IT

The Elegant Universe, LHC and Cyberinfrastructure

The Elegant Universe, LHC & Cyberinfrastructure…  what can you imagine before, by and beyond perfect vision leap year 2020?

On the continual journey from good to great, quality and value will increasingly become inherent.

Unit Test? Yes (also btw here’s a Diagnostic Tool that may help with moving from good to great)

Collins states going from good to great requires discipline (disciplined people, thought and action). Taking software quality from good to great likely requires some of the same (including relative to unit testing) while progressively building increased levels of fun. To some unit testing is common sense and their answer to “Is unit testing beneficial?” would likely be a form of yes, or that increasingly it should be (e.g., may help with ensuring value that is inherent, intrinsic and pervasive… for some projects or applications you may even say it would be critical and innately part of developing capability maturity and being socially responsible).

On a slightly different note here is a Diagnostic Tool that may help each of us along our respective journeys. Perhaps it can somehow be applied to help us along our collective one too as the IT profession moves from good to great and toward truly being built to last and increasingly more so for the benefit of all.

Top software tools of 2008 (look forward to reading the results)

Look forward to reading the results…

Send your product submissions to Editor@SearchSoftwareQuality.com by Friday, Dec. 12.

From Good to Great to Built to Last

A major launch related to the emerging global IT profession will happen in the coming year. Looking ahead more than a decade, 2020 could be a transition point, true leap year and time of more perfect vision that helps beam more value intrinsically and pervasively towards upcoming centuries.

At some juncture a future civilization (e.g., one that is perhaps even further enlightened) may look upon what we call the Dark Ages and say that 2020 was the start of the world coming out of the Gray Ages. 

Twain once conveyed the idea that a reader would have to discover their own order to a book. Perhaps this idea applies not only to readers.

From Good to Great to Built to Last. In an ironic twist, I now see Good to Great not as a sequel to Built to Last, but as more of a prequel. This book is about how to turn a good organization into one that produces sustained great results. Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature. To make that final shift requires core values and a purpose beyond just making money combined with the key dynamic of preserve the core / stimulate progress. — Jim Collins, Good To Great

To ensure IT, and even humanity, is progressively built to last, perhaps the purpose of each person and organization must be beyond making money and inherently interconnected to a mindset for goodness that preserves and enhances core principles while increasingly inspiring trust, empowerment, collaboration, alignment and progressive excellence.

Green, Fiction or Fact

When determining Green fact or fiction there may be value to looking in on what Gartner has to say, or in digging through an ITtoolbox CIO Knowledge Base, or in exploring BusinessInnovation and what may be included for “using IT as a catalyst to succeed”, or in using a calculator (e.g., perhaps from Nortel) to determine your possible energy efficiency savings, or in reading a free report within ITBusinessEdge, or in various ways to exploring GreenerComputing and “resources for environmentally responsible computing”.

In the past number of months of the current year has your Green movement (IT and corporate in general) made significant progress? For example perhaps progress relative to discerning Green fact from fiction. Ideally your efforts (and the efforts of many including hardware and other vendors) will increasingly bring about improved clarity and positive results that are progressively and continually more intrinsic and pervasive before, by and beyond 2020.

Thank you for all you do; and for helping the world increasingly become one on matters of high purpose. Green IT and beyond!

Earlier this year, Garner Inc. highlighted 10 key predictions that would affect IT and business decisions in 2008 and beyond. Three of the items on the list were:

• “By 2009, more than one-third of IT organizations will have one or more environmental criteria in their top six buying criteria for IT-related goods.”
• “By 2010, 75 percent of organizations will use full lifecycle energy and CO₂ footprint as mandatory PC hardware buying criteria.”
• “By 2011, suppliers to large global enterprises will need to prove their green credentials via an audited process to retain preferred supplier status.” ¹

(source)

The positive affect IT is having and increasingly can have

When you look within the progress of your IT vendors (database, application, hardware or other) it is likely you will see them striving in one regard or another to make a world of difference. For example perhaps see this 2006 internetnews.com piece about OpenWorld, or this 2006 news as part of Oracle Global Volunteer Days, or coming closer to the present see this piece about the Volunteer Days in 2007 or this page about Oracle Corporate Citizenship.

The positive affect IT is having and increasingly can have on intrinsically and pervasively evolving quality and quality of life around the world is endless and some may even say virtually miraculous. To Oracle, and all within the IT Industry, who continually strive to make the world a better place, Thank You for all you do. Inherently your quality and your contributions to what quality increasingly can mean on a global scale, are the key.

Learning about and contributing to the evolution of a profession

Learning to better know, share and contribute to the evolution of the IT profession is important. As the world gains greater dimensions of awareness all will increasingly see and become greater contributors to shaping the realities of a continually improved future that innovatively and progressively enhances quality of life for all.

The IT Industry is embarking on a global change which has the pure potentiality to have quality (value, excellence and simplicity) increasingly be intrinsic and pervasive.

This blog takes no credit for the innate nature and characteristics of the on-going quality movement; it simply encourages you to increasingly be one with continually making things better. Thank you for doing so.

Global embedding of good practice

By now you’ve likely at least heard of ITILv3 and CobiT4.1. You may in fact be making related plans in your organization. What about PSP BOK Version 1.0 (August 2005, since revised and released March 26, 2008)? As more and more read 5.1 and other parts, will commonsense principles become more embedded globally? Will reading and applying the document help overcome problems innately within a young profession that potentially has the most pervasive influence within the modern world? It just may be that real quality does exist and that it must increasingly become inherent within each of us, within all interactions, within that which we use, create and imagine. Intrinsically the critical component of continued forward progress just may be each of us increasingly partaking in good personal practices and positive collaborations.

Read this fun look at a serious topic (network availability)

Looking for an enjoyable, funny, colorful post to read? Try this one! Although the topic is based on something fairly serious (Internet down!!!), it is an enjoyable read simply because of the fun way in which it is written (nice job Nicole!). Also enjoyed was a particular comment which referred to this fun site, It’s A Wonderful Internet (nice research find Asad!). Perhaps some readers of VIIP remember this post which is about a movie with a similar title. Perhaps some remember this post which contains serious numbers in terms of what a single hour of outage means to particular industries (millions per hour!!!).

Has your organization had a network outage recently?

If so feel free to share how long you were down, whether you and others accomplished objectives for the day regardless, and whether you or someone somehow tried to make a positive difference in the day for others regardless. Ideally some good came to the day. Ideally appropriate thanks was plentiful for the inherent quality brought to the day, or the risk management practiced, which allowed objectives to be accomplished regardless of the network unavailability.

Is the Business attitude toward IT improving in your organization?

The business attitude toward IT is generally improving in many organizations. Is it in yours?

For a few things that may help you inherently improve quality and value (and the business attitude toward IT), you may like to visit this CIO Briefing on SearchCIO.com. It contains ITIL case studies, product overviews and articles on related trends, strategies, execution, tools and technologies behind the scenes of successful ITIL utilization. You may also like to visit this interesting piece on SearchCIO.com that is associated with a Forrester Research survey; particularly if you are wondering whether it may be better for the CIO to report to the CFO or the CEO.

The elements of style for IT

Q: By 2020 will there be an “Elements of Style” for IT and what might the deliverable resemble?

A: Time will tell however perhaps it will be a bit like Strunk’s rules (?) and created as IT Pros increasingly serve and collaborate with the global public.

IP3, do you know what it is?

International Professional Practice Partnership 

Stay aware and involved; the principle inherent quality is you. Click here for an update. This post takes no credit simply shares awareness.

ps, you may also like to look for related CIPS news

Human factors, ethics and grounding or foundational principles

Reading this post, Wrestling Required, it may not be surprising that wrestling, within the industry and with established professions, will be part of moving forward and making things better, for example relative to the many considerations that could potentially be associated with formalizing and maturing a global IT profession. While virtually none may disagree that technology plays a major role in most businesses and many lives, some may see technology, rather than principles, more akin to sun than earth (such as with respect to which revolves around which). Perhaps that is why much blogging centers on this technology or that (e.g., as a part of the fix to major problems such as security). Should there however be more sharing and dialogue associated with other matters such as human factors, ethics and grounding or foundational principles?

Technology, use it to do good (ps: cool movie, Ironman)

Those with an interest in technology will likely enjoy Ironman. I did. Progressively innate improvements relative to software, technology and information, will not only align humans and technology to be more so partners, increasingly through different types of applications the two will fuse together and be more so one. Technology can save lives, and keep people alive. Increasingly it must evolve as, and be utilized as, a force for good.

ps: the clip below has been viewed on YouTube 5,507,534 times and counting.

Go Green: New study, Canada second last, U.S. last; surely we can do better

See story details. Are you surprised by the results? Do you think Canada and the U.S. will make leaping improvements by 2020? How about by 2035? How about much sooner? Do you think websites, blogs, online videos and so on (e.g., the global IT community, and increasingly greater collaboration with the general public, i.e. consumers) will be significant contributors to helping the planet further go green?