My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 567 In life and in work, finding your own place is the most important thing.
Indeed, just like Wei Dong's family and emotional troubles, which seem to be stable on the surface, there are actually undercurrents surging beneath.

The buying frenzy was indeed contained by the sale of commercial housing, but the economic problems caused by inflation continued to spread like wildfire, and the fundamental issues remained unresolved.

Wei Dong, of course, had no idea where the root of the problem lay.

He was convinced that relentlessly developing productivity, especially his virtuous cycle of production, sales, and construction, would definitely be helpful.

Then let's put all our effort into drilling inside.

Furthermore, foreign trade can recover foreign exchange as much as possible, making the process much more efficient.

Most importantly, he is full of confidence in the future.

So, as soon as Qin Yuye left, he instructed Wei Dong to focus on the various aspects of Xishan Electronics Computer.

After all, once products like clothing, cosmetics, and even sanitary napkins are produced and sold, he has nothing to do with them anymore.

Computers still have some insightful perspectives.

If you can't understand chips, then focus your efforts on peripherals like keyboards and mice.

As long as exports can generate profits, that supports chip research and development and semiconductor production lines.

In the past, when I took Dong Xueqing to Bailou in the morning, I would check some sales data there before returning to the factory at noon.

Now, I just show up at the electronics building and go to the software and hardware companies on each floor to participate in meetings.

But before they could release any new keyboards and mice, they were held back by the software company.

To Wei Dong's surprise, he was able to make a difference in this technological gadget.

Having only been here to oversee the project for two days, when passing by the HanDian Company on the third floor, the general manager quietly questioned, "What exactly is the meaning of this PPT? Is it really necessary to make this?"

HanDian Company is based on the "Chinese character article editing system". The old man named the company because he hoped to develop a classic office processing package that truly conforms to Chinese characters.

The idea for the composite package was, of course, proposed by Weidong, imitating the concept of the Office suite.

The requirements are very clear: word processing, data tables, and PowerPoint presentations.

Wei Dong may not know how to do it, but he has seen a lot. When the company was being established and the project was being initiated, he gave some instructions casually and then went on to do other things.

Everyone knew he was extremely busy, so Lao Huang and the others didn't bother him much. Following the typical attitude of a third-tier factory worker, they just focused on getting things done.

Word processing software has been integrated. Previously, typing and editing were done in one software, and printing was done in another. Now, just like Word in the future, you can type the text, click print in the software, and the dot matrix printer will automatically print the document.

It has already received considerable praise from many schools, banks, and government agencies.

Both the Jiangzhou and Shanghai government buildings now require that all internal documents be submitted using this type of computer-generated document.

Finally, we'll reshape the interface to resemble the style of Apple's operating system.

Old Huang's aesthetic sense is definitely that of a mechanical, straight man, which Wei Dong doesn't understand, but he suggested from the beginning that someone from an art academy could be invited to participate in the adjustments.

Professionals can easily identify Apple's style and characteristics by looking at it.

The table is relatively simple, and there are spreadsheet software programs available overseas at this time.

Depending on the programming language, IBM used Lotus 123, while Apple used VisiCalc. Before Wei Dong decided to lead Xishan Computer's R&D, the people who worked on the Zhonghua Learning Machine had already come into contact with these two software programs.

This time, we're working with financial and banking systems to develop customized software, which is essentially creating a domestic version based on the features of both types of software.

Previously, many experienced users in the tax office used this interface, which gave Wei Dongchun a somewhat impressionful two-dimensional interface. Now, he is dragging and dropping it towards the future.

At the very least, he requires the ability to automatically generate reports and the ability to easily generate pie charts in conjunction with PowerPoint presentations, which would give it more features than the two foreign software programs currently available.

So what puzzled Lao Huang and his team the most was the PPT.

When asked what the three letters in the PPT meant at first, Wei Dong didn't know either.

Basically, it's something that can be enlarged using a projector or shown directly to the boss on a computer monitor.

Actually, of these three software programs, the security guard with the severed hand used PowerPoint the most.

After all, more than 30 years into the system, the requirement to make PPTs for everything has reached an outrageous level.

The security department has to make this thing for their year-end performance review.

Even though he had never done it before, a complete set of PPT files, from the intro, animations, PPT cover, preface, table of contents, transition pages, chart pages, image pages, text pages, back cover, ending animation, etc., made Wei Dong feel like he was going to throw up.

Especially when there are events being held in a studio, security guards have to stay on guard from beginning to end.

Since we can't do animations or images right now, we can at least add some patterns or designs to the title and cover, and create a few templates. Then, we can add a preface, table of contents, pages, back cover, and import various charts, bar charts, and pie charts. Okay, done.

Old Huang and the others were very puzzled. Aren't meetings these days all about reading from prepared speeches?

If you want to explain something, can't you just explain word processing software or charts? Why do you have to explain a separate software program?

The biggest problem right now is that computers can't display images, at least not high-resolution images.

Even a dot-matrix pattern is exciting if it's barely managed.

It's hard for Wei Dong to explain that thirty or forty years later, people will easily explain things by looking at pictures on their phones or casting their phones directly to a large TV screen.

But he already has this habit of bringing up photos at the drop of a hat, and this style works very well when dealing with various parties in Shangzhou, Jiangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing.

Now, all I can do is patiently explain to the academically inclined R&D chief: "This thing is mainly for demonstration. Think about it, when I report to city leaders, ministries, or even higher leaders, I have hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of words of technical jargon, but I can only distill it into one or two sentences. They are not experts in their respective industries; they only care about the results. Results, you know? They can just say a few words about the process."

This is already touching on the philosophy of human nature in officialdom, and they're actually trying to incorporate it into software development?

Old Huang's expression must have been buzzing, but looking at the expressionless baby on the boss's chest, he was probably desperately trying to figure out how he would report to his boss.

This is the kind of evolutionary culture that has existed within the system for the past thirty or forty years.

Wei Dong couldn't give a precise definition of PPT, but he knew that it was one of the three major office document giants, alongside files, documents, and spreadsheets, so it must have its own value.

His understanding was to follow the system exactly: "Which is more important for an official, rank or position?"

Old Huang, who had already been forced to resign and start his own business, was even more confused. After thinking hard, he said, "It's still about rank. A higher-ranking official can crush you."

Wei Dong shook his head: "If I asked you to choose between the science and technology department and the family planning unit, the latter would have a higher position. Which one would you choose?"

For some pure bureaucrats, the latter is probably the only option.

Such technically skilled individuals would still hesitate before admitting, "I would definitely prefer to go to the science and technology sector, and get promoted if I do well."

Wei Dong shrugged: "Right? That's about positioning yourself, finding your importance and indispensability in the overall situation. That's far more important than blindly pursuing a higher position. This software is the same. It's designed to explain professional achievements to people who don't know anything about it. You should follow this line of thinking and work through it properly. If I'm explaining computer work to the leaders, who's explaining the newly built dormitories to you, or even explaining what activities we're going to do at the zoo tomorrow and how much they cost? If you just bring a dry document or a spreadsheet, is it as appealing as what I'm describing?"

Old Shi blindly pursued promotion, leaving the tax system for the city, only to be humiliated and forced to return home to enjoy his retirement by gardening and growing vegetables.

In his final years, Wei Dong spent a lot of time with him in the vegetable garden listening to his ramblings.

"The core of a report is to capture the leader's attention, not to detail how hard or difficult our work is. Accurately grasping the superior's intentions is far more important than flowery and empty rhetoric. Conciseness is the hallmark of this software!"

The way Lao Huang nodded made him look like a bottom-of-the-class student who hadn't done his homework during summer vacation.

Left with no other option, Wei Dong resorted to his last resort: "The foreign software we've collected from various sources doesn't have this?"

Old Huang shook his head helplessly; there really wasn't any.

Wei Dong could only make adjustments little by little, barely managing to produce something.

I sat there for two or three days at a time. In the afternoon, when I returned to the factory office, I called Shanghai and learned that Qin Yuye had already flown to Japan and then to North America.

Alright, then we'll ask the operator here that when Manager Qin makes an international call back, he either needs to leave his phone number or call home at midnight sharp.

Actually, they are all extension units of the two programmable control lines in the factory.

In an era before everyone carried a mobile phone, going out was like flying a kite, thoroughly proving the primitive law that "when a general is away from home, he may disobey the emperor's orders."

Therefore, the factory has telephone operators on duty 24 hours a day to receive information from all over the country.

Of course, through this long period of contact with the software company, Wei Dong also personally instructed him to develop office software while using the software revenue to develop his own domestic graphical operating system.

He didn't know exactly how to circumvent Apple's graphics system patent restrictions, but he borrowed their ideas to create a system that was entirely his own patent, and demanded that it be delivered by the end of the year!
For operating systems that are currently only a few hundred kilobytes in size, this is not an unreasonable requirement.

Old Huang then led his team to tackle the problem with great effort.

Even with such a serious matter, Shen Cuiyue still laughs at how the master was silent when he was around, but missed her so much after being away for just a few days.

The implied implications in his words prompted Wei Dong to quickly eat a few bites of rice and go play ball.

But that evening, Qin Yuye finally called back, asking Weidong to remind her to look for this type of software. She also heard the chatter from across the ocean describing how grand the press conference was and how they had started making various preparations a week in advance.

Suddenly, an idea struck him: "I'll send you this new software. You can give it to Steve to try at the launch event. You can also say it's bundled software with the new computer and see if he thinks there's anything that needs to be adjusted."

In Wei Dong's view, what new product launch conference is nothing more than a PPT presentation.

(End of this chapter)