In Pictures: 10 old-school IT principles that still rule
These graybeard IT tenets still reign -- when applied in their modernized guise
Stories by Bob Lewis
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Run IT as a business - why that's a train wreck waiting to happen
"If you board the wrong train, it's no use running along the corridor in the other direction," said famed World War II German resistance fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We in IT boarded the wrong train a long time ago. It's the "standard model" of information technology organizations - the familiar litany that says CIOs should run IT as a business, meeting the requirements of its internal customers. This refrain has been endorsed by our holy trinity, too: analyst firms, most consultancies and ITIL.
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SURVIVAL GUIDE: Rocking the boat
Management Speak: I will accept no excuses! Translation: I don’t know the difference between an excuse and a real problem.
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SURVIVAL GUIDE: Web services a saviou?
MANAGEMENTSPEAK: Application of this tool in our environment is critical to successfully meet our objectives. TRANSLATION: We have to find a place to use this, or I won't be able to justify spending the leftover funds I had to burn to secure our budget for next year.
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SURVIVAL GUIDE: The O-word that IT fears
Some words inspire terror. Their mere mention causes blood pressure to rise, mouths to dry, and skin to shed beads of cold sweat. Words such as vampire, final exam, orthodontist.
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MORPH: Stay visible keep face
The president of a rather large technology company recently told employees he wants them to be fungible, or so a correspondent reports. This might actually mean something, although probably not. The term "fungible", meaning interchangeable, is generally restricted to non-sentient beings, _after all.
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Picking technological winners/losers is easy
If you know the formula, picking technological winners and losers is easy. "But they are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso on computers. Among the many careers I want to try before I die - televangelist, rock star, college bar owner, psychic - is founding an organisation to help a neglected group of which I'm part - Sarcastics Anonymous.
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IS survival guide: drawing pictures for architecture
MANAGEMENT SPEAK: We are not interested in helping the users here. We are only interested in clearing the help desk queue. No translation will do justice to this sentiment.
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Does Microsoft have a monopoly?
Does Microsoft have a monopoly?
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Training with difference
Training with difference
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Reorganising is a common solution to problems, but often causes trouble
Reorganising is a common solution to problems, but often causes trouble
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Employee involvement losing favour
Employee involvement losing favour
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The seven deadly sins of IS
The seven deadly sins of IS
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Visible results of spending money or energy
Visible results of spending money or energy
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New year predictions and reflections
New year predictions and reflections
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