Winging IT

For those who know me well this post will be a review. Those not familiar with me or my career will come to realize that the title of this blog is not intended to imply that anything dealing with IT should be left up to chance. Having been a pilot and a flight instructor for nearly three decades I can tell you that every flight, regardless of the destination, needs to be conducted with the utmost professionalism and purpose. I have approached the business of IT in much the same way.

I have enjoyed a career in IT that spans quite a period of innovation, from the first PC and a network to go with it (NorthNet) to Ethernet to ATM on up. I have had the good fortune to work with some of the first adopters of Wireless LANs for commercial, public access at airports around the United States among many other innovations. Along the way I have been responsible for developing business cases for technology adoption, something I have discovered does not come easy for most organizations. Winging IT is clearly not the right way to win over senior management of an enterprise, regardless of its size. A good solid business case goes a long way to achieving the "buy in" of senior leadership as well as securing the funding necessary to procure, install and service new infrastructure, applications and tools. What is good for the business is most likely good for IT as well.

I will be using this forum to generate discussion and ideas on how to raise the bar for the IT community in dealing with some of the more difficult IT management tasks and issues we face today. I look forward to your comments and questions as we explore and demystify technologies and management issues IT professionals are faced with today.