IT Business

Observations from my 2009 Crystal Ball

I figure I might as well join the ranks of the forecasters for the upcoming year – heck, what good is a New Year if not to look ahead at what might be?  My 2009 crystal ball is multi-colored and multi-dimensional, pointing to the need for IT talent with a wide range of skills.  Given the current (and projected) economic climate, it seems only natural that an individual with broad experience will find their opportunities less limited than the narrowly focused and experienced individual.  Just because the economic climate is poor doesn’t really eliminate many real needs that companies have and are looking for from their IT departments.  Multi-talented individuals can help the department do more with less if that individual is used to potential.

In 2009 I see more attention being paid to training existing IT staff in new areas rather than looking to hire from the outside.  There is no argument that budgets will be tight to non-existent.  Management will certainly  be looking to chop costs anywhere they can without risking failure of the operations.  I suspect that IT departments who to this point have been reluctant to join the virtualization bandwagon will be forced to train staff and begin implementing virtualized systems.  There have been many case stories showing that huge savings can be achieved - not only with hardware savings, but also support and staff.

My crystal ball does show a lot of activity — like a storm at sea, there is churning of the waters and constant change.  Certainly there will be loss of IT jobs as projects get canceled.  What I see for the future is that many will find they have to get training that perhaps they do not yet have.  I suspect that 2009 will see more hiring from the smaller companies than the large ones - which will mean fewer hires overall and more unemployment.  Some IT workers used to large operations may have to be satisfied working in smaller environments and keeping much busier than they’re used to. 

End of Year Squeeze

I’ve never really established what phenomenon is at work come December but it seems that throughout my time as a software developer and IT manager, December has always been a particularly busy month.  This December has been no exception, although not all of the “busy-ness” has been due to programming that I’m invo0lved with.

At least some measure of the activity has often been around getting new equipment configured and the application installed, users created and all the various pieces of “technicality” that goes along with adding or replacing a server.   Come December many are able to “lighten up” their workloads and enjoy the holiday season with long lunch hours, after work “get-togethers” with co-workers, extra time off (catching up on vacation time not taken), or just plain “easy going” for a while.

However, IT never sleeps!  This economy which is demanding that we do more with less surely won’t help those of us in IT have an easy December.  What there is for us to do, however, is to just make the very best of whatever “breaks” we get during this holiday time — and enjoy every minute of the time.  One of my earliest employers used to quip “Work hard, Play hard!” — I’m up for that as soon as I figure out when play time starts!  

Another IT Moment for the Developer

Some years ago I worked very hard to extricate myself from the “hardware” issues which I found myself having to deal with instead of developing — which (at least most of the time) I love doing!  Dealing with “hardware” however I do NOT love doing.  Then comes the panic call — customer down, application partially unavailable, state auditors coming in for 3 weeks of audit just after the Thanksgiving holiday!

Result? — deep into the throes of a hardware issue I go — day before the Thanksgiving holiday  (timing is everything!), was looking forward to knocking off a bit early — but… not to be!  So I meet with my friend (also their hardware guy) and we head to the site.  It seems that communication between their office and main operations facility is not working.  It is normally linked via a fiber optic cable running the 300 feet or so between buildings.  Now, I inherited this installation which was done some 8-9 years ago, and until today hadn’t had to do anything with it.  In fact, it has been at least that long since I connected my last site.

Our challenge for the day was to get the 2 very different media converters talking with each other — without being able to test either of the original units to determine which had gone bad.  This would be somewhat of a trial and error operation.  When replacing the unit on one end, testing for link and having none, we were dismayed since it had been a power “issue” in the remote building that had caused the original outage, which led us to believe that it was the unit in that building which “must” have gone south with the power.  However, in desperation we decided to try replacing the unit we “thought” to be the good one.  Well, imagine our surprise to find that by replacing that unit we had communication!  It was a beautiful thing!

Moral of this story?  Sometimes the independent software developer must wear other hats.  Customer service is primary — while this long term customer of my friend is a relatively new customer of mine, the task they needed accomplished took the skills of both myself with my experience and knowledge set, and that of my friend “the hardware guy”.  Together we were successful, and our customer who was seriously behind the eightball as a result of the failure is now able to work efficiently again.  I expect they will continue to be a loyal customer.

Cynical Thoughts of an Independent Software Developer

My hope is that all my readers will forgive me for my recent lack of blog writing, as I have been very busy on behalf of all independent developers while flying my personal jet (…shown here) to congress to lobby for a bailout bill for independent business owners.  Unfortunately my travel has brought me away from my sprawling Texas mansion now being rebuilt along the shores of Galvaston Bay (…no internet access), as well as my soon to be rebuilt home in the hillside of California which was burned to its foundation, a complete loss during the recent fires out there.  These events have also, of course, meant that I have had to spend countless hours fighting with insurance companies which are of course going broke in this economy and also looking for money from congress so as to continue “business as usual”.  (I find that not getting insurance money due me really IS business as usual however! — so why do they need the money anyway?). 

While my personal jet is well-equiped and of the latest design (…as pictured here), the bad economic times have meant that I have cut back on the $4/minute use of internet access while traveling — I just simply refuse to spend that kind of money — and of course, I told my lobbyists in Washington and they thoroughly understood my concerns here!  Unfortunately my best efforts have apparently done nothing to change the situation for us as independent developers in an economy seemingly tanking each day, riddled with job cuts, and clouded with uncertainty.

Bottom line fellow readers is this — we’ll have to keep working hard (…when we have work) until at least 2040, by which time we’ll recognize this period as “the best of times”!  We’ll long for the “good old days” of today.  In the meantime what there is for us to do is to continue to express the value of efficient applications, tailored to the business model, and flexible enough to provide for changes in that business model as they inevitably arise.

IT and the Business Student

I had an experience this week!  It was one of those unplanned “moments” where it seems that the universe aligns and presents an opportunity for the taking.  This is the story of an experience involving a grand-daughter (student) and a “grampy” (IT blogger).  You might guess the personalities involved here

A chance set of circumstances aligned such that the “grampy” in our story had an opportunity to transport subject grand-daughter back to her college with what was expected to be a 3-5 hour drive depending on the traffic involved.  The travel day was beautiful, the traffic light, and the trip started off with little conversation (…it was still quite early in the morning!). 

As the trip progressed subject grand-daughter began to think about what she was going back to at school — including her IT course which she began to fret about — saying that it was a required course for business students at her school and that she just wasn’t understanding any of it.  She expressed concern that the book seemed so technical - and that she couldn’t seem to understand all the various acronyms - what they meant - and what they did.  All just seemed to be one big mystery to her!  She expressed concern about not being able to “see” or “visualize” such things as a LAN or a WAN — never mind the possible array of components that might exist within them!

Her frustration came through loud and clear!  Enter the “Grampy IT Guy!”  Now it just so happens that at the very moment that she was communicating her concerns they were less than an hour away from the IT department subject “Grampy” recently retired from.  A quick call to said company IT Manager (MIS as they refer to it), and reassuring said IT Manager that there was no intention of pointing said student toward the IT ratrace as a career — a stop at the old company for an IT department “visualization” and Grampy’s IT 101a course was scheduled.

The extent of the value of said stop remains to be seen, and can probably never be quantified – but what subject Grampy realized from the event was in fact valuable — first, that as an IT guy there are a lot of assumptions made regarding understanding, secondly, presenting IT to the business student provides a valuable foundation for the inevitable future contact with IT in business, and third that moving beyond the “book” learning adds significant value to the education.