answerable to the customer

This, I believe, is one reason why Pablo decided he wasn't right for the job. It seems to me there were fundamental differences of opinion about this topic within the upper echelon. But that's just me looking upward.

The biggest problem with these sort of claims is that the terms are always murky. Ask students if they want a robust and stable wireless network. They say yes and leave their laptops at home, opting instead to position for limited machines in the clusters.

"Technology" continues to mean something very different to our students. Each year (each week?) the term encompasses more than instructors, researchers, and technologists can effectively process. What you're left with is a gap between expectation and reality. I don't know that the gap can ever be closed.

my my myths

If IT was at the curriculum design table, SU would be a much "richer" university -- in all the ways the term applies. Great article, but I'm not sure I see IT being the driver. Maybe the facilitator -- the conduit -- but not the driver.

Myth One: Is this guy a closet Compositionist?

Myth Two: This keeps instructional designers and instructional technologists up at night.

Myth Three: Oh yeah, ask any parent trying to pry the game controller from their 11 year old kid's pale white hand.

more randomness

To those who know me, don’t ever – ever – allow me to bad mouth Jim Boeheim again. This team is not that good, but they knocked off Florida and Kansas in two days. They are, however, better coached than 25 teams ranked ahead of them in the pre-season, and every team with the exception of UConn in the Big East pre-season rankings. I’ve seen them play more man-up in the last two nights than I’ve seen over the last 20 years. Uncle Jim is coaching to the talent on the floor, like great coaches do.

Have you seen the first couple of ESPN games with The General doing analyst work? He has forgotten more about the game of basketball than the average person will ever want to know. I’ve concluded that the people who don’t like Knight are the same people who talk like they know college hoops. Not to sound too ridiculous, but there is a beauty, rhythm, structure and – most importantly – history to the game that gets harder and harder to connect with. Knight is connected.

My sister and brother-in-law get major props for being Ball State Cardinals. This is not the same team that Rutgers shellacked last year in Toronto. Don’t count Buffalo out of the conference championship game in Detroit. Regardless of what The Idiotman says, Turner Gil is on the short list to replace G-Rob. Buffalo is a good defensive team, but holy crap, can Ball State spread the field.

Dilbert’s lock of the week: The Oregon St. Beavers over the Oregon Ducks for a Rose Bowl berth. The Beav’s haven’t been there since 1965. I like the nostalgia and the fact they have the best team name in college sports.

Dilbert’s lock prediction for March 2009: The Big East will absolutely dominate the early rounds of the tournament and have two teams in the Final Four.

Dilbert’s lock prediction for 2010: I will always hate the NBA for what it has done to the game of basketball. However, one cannot help but to be amazed at what Lebron James does – coast-to-coast, half-court, posting up, one-on-one. The Knickerbockers will get their smack together and put James on The Garden floor in 2010.

mittwoch randomness

The Good Doctor stepped aside. Not surprised, but a little put off by the lack of communication after the fact. I should come to expect the vaccum. Excited by the possibilities that top-level turn over brings. There is a core of young, smart, and deliberate technologists in place up there. We're still moving forward and that's always good.

Not surprised that SU squeeked by Richmond. The Spiders aren't that good. SU is that mediocre. Devenduh under judicial investigation. It's going to be a long NIT season Uncle Jim.

UNC is not that good -- even with The Savior suited up.

Great time of year, so you get to fly through the possibilities: I love all things about Texas Tech -- on the gridiron and the hardwoods. Don't ask me why. I spent one long miserable year in the armpit of the country and vowed to react with disgust to all things Texas. That was a long time ago. Before ESPN ruled the known world, before anyone could dream of the The General donning a sweater of deeper red, and long before I realized how hard college athlethes work to perform at the level that they do.

stupid statements - tell me i'm a moron

The argument Bob makes here is ridiculous and on a certain level quite insulting. His framework assumes that once an IT decision, strategy, policy, etc. is made (in his case, aligned with the business), it doesn't or cannot change. Maybe Bob has been blathering too long for pay.

The other thing that irks me about Bob's article is that I actually read it. I can't help but think he intentionally made a round of stupid comments to increase traffic to his blog. I've had similar suspicions about Nicolas Carr. I feel many of those suspicions have been validated by his recent apologist qualifications of his claim-to-fame deflating of the CIO and all strategic value relating to IT.

I know it's the nature of this navel gazing game. It reminds me of this most excellent comment on the state of online social space and the need to be heard.

It's a big void Bob. I recommend screaming loader, longer, and with a bit more ignorance.

remembering foucault

This article is hilarious in so many ways. It reminded me why I'm so intrigued by words, usability, and heuristics. It also reminded me that I actually did get something out of Michel Foucault and those painfully drawn-out course work discussions about structuralism, post-structuralism, and post-post-pokemeintheeyewithaforkism.

tell me about it

Kids aren't as stupid as we think they are.

This is why next year I'm going to have a single section of WRT 407 with fifty computer and electrical engineers. That's 50. My tizzy about how we're going to pull that off aside, I'm excited and inspired by the college's ability to be out in front this time.

virtually relative

This is why desktop virtualization is the darling of the moment. IT budget mongers are drunk on the possibility of the 10-year old desktop. Make my mine a double, no ice and a splash of water.

how bleak is bleak

Will Kelly may have it right - maybe. I think Scott has a better perspective. We will always have the group of technical writers who put a premium on the writing. From experience and anecdotal observation, these are the hacks who find themselves slogging through marcom dreck and dreaming about the next great American novel they'll never write. The tech writers who emphasize the tech are the writers who get the jobs. It may not be a sea change, but there are tech com programs that get it -- the move to develop more than a student's writing and editing skills in such a way that it's not a simple academic folly. Really bright people like Johndan get it and are moving the field in the right direction.

the carousel

I like Tom Johnson. I like this post. I don’t know if I agree completely with this comment:

Nowadays, tech writers are a dime a dozen. Companies hire them as needed and discard them when the immediate need is past. Companies will hire programmers and DBAs and QA personnel as regular employees because they have a direct effect on the process of turning out marketable product. But tech writers do not. So when a company reaches a point where it needs to field a help system or some other kind of documentation for customer use, they’ll hire a TW on a 6-month contract and when it’s over, he’s out the door.

Tom’s comment implies that at some point before “nowadays” there was a halcyon time of plentiful tech com jobs and 25 year stretches of employment with the same company. I don’t think this has ever been the case in the IT industries Tom invokes (programmers, DBAs, and QA personnel). Tech comm has always been and always will be expendable. It’s the nature of the practice and one of the consequences of business viability.

gotta make the donuts

Apparently, CIOs are increasingly being asked to do more than just IT. The shifting focus is on business projects. I'm sure there has been plenty already written about why the shift is taking place. I'm going to venture a few perspective-based guesses.

First guess: Most organizations suffer from a glut of leaders who read all the right books and talk all the right talk, but don't really know how to do much of anything. Most IT people cut their teeth on doing. The knowing got them hired. It's not likely that the organization seeks out the doer. Rather, the doer starts getting crazy over the inertia and just starts doing.

Second guess: No longer being considered a strategic asset, IT people have to find other ways to increase their value to their organizations. Business process improvement is a logical space and one that all organizations struggle with.

Third guess: IT people hate boredom and love to systematize everything.

It may not keep you off the chopping block, but the shifting focus does serve to keep you busy, satisfy short-term needs, and provide resume fodder for the next chapter.