Month: June 2007

Grumpy Old Men of IT (GROMIT)

Jimmy and Grandad riding highI’m wondering whether I am being subversively recruited into a secret club that is solely for people who have been around IT for more than 20 years and are entering the Grumpy Old Men phase.

No one has explicitly mentioned the secret club, it’s a secret club after all. It’s just a feeling I have.

I keep finding myself in conversations where I am engaged by someone of a similar age for the sole purpose of reminiscing about the good old days of IT and how these new kids really haven’t a clue. 

Without even thinking about it I find myself sucked into telling stories of these supposed “good old days” and working myself into a state of grumpiness. I’ve started to call these people and the secret society “GROMIT” (Grumpy Old Men of IT).

I wonder whether there is a minimum age for the secret club at 40 and that I am being groomed for the time when I pass this milestone in a few months time.

The exchanges between myself and the members of GROMIT seem to go nearly always go a bit like this:

GROMIT: “Why can’t the operations team keep this equipment updated with all of the patches.” (or some other similar issue)

Me: “We do seem to be making hard work of it.” (I’m being lured in)

GROMIT: “It never used to be this difficult. When we used to do it we just got on with it and sorted it out. I knew the configuration of everyone of the systems I looked after and they were always up-to-date.” (Spot the trap)

Me: “Yes, I think we learnt some hard lessons that they don’t seem to learn these days.” (I’ve now completely taken the bate)

GROMIT: “Do you remember working in the old building.”

Me: (Getting reeled in now) “Oh yes. Do you remember the old Mainframe Sysprogs who sat in the back corner. There was no way you would mess with their system unless you were sure about what you were doing. You checked things and double checked them. There just doesn’t seem to be the rigor these days.”

And of we go to grumpy land.

Am I just getting old and grumpy? Are you a fellow grumpy?

Do you ask questions like:

  • Why does it take so many people these days?
  • Why can’t these kids get it right the first time around?
  • Where are all of the old disciplines?
  • Why are we still having to learn these lessons?
  • Why do none of these kids understand the whole system anymore?

Does GROMIT exist? If it doesn’t, should it?

BBC: Blackberry ban for French elite

Jimmy and Grandad take a trip to LondonThe BBC are reporting on a ban on Blackberry use for French Officials:

“French government officials have been ordered not to use handheld Blackberry devices amid fears that foreigners could spy on them, reports say.

Workers in the French president’s and prime minister’s office have been told their e-mails risk falling into foreign hands, Le Monde newspaper reports.

France’s SGDN security service is worried because Blackberries use US- and UK-based servers, the paper says.”

What I found interesting about this article wasn’t the erroneous security issues but this statement:

“But some officials are flouting the ban and using them in secret, it adds.

“They tried to offer us something else to replace our Blackberries but it doesn’t work,” one unnamed official told the paper.”

This is another example of the strength of User Innovation. These officials are really important people who should be very concerned with security. Their need to communicate is greater than their need to obey by the rules. I’ve witnessed similar behaviour in many organisations; people needing to get things done doing whatever it takes to get it done. If the French security services can’t stop people working outside the defined security envelope what chance to other organisations have.

The thought of all these French officials using these things in secret conjures up all sorts of clandestine images for me. I’m imagining lots of people in dark glasses and overcoats congregating down dark alleys to feed their addiction. Others are sitting next to each other in a public place agreeing the sign for the time when they should surreptitiously leave. Such is their need.

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Virtual Earth gets terrain

Microsoft’s Virtual Earth has integrated terrain for Great Britain.

A couple of examples.

The view of Scafell from Great Gable:

The view of Catbells and the Jaws of Borrowdale from Friars Crag:

Google earth has had terrain for a while, but this would appear to be more detailed than their offering (but not a lot)

I’m bigging this one up because it has come to Great Britain first, I always like it when we are ahead .

Bang goes a whole load more hours looking at things for no real purpose.

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"You Know" my new "Err"

ButtermereI have discovered myself doing something that I find very annoying when others doing it. It’s terrible.

My new habit is the insertion of the phrase “you know” into sentences where they aren’t required or even adding value.

“Hello, you know, my name, you know, is Graham, you know.”

I used to use “err”, but somewhere along the line I’ve taken on my new tick.

I was aware of this prior to today, but today I have become acutely aware of the level of annoyance that it causes. During a lunchtime walk I was listening to a podcast I had downloaded from IT Conversations. The person answering questions used the “you know” even more than I do, and it was so annoying that I turned it off even though it was an interesting piece.

That leaves me with the question of how I eradicate this tick. I don’t think I want to replace it with another one, because that would just be as annoying. Perhaps I just need to speak slower and with more thought and in so doing remove it before it gets out of my mouth, you know.

Frustrated with search

Trees, treesToday I am very frustrated that I cannot find what I am looking for.

I remember reading an article the other day about the declining number of people who use web based e-mail. It included a really interesting chart to demonstrate the relative decline of the various options (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.). I wanted to refer to this chart in another post I want to write today, but I can’t find the article.

I would normally have tagged it in del.icio.us if I thought I was going to refer to it again, but I haven’t.

I flag a lot of things that I might go back to in feedburner too, but I haven’t.

So it’s off to Google, Live Search, and the rest, but they aren’t telling me what I want to know. They want to point me to sites that discuss the relative merits of each one, but that’s not what I want. I want a chart that I know I’ve seen, but can’t communicate through the interface available to me what it is I require. I can’t communicate the concept or my impression of what I remember. I’m stuck trying to find the combination of words that get me to an answer.

I’m also left with the feeling of inadequacy that comes when I know I should have done something (del.icio.us) but didn’t.

Search still has a long way to go. If these systems know so much about me, why don’t they remember something that I found interesting? Why do I need to tell them that I found it interesting? Why can’t I see all of the pages that I actually bothered to read in the last few weeks? There won’t be that many of them. Most of the data I trawl through is only scan read, very little is read in detail.

Time to go and think about something else, it may come back to me then. The brain does something that none of these IT systems do yet, it carries on processing something even when I’m not thinking about it. But then I might be worried about the privacy issues.

Count Your Blessings #105 – Maturing Long-term Investments

It's Blosom TimeThere are some decisions in life that lead you into a long term commitment buying a house, setting married, having children.

There are many negative ways of looking at these commitments; burdens, strings, ties, loads. But I prefer to view them as investments with a long-term payback.

Recently to have started to see some of those investments taking on a new level of maturity.

Jonathan has started a part time job in a local shop after school & on Saturdays. The way he has approached work has been great. It has been very mature. He could have gone in and told everyone how wonderful he was, but he didn’t. He recognised that his first job was to make the tea and the coffee. He was humble enough to recognise what his role was. The long-term investment of parenting is maturing.

Emily has recently been doing SATS. she’s decided that she wanted a desk in her room, somewhere to work. And work she has, in a very mature way. More parental investment paying off.

These important investments, and it’s great to see them maturing.

Microsoft Sales Toolkit (UK)

Picnic by DerwentwaterA number of people have seen me using a book called “Microsoft Sales Tool Kit” recently. It’s a great reference tool for all of the Microsoft technologies from a sales perspective. While I’m not normally in the role of direct sales, it’s very useful to know how the technology is likely to be sold by others.

If you are interested then you can order one from here: www.microsoft.com/uk/gearup.

If you subscribe to receive updates you get a real paper book, it’s also available for download .