August 31, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Cozying Up to Dictators and Hooligans
Wow. Do anyone think that it is a co-incidence that Tibet is not available in Google Earth? How interesting. It seems that 'Do No Evil' really should be 'Do no evil, as long as it isn't too hard'. What courage. What crap.
I might just be a tired, bitter old Internet had, but this type of hypocrisy cannot stand -- eventually, even Google will suffer from their hubris. And I hope so -- not because I'm jealous (well, maybe not too jealous), and not because I don't like/use their products, it's just the sanctimonious attitude that they have taken cries out to be adjusted -- a humiliation is in order. Then, cooler, saner minds might prevail there.
Otherwise, I think we are descending into some Orwellian morass, where simple phrases like 'Do No Evil' actually mean the opposite. I hope not.
Posted by Paul T. Ryan on August 31, 2006 08:41 AM
July 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)
It's the 4th of July (Happy 4th!), and as I was pondering all of the great gifts that have been passed down to us here in the U.S.A., my thoughts drifted to lots of other things that we shouldn't be thankful for -- a sort of hit list for really bad ideas that seem to keep re-appearing periodically. So here's a list of 10 bad ideas that piss me off this glorious 4th of July:
1. Format Wars. Am I the only person that believes that format wars are counterproductive and basically futile? The poster-child of a lost effort in this type of war is Sony (remember Betamax). And as we all know, they are in the midst of another one (which they will lose also) with Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD. Everyone knows the outcome -- the more capable and technically sophisticated format (Blu-ray) will lose out to the cheaper (and faster to market) alternative (HD-DVD).
2. If You Build It, They Will Come. We all know about the blazing success of web sites like YouTube, My Space, digg. Everyone gets excited when phenomena emerge that have $0 consumer acquisition costs (i.e. buzz does the work). Then comes that hard part -- "Is this a business?" Remember Friendster? $0 consumer acquisition costs are meaningless of the revenue per consumer is $0, and the variable cost of a consumer is even infinitesimally greater than $0. Who thinks You Tube will be around in 12 months? Any takers?
3. Planning for Upgrading to Vista. When/if it ever launches, all of the cool stuff either has been taken out (WinFS), or will require too much horsepower to be worth it (interface). Is anyone planning to launch Vista in the enterprise?
4. Google FUD. Have you heard this -- "Hey -- we can't do that because Google is going to do it!" Google is the FUD machine (the approach to technology innovation quashing perfected by IBM in the 70's). Who really believes that a single player can dominate all aspects of the Internet, computing, life in general. Go ahead -- launch your business and/or product. Google can't do everything (although they can scare everyone). Google Checkout will not destroy eBay (but it might destroy Yahoo! Search Marketing).
5. Paying for Infrastructure Software. Pay for applications, not infrastructure. Why use Oracle 10g when MySQL is just fine for most applications. Why buy an application server when JBoss will do? Get over your need to play golf at Pebble Beach with your Oracle rep -- spend you money on applications, application development, not infrastructure.
6. Believing That 'IT Doesn't Matter'. Nicholas Carr did the IT world a disservice not because of his research, or potentially his conclusions, but for the tagline that is inanely parroted through the halls of corporate America. Yes -- people have over-invested in potentially irrelevant technology, sold features to the business rather than the business benefits of technology. Mea culpa. That doesn't men that technology will become exactly like the power utilities, or irrelevant to corporate strategy. If you believe (and implement this), your more nimble and tech-savvy competitors will focus on using technology to create advantage, and will eat your lunch.
7. Believing What You Read. Whenever you hear 'I read on a blog..", just ignore the rest of the statement (except if it is ITXtreme :-). Unless you like creative fiction, most of the stuff that you read is lies, damm lies, and outright fabrications.
8. Blaming Technology for Human Issues. Take the favorite whipping boy today -- myspace.com. Any product that allows user contribution and communication can be used by bad people to hurt people. It's not the technology's fault -- it's human nature's fault.
9. Cool Ideas Matter Most. Execution matters -- I'm tired of the resurgence of the irrational exuberance of fun new things on the web. But we all know that if any of these new businesses will succeed, it will be based mostly on their ability to execute.
10. Making Your Customers Criminals is a Good Idea. There are too many examples of this -- the RIAA suing teenagers rather than creating a business model/product that works for them, and Microsoft's impending 'Windows Genuine Advantage' meltdown this fall are two examples that come to mind. When did prosecuting your customers become a good idea? what ever happened to meeting the customer's needs with an appropriate product? The laziness of the telcos in the entire net neutrality debate smacks of this also (i.e. calling out 'free-loaders' on the web, as if paying $50 a month for unguaranteed bandwidth is not a telco scam).
I'm sure the list could continue, but enough for now.
Posted by Paul T. Ryan on July 4, 2006 11:50 AM
April 26, 2006 | Comments: (0)
How many times per day do you hear (in the work environment):
1) Flagrant malaprops,
2) Confused and erroneous mispronunciations,
3) Bad grammar,
4) Incorrect usage.
What is going on? I realize that as technologists we're not the most language-savvy people out there. I also realize that offense is in the ear of the beholder (i.e. most people notice other people's offenses first). But I think language skills are degenerating at a rapid pace.
Now before you say "This doesn't matter!", listen to a few examples that I've heard in the halls of corporate America:
"That issue is mute." -- Does he mean that we shouldn't talk about it (a little scary) or that the issue is irrelevant (or moot).
"That's just antidotal information." -- Does the information cure somethings, or is it a one-off bit of information (anecdotal).
"We need to flush this out." Should we get rid of something, or describe it in further detail (flesh).
"For all intensive purposes." Should we do something when we need intensity, or is something equivalent to something else (intents and purposes).
These abuses of the language are not coming from the hoi polloi, but the senior management at some very large companies that you would recognize. It always has bugged me -- most of the time I bite my tongue and keep quite. To hell with that -- let's try and elevate everyone's game a bit and TAKE A BIT MORE CARE in our language.
Of course, this opens me up to all kinds of analysis of my own imperfections. Have at it!
Posted by Paul T. Ryan on April 26, 2006 08:50 AM
April 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)
How many times have you heard this:
"I read that book -- technology is not strategic to corporations anymore. We should just spend less".
and
"CIO should be good generalists -- and not technologists."
The book that people refer to is the really the glorified article (now book) by Nicholas Carr entitled "IT Doesn't Matter". Like a lot of books that people quote, most people haven't read it, but purport to understand (and proclaim) the central thesis.
The point that Carr makes (albeit in circuitous way) is that technology, applied haphazardly (and not strategically) is a waste of time and money. Technology for technology's sake is the modus operandi of most CIOs, and as a result, there is little correlation to IT spending and competitive advantage of a business.
This should not be too earth-shattering for most people. Any technology (and by technology, I mean the more broad term that means any tools and techniques to accomplish a goal) not properly applied to a problem is a waste of time.
And the claim that technology-focused CIOs fall into the trap of technology for technology's sake has some validity. But's let's examine the opposite -- CIOs that are not really technologists. What does this look like?
You might say that the CIO would have more empathy for the business as a whole (at least if they are not from a finance/accounting background) -- marketing, product, or any customer facing background has a better chance of aligning the CIO with the end customer. This also has some validity. But's let's examine the potential downside -- a CIO making potentially strategic technology decisions (yes -- some IT decisions are strategic) with little sense of the underlying approach validity). This is scary. I realize it's not much worse than a CIO who's last real technology encounter was Cobol, but I still can't believe that the actual IT decisions are made well, and in an informed state.
When I look at a buiness problem, it really helps to understand the underlying technologies that support the business processes, the potential technologies that could be used, and how they should be pieced together. Thats what I thought a CIO did.
Posted by Paul T. Ryan on April 7, 2006 09:24 AM
March 16, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Has this interaction ever happened to you:
User: "We want to start billing the customers by ..... (completely new way of billing, timing, etc.)
IT Pro: "That shouldn't be too hard -- write down what you want it to do, and we'll whip up a timetable."
...1 Week Passes...
User: "We're billing the new way starting today."
IT Pro: "WTF? Where are the requirements?"
User: "If you had built it right the first time, it probably could handle what we want to do today."
And so on.
Sound familiar? It's as if the user/product manager/end consumer/sponsor/whatever and the IT Pro are speaking a completely different language. A few cycles of this game, and you realize why the laborious labyrith of requirements, sign-offs, user acceptance testing software development wheel got started.
No matter how many times I run into this, I still get pissed off. If the damm users would only get a clue. There has to be a better way.
And there is. I suspect, however, that newer methods of rapid development and evolution of requirements (and verification of requirements with the end user) require TOO MUCH EFFORT for the lazy user. You actually have to think about what you want in software, and specify it clearly and frequently. But there's hope -- approaches such as Ruby-On-Rails help the rapid iteration and prototyping camp quite a lot. I guess I'm still an optimist at heart.
Posted by Paul T. Ryan on March 16, 2006 08:41 AM
March 14, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The Latest Hype Machine - Web 2.0
The Gartner Group has attempted to describe and quantify the technology 'hype cycle' -- a quite funny, yet all too realistic description of how new technologies are triggered, oversold, crash, then come home to roost (i.e. become a productive part of the technology toolkit).
Gartner has some great material on this -- worth the read.
Unfortunately, every time I see things like the crazy hyperbole surrounding the Web 2.0, I break out in a rash -- has everyone forgotten the hype of the late '90s?
Apparently not.
The crap that I see now being flogged as 'new' is astounding. Sites that have a little whizz-bang AJAX, or combine data sources for some interesting displays (the 'mashups'), are all now 'revolutionary'. What a load of hype. As if graphical display technologies, no matter how ubiquitously adopted, have ever really changed the state of computing. Mind me now -- I'm now talking about the great ascii-text shell to GUI divide, but rather the constant evolution from X11 to Aqua (my favorite). People are missing the point.
None of these businesses are sustainable -- their business plans all look like:
1 - Develop some unpronouncable name for the company
2 - Throw together some set of data and code to look cool
3 - 'Create' a revenue model based on AdSense, and most importantly,
4 - Sell it to Yahoo!
Try it yourself! It's liberating.
The point is -- the survivors of the first crash of the Internet craze have realized that the old Internet model -- get people to stay on you site forever in a sort of sticky goo-like mess of capabilities (read AOL) won't work, and that opening up your information for widespread use (syndication) is the only way to survive. The forerunners of this were people like Amazon who opened up their platform, and Google in the Google API. The re-discovery of XML in RSS, and the idea that we could have our systems exchange information (rather than rendering the data for me on a site) is the real revolution. And revolution it is -- not in the way that the 1,000's of new startups believe, but rather in the way we all design systems (either for the Internet or within the Firewall).
That is the real story here -- not the cool social networking sites, Google Maps applications, or other crap. Liberate your data, and the world is your oyster.
Posted by Paul T. Ryan on March 14, 2006 04:56 PM
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