Verbal Communication is becoming extinct

Those of you with teenagers know this already, but it would appear that verbal communications among many of us is becoming extinct. It would appear that we have replaced speaking with one another with Instant messaging and texting.

The other day my daughter forgot her lunch for school. This is not usually a big deal but she is a swimmer and works out 5 hours a day on some days. To say that she eats a lot is an understatement. For her to go without her lunch is admitting you would like to be replacing wallboard and desk tops in the school after she is through with them. So to make the situation better she texted me asking me to return to the pool at 6AM and bring her lunch to her. Mind you I was just there to drop her off at 5:45AM. Being a good father I did as requested and she thanked me via another text message at 7:30AM when she got out of the pool to go to class. In the time it took her to send the text message she could have called me and asked me herself verbally.

Insult to injury is when a co-worker emails or IMs you from across the isle. This has happened to me before as well. One guy was less than 20 feet from me and IM'd me to ask a question. Now I do not mind it when someone likes to use technology because it is fun but this is a bit out of hand. He claimed he did not realize I was in the office but I have a direct line of sight to his chair. The point is he did not look, or he would rather not speak to anyone.

I think there should be rules on the use of IM within an office. If you can reach the person within the same amount of walking you use to get to the coffee pot then you should walk over to them and ask in person. If what you want to discuss is not worth walking that far then it must not be that important anyway. If you are using email as a legal tool to document your discussion with someone then you need to seek out legal counsel and work out your issues with that person one on one. I can understand using IM to see if someone is open to a discussion at that point in time but lets use all of the communications skills we have developed, otherwise we will be back to writing on the cave walls.

The InformationWeek 500

No it is not the latest car race but it is the annual listing of the top innovative IT organizations. I have taken more of an interest in this year's list than in the past due mostly to the economic issues we are currently facing. I thought it would be fun to go down the list and see where some of the organizations stand as of today.

• The number one company, National Semiconductor, is one that I have competed against in a former life. We tried but failed to benchmark our IT organization against theirs. My former employer is basically out of business and Nat Semi is going strong. Good for them.
• At number 17 is Constellation Energy, the parent company to my old electric utility. They just announced that they had to be bought out by a unit of Berkshire Hathaway due to liquidity issues driven by their energy trading unit. Bad break I guess.
• FedEx beats out every passenger carrier on the list at number 18. Always an innovator, I guess it pays to get the baggage there on time, without fail, and to offer your customers a way of tracking its progress.
• Foundry Networks, at number 31, just got bought out by Brocade.
• Microsoft does not appear on the list until number 95! You would think that they would be able to do better.
• Washington Mutual, this year's number 100 on the list, is on the auction block and waiting for government bailout money to come its way before selling itself to another firm. Perhaps a bit of risk management automation would have helped?
• Nortel Networks is on the ropes as well, perhaps justifying their position at number 225.
• After all those ads about their web services you would have thought that Geico could have done better than 242 on this year's list.

Clearly the general economy plays a huge role in the health of some of this year's top most innovative organizations from an IT perspective. There are a number of surprises on this list and a number of opportunities for improvement in IT's contribution to the success of a number of organizations.

Focal length-the long and short

The current state of the financial and enterprise markets reminds me of something I learned while teaching rookie pilots to fly planes. It turns out both have something in common. It matters how far you are looking forward.

During my teaching career I have encountered a number of pilots who have trouble developing a knack for smooth landings. I can say the same for some economists but that is another story. One of the most troubling students I have encountered was actually passed off to me by another instructor for whom I have a great deal of respect. It turns out that this student had been practicing for nearly 100 hours and had yet to master landings. This is an unusually high amount of time but I took on the challenge anyway. It turned out that I did not have to experience too many of this students landings to realize that the problem was where the pilot was focusing during the last few seconds of the landing. The student was focused too close in.

One of the age old lessons in aviation is that when approaching a landing at nearly 100 miles an hour it pays to look a bit further out than just over the nose of the airplane. Sometimes it is required that you look beyond the available runway in order to determine if the landing will be a smooth one, taking corrective action when any deviation is noted. If the focus is too close in you can lose all sense of distance and it becomes a guessing game as to how the landing will turn out. It usually turns out bad by the way. By selecting a view that incorporates the horizon even small deviations can be corrected early in the process and almost always the result is a desirable one, and the pilot is rewarded with praise from his or her passengers. Too bad that some enterprise executives suffer from the same focal length problem during high stress times just prior to "landing". Those that are able to be aware of what is going on close in but remain focused on the horizon are usually rewarded with a smooth landing and everyone wins.

Sounds a lot like Wall Street these days don't you think? Too much focus on the close in and not enough on the horizon results in a hard landing and a bad lesson. Enterprise CIOs and other executives should use this as a learning event. Focus a little further down the runway for a better outcome. It works every time.

IT and the general election

Tis the season to be concerned about politics and the election process. Why does this election matter to IT? There are several unresolved issues which may come up in the next administration. Among them:

• Net Neutrality- The current administration has done a poor job of resolving this issue once and for all. It remains unclear whether the government will step in and mandate that the internet remain neutral for all or if restrictions will be allowed to make their way into internet use by enterprises.
• Service provider restrictions-The FCC will have to rule on whether the internet service providers will be allowed to restrict access to the internet through filtering of P2P traffic, bandwidth limitations or any of a number of other restrictions now being contemplated. Picking the FCC commissioners can sway the outcome of these or other ideas being proposed for internet use.
• Data Breaches- Currently we have a lot of separate laws governing the actions required when a data breach occurs. Each state has one and they are less than uniform. Perhaps a national policy on the treatment of individuals rights when their personal information is disclosed through a security laps is in order now.
• Spectrum use- The current auction process for spectrum to be used for future wireless services is less than effective. The payment of large up front fees for future services should be changed to allow for recurring fees when services are established. We will never balance the federal budget with spectrum auctions so why try. Service providers should bid on spectrum and then pay fees on a routine basis as a percentage of revenue for the use of the spectrum. The fees should start early and grow with the services that use the spectrum.

Selecting the leaders of the federal government will set the tone for these and other issues that impact enterprise IT for the next four years. It is unclear which candidate would best represent the interests of the IT community at this point. One thing is clear though, Fall will be interesting.