The Joel on Software Discussion Group

I just watched the "Make Better Software" video on the "Figuring out what your company is all about" post.  Now let me start by saying I'm a huge fan of Joels blogs, philosophy, software (we used Fogbugz at a previous company and I love stackoverflow) and general approach.  I also hate flaming and Argumentum ad Hominem type attacks about a subject that pick on a small element of presentation or appearance instead of the discussion at hand.  However, is it just me, or was that video a bit...I don't know corporate? Cheesey?  Too polished.  The background music, I mean come on.

Perhaps there is something that happens when you start producing quite professional videos like that that makes them feel a bit mass produced.  Maybe it's the very fact that they are so well done, maybe using professional editing and production techniques (someone will probably inform me that it's was just done by someone in the office with a handycam) but it makes them seem a bit false.  I would like to see something a bit rawer with more humour and I don't know more authenticity perhaps?  I don't doubt that the video reflects the real FogCreek and the people their but it just seemed too rehearsed.

I'm a lowly peon Program Manager in an insignificant department (I'm not exaggerating when I say lowly and insignificant) in the giant beast that is Microsoft.  One of the things I despise here is the corporate style marketing and internal training videos.  They are soulless politically correct mindless rubbish that sap the will to live and lower the IQ of anyone that watches them (yes I've watched a few).  There are some internal training videos here that are so terrible they should be reserved for lowest level of hell for punishing evil misogynist pa*dophilic dictators that are responsible for genocide and like Steven Seagal (sorry a personal prejudice there).  I find Joel is an antidote to this sort of corporate drudgery that allows me a bit of escapism to imagine working for a company like Fogcreek.

I like the idea and I will probably watch the whole series and drink in every bit of wisdom that is imparted, so maybe I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth and being a massive hypocrite, but it just makes me worry. 

The style of the video combined with the post on "Does Slow Growth Equal Slow Death?" makes me worry.  Could Joel loose some of the anti-establishment ideals that made him great in the first place?  Could he hire to fast and just become another large software producer that embodies some of the things he started out despising?

I love FogBUGZ and I want FogCreek to succeed but I just find this latest trend worrying.  Am I alone?  Probably :)

Pete