IT fun

IT turkeys: Technology issues that we don’t give thanks for

The holidays are almost upon us, starting with Thanksgiving, the day we Americans reflect on the things we are thankful for in the past year. But what about things we aren’t thankful for? What about things we could have done without because, to be honest, they didn’t measure up to our expectations? What about - dare we say it? - the real turkeys we’ve encountered over the past year?

The following are 10 IT turkeys from 2008, culled from SearchCIO.com. Feel free to chime in with your own!

• CIOs kowtow to Wall Street, not users, study finds — Yeah, and look how well that whole bowing-down-to-Wall Street thing has gone for our country. I supported the bailout package, but I do have serious qualms about giving money to people who were apparently so far removed from Main Street. CIOs, don’t be sucked into the same cycle - first and foremost, cater to your users.

• Resume right or wrong? Readers react - Having a poorly constructed resume — especially in this job market — is a major turkey move. Don’t miss out on job opportunities that could have been yours because you didn’t put enough time into your resume. This story offers feedback from recruiters, consultants and former IT execs.

• CIOs must say no to generic IT - While a lot of IT folks understandably want to play it safe right now, generic IT continues to be a big turkey. Companies can use IT to create differences that make them stand out in the marketplace and to customers in tough economic times, but only if they’re willing to take some risks in order to reap the rewards.

• Indian offshoring firms raise rates; costs often hidden - For a while, and in spite of inflationary pressure, Indian providers kept rates in line, knowing that cost remains the chief draw for going offshore. But that’s been changing, according to this piece. Hidden outsourcing costs? Definitely not something to be thankful for.

• PCI DSS compliance requirement looms but lacks punch, critics charge - Being lax about compliance can certainly dampen one’s holiday cheer - just ask Hannaford Bros., which saw a very public (and very embarrassing) data breach this year.

• Forrester: 10 mistakes that will sink a strategic plan — A good IT strategic plan addresses real needs that stakeholders can see and understand. Failure to thoroughly think through your strategic plan is a big turkey move, and one a CIO can’t afford to take.

• Outsourcing deals no good if contract is weak - A lot of companies have looked overseas to save labor costs, but you won’t be thankful for the savings if your poorly constructed contract lands you in unanticipated legal or financial troubles.

• Angelina Jolie-inspired spam campaign signals disturbing network threats - Let’s be frank: Spam (the email variety) is never in vogue with 99% of the emailing population (I made up that stat, please don’t ask me to cite it). However, I hear Spam (the meat product) is making a comeback in these economic times - anybody planning a Spam turkey this Christmas?

• CIOs must learn to brand themselves despite stereotypes - Stereotyping is never really an acceptable workplace practice, so I’m bestowing turkey titles upon both those CIOs who don’t properly brand themselves in the workplace, and those who would look to stereotype them in the first place.

• IT and the recession: Focus on business strategy, smaller projects - The recession - duh. It’s probably the biggest turkey of them all right now. Hopefully, this is one turkey we won’t be talking about by next Thanksgiving - but who knows. Here’s a roadmap for IT executives looking to ride this downturn out.

Tired of my grousing? Check out the CIO Symmetry blog for associate editor Kristen Caretta’s list of technologies to be thankful for.

Halloween costumes for techies

In honor of Halloween, Kristen Caretta, associate editor of SearchCIO-Midmarket.com, and I decided to get a bit silly and dream up our top 10 Halloween costumes for the IT set. Wear these to your office party and wait for the compliments - or, possibly, eye rolls - to come in.

Without further ado:

• HAL, from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dress all in black and affix a red, glowing button to your chest, with a “Hello Dave” sign underneath. You’ve probably heard the rumor that the name HAL might have been derived from IBM … which offers me an excellent opportunity to direct you to our Halloween-themed podcast on SearchCIO-Midmarket.com, where IBM’s business continuity expert Pat Corcoran discusses IT lessons learned from horror movies.

• iPhone 3G - This could qualify as a “scary” costume in the sense that, “It’s scary how one technological behemoth is changing the way consumers look at mobile computing” (even if opinions on the iPhone’s application in enterprise are still, uh, mixed).

Sport a rectangular box (black or white if you’re going as a 16 GB model, black only if you’re going as an 8 GB model) with colorful icons pasted on it. Encourage party guests to try out your “apps”: ask them to sing a song, and try to identify it, a la Shazam or Midomi. Or make restaurant recommendations in their neighborhood. Or provide them with the latest scores for their favorite sports teams. The possibilities are endless. And maybe you’ll even be lucky enough to run into a party guest dressed as Google’s G1 Android phone and get a competition going….

• Cloud computing: Strap a big, clear bag containing cotton around your midsection, and walk around all evening with a laptop tucked under your arm. When people ask about your costume, explain that you’re to thank for Google Apps and the like.

• A credit card: Infamous data breaches the past couple of years at Hannaford Bros. Co. and The TJ Maxx Cos. have caused some consumers to think twice before paying via credit. Dress up as a Visa or Mastercard, and let everybody know that you’re interested in transacting with only the 50% of businesses that are compliant with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.

• A telecommuter - Show up in your pajamas and slippers and explain that you’ve been slaving away at “the home office” all day. Make it clear that, no, you haven’t been laid off - CIOs report that they’re actually relatively secure in their jobs despite the current financial crisis.

Want to know the other five? Visit SearchCIO-Midmarket.com’s CIO Symmetry blog. And feel free to chime in with your own suggestions!

Can you bring up “beach read” and “business book” in the same breath?

So, who’s off to the beach this weekend - or even slinking out of the office a few hours early today? If you’re like me and need to get your mind off work and enjoy a good beach read (I’ve got a travelogue in my queue), check out Amazon’s summer reading suggestions.

But, if you’re still thinking about work during your time off, Amazon has also pulled together a whole list of business books. Light beach reading? Probably not, but you know best!

That reminds me of the Leadership Award profiles we did over at SearchCIO-Midmarket.com. If you scroll toward the bottom of our Q&As, a lot of our interviewees mentioned that they were still reading business books, journals and magazines in their spare time, but some mentioned other selections as well - be sure to check out some of their suggestions.

Feel free to share any of your favorites by leaving a comment below! And have a great 4^th!

How well do you know your Facebook friends?

How many of you (or your organizations) have Facebook profiles? I do, so the following might come off sounding kind of hypocritical, but I’m uncomfortable with a lot of the Facebook culture. 

You know what I’m talking about: the once-private planning between two people that now takes place via Facebook’s “wall” feature so that everybody knows about that dinner tonight at the Olive Garden at 8, or the way people use “status updates” to share their latest triumphs and tragedies with 500 of their closest “friends.”

Facebook is one of the leaders in this Web 2.0 revolution, and it’s obviously not going anywhere: I just Googled Facebook and got 4.36 million results and, according to this story, it’s adding a quarter-million users per day.

I’m fairly tech savvy and enjoy scrolling through photos and updates in my friends’ profiles, so I’m not exactly sure why this bothers me like it does. Facebook really is a great way to keep tabs on old friends without having to personally email or call each and every one of them. And some organizations are creating networks and profiles for current and potential employees to join, creating a unity across companies that maybe didn’t exist before.

But I guess, to me, Facebook also seems like an extension of the paparazzi culture that has made stars out of people like Paris Hilton and the cast of The Hills. It’s not enough for people to just live their lives and let the people who matter to them know if they’re attending a particular party or whether they resemble Sawyer more than any other Lost character. No, even the most mundane details and updates are sent out over a “news feed.”

I am actually really glad that Facebook’s not going anywhere. I just hope that people - especially those who have never known a non-Facebook world - understand the difference between a “friend” and a “Facebook friend.” And I hope organizations can continue to find new ways to leverage Facebook to boost their business advantage, as LinkedIn has done so well.

Title Town – it’s all in the stats

I don’t look anything like a basketball player, or even the stereotypical fan. I’m 4′11″. I prefer high heels and dresses to jerseys and sneakers. Even some of my closest friends said they didn’t realize that I grew up as - and continue to be - such a hardcore Boston sports fan.

Yup, I was watching every minute of the Boston Celtics’ often frustrating but ultimately incredible playoff run, which reached a pinnacle when they won the NBA Championship last Tuesday by blowing out the Los Angeles Lakers, 131-92, to take the series four games to two. I went out at 12:30 a.m. that night and heard people honking their horns and celebrating in the streets. I watched Kevin Garnett’s instant-classic “Anything is Possible!”/”Top of the World!” interview over and over. I even braved the crowds and chased down duckboats in the “rolling rally” victory parade Thursday.

Ah, it’s good to live in Title Town. (And for all you haters: Dude, we put up with an 86-year-curse and the biggest letdown in NFL history, not to mention horrid New England winters and Mitt Romney as governor. We have every reason to celebrate our successes.)

The Celtics’ win was made all the sweeter by their underdog status entering the NBA Finals. Over at the venerable ESPN.com, nearly every analyst selected the Lakers to crush the Celtics in this series. Who could have predicted the Celtics’ astounding performance?

Well, Michael Gliedman, for one. He’s the senior vice president and CIO of the NBA and, according to this article, one of the driving forces behind the NBA’s Lenovo +/- Stat. Now in its second year, The Lenovo Stat demonstrates the power of teamwork by showing the point differential when various combinations of players are on the court. Lenovo Stat information is collected courtside on Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablets by statisticians who log about 500 pieces of data during each game. The data is then delivered to a Sysbase database at the NBA’s data center in New York for analysis before being uploaded to the NBA.com site and other distribution points, Gliedman says.

At the beginning of the Finals, the Lenovo Stat ranking showed the Celtics’ starting five outscoring the Lakers’ starting five by a 13-point margin. That’s a pretty hefty advantage - and it doesn’t even take into account X-factor performances like Leon Powe’s monster 21-point showing in Game 2, or the Celtics bench’s key role in the Game 4 24-point comeback.

The Lenovo Stat’s applications don’t end there: Gliedman said that the NBA plans to enhance it in the future so that fans can create “dream matchups” - for instance, a showdown between the Celtics’ championship squads from 1986 and 2008. Larry Legend vs. Paul “The Truth” Pierce? Now that’s what I call fantasy basketball.

I know ESPN.com already lives by statistics, but maybe some of its analysts should check out Lenovo Stat prior to making their next round of playoffs predictions - and before coming down so hard on my hometown boys.

Oh, and by the way: The Celtics are already 7-2 favorites to win the title next year, too.