[TriLUG] [OT] What's the value of IT?

[Tim Jowers]

Another point many people fail to grasp is bad IT decisions bleed a
company over a period of a few decades. When those doors close, its
because of bad business decisions made for the past decades. Some
CIO's are like the current crop of Fortune 1000 execs and just riding
the company into the ground; but, most places I've worked the people
the the top get the value proposition and will even take a phone call
from a lackey and act on it while the people in the middle of the IT
pile are often just trying to CYA. I'm reminded of a story of a major
telco where I called the VP of IT and sent her a book and told her she
could save the company millions by leveraging JBoss, Linux, and
considering other Open Source products. A few months later I heard of
the local IT guys being asked to do an analysis of MySQL instead of
Oracle and JBoss instead of WebLogic. They didn't. The first sent in
that darn study on the web which is like 6 years old now (4+ at that
time!) and never even installed MySQL while the other I don't think
ever even installed JBoss and, as he wasn't a programmer, didn't have
the qualifications to make the decision. MySQL would not have been a
fit due to the over-use of PL-SQL but other groups in the telco had
already moved to JBoss and JBoss even had a migration kit from
WebLogic. Besides WebLogic was coming to EOL due to Java 1.4 EOL so
the company had to upgrade anyways.  My point is, bad IT decisions in
the middle of the cake bleed a company dry over time and can cost a
company more in licensing fees than the salaries of the people making
the decisions. In IT, I still see a real lack of knowledge about
industry trends and a culture of not really thinking about what is
best for the company but only what the IT person likes/knows.

I guess you'll need some coverage on developers being squashed under
the "Security" monster. The basic scenario I've seen in many large
companies is the virus checkers, disk encrypters, you name it layers
make it almost impossible to get real work done. The "IT" department
holds too heavy a hand and lacks adroitness. Clearly, the "dangerous"
developers need to work in their own sandboxed network. Reminds me of
a coworker who was told he could no longer plug his Apple into the
LAN. So, he worked from home mostly. When a company where I worked
installed the latest Microsoft Office, I almost wrote a letter to the
CEO. What a total waste of money AFAICT. Let the blood-letting
continue...

TimJowers


On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Matt Frye <mattfrye at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a topic near and dear to my heart, and I've* already started
> working on a book somewhat related to the question of the value of IT,
> so I think this is a topic worth exploring.  That said, all of what
> follows is free and open thought, available for use, re-distribution,
> etc.
>
> The question of the value of IT is really pretty elastic.  It's
> connected, at the very least, to the mission of the parent
> organization and how well (or badly) IT is integrated into that
> mission, and more directly, to the way the IT organization is
> "designed" around the needs of the organization (the focus of my
> book).
>
> The tricky thing about value, especially in IT, is that it's relative.
>  What the IT Director sees as a valuable pursuit may be seen as a
> waste of time by a CEO.  Does the CEO know what he's talking about?
> Maybe not.  Ok, probably not, but of course he's the boss, so no
> matter how much of a wacko he is, his opinion matters.
>
> I look forward to seeing more discussion on these matters in a wiki, etc.
>
> MPF
>
>
> * The book is actually a collaboration with another TriLUG member.
>
> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 12:17 AM, Phillip Rhodes
> <mindcrime at cpphacker.co.uk> wrote:
>> Hey guys, I'm looking for some thoughts from some of you.  But first, in the
>> interest of full-disclosure, let me give you the back-story and the thought
>> process that led me here:
>>
>> I am no longer working for Lulu, as of last week.  So right now, I'm trying
>> to decide what's next for me career wise.  I may wind up taking
>> another full-time job, but I'm giving a LOT of thought to going freelance
>> (and if not now, very possibly in the not-too-distant future).
>>
>> Anyway, thinking about something a fellow Tri-LUG'er said to me about the
>> need to connect the value that I possess (in terms of skills and
>> knowledge) with their needs led me to spending a lot of time thinking
>> about what companies (small / medium companies in particular) really need
>> from IT.  And that led me to backing all the way up to the fundamental
>> question of what value IT brings in the first place.
>>
>> I'm so fascinated with this question now, that I am actually thinking about
>> writing a book on it (independent of whether or not I make a career change).
>>  Or even if it doesn't turn into a full-fledged book, maybe a whitepaper or
>> two.
>>
>> So, all of that said... I'd appreciate any and all thoughts that you guys
>> might care to share on exactly how IT (and I'm using the term in a *very*
>> general sense here, basically anything that uses a computer) is
>> used in small/medium businesses, how it adds value, what your experiences
>> (good and bad) have been, etc.
>>
>> To anybody replying to this:  Can I ask you to include a note about whether
>> or not you're willing to license your response under the GFDL and/or
>> Creative Commons by-sa licenses?  If I do actually write a book - or use
>> this stuff any otherw way, I'll release the finished product(s) under one or
>> both of those licennses.
>>
>> I've also got a wiki set up for keeping notes on this topic.  If anybody
>> wants to get more involved and edit the wiki directly, please let me know.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Phillip Rhodes
>>
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>>
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