Mar 20, 2009 | blog
I’ve been an IT guy for a darn long time, and as I’ve said before, it was a great career. I’m sure I’ll revisit it from time to time – I’m too much a tech-geek to abandon it completely. One thing I know from experience is that IT is many times a bigger bottleneck than we tend to admit. So as I move into new areas as an advocate for and a professional in social media I understand the issues from both sides of the fence.
Some folks scoff at how IT always seems to pull the security card on attempts to do new, inventive, creative things. It’s but one of many things that corporate IT departments have to consider when someone brings up something new. Other things can range from support costs (obviously) to recovering from disasters. New systems really do consist of much more than just buying and installing software.
Interestingly, it’s not always management in IT that causes the roadblock. In fact, IT leadership is often well equipped to be advocates of change in the organization. Even with tight budgets, IT is almost always looking to help position the company for growth. However, remember they’re biggest responsibility is to maintain existing systems and provide a secure, reliable environment.
So the question is then, how can you get IT to be interested and prioritize your project?
The answer is to get them involved early. Very early. In fact, they should be among your first stops when you’re looking for supporters and stakeholders. What usually happens with many a project is that the technology aspect get’s pulled in way too late for the project’s original timeline. All this does is turn it into another firedrill project with folks working long hours and weekends to make it happen.
However, if you get IT involved at the beginning, they’ll help with estimating real costs. They’ll help figure out realistic timelines. They will be a key part of making your project succeed.
Contrary to what you may think, Information Technology isn’t just about databases, operating systems and all the computers in the office, they too get excited about learning new things. The realization that social media, and new ways of doing business is important to them too.
Photo credit: Great Beyond
Jul 17, 2008 | blog
The more time I spend working in the Information Technology field, the more I see opportunities. Usually, it’s simply a an old technology being consumed by a newer one – like traditional telephones being taken over by VoIP phones on the corporate desktop. I’ve championed that notion for nearly a decade, and only now is that really happening at an increasing pace. Cool stuff if you get a chance to use it too.
However, that’s not what I see happening right now. It’s much simpler and much more fundamental than another Microsoft Windows server taking on another role from another team or technology. The changes that are afoot are at the root, the foundation of enterprise computing and it has a social media tie-in. I have a message for my peers in the Information Technologies field. Your world is already changing, and if you don’t see what’s happening, you’ll be left behind.
The change that’s taking place renders the corporate desktop as we know it, obsolete. The disparate servers, inefficient. This is something that I’ve been watching for some time, but only recently have seen some indications that convince me that the world has turned the corner.
What are these things that change the entire game? Why, virtualization, thin clients and “web 2.0” software of course. You already are talking about these things. You are probably working with a couple of them if not a combination of all in some way. What’s convinced me that IT ten years from now will be a wildly different landscape than it is today is the fact that virtualization works, thin clients are actually viable now, and “web 2.0” software is past the “wow” stage and into solving business needs. Add the idea that many software solutions don’t care if they run on Windows/Unix/Linux and you now have a broad base of reliable, sustainable open source systems to choose from.
There is also the introduction of Gen Y into the workforce, who bring a different expectation to work. By being more mobile, working remotely via the web, and having social media & networking as second nature, this workforce alone will bring an impressive amount of change.
So what is the bottom line I’m saying for corporate IT? I’m saying that the desktop as we know it is dead. Windows “7” may be the last “legacy” operating system to be deployed. Desktops will disappear completely as well as individual servers. Servers in general will all be virtual machines run from high availability clusters (OS does not matter) in remote data centers. If you don’t have room for one, it’ll probably be cost-effective to simply lease them from companies like Amazon and such.
While Microsoft Office will still be the “gold standard” that we compare things to, it will become irrelevant in the coming years as open source and online versions of this type of software bring more options faster, and simply chip away at the venerable office suite.
Windows itself will still remain – remaining a popular option for the consumer computing device, all of which will end up being the laptop format. Windows, along with OS X and a couple popular Linux distributions will continue to drive these machines, merging more business and entertainment functions together.
The coming change is huge, and with it the opportunities as well. Like the change that started 20 years ago where mainframe and minicomputers were starting to be replaced with microcomputers, our current definitions of enterprise computing will change radically in the next few years. Are you ready? Will you be a part of it? What else do you see?
Feb 7, 2008 | blog
Why is it that the very people who make all that wonderful technology work for your company don’t blog that much? That’s a question I’ve been curious about for the last few years. Yeah there are many technology bloggers, but I’m talking about people who staff the information technology departments around the world. Where are you guys? I find a few here and there, but there aren’t many.
I’ve suggested, recommended, given ideas and supported many of my fellow IT friends to help them find the value that blogging can bring. I’m continually confused at the explanations, or reasoning that people find not to. Answers like, “I can’t talk about work”, or “it’s not secure” and the one that still amazes me for many IT pros, “the Internet isn’t safe”.
Yeah, all those answers (and more) are true, but it shouldn’t keep you from engaging and bringing your expertise to the party. I’ve several friends who could bring a great deal to the blogosphere, some are true gurus on many aspects related to enterprise information technology implementation. The biggest limiting factor for most people really comes down to time.
Time is every bloggers most challenging aspect, but it’s no different than any other endeavor. How to balance, career, home life, and a blog is what we all battle every day as bloggers. However, there is so much reward that the challenge and the cost in time is worth the effort. Many of the IT people I know, are so busy with their current projects, that they can’t even get away from their desks at lunch time. What the heck is that about? Even during the most interesting and challenging projects, you need to allow yourself to think about other things.
If there is one thing I would pass on to fellow IT workers about blogging is that it allows a person to disengage a little bit. Writing about things that are interesting to you lets you exercise a bit of your mind that yearns for attention. It allows you to think in new directions, learning more about your interests as well as yourself.
Back to those excuses… yes they’re true to a certain degree, but their mainly just excuses. Kind of like finding reasons you didn’t do your homework back in high school. Come on, you can find more than the work aspect of IT to talk about – you do in person, why not on a blog? Not secure – talk about security if it’s a passion, make it interesting to the average person so they learn more about it. Don’t think the Internet is a safe place to bare your soul? Use a pseudonym – writers have done it for centuries and blogging is nothing different.
For some reason, IT is not where many bloggers are coming from lately, and I really would like to see that change. Maybe it’s just the circles I run in, or the market here in Minneapolis, MN that is a bit more conservative when it comes to voicing opinions. How about your IT friends? I’m looking for more IT bloggers! 🙂
Photo credit: Grant Mitchell
Technorati Tags: Information Technology, Bloggers, Information Technology Bloggers
Apr 5, 2007 | blog
Sorry for being a day late, I ran out of time yesterday!
Today was the wrap-up of the main conference, as only the post-con sessions are left. It’s always kind of a let-down because you know that its almost over. Alright, there actually were several good sessions today. Here’s my recap.
Session one was The File Server Is Dead: Implementing Windows SharePoint Services Document Libraries with Dan Holme of Intelliem. Obviously, the main point of Document Libraries is to store documents from the Office Suite since Office 2003/2007 can publish directly to the DL. Other uses are searching documents, wikis, lists, RSS feeds, email notification, email publishing, collaboration, document visioning, the list can seem endless if you want to add 3rd party extensions. Very good session.
Session two called Goodbye RIS, Hello WDS presented by Jeremy Moskowitz of Moskowitz, Inc. covered Windows Deployment Services. Jeremy delivered a heck of a session diving into the differences of RIS to WDS, and how to leverage WDS for not only Vista and Longhorn, but also XP and 2003. Topics covered ranged from creating and managing boot images, to images, image groups, post install configuration, answer files, WinPE, BDD, and a smattering of useful tools for the enterprising admin.
After the coffee break, I went to Volume Activation 2.0 in Vista and Longhorn Server, hosted by Sean Deuby of Intel. A very interesting and very misunderstood feature of Windows Vista and Windows Longhorn is the activation schemes used by Microsoft. Sean demystified the process and the technology involved. There are several methods used for system activation and a good system architect will need to understand the needs of the business to decide on the best option. One learning from this – Volume Activation will be as important to your infrastructure as DHCP – prepare now. This was one very educational session, whether anyone wanted to hear it or not. Thanks Sean for delivering on a very difficult topic!
After the lunch break it was on to session four of the day. Cracking the DaVista Code: The Best Things You’re Not Using in Vista with Mark Minasi. This session delved into the hidden (or little-known) features of Windows Vista. Mark talked about things like the take ownership tool, elevated explorer, use of ALT in explorer, backup tools, using WinPE to backup systems to a network, tags & indexing, new built-in tools like RoboCopy, restoring missing UI features, new Windows Logo key shortcuts, resizing partitions, WAIK. All that and much, much more. If you ever get a chance to attend a Mark Minasi session – do it, he’s entertaining and educational. A hard combination to find in many seminars.
Finally, after another break, this time for ice cream :), it was the final session of the day (and main conference), the Q&A Closing Session. Here, all the speakers were available for any question (and many debates!) on attendee questions. As usual, there was several lively discussions on many topics, with much input from the presenters as well as the attendees because of so many ways business use technology, and simply perceive certain issues. Very fun!
Tomorrow is the post-conference session Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) Web Content Management with Bob Mixon.
Update: Bob Mixon had broken his ankle earlier in the day and the session had to be canceled. I transferred in to a different session on IT Provisioning with Dan Holme – more tomorrow.
Technorati tags: Windows Connections, Dan Holme, Jeremy Moskowitz, Bob Mixon, Mark Minasi, RIS, WDS, SharePoint, WinPE, Business Desktop Deployment, BDD, WAIK
Apr 3, 2007 | blog
Here are some pictures, many of the resort, from the first half of my stay at the Hyatt Grand Cypress for the Connections 2007 conference. Yes, these were taken with my T-Mobile MDA – sorry for the poor quality, I had forgotten my real camera!
Technorati tags: Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort
