Making sense of IT discoveries

I have been reading the IT space and amazed at how a lot of folks survive by a very simple strategy that is deceptive and hollow - but successful!!

1. You first create a mountain out a mole hill by creating some new terminology in the industry or worse by exaggerating the implications of some age old stuff.

2.Then you make yourself to be the worlds formost and some times the only expert available on the topic. This is usually accompanied with large scale fanfare and glamour.
I shudder what these folks would have done without the help of the Internet in the large scale dissemination of FUD(Fear Uncertainity Doubt).

3. Finally, if you are successful in establishing state of disturbed equilibrium then you proceed to present what is called 'a simple approach' to this highly complicated area. Basically you remove all hype you created in the first place and then comfort the poor disturbed folks (IT Managers) with the reassurnace that
a) Either the issue can be resolved by some amount of change in mindset and planning which actually means that his IT Infrastructure does not really change.

OR
b) He has to plen for to literally throw out all the IT Infrastructure that has just matured into a Managed Environment last year.

Service Oriented Architecture, Web Services, Business Process Orchestration... the list goes on.

What Enterprise IT Managers desparately need?

'Where there is no vision people perish'

Today I salute successful business managers, because but for them the wheels of employment and national economy would not run. I am referring to managers and leaders in the business world who see before others, make sense and then drive pursuits. Those who bring out profits as opposed to those who have 'only' have the gift of gab.

Managers in IT departments are also in this category. Some of them make decisions involving huge amounts of money - such as what technology or IT products does the enterprise need this year. They are the ones who support the continous improvement in technology. Most of them can never afford the luxury of 100% knowledge decisions but finally have to rely on their judgement which draws from their wisdom and experience.

Alas, there are managers who just cannot make judgements and are being taken all around the world for rides and site visits. Most often these end up as prey in the hands of sales people from IT Vendor.

The simple fact is Enterprise IT Managers can never rely on the judgement of Microsoft, IBM or Oracle. They have to just look at what direction business is heading and make sense of technoloy directions and then get their best in-house minds to draw up a plan.

There is no such thins as a common blueprint for enterprises IT- if there is, it's meant for those enterprises who are nowhere in the forefront of profits and leadership. Its basically discarded garbage from the real thinkers that IT Vendors sales have picked up.

While it may appear that I am against IT vendors I am not - not at all. They work in thier context and Enterprise IT Managers have a different context. The major difference is the reality of the domain instance that EIT mansgers must reconcile all theoritical concepts.

I must mention qualities what I learnt from a person whom I have known as one of the best IT Managers.

1. He is surrounded by brilliant minds - minds that are most often better then him in tech capabilities. I am referring to experts in whether is App development, Project Management, Distributed Computing , High Availability , Security ......
He constantly wants to hear these experts make sense of issues, new products and problems with his current Infrastructure.

2. Though his listens without ego to all his experts.He finally makes decisions and then refines them based on real progress.He takes full responsibility and drives the point home with Executive Management.

Egoless Java - Yet to be announced by SUN or IBM

'The world is my stage'

I write this blog with the obvious intention of speaking to the world.
Its been 6 years of working on java and nothing but java, like so many 1000s of people who earn their living this way.

I have been fortunate to be at the right time at the right place in the history of computing; when the Internet and java transformed computing. I have been fortunate that my age was right to plunge in.

I owe all my learning to the Internet, and of course the good folks who put it to use as a medium to reach out to developers.My work time for many days in the early years in the National Bank of Oman was literally 'dwelling in' java.sun.com and IBM developer works.

As the years went by, the hard work of the early years paid returns - as I could make sense of concepts, technology and finally business problems. The last one ensured that was immediately useful to my organisation.

As I continue to visit the Internet and make sense continually of whats happening; I observe a dangerous trend. The baser human instincts of pride, selfishness, fame are also being paraded openly without shame under the garb of professional opinion and review.

No amount of technical accomplishments or genuis in faculty allows for a compromise in basic human ethics. These are humility and considering others better than oneself. The corollary implications to this quality are tremendous and includes the ability to Listen and not just hear, the ability at accept vulnerability and the ability to argue on issues but not hate the person.

So that is the reason for this post.

Bye