Absurd Industry Contest for the Worst of Everything Digital

Summary: ErectSoft INC, the world’s largest computer company that has never produced a single product announces the Absurd Industry Contest.

“After working off and on for nearly a third of a century in the IT industry,” said author Biff Mitchell, “I can’t imagine a more absurd line of work. So I invented a company that’s having a contest to recognize the absolute stupidity of the computer software industry.”

Mitchell’s latest novel, Team Player (Double Dragon Publishing, ISBN 1-55404-314-X), satirizes work in the computer industry through a fictitious company, ErectSoft INC. “It’s the largest software company in the world,” he said. “But it’s never produced a single product or finished a single project. This discovery is made by the lead character Malcolm Gray, who wonders one day why he can’t recall any of the projects he’s worked ever going beyond the initial stages of project definition. He begins to ask questions and soon realizes that the company has never actually done anything but start projects.”

Gray goes to the company’s website looking for answers, but finds no more than meaningless corporate garble. “ErectSoft INC has only one product and that product is a solution, the only solution you’ll ever need for your enterprise-wide business applications …” said Mitchell. “It means nothing … absolutely nothing. But there are hundreds of websites on the Internet with wording not much different.”

In Team Player, Mitchell gives the web address of his fictitious company: www.erectsoftinc.com. “I bought the domain name,” he said, “and created a website for it – a site very similar to the one in the book – and I plan to use it as a portal to everything absurd and ridiculous about the IT industry.”

Mitchell has plans to link his ErectSoft website to a forum where IT workers can gather to exchange stories about their absurd experiences in the industry. “To kick it off,” he said, “I’m sponsoring a contest – The ErectSoft INC Absurd Industry Contest.”

The contest invites IT workers to submit stories describing their most absurd experience in the industry, which will then be published in an ebook “when the content mass reaches the appropriate level of absurdity.” Categories include absurd projects, products, management decisions, companies, documentation and interface design. The contest even allows entrants to invent their own categories. The ten most absurd entries will receive autographed copies of Mitchell’s novel. “And there’s no entry fee,” said Mitchell.

“I plan to release an updated paperback version of the novel at lulu.com later this year,” said Mitchell. “The book was originally published in Australia by Jacobyte Publishing in 2001 and some of the technologies could do with a little updating. It’s the updated version that I’ll be giving out to the ten most absurd entries.”

Visit ErectSoft INC at: ErectSoft INC. “Just like in the book,” said Mitchell.