2 days @Gartner Symposium

This is my second year at the Gartner Symposium IT/XPo in Orlando, Florida.  After the first two days of the symposium, I believe the mantra of the symposium is the three new pillars of technology which are the glued together by information.  The pillars are:

1. Cloud Computing
2. Mobile Computing
3. Social Computing

At first you think this is just bunch of hype.  What can a bunch of research analysts know about cloud, mobile, or anything else in IT.  Are these Gartner analysts creating trends from pure ignorance?   The answer is,"No"  Companies like Amazon, Google and Apple are creating technologies which are extremely disruptive and are causing problems in a positive way.  Today Gartner mentioned Google and Apple as the innovators.  I believe Amazon should be in that group. Amazon built the EC2  before IBM can spell cloud.
Amazon's model tends rely on developing services which are off-shoots out of its book business.  The Amazon cloud was a game changer and now Amazon's Silk which is a cloud browser will change the way things are done on the mobile space.

I attended couple of mobile sessions today and coule of social media sessions today.  Did I learn anything from these sessions?  The answer is Yes.  Social media has a defined lifespan.  Mobile computing is going to take over and the concept of cloud brokers was introduced.

I personally believe that cloud will reduce costs in the long run and increase throughput. I also believe that mobile will allow users to be more immersed in the internet and social computing is not a IT phenomenon but rather a social one.

The thing that caught my ear was the case study they did about the financial organization and how they built visual tools.  They updated their processes to be more "agile" so that the customer is engaged more in the development process.  I am therefore waiting for Agile computing.  This is the next big thing.  Once these technologies are stablize and drive costs down, businesses will be looking for more agility from their IT since the users will be changing their needs based on their social network.

...I’ve just been fired over the phone ...

You must have heard, "Carol Bartz is fired". What?!!! Who is Carol Bartz? She is the ex-CEO of Yahoo! She was fired September 6, 2011. According to the pundits, Yahoo! is profitable however it is lagging to Google, Facebook and others. I think the fundamental problem is that Yahoo! used to compete with Google. Unfortunately it is morphing into a content provider like Slate.com, Forbes.com, WashingtonPost.com. Eventhough Yahoo! is profitable, they cannot keep up with the Google and Facebooks of the world. Here is a good example, Look at how Ms. Bartz tells the world that she is no longer the CEO of Yahoo!. She sends an email with the following:

To all,

I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.

Carol

Sent from my iPad

See the issue?  You may think it is the email.  True. Shooting an email to your ex-employees that you were fired has issues but I am not going there.  The issue I see is that it was sent from her iPad.

Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook are evolving to companies which develop and disseminate content; and develop the software and hardware which dissemiinate content.  Facebook is not in the hardware business however they are creating waves by funding software projects which work around Apple's devices limitation on Flash.  Apple is not a content generator (not yet atleast) but they are the best content deliverer.  Google  is not a content generator but a content aggregator, content searcher and a content deliverer.  Facebook is a content generator, content aggregators, and a content deliverer.  Microsoft is pretty much all over the place with Bing, MSN.com, slate.com and others.

Yahoo! used to be know for the search engine however it has evolved in a purely a content provider.  Folks would agree that Yahoo! would be mentioned with companies like AOL (yes that same AOL),  What Yahoo! needs to do is get back in the hardware and software side of things.  Yes, Yahoo has a get great AJAX library however they need to something interesting like buy RIM and rebrand it with Yahoo! content.  I don't know if this is possible but a move like that would bring Yahoo back in the business.  In conclusion, I would have appreciated Ms. Bartz if her email stated the following:

To all,

I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.

Carol

Sent from my Yahoo! Tablet

Engagement Model - Resolving the "too many cooks in the kitchen" problem

Lately I am involved in mobile and social computing at work.  I am working with our agency's communication departments, and internal IT groups like: IT infrastructure operations, email, mobile device acquisition and provision group and IT solutions development group.  Understandably these organizational business entities need to be involved however there is no clear cut role on how these organizations need to operate.  It's a classic case of "too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth"; however in this case, "too many organizations destroy a IT business function".  I am not saying that a specific organization is at fault since the are not however this clearly shows that there is a lack of guidance in the engagement side of this effort.

I am sure there are multiple organizations which face this problem.  How do you deal with this type of problem?  The biggest complain I hear that there is no executive sponsorship or even if there is then there is no executive guidance.  In an agency where I work, which is an extremely large and bureaucratic government agency, no one is going to give strong sponsorship or guidance. Rather than complaining about it, I realize it is a reality and I have work with it.

In an ideal world, the organization or organizations, who are responsible for a specific effort, should have an engagement model (internal and external).  The internal model is called "organizational governance". The ideal world has a strong Program Management Office (PMO) which runs programs with an iron fist.  Unfortunately US civil servants who are grouped in IT departments usually don't have that luxury since government agencies view their IT departments as a support function.  The PMO paradigm may be implemented more now because of the current fiscal crisis with my employer.

As a program manager, how do you deal with this type of issue?  If you are not an enterprise architect (like myself) then you either hire a bright enterprise architect or work with your counterpart in enterprise architecture program.   Here are few steps that I can think of:

1. Ask the architects to decompose the business functions of the organizations and then map them to their role in your program.  
2. Present to the program stakeholders and see if they agree on it
3. Develop projects and appropriate RACI charts that map different organization roles to it
4. Develop program charter and plan
5. Present to the program stakeholders and see if they agree on it
6. Develop a communication plan which should be the basis for the engagement model

By going through a rigorous approach where stakeholders sign off on the plan and their responsibilities, you  can develop a concrete plan and manage your stakeholders.  Before I got into project management, I thought managers sit in numerous meetings and not do anything.  There are project and program managers who sit in meeting and like to strategize however their projects and programs don't have any valuable outcome.   I have learned that every work product being produced in a project or a program is a critical artifact to manage your team's and your stakeholders' expectations. After all most of project management is about managing and having a formal or informal engagement model.  

Future adwords will be Man-words

As the number of visits to this blog are dropping like today's SP 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), I figured that I better write a blog entry. I didn't write a blog entry lately because I wasn't furloughed like some of my 4000 co-workers nor was I super excited about Henry Cavill who is new the Man of Steel.  I just didn't have anything to write about.

Well here it.  I just spent twenty minutes going through Google news to see if there is anything interesting to write.  I saw articles about malware and cybersecurity.  If I blast about the perpetrators in this blog entry then my systems may compromised (typical mantra of security folks).  I saw an article about slim iPhone 5 and the fat iPhone 4.   This led me to write about something different.  I could go and spew about the common IT topics like:

• Google vs Microsoft vs Apple vs Facebook vs Cisco vs Yahoo vs Google (see the vicious cycle)
• Malware and Cyber-security (is it the chinese again)
• mobile devices (skinner, faster, lighter, cooler, etc)
• Oracle just bought out company X

Forget that man! Life is too short.  I am going to write about the next big thing after adwords.  Companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft will market products directly to us because they are capturing our likes, dislikes and how we feel about certain situations.  The information tier in the world of IT is the more non-disruptive since information is constant.  A phone may smaller and faster, applications move into the cloud or networks are more secure but your data is your data.  Your height, weight, SSN, age, names, desires don't change as often.  There is disruption in this space as well but not as rapid in the hardware and software side of things.  Information can be combined to create new views however it doesn't disrupt the way you use a phone. 

So be warned, I first said it here.  Google is going to come out with Man-words or Woman-words where folks can bid on text ads which are specifically geared towards to you.  

Okay now I got to look at next week's article.

Masters in System Engineering

Recently I have been pondering whether to get a Master's degree and if so then which degree should I get.  Initially I thought I should get my degree in Information Systems or Computer Science.  I also thought about being the "big boss" in a company for which I may need a  Masters in Business Administration (MBA).
With IT being commoditized and being outsourced, I decided that I don't want to get a master's degree in Information Systems or Computer Science.   It's so Y2K mindset.   Instead I am strongly considering getting a master's in Systems Engineering.  I believe Systems Engineering will provide me the tools to excel in the future.  I don't see IT being the way it is now in ten to twenty years.  I could get two hundred or more certificates from Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, CISCO and worry about renewing my certs every few years or get a degree in Information Systems and morph into a nice comfy paper pushing employee.  Neither career appeals to me.  MBA sounds great but I don't want to spend $40,000 and more and end up being a mid level manager.  I will go for an MBA if the program is right.  Currently getting a MBA from non reputable college is not my view of career advancement.

So. I have decided to pursue a master's in Systems Engineering.  After getting some insight into couple of complex systems like the National Incident Management System (NIMS) or National Airspace System (NAS), I believe this would be a fascinating domain to study in and it will equip me to do my current job better.  Please feel free to comment and tell me how you feel about my decision.

Do I need a PMP next to my name

I believe job seekers hurt their chances when they start appending various professional acronyms to their name.  I saw this person on Linkedin  and looked at the acronyms following this person's name. I then analyzed it. This person has:

• MS - Master's of Science
• MBA - Master's in Business Administration
• CISSP - Certified Information Systems Security Professional
• PMP - Project Management Professional
• ITIL - Information Technology Infrastructure Library certifed
• MCSE - Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
• CCNP - Cisco Certified Network Professional
• Sec+ - I found this definition on Wikipedia Security+ is a certification dealing with computer security topics such as cryptography and access control, as well as business-related topics such as disaster recovery and risk management. 

I look at this person's profile and wonder the following things:

• Why does this person have a MS, MBA and multiple certifications?
• Does this person think that he/she needs to prove his/her technical skills?
• Is this person demand a high salary or consultant rate since he/she has numerous certificates?
• Why is this person so technical and have an MBA?  What is his/her career goals? 

I strongly believe this practice promotes recruiters to downgrade resumes or CVs which over use acronyms next to the candidates' names. I do believe that couple of acronyms next to the names may be helpful but why would a recruit consider someone who has a MBA or a PMP to be a Linux Kernel developer?

RDBMS got it right with SQL.

I recently purchased couple of books to learn how to write iPhone/iPad mobiles apps. I then viewed Objective-C on wikipedia to understand the nuances of the programming language.  It's doesn't look too bad.  It is geared more towards C++ which is not a bad approach.  The reason Apple uses Objective-C is because how Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, was involved with the company that invented Objective-C.  After spending numerous years working with Java, J2EE, ColdFusion, JavaScript, studying C++ in college and working with .Net, I feel that the paradigm of object oriented programming is fractured and it needs to be standardized.  Vendors like Oracle, Microsoft and Apple have come up with different compilers and different approaches on how engineers interface with the computer.

This has not be the case with relational databases where Structured Query Language (SQL) is a universal standard and it is quite straight forwards.  Vendors have taken liberty on how stored procedures, triggers and other things have been developed but the underlying SQL is a common standard.

The Object Oriented programming community should push for standardization of basic OO principles like a class, an interface, a public method, a private method, a static method, primitive data types.  By doing that design patterns can be implemented in a standard approach. For instance can anyone tell me how to develop code using Objective-C for the singleton design pattern.

UML will also be standardized an more granular.