People News II: Ming Thein

Ming Thein, from his website

Ming Thein, one of the very best photography bloggers on the Internet, has decided to bring his nearly three-year relationship with Hasselblad to a close. Noting that "it isn't worth my time or stress levels anymore," Ming announced that "I have elected not to renew my contract with Hasselblad/ DJI, which ended on 30 September 2018."

That's the short take; see his website for the longer version.

"I continue to remain in the Hasselblad family as an owner and user," he added, "as I believe the product still delivers the best image quality I’ve seen to date."

Mike
(Thanks to Oren Grad)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Michael Perini: "I have great respect for him, and I think he did some good for Hasselblad, but moving into a corporate culture as an advisor without direct authority is a very difficult position to be in. Plus he lost the person who recruited him. Never a good sign. I think he did the right thing, he was 'pushing water uphill.' Life is too short for that. I wish him the best. DJI will miss him more than they think."

Stephen Scharf: "One of the biggest challenges someone in Ming's role has is getting the execs who hired him to actually listen to, and act on, the input obtained from customers. I've taught and led a lot of 'Voice of the Customer' product development teams in my time. One challenge is getting those team members to keep their biases of what the product must do or be to themselves, and actually listen to what the customer says. Most times, what the product development team member thinks is important and what the customer actually thinks is important (and why) are 180° apart. Academic studies have confirmed this. Then, of course, the biggest risk are business executives, who always have their own biases, may not listen to the VOC and just do what they originally wanted to do anyway. This usually results in a catastrophe with respect to successful product development, because most executives make teams rush, don't provide them with the time to think things through thoroughly, and everyone gets caught out with surprises. Happens all the time.... I used to call this behavior 'executive arson.' Seen tens of millions of dollars wasted because of it, also."

Comments

[Gordon Lewis]

It's interesting how he parted ways with Hasselblad not because of dissatisfaction with the equipment per se, but rather because of "rudeness and entitlement" from certain elements of his readership who felt he wasn't doing enough as an "ambassador" to meet their particular needs. He decided -- quite rationally, I believe -- that it was no longer worth his time and the stress levels involved. You can draw your own conclusions as to what the moral of this story is.

[Brett Patching]

Ming shoots with a H6D-100c.

[Franklin Berryman]

As I read it, the reason he left Hasselblad was not Hasselblad but his readership. It sounds like a sad state of affairs.

[SteveW]

My favorite Ming Thein article, The Fuss About Fifties:

https://blog.mingthein.com/2015/08/11/the-fuss-about-fifties/

[Michael Matthews]

Ming Thein also cites “internal resistance” as a factor in his decision. It would be interesting to learn whether that developed within Hasselblad or its owner, DJI. But he’s too much of a class act to satisfy my trashy, tabloid, purient curiosity. Reading between the lines of his replies to reader comments one might draw the inference that mainland China was the source of heavy-handed and arbitrary decision-making, but that could just be the product of stereoyping on my part.

[John Camp]

MT's post brings up an interesting question: what *is* worth your time and stress levels? Is there a graph (or many graphs) for for that? All kinds of things can be time sucks and stress inducers: spouses, friends, jobs, illness, etc. But taking one as an example, consider money. Could you graph stress levels and time uses against money earned? Could you figure out a way to determine when increasing amounts of money *would* make it worth your time and stress levels, when a lower amount wouldn't? Could you rationally determine that you need to increase or decrease your stress levels to reach certain important goals, and then do that? You'd have to think about it for a while, maybe a long while, but building a personal graph like that could actually change your life as you consider all the myriad possibilities for your behavior.

[Michael Shwarts]

I didn't pay much attention to his work with Hasselblad. But blog is very interesting. A recent discovery for me, and I am trying get caught up. I recommend it for his interesting points of view on art, technology etc. To the tech posts. he brings the kind clear writing you would expect from somebody with a degree the science, but not the dry writing.

[Tim Auger]

Corporate culture and constraints, strongly held personal opinions, and unrealistic demands from fanboys do not mix well. I was slightly surprised when he signed up, to be honest.

I think his blog suffered a bit. Excessive focus on one brand does make it less inviting for those not so affiliated.

[Giovanni Maggiora]

I did not know, I stopped following his blog some time ago. Used to be great at the beginning.
Perfect ambassador for 100MP sensors, that's for sure.
Then again, if clinical detail is one's cup of tea. I'll take a blurry Cartier-Bresson or Sergio Larrain any day, but that's me.
Unsurprising news, in the end. Not a man who has ever accepted dialogue easily, even when different opinions are expressed with civility. Not, frankly, that civility is easy to find on the internet these days.
Except on TOP, thanks to the benign influence of its Chief Editor... :)

[David Mantripp]

There may be more than one side to this story - based on plenty of evidence from comments on his blog, he’s not one to take even mild criticism gracefully, while lapping up praise and flattery. So in a situation where he has, in effect, been parachuted in to tell experienced people how to do their jobs, that could be a bit of a stumbling block. He also seems to expect to take personal credit for the good parts, and assign corporate responsibility for the bad.

I don’t know, it matters not one jot to me personally, but I’m not convinced that the Emperor is fully clothed.

[Ilya]

The last comment from David reflects a good amount of truth. The man asks for thanks for electronic shutters and fast lenses. Well... Then he started his own line of watches, aspiring to be like a celebrity. (use search to find that, they are called, just guess, Ming). He is good at writing, and at self promotion. But maybe Hasselblad needed more than that.

[Dennis Ng]

I read him quite a lot before that and basically stop immediately afterwards. Good to go back.

[Tim Bradshaw]

This is a response to Giovanni Maggiora's comment on civility and TOP. As someone who has had the first part of a comment I made on TOP apear as a featured comment while the second part (which was, frankly, implicitly rude to a large number of people) suppressed (with an email explaining why) by Mike, I think that there is a huge benefit to online conversation which is actively mediated by someone. The comments on TOP posts very rarely deteriorate into abuse and insults, and are often extremely informative, and this isn't because we're a uniquely nice bunch of people, it's because TOP's large editorial staff work so hard. As a very long-term discussion-forum user (usenet in the 1980s) I am verg grateful for this and so should we all be.

[Ilkka]

Head office always knows best. That is true of far too many companies. Hasselblad is just another case of sad decline.
I followed Ming a lot in the beginning, but started to feel a level of arrogance that I was just not comfortable with. So I deleted the link and have not visited his blog for couple of years.
I much prefer TOP.