IT

kids of today

Over the weekend, I was helping Norman Junior III with a C programming exercise (a wordsearch puzzle). I had rather hoped purchasing him the original and definitive text ‘Kernighan and Ritchie (Second Edition)’ would enable him to become a C wizard without any further intervention from me but no.

In a flash of inspiration, I had introduced some symbolic constants for each of the eight possible directions.

When I asked him - ‘Can you remember how to specify a constant in C ?’, he replied ‘Oh yeah - I know, I remember. Hashtag define’.

the mechanics of IT

Last year, I visited a customer in Swindon. When I arrived at the office, I noticed some water dripping from the underside at the front of my car. I didn’t have time to investigate or get my hands dirty so I subconsciously hoped it was just condensation from the air conditioning unit and tried to forget all about it.

After work, I managed to navigate Swindon’s world famous roundabout of roundabouts and finally locate my hotel. When I parked, I noticed the temperature gauge was reading high - very high. Sure enough, I got out of the car to see steam pouring out of the bonnet and was greeted by the familiar smell of anti-freeze.

if Carlsberg made typos

My two favourite typos of all time, which are guaranteed to bring a smile to my face, are:

• ‘Stationary Cupboard’
• ‘Principle Consultant’

Until yesterday when I received an invite to:

Date: 8 June 2009
Time: 16:30-17:00 (BST)
Location: G27
Subject: Warp up meeting

I opened the meeting with a summary of the day’s progress and my findings: ‘I have completed my analysis of Siebel performance, the Oracle configuration, the I/O infrastructure, the hardware specifications, application usage and my conclusion is as follows:’

black screen of death

Last night, I flew home to London from Hamburg, near Germany. The flight was punctual and uneventful enough apart from the fact I was sitting next to a blind man.

When the seat belts sign extinguished, he got his laptop out, booted up and started typing into a completely black screen. So, I assumed he must be blind and using a braille keyboard.

However, this gentleman wasn’t blind. He had been reading ‘High Life’ while we taxied onto the runway. Oh and he also had a complimentary copy of the Financial Times.

out of office

Thank you for your email. I am currently working in a bunker deep underground in the heart of Brussels (near Belgium).

I would normally say ‘Please call me directly on my mobile’. However, this secure facility is so secure that no mobile communications are possible.

I would normally pledge to replying to your email on my return. However, I am not quite sure precisely when (or even indeed, if) I ever will return. While I am not literally chained to the desk, the security officer is holding my passport which fills me with a sense of unease and practically equates to the same thing.

the art of lazy consultancy

Many years ago, a customer thanked me which was a pleasant surprise and quite unusual. Most simply ask ‘When will your report be ready ?’

This particular customer remarked on my ’logical and methodical approach’ to understanding this long standing complex problem, proposing a plan of action and, on this rare occasion, resolving it.

I was interested by his choice of the words ’logical and methodical’. As an aside, I was convinced I heard a surly DBA murmur ‘slow, laboured and hopeless more like’ which hurt terribly.

corporate jealousy

I always smile whenever I receive an email that opens ‘I heard that Stephen Hawksworth Smithers-Jones in ABC division gets…’

Over the years I have heard the following myths about the delights of working in the completely fictional division ABC.

• Unlimited broadband paid for by the company.
• Mandatory business class flights on short-haul.
• Complimentary chauffeur service from your house to LHR/LGW.
• Expenses automatically paid via psychic medium with no need for receipts.
• No need for approvals for anything from anyone.
• Prawn volavons with a garlic and tomato sauce brought to their desks at 12 noon precisely (even when onsite).
• First shout on the airplane toilet when the seat-belts sign is extinguished.
• Free laundry and ironing service when onsite for more than one night
• New laptops every quarter (subject to stringent personal, divisional and corporate performance goals). Every month otherwise.
• Complimentary invites to the client’s Christmas bash and summer BBQ (free bar and partners included).
• Secret inclusion in the company car (‘Gold - Level 3’) scheme with access to a brand new model every 3 months.
• A massive incentive payment to not to desert to main rival during any (rumoured) takeover.
• 2.6 million shares, 1.2 million stock options and 876,542 FlexPoints. Index linked.
• Contributory pension scheme; Company contributes 24 times salary. Employee contributes nothing.

It always reminds me of the advert: ‘Carlsberg don’t run an IT consultancy, but if they did, it would be like this…’

am I a technology Luddite ?

I am interested in IT, technology and gadgets. Not obsessed but interested and curious.

Recently, I find colleagues making increasing use of technology in the workplace to try to help distributed teams to communicate more effectively. Or maybe they’re just geeks who are afraid to pick up a telephone.

People use Web conferencing to share desktops.

This is an excellent use of technology. For example, I recently tried to help a customer in Copenhagen by remotely accessing the servers over the network from my kitchen fully equipped home office. The speed was slightly sluggish and the experience was a little frustrating at times but certainly much better than laboriously dictating (’l’ ’s’ ‘space’ ‘slash’ ’t’ ’m’ ‘p’) over the phone or getting on a plane.

knowledge management is hard

Knowledge management presents a difficult challenge particularly when you work in a relatively small department of highly intelligent, technical consultants who are scattered around the globe and travel a lot.

I just started another blog as an experiment to see whether we can try to improve the way in which we share knowledge and communicate with each other. Searching email archives is so 1990’s, don’t you think ?

The blogging interface and the set of CMS features isn’t as rich as WordPress (or alternative Content Management Systems) but that’s not really the point.

smoke and mirrors

Many years ago, in a parallel universe not far from here, I was involved in a CRM ‘proof of concept’. This involved producing a demonstration of a callcenter application accessing customer and product data from disparate legacy systems in a polished, unified, modern user interface.

The scenario was pretty standard fare. A motor insurance company where a customer calls in to renew his motor policy and the callcenter agent walks through a standard ‘question-answer-retort’ guided dialogue.