Entries Tagged 'bullshit' ↓

I was reading the collaboration section of a magazine geared to IT professionals when I came upon an article titled Cat-Herding Nightmare.

The first paragraph echoes the Web 2.0-is-good-for-you party line I’ve heard again and again this week:

Web 2.0 collaboration tools are irresistible to end users: They’re easy to set up and use and can be accessed from anywhere. Employees can upload or create documents, spreadsheets, wikis, and blogs, then invite co-workers and partners to access, edit, and download content. These apps often include productivity enhancers such as search and tagging. And not surprisingly, vendors are encouraging the trend–Microsoft and IBM have added wikis and blogging capabilities to enterprise apps including SharePoint and Lotus Quickr, while Google and upstarts like Socialtext, PBwiki, and Jive Software are luring corporate users with freebie accounts and dead-simple deployment. provision users in minutes, pay with discretionary funds–and never make a single call to IT.

Warning to IT folks: Mayday! Mayday! Turf is being threatened. Put up the shields. Ready the cannon. Mayday! Mayday1

All these wonderful benefits. Too bad there’s a dark side.

Sadly, all IT gets out of the deal is a big fur ball as it struggles to organize corporate content run amok. The potential for exposure of sensitive information or theft of intellectual property runs high, as do concerns about noncompliance with corporate or third-party requirements as end users scatter sensitive information around the Internet. If the company gets tangled in litigation, data relevant to discovery requests may be lurking unknown on third-party servers, exposing the organization to financial or legal sanctions.

Implication: IT can’t trust those pesky users. Possible solution: Get the knock-off versions of web tools provided by IBM, EMC, BEA, and Microsoft. That lets IT continue its battle to maintain control, even if it means dumping all those great benefits. The article notes that the products from the big boys…

…also come with the downsides of enterprise software–longer and more costly deployment than software as a service, and longer lag between upgrades. Enterprises are unlikely to dip their toes into collaboration through a six-figure software deployment. It’s not uncommon to find companies using SharePoint and third-party SaaS products.

The article concludes that IT needs to keep ahead of technologies and provide services before users demand them. That would be great but I am skeptical. IT has rarely come down from its me-first perch. Why should we expect it to stop now? It’s easier for IT to focus on the damage workers might do rather than the benefits an open business gives its stakeholders. Should we really let IT make the tradeoff between the hair-ball messiness of web 2.0 and connecting with the world in order to stay in business? That’s not really an IT decision, is it? Nah, we won’t get fooled again.

I’ve look at this from both sides now, it’s up and down and still somehow, I don’t think we should be picking sides at all. IT should support the business, not the other way around.

Related:
How it’s going to be

“Thank you for calling Big Stupid Company.

We value your business and look forward to serving you.

Your call may be monitored for training purposes.

Listen carefully, for our options have changed.

If you know your party’s extension, dial it now. Otherwise,

For information about our hours and locations, press 1
To use our automated telephone account system, press 2
To report a stolen or lost card, press 3
To talk with a customer service representative, press 4
To repeat this message, press 5

[4]

Scratchy musak.
Please stay on the line. All of our customer service agents are helping other customers. Your call will be answered in the order received.

Did you know that you can order our wonderful products from our website. Great deals await you at bigstupid.com

Scratchy musak.
All of our customer service agents are helping other customers. The next agent will be available to serve you in 47 minutes.

Our fall line of products come in earth tones! We have hulu knives for everyone in the family. Take a look at our web site, bigstupid.com.

Scratchy musak.
All of our customer service agents are helping other customers. The next agent will be available to serve you in 46 minutes.

Scratchy musak.
All of our customer service agents are helping other customers. The next agent will be available to serve you in 45 minutes.

Scratchy musak.

[Click]

Translation: We do not want to talk with you.

Get Human

Nearly everyone I know feels short of time, enough so that it’s diminishing the quality of their lives. Our homes and workplaces are filled with labor-saving devices but most of us are laboring more, not less. In the sixties, people assumed that by the turn of the century robots would do the work. Our biggest chore was going to be figuring out what to do to fight off boredom.

Many time-savers have entered my life in the last quarter century: word processing instead of typing, Google instead of going to the library, sending mail without heading to the post office, driving a car that never breaks down and needs maintenance but once a year, and using a personal computer that runs 700 times faster than my original IBM-PC (and more than 5000 times faster than the first computer I ever programmed). Continue reading →

Last night I dreamt that I was at checking in at some out-of-the-way international airport. I was at a table covered with a pile of receipts, tickets, credit cards, itineraries, printouts, business cards, and notes. I had lost my shoulder bag, so I stuffed everything into a cardboard box. I checked the box as luggage, got my boarding pass, and realized I’d left my ID was in the box. Thank heavens I woke up before I had to go through Security.

* * *

On another matter, Web 2.2 closed with a drawing. My business card came out of the fishbowl, and I am now the owner of a ViewSonic Pocket PC V37. Now I need to figure out what to do with it.

* * *

And another… I’ve been touting the concept that most traditional training focuses on novices, to the neglect of the high-producing people with experience. That’s an over-simplification because a learner may be expert at a dozen things but a novice in several others.

Continue reading →

Aren’t these great? See ‘em all on Flickr.

Someone please help me out with this dilemma.

How can one balance thinking that pushes the envelope with regulators’ penchant for confusing speculation with corporate policy? How can you speak your mind when a couple of sentences played back in court could destory your reputation?

One email can put you behind bars.

Investment banker Frank Quattrone was indicted and tried twice for obstruction of justice for forwarding an email to subordinates suggesting they clean up their files. He could have gotten 25 years in prison.

Continue reading →

When I was a poker player in college days, the only table I refused to join was one where a player did not understand the rules. One guy could ruin a game for everyone by doing things so stupid that no one expected them. Which brings me to the U.S. Patent Office.

Continue reading →

THE PERFECT MARK

Issue of 2006-05-15

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I just received an email that closed with “and don’t miss the special Tuscan Dinner where Michael Gelb will teach you how to think like Leonardo Da Vinci!”