Advice for summer interns: Don’t screw this up

Advice for summer interns: Don’t screw this up

by Kelly McBridePublished May 28, 2015 3:14 pmUpdated May 29, 2015 7:48 am

Kelly McBride and her daughter Molly in New York. (Photo courtesy of the Kelly McBride)

My eldest got her dream internship. She starts next week. Here’s the letter I wrote, with help from my friends.

Dear daughter,

Congrats on getting an internship at a place where you already love the journalism. I know you got called as an alternate, after someone dropped out. That’s OK. None of us are qualified for our first job. So it doesn’t matter how much experience you have or how competent you are on day one. What matters is how open you are to learning new things and how fast you can learn them. You’re going to feel stupid and incompetent. Just own that, rather than hide from it. It will give you the emotional resilience to be unassuming and spongy.

For the rest of your life, each job you do will have some relationship to the job before it. You might get recruited after someone sees you kicking ass. Or you might seek out a new job because you end up working for a crappy boss, or in a toxic culture, or maybe one that just isn’t a good fit for you (that’s how you’ll describe the first two situations to outsiders).

So don’t blow it. And by that I mean, don’t let your inexperience, or your ego, or your insecurity rule. Instead, go in ready to be productive and maybe look silly.

By the end of summer, you’ll be able to judge your success by two things: 1. The amount of work you’re capable of contributing to this newsroom. 2. The number of people who will go out of their way to help you out by calling in favors and giving you a glowing job reference.

You don’t have to be particularly talented to make this happen. In fact, there are many talented interns who will leave newsrooms at the end of this summer having annoyed the crap out of everyone. Instead, your best asset is humility.

Here’s a tip sheet, not just from me but also crowdsourced from the smart people I know in newsrooms everywhere:

Day one:

• Be on time. Actually, be early. And then be early or on time all summer long. Even if it seems like punctuality isn’t really valued in your newsroom because the boss shows up 30 minutes late, you should be on time. Because as an intern, your time is less valuable than every other person in that organization. So no one should ever have to wait for you this summer.
• Take notes, so you can remember the name and responsibility of every person you meet. The more quickly you can decode who does what and how stuff gets done, the more opportunities you will have to be useful. It’s hard to help people if you can’t remember who you met and what they do (this means you need to bring a notebook and pen).
• Take note of the office style of dress. There’s always an unwritten code. Pay attention to key markers and respect them. Do you see anyone’s underwear peeking out? How much skin is revealed?
• Silence your phone when you’re not using it.

Every other day this summer:

• It’s OK to say you don’t know how to do something. Everything can be learned, much of it pretty fast. But don’t bluff. Just ask if someone can teach you that CMS/audio software/copy machine.
• Do your homework every day. Pay attention to the show. Read the website. Follow all of your colleagues and all of the newsroom accounts on social media. Interact with them on social media. Also, consume your newsroom’s three closest competitors.
• If you don’t have a Twitter account, you have to start one now. This is where people in journalism talk about journalism.
• Try to wiggle your way into a larger project in the first two weeks. This might be something you pitch, or something someone else is working on. If your boss says yes, you’ll probably have to use your own time. Just for now. You can work on work-life balance next year.
• Say yes to every opportunity. Go to all the things that you are invited to, trainings, lectures, coffees, meetings. Ask questions. Offer up your perspective if you have one, pitch your story ideas. Have story ideas. Even bad story ideas are better than no story ideas. Remember, it’s OK to look silly.
• Find the work that needs doing and do it. Make yourself indispensable. Do they need help with Snapchat, scheduling tweets, setting up interviews? Do that. Every time someone says, “We should do…” that’s your cue to do more work if it’s within reach.
• Ask people how you might be able to help them, or what they are currently struggling with.
• Be interested in more than just the work. Ask people about their backstories. Do this for everyone from the boss to your fellow interns. Build real relationships through kindness and curiosity.
• Credit your boss and your coworkers for your success. You’re probably going to have a few wins. And people will offer up a lot of praise. Your response should be to name the other people who helped you out.
• Don’t get caught up in office gossip or in the negative conversation. Because you don’t know anything. If you’re out with a group and people start talking trash about a co-worker, stay silent. Don’t ever repeat. Know that you are not getting the whole story. Watch and learn.
• Find a mentor and meet with her weekly to update her what you’re doing and what you would like to do. Don’t pick the newsroom star or the top editor. Pick someone who is doing the kind of work you could be capable of in three to five years. You don’t even have to call her your mentor. Just ask if she can offer you some guidance on a regular basis.

I wish internships paid a living wage. But most don’t. Your side job as a nanny will help you make ends meet, but it will also take up some of your time and energy. But you have to find a way, or else you’ll always be babysitting on the side to make ends meet.

It might be hard to justify this level of commitment for so little money.  Keep the big picture in mind. If you are successful this summer, this internship will lead to your next job. From here on out, nothing is random.

Love,

Mom

Getting Error message" the MFC-7860DW LAN cannot be found" when scanning

This is the sloution!

rein51 replied on 

After trying the solutions given here and at other sites I came to this solution that worked fine for me:

clearing in c:\users\"your own name"\appdata\local\temp the following files:

twain.log, twain001.mtx, twunk001.mtx and twunk002.mtx.

After this all worked again as expected, in Irfanview all my (possible) Twain-devices were given again to select from where before the selection box was empty.

Photocopier worked again and of course my Brother (DCP-J752DW) was reacting again with the cc4-control center!

Mind you: I have tried all other solutions inclusive de-installing and re-installing, clearing registry with CCleaner and so on with no succes so in my opinion:

The only thing you need to do is to clear the abovementioned files or anyothers with twain and twunk in the name and or with the mtx extension.

The reason for the problem? Probably somehow a security issue but how, why, when I don't know!

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-hardware/getting-error-message-the-mfc-7860dw-lan-cannot-be/6348aacc-119f-4842-8c11-04cfe550acf3?auth=1

Le passé et imprévisible", aujourd'hui réécrit hier

Le passé et imprévisible", aujourd'hui réécrit hier
Christian Bobin

John Chen : People don’t necessarily love what I say, but they know it’s the truth

Re-post from canadianbusiness.com: 

Interview: BlackBerry CEO John Chen on the progress of his turnaround

“People don’t necessarily love what I say, but they know it’s the truth”

Nov 13, 2014 Joe Castaldo

One well-known problem at BlackBerry concerned decision-making. It wasn’t clear who was responsible for what. What are you doing to fix that?

That’s a very complicated science. We’re working it out right now. It’s about who has what authority to make what decision, and how does the system have accountability when that person makes the wrong decision. This is typical of turnaround situations. I’ve tackled this problem before, in my past companies. When a company grows very fast, like BlackBerry did, a few heroes of the company make most of the decisions, but they may not be documented or logical decisions. And when a company starts doing poorly, a lot of people who actually help the company day-to-day start leaving, furthering the damage. What I’m doing is going in and defining how things ought to be done. The first pendulum swing is pretty extreme, from no process to too much process. That’s happening now. Now I need to make the pendulum swing back a bit. It’ll take a while. I wouldn’t expect more than a year or two.

Do you envision BlackBerry remaining a niche enterprise player, or becoming something else?

It has to be more than that. The first step is becoming profitable. It will still be niche at that point, but there’s no reason why we wouldn’t become bigger. I’ll refer you to Apple. In 1997, Apple almost went out of business. Nobody was buying a Mac. At that time, they were niche in the educational market. Look at them today. The point is, in the technology world, successful turnarounds are rare, but the number isn’t zero. IBM got turned around. HP is going through that process. Oracle got turned around. I can’t guarantee success, but it is doable. When I came in, I said I need six to eight quarters to get the company stabilized. We’re a little ahead, so we’ll make that objective. A year from today, we’ll be generating profit.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/leadership/blackberry-ceo-john-chen-turnaround-interview/

garmin Nuvi 50 lm : home settings

simple and neat toutorial.
thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap4DXR1A_hI

The paradox of Pope Francis - Hans Kung

Published on National Catholic Reporter (http://ncronline.org)

The paradox of Pope Francis
Hans Kung | May. 21, 2013 Pope Francis
Essay

Who could have imagined what has happened in the last weeks?

When I decided, months ago, to resign all of my official duties on the occasion of my 85th birthday, I assumed I would never see fulfilled my dream that -- after all the setbacks following the Second Vatican Council -- the Catholic church would once again experience the kind of rejuvenation that it did under Pope John XXIII.

Then my theological companion over so many decades, Joseph Ratzinger -- both of us are now 85 -- suddenly announced his resignation from the papal office effective at the end of February. And on March 19, St. Joseph’s feast day and my birthday, a new pope with the surprising and programmatic name Francis assumed this office.

Has Jorge Mario Bergoglio considered why no pope has dared to choose the name of Francis until now? At any rate, the Argentine was aware that with the name of Francis he was connecting himself with Francis of Assisi, the world-famous 13th-century downshifter who had been the fun-loving, worldly son of a rich textile merchant in Assisi, until at the age of 24, he gave up his family, wealth and career, even giving his splendid clothes back to his father.

It is astonishing how, from the first minute of his election, Pope Francis chose a new style: unlike his predecessor, no miter with gold and jewels, no ermine-trimmed cape, no made-to-measure red shoes and headwear, no magnificent throne.

Astonishing, too, that the new pope deliberately abstains from solemn gestures and high-flown rhetoric and speaks in the language of the people.

And finally it is astonishing how the new pope emphasizes his humanity: He asked for the prayers of the people before he gave them his blessing; settled his own hotel bill like anybody else; showed his friendliness to the cardinals in the coach, in their shared residence, at the official goodbye; washed the feet of young prisoners, including those of a young Muslim woman. A pope who demonstrates that he is a man with his feet on the ground.

All this would have pleased Francis of Assisi and is the opposite of what Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) represented in his time. In 1209, Francis and 11 “lesser brothers” (fratres minores or friars minor) traveled to Rome to lay before Innocent their short rule, consisting entirely of quotations from the Bible, and to ask for papal approval for their way of life, living in poverty and preaching as lay preachers “according to the form of the Holy Gospel.”

Innocent III, the duke of Segni, who was only 37 when he was elected pope, was a born ruler; he was a theologian educated in Paris, a shrewd lawyer, a clever speaker, a capable administrator and a sophisticated diplomat. No pope before or after him had ever had as much power as he had. Innocent completed the revolution from above initiated by Gregory VII in the 11th century (“the Gregorian Reform”). Instead of the title of “Successor of St. Peter,” Innocent preferred the title of “Vicar of Christ,” as used by every bishop or priest until the 12th century. Unlike in the first millennium and never acknowledged in the apostolic churches of the East, the pope since then has acted as the absolute ruler, lawgiver and judge of Christianity -- until today.

The triumphal pontificate of Innocent proved itself to be not only the high point but also the turning point. Already in his time, there were signs of decay that, up until in our own time, have remained features of the Roman Curia system: nepotism, favoritism, acquisitiveness, corruption and dubious financial dealings. Already in the 1170s and 1180s, however, powerful nonconformist penitent and mendicant orders (Cathars, Waldensians) were developing. But popes and bishops acted against these dangerous currents by banning lay preaching, condemning “heretics” by the Inquisition, and even carrying out the Albigensian Crusade.

Yet it was Innocent himself who tried to integrate into the church evangelical-apostolic mendicant orders, even during all the eradication policies against obstinate “heretics” like the Cathars. Even Innocent knew that an urgent reform of the church was needed, and it was for this reform that he called the glorious Fourth Lateran Council. And so, after long admonition, he gave Francis of Assisi permission to preach. Concerning the ideal of absolute poverty as required by the Franciscan rule, the pope would first seek to know the will of God in prayer. On the basis of a dream in which a small, insignificant member of an order saved the papal Basilica of St. John Lateran from collapsing -- so it was told -- the pope finally allowed the Rule of Francis of Assisi. He let this be known in the Consistory of Cardinals but never had it committed to paper.

A different path

In fact, Francis of Assisi represented the alternative to the Roman system. What would have happened if Innocent and his like had taken the Gospel seriously? Even if they had understood it spiritually rather than literally, his evangelical demands meant and still mean an immense challenge to the centralized, legalized, politicized and clericalized system of power that had taken over the cause of Christ in Rome since the 11th century.

Innocent III was probably the only pope who, because of his unusual characteristics, could have directed the church along a completely different path, and this would have saved the papacies of the 14th and 15th centuries schism and exile, and the church in the 16th century the Protestant Reformation. Obviously, this would already have meant a paradigm shift for the Catholic church in the 13th century, a shift that instead of splitting the church would have renewed it, and at the same time reconciled the churches of East and West.

Thus, the early Christian basic concerns of Francis of Assisi remain even today questions for the Catholic church and now for a pope who, indicating his intentions, has called himself Francis. It is above all about the three basic concerns of the Franciscan ideal that have to be taken seriously today: It is about poverty, humility and simplicity. This probably explains why no previous pope has dared to take the name of Francis: The expectations seem to be too high.

That begs a second question: What does it mean for a pope today if he bravely takes the name of Francis? Of course the character of Francis of Assisi must not be idealized; he could be one-sided, eccentric, and he had his weaknesses, too. He is not the absolute standard. But his early Christian concerns must be taken seriously even if they need not be literally implemented but rather translated into modern times by pope and church.
Poverty: The church in the spirit of Innocent III meant a church of wealth, pomp and circumstance, acquisitiveness and financial scandal. In contrast, a church in the spirit of Francis means a church of transparent financial policies and modest frugality. A church that concerns itself above all with the poor, the weak and the marginalized. A church that does not pile up wealth and capital but instead actively fights poverty and offers its staff exemplary conditions of employment.
Humility: The church in the spirit of Innocent means a church of power and domination, bureaucracy and discrimination, repression and Inquisition. In contrast, a church in the spirit of Francis means a church of humanity, dialogue, brotherhood and sisterhood, hospitality for nonconformists; it means the unpretentious service of its leaders and social solidarity, a community that does not exclude new religious forces and ideas from the church but rather allows them to flourish.
Simplicity: The church in the spirit of Innocent means a church of dogmatic immovability, moralistic censure and legal hedging, a church of canon law regulating everything, a church of all-knowing scholastics and of fear. In contrast, a church in the spirit of Francis of Assisi means a church of good news and of joy, a theology based purely on the Gospel, a church that listens to people instead of indoctrinating from above, a church that does not only teach but one that constantly learns.

So, in the light of the concerns and approaches of Francis of Assisi, basic options and policies can be formulated today for a Catholic church whose façade still glitters on great Roman occasions but whose inner structure is rotten and fragile in the daily life of parishes in many lands, which is why many people have left it in spirit and often in fact.

While no reasonable person will expect that one man can effect all reforms overnight, a paradigm shift would be possible in five years: This was shown by the Lorraine Pope Leo IX (1049-54) who prepared Gregory VII’s reforms, and in the 20th century by the Italian John XXIII (1958-63) who called the Second Vatican Council. But, today above all, the direction should be made clear again: not a restoration to pre-council times as there was under the Polish and German popes, but instead considered, planned and well-communicated steps to reform along the lines of the Second Vatican Council.

A third question presents itself today as much as then: Will a reform of the church not meet with serious opposition? Doubtless, he will thus awaken powerful opposition, above all in the powerhouse of the Roman Curia, opposition that is difficult to withstand. Those in power in the Vatican are not likely to abandon the power that has been accumulated since the Middle Ages.

Curial pressures

Francis of Assisi also had to experience the force of such curial pressures. He who wanted to free himself of everything by living in poverty clung more and more closely to “Holy Mother Church.” Not in confrontation with the hierarchy but rather in obedience to pope and Curia, he wanted to live in imitation of Jesus: in a life of poverty, in lay preaching. He and his followers even had themselves tonsured in order to enter the clerical state. In fact, this made preaching easier but on the other it encouraged the clericalization of the young community, which included more and more priests. So it is not surprising that the Franciscan community became increasingly integrated into the Roman system. Francis’ last years were overshadowed by the tensions between the original ideals of Jesus’ followers and the adaptation of his community to the existing type of monastic life.

To do Francis justice: On Oct. 3, 1226, aged only 44, he died as poor as he had lived. Just 10 years previously, one year after the Fourth Lateran Council, Innocent III died unexpectedly at the age of 56. On July 16, 1216, his body was found in the Cathedral of Perugia: This pope who had known how to increase the power, property and wealth of the Holy See like no other before him was found deserted by all, naked, robbed by his own servants. A trumpet call signaling the transition from papal world domination to papal powerlessness: At the beginning of the 13th century there is Innocent III reigning in glory; at the end of the century, there is the megalomaniac Boniface VIII (1294-1303) arrested by the French; and then the 70-year exile in Avignon, France, and the Western schism with two and, finally, three popes.

Barely two decades after Francis’ death, the Roman church seemed to almost completely domesticate the rapidly spreading Franciscan movement in Italy so that it quickly became a normal order at the service of papal politics, and even became a tool of the Inquisition. If it was possible for the Roman system to finally domesticate Francis of Assisi and his followers, then obviously it cannot be excluded that a Pope Francis could also be trapped in the Roman system that he is supposed to be reforming. Pope Francis: a paradox? Is it possible that a pope and a Francis, obviously opposites, can ever be reconciled? Only by an evangelically minded, reforming pope.

To conclude, a fourth question: What is to be done if our expectations of reform are quashed from above? In any case, the time is past when pope and bishops could reckon with the obedience of the faithful. The 11th-century Gregorian Reform also introduced a certain mysticism of obedience: Obeying God means obeying the church and that means obeying the pope. Since that time, it has been drummed into Catholics that the obedience of all Christians to the pope is a cardinal virtue; commanding and enforcing obedience -- by whatever means -- has become the Roman style. But the medieval equation, “Obedience to God equals obedience to the church equals obedience to the pope,” patently contradicts the word of the apostle before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem: “Man must obey God rather than other men.”

We should then in no way fall into resignation; instead, faced with a lack of impulse toward reform from the top down, from the hierarchy, we must take the offensive, pushing for reform from the bottom up. If Pope Francis tackles reforms, he will find he has the wide approval of people far beyond the Catholic church. However, if he just lets things continue as they are, without clearing the logjam of reforms as now in the case of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, then the call of “Time for outrage! Indignez-vous!” will ring out more and more in the Catholic church, provoking reforms from the bottom up that will be implemented without the approval of the hierarchy and frequently even in spite of the hierarchy’s attempts at circumvention. In the worst case -- as I already wrote before this papal election -- the Catholic church will experience a new ice age instead of a spring and run the risk of dwindling into a barely relevant large sect.

[Theologian Fr. Hans Küng writes from Tübingen, Germany.]

Source URL (retrieved on 05/30/2013 - 16:49): http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/paradox-pope-francis

BlackBerry's hometown waits in hope of a renaissance

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/feb/17/blackberrys-hometown-wait-hope-renaissance


The graphic designers took their inspiration from the clean lines of the Farnsworth House, a modernist gem near Chicago designed by the architect Mies van der Rohe. The typeface was created by Canadian Rod McDonald, who specialises in clear lettering for the partially sighted.

On a snowy day in Waterloo, Ontario, local residents and businesses are demonstrating visible support for the ailing smartphone company and its vitally important new products
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Juliette Garside in Waterloo, Ontario
The Observer, Sunday 17 February 2013
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BlackBerry chief executive Thorsten Heins unveiling the BlackBerry 10 mobile platform on which 7,000 jobs in BlackBerry's hometown alone depend. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images

On market day in the small Canadian town of Waterloo, Ontario, the snow covers the car parks, and horse-drawn buggies pull up alongside the pickups. Founded two centuries ago on the prairie between the Great Lakes, Waterloo is home to the global smartphone maker BlackBerry, 500 tech companies and an institute of quantum computing, but it was first settled by German Mennonites, a religious sect who reject the inventions of the machine age.

Working the land, raising barns and crafting hardwood kitchens for the many local technology millionaires, the Mennonites and their town have thrived on BlackBerry's success. But the community's future prosperity hinges on the efforts of a more recent German immigrant, BlackBerry chief executive Thorsten Heins. Appointed 13 months ago, his mission is to arrest the decline of a company whose value has crashed from a peak of $80bn (£51bn) in 2008 to $7.5bn this year.

"A year ago I felt the universe was in disarray," says Heins. "Now all the stars have really lined up." Sporting a blue shirt embossed with the company logo, his phone in a holster hung from his belt, Heins is hosting a tour of BlackBerry's sprawling 22-building headquarters.

It is two weeks after the splashy New York event, attended by BlackBerry's new creative director, the musician Alicia Keys, and beamed to press conferences in seven cities, at which Heins unveiled his company's first true internet phone, the Z10, and the BB10 operating system on which it runs.

Back home, the streets are lined with messages of support. "Proud to be powered by BlackBerry" reads the sign outside the VW car dealership. There are discounts at burger joints for customers with the right phone, and the baristas in Starbucks wear BlackBerry T-shirts. With 7,000 of its employees in Waterloo alone, every finger is crossed for the company.

BB10 took two years and 15 acquisitions to build, at a time when the firm then known as Research in Motion (RIM) was suffering the greatest upheaval in its history. In January last year, it was in a tailspin: Apple and Google had stolen its crown, with phones that were almost as powerful as laptops. RIM had played no part in the latest wave of the personal computing revolution, spending the years since the iPhone's 2007 arrival pushing email phones in emerging markets rather than improving technology, and its best-selling product was outdated.

An investor revolt wrested control from founder Mike Lazaridis and his co-chief executive Jim Balsillie. Heins took their place and set about slashing costs, eventually announcing 5,000 redundancies. He hired two Wall Street banks to seek out potential buyers, and announced the company's first loss in eight years. But Heins also redoubled efforts on the firm's biggest ever project – the building of BB10.

The Europeans brought in as his lieutenants are bullish, naturally. "We want to regain our position as the number one in the world," says Kristian Tear, the Swedish chief operating officer who came from Sony. "It could be the greatest comeback in tech history," claims marketing boss Frank Boulben, formerly of Orange. "The carriers [mobile networks] are behind us. They don't want a duopoly."

Between them, Google – whose Android software is used by Samsung, HTC and many others – and Apple accounted for 85% of handsets shipped last year, according to research firm Gartner. BlackBerry's share has fallen to 5%. Few software companies survive more than one change of operating system, and while BlackBerry leapt from making pagers to phones in the late 1990s, not everyone is confident of the same success this time. Balsillie, who unlike Lazaridis no longer holds a seat on the board, filed papers last week revealing that he had sold all his shares in the company.

"I took this job not just because I love restructuring," says Heins. "I did it because I loved the core of innovation that I saw at RIM." Many advised him to jump on the Android bandwagon, or follow Nokia's lead by taking financial incentives from Microsoft to use its Windows Phone system. Instead, he decided to follow the course set by Lazaridis, who in 2010 had bought a Canadian firm called QNX, intending to use its technology as the building block for a new generation of phones.

Like Linux, on which Android is built, QNX is a basic operating system on which the interfaces of different machines can run. While most such systems are monolithic – if one area malfunctions the whole system can crash – QNX is more stable because it uses independent building blocks or "kernels": if one breaks, there is no domino effect. As a result, it is used in the computers of nuclear power stations, high-speed trains, space shuttles and heart monitors. It is also in 60% of the engine electronics in today's high-end cars.

BlackBerry's ambition does not stop with smartphones. It now extends to connecting individuals to computers running the machines in their lives. These could be remote-controllable washing machines, switching themselves on when electricity is cheapest; cars that book their own service appointments; or dashboard touchpads that guide vehicles and pipe entertainment to their passengers.

That, says Heins, is why he chose the harder path of building BB10. "We will be extremely aggressive at investing into this mobile computing domain. We understood that if we want to create the future we have to do something really dramatic and that was building the new platform."

Thorsten Heins on the BB10 and whether BlackBerry has completed its turnaround

And so the company decided to draw on its own resources. The graphic designers took their inspiration from the clean lines of the Farnsworth House, a modernist gem near Chicago designed by the architect Mies van der Rohe. The typeface was created by Canadian Rod McDonald, who specialises in clear lettering for the partially sighted. And the engineers found a way to view more than one application at once – say the calendar and email – a conundrum Android and Apple have not yet solved.

The device's success, if it comes, will owe much to Alec Saunders, a former Microsoft employee and University of Waterloo graduate who led BlackBerry's battle to persuade developers to create as many apps as possible before BB10's launch. He joined in August 2011, in the middle of the period that is known internally as "The Crazy", and on the very day 2,500 staff were let go.

His first task was to dismantle some of the "completely unreasonable, almost Monty Python-esque" ways of working the company had with outside developers – such as the 144-page contracts no small business could digest. Saunders set out to be the developers' friend by being as open as possible. Thousands of free prototype phones were handed out last summer, the BB10 development timetable was made public, and 44 "BlackBerry Jam" shindigs for developers were held in 33 countries.

Local teams chasing local content were appointed in almost all of the 20 most prolific app-producing nations. Only Japan, where BlackBerry is withdrawing from the market, and South Korea, where Samsung is hard to work around, were left off the list. There were financial incentives too – $100 for the most basic apps, and a guarantee of $10,000 revenue in the first year for the most popular. When the Z10 made its worldwide debut in the UK, it came with 70,000 apps. By the time it reaches the United States in March, there will be 100,000.

"What we accomplished was monumental," says Saunders. "We persuaded developers to build apps for a platform without the prospect of being able to make any money for months, and they did it."

The company says that the Z10 performed three times better during its first week in the UK than any previous BlackBerry smartphone. That's a vague metric – and claims that UK stores ran out of stock were undermined by analysts Canaccord Genuity, which found most branches received less than 15 handsets each. We will know more on 28 March, when BlackBerry's next set of financial results are published. Ambitions about using QNX to connect to the real world do not a business plan make – BlackBerry's future rests on sales of its new phones.

Tellingly, the company's bankers, JP Morgan and RBC Capital Markets, remain on standby, ready to negotiate a sale. Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, which bought IBM's PC business in 2005, has expressed an interest.

Heins says BlackBerry's independence is in the balance. "Are we out of the woods? No I don't think so. I think we need to still continue working at it and the strategic review is still part of it. As management we always need to assess the options that we have at our fingertips."

At today's price, a takeover could put at least $13m in cash and share options in the chief executive's pocket. But BlackBerry's stock is at a 10-year low: the creation of a true smartphone and what the industry likes to call an "ecosystem" of apps should make it far more valuable to a buyer than the company Heins took control of a year ago. Should BlackBerry meet its Waterloo, it will mint a few more millionaires in the process.