Keeping IT real

One of the cool things about working as InfoWorld's CTO is that I get to do all the usual technology stuff, but I also get to talk to a lot of really intelligent people in the industry.  I hear about new products and technologies early, and I get to watch developments in the industry up-close.  When new gear comes into the Test Center, I can go kick the tires on it as long as I don't get in the way of an analyst on deadline.  I really can't complain. 

At the same time, I have to keep the trains running on time at InfoWorld.  That means getting my hands dirty every days with a production CMS, databases, networks, application servers, etc.   I think it helps me write for InfoWorld with true perspective -- I'm dealing with the same things our readers deal with.  I'm sure many of my fellow IT professionals have read stories at various times in the technology press and thought, "This guy has obviously never done real IT."  Well, that gets to the second thing I like about working at InfoWorld: we stay very close to real IT. 

We make it a point to saturate ourselves in IT reality every day. Paul Krill writes about Apache, and Kevin Varley on our development team digs deeply enough into Apache to discover obscure bugs and bring them to the attention of the Apache team for fixing.  Cathleen Moore writes about the RSS and weblog standards debates, and Jon Udell helps define the direction of RSS.  InfoWorld runs a special report on fighting spam and includes a story from our own IT Manager Kevin Railsback on how we're fighting it on the ground with SpamAssassin on our live production network.  We write about weblogs and we do weblogs (with more to come).  I think staying engaged with technology in this very tangible way keeps us honest, and it's certainly fun for me.