Notes on spaces seen through windows
|
|
| Recluse reflections: Blog catches the economic consequences of Microsoft's retreat Notes on spaces seen through windows |
|
|
Wednesday, April 27, 2005 Blog catches the economic consequences of Microsoft's retreat
In his blog MonkChips, James Governor catches the economic consequences of Microsoft's shift away from support for a state gay-rights law.
James Governor's MonkChips: Microsoft's Economic Blunder. In support of Scoble. He quotes, as we did in the previous post from Richard Florida. Its a question of the Talent. Great companies must attract, retain and encourage the Talent. Microsoft is in the intellectual property business, which means people are its most important asset. Microsoft last week was a company with a decent record of fostering diversity. Today, though, if you were going for an interview at the Redmond campus and you happened to be gay, how would you be feeling about the firm? Would you want to sign up? There would be reason, now, to be a bit leary. But Governor takes the argument too far when he notes that "Attracting and retaining the Talent requires a good quality of life in the local area. There is a great deal of evidence to show that metropolitan areas with significant gay communities are more economically successful. Places like Austin, London, New York and San Francisco." And Seattle, we would add. Seattle and King County already have anti-discrimination laws that do on a local level what the state law would have done throughout the state. He's probably right that "Seattle's Creativity Index just started falling," but it's hard to take the statement seriously when he contrasts Seattle with Austin. It's a state law that failed here and that's a very unfortunate thing, but I'd be surprised to hear that Texas has a similar law on the books. In fact, Washington's blue-state legislature did come within one vote of passing the law which is, again, unfortunate, but probably far better than what might happen if such a law were introduced in the Texas legislature. Despite the red-state intolerance that so many prominent Texas politicians preach, Austin is still, reportedly a comfortable place for gay folk. And that's a good thing. But Governor should realize that the same thing could be true of a place like, say, Seattle. Seattle still has a "significant gay community" and the failure of this legislation won't change that. Microsoft aligned itself with the forces of intolerance in Washington. That's more than unfortunate, and it will as Governor says, probably have long-term economic consequences for the company posted by WebWrangler | 7:57 AM | Link | 0 comments
Comments:
Post a Comment
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Blogroll Me! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
