Leveraging is the sincerest form of flattery

Once upon a time I worked for a bigCompany where people were encouraged to "leverage" other people's good work rather than constantly recreating the wheel. This was great within the company, because it helped the good data to rise to the top and stay there--of course, so did some of the bad but oh well... This also meant that, if you happened to be someone who came up with a good idea or write something useful, you recognized things--your things--when they came around on the guitar, again and again. Sort of flattering...mostly.

Within the industry that said bigCompany tended to, err, what's the word I am looking for, oh yeah, dominate there was lots of leveraging. In fact, sometimes it seemed that the entire industry was one big leveraging party; every time one company came up with a great idea, a bunch of other companies came up with something an awful lot like that first thing. Just a little bit different, just enough to attract another slice of the market. And then the leveraging and the leveraged would fight it out in the public marketplace until someone (usually not the leveraged) would win the battle for consumer dollars.

It's not like anyone was doing anything they shouldn't have been doing, in fact it's pretty much a normal marketing thing; see something new that's selling and try to snatch the market--like cupcakes, ten years ago they were just for kids, now they are leveraged near-to-death. Think of it as a big corporate meme, except they make money at it.

All of this is the long way around to introducing a new feature, heavily leveraged...and meant as the sincerest form of flattery. Without further ado, I bring you...

...occasional fog valley photo #1 (deep bow to farmgirl)

the garden goddess, guardian of my herb beds, on the first day of fall...