or BUSL) class of licenses, which set a time period (for example, a couple of years) before the automatic change of the license to an open source license like MIT. The HashiCorp case is the most striking example of using this approach and a BSL license. The material complements the cases in the context of trends in source available distribution of technological solutions and emphasizes the possibilities for commercialization when using DOSP. By the way, we we're sorting it out at the seminar.

>> Absurd but entertaining open source licenses [подборка]

As a final point of today's selection – “Friday” format – a post with a story about a dozen notable licenses that have not been discussed on the site before. Colleagues commented on some points especially for the selection.