InformationWeek

July 20, 1998

Your letters to my print column and this E-mail forum ask some serious questions about managing information technology in today's world. Since today's world is essentially absurd, my serious responses may sometimes sound a little whimsical, and my occasional whimsical ones, serious. In any case, if you want to participate, write to me at lovelace@home.com. I'll respond to those letters that I can. I reserve the right to edit for size and content. Just sign your E-mail the way you want it to appear online.

Dear Herb:
When I came to my employer as the CIO, I inherited a mission-critical application that had been built by an outside consulting group. The technology that it is built upon (platform and language) is no longer supported by the manufacturer. When the technology was in its brief heyday, it was a niche product. It is no longer sold.

I have assembled a strategy for rebuilding this mission-critical application on a mainstream platform and in a leading edge language. What strategies should I use to gain the support of my senior executive colleagues? What complicates this is that several of them were part of the decision process that brought the consulting group in, years before I arrived. There is no staff from the consulting group here any longer. Thanks for your help.

Sincerely,
Rock In A Hard Place

Dear Rock:
So let me see if I understand this situation. You are responsible for a supporting a mission-critical application you did not build, one that uses obsolete technology, and was a niche product to start with, even when it was still supported by the manufacturer. Oh, and there is nobody around who was part of the technical support group that understands how it all fits together. Now you want to rebuild the application and get management support, especially from the people who were responsible for this system originally--and I get the sense that you think these management types will not be thrilled with you saying their baby is terminally ill, especially since it may imply they made a mistake in their choice.

OK. I accept that "drop back and punt" is probably not an acceptable answer, but let's try a variant of it. I will start with the assumption that if the system breaks it will be your fault. Since senior management is normally skilled at delegating responsibility and empowering staff (read that statement to be: If it doesn't work, you fouled up) I presume you are accountable for keeping this system operational and that your head is on the line if it fails.

I suggest you sit down individually with the key executives who were part of the original decision and explain to them you have a system that keeps the lifeblood of the company flowing, and that it can go into cardiac arrest at any time. Make sure you communicate why you think it can die, what is the impact on the business if it does, and what options you see. Tell them what is required either to replace it fully or to give it another few years of life. Remember, executives don't like to be told that they have no choice, so make sure you state the alternatives. Remember, part of the fun of being a senior executive is the ability to make decisions, even if the decision is obvious.

If you can elicit their support, your task will be easier because they will wind up doing the selling for you to the rest of the management group.

Dear Herb:
I am currently a senior at a four-year college. I am majoring in management information systems. I have had two internships during my college years. I worked for the insurance industry during my first internship and I worked with an IT consulting company during my second internship. I am also working on my Microsoft certification in addition to my college degree, as well as getting some industry experience with Internet designs.

What is my advantage compared to the average college graduate majoring in IS or IT? What strategy should I use so I can bargain for a higher salary compared to the average graduate?

Erwin

Dear Erwin:
The major advantage you have is industrial experience. Every employer I can think of counts actual workplace seasoning as a real plus when hiring a new employee. In order to get the position you want, at the salary you think you deserve, be sure to explain in an interview what you did while working, what you learned, and what you accomplished. As far as bargaining for a higher salary compared to the average graduate, your best bet is to make sure you have several offers. If you do, the marketplace will ensure that you receive a competitive salary.

Dear Herb: I have just completed reading your column titled "Sorry, Charlie--You Blew It" and couldn't wait to write you about it. I detected that you don't like Charlie much and that his recent business folly was inevitable. Now that Charlie's incompetency is obvious to everyone, what can he do to redeem himself ? And is it likely that Phil Whitestone will take Charlie under his wing, since he did promote Charlie to a position at which Charlie is not very competent.

Ronald J.

Dear Ronald
Charlie has dug himself a hole from which it will be difficult to escape. If he wants to be accepted, he has to be willing to admit that he doesn't know everything, stop promising what he cannot deliver, and avoid the temptation of blaming others for his own mistakes.

Even if he changes the way he handles situations, he is not going to alter his image easily. The problem with corporations, to misquote good old Bill Shakespeare, is that the good is oft interred with the bones, and the evil reputation lives on. Charlie will have to do penance for quite some time before people will believe he has matured. The real question is whether he is willing to invest the time to repair the damage.

Our friend Charlie would be making a mistake to think Phil will spend too much of his own political capital taking Charlie under his wing. Our CEO did not get to his lofty position by being unduly loyal to those who do not meet their goals. Phil will keep Charlie from being fired, but that is about all that Phil will do. Next reorganization, unless Charlie takes major remedial actions, he will wind up with a job more in line with his talents, which are not inconsequential, and stay there for the rest of his career with the company.

Dear Herb:
I understand that when buffers are flushed, when headers have finished doing their duty, and when lost transmissions have been routed to obscurity, they all go into a bit bucket. My question is simple, and serious: What happens to all of these bits?

Is this going to create any environmental problems? Are there people exploring ways to compress these lost chunks of data to better facilitate disposal?

Maybe this is an area worth exploiting for future employment opportunities. I am starting to worry about this problem. I am putting it right up there with my firm belief that we need to think about the year 10,000 problem, since there will be five date places needed instead of the four we are all worrying about now.

Buckethead

Dear Buckethead:
The entire field of information systems owes a debt to minds such as yours. I can truthfully say that we would not have the reputation we do as a profession without people such as you. Your ideas have resonated with me and in fact you have identified an issue that has gotten far, far, too little exposure.

First to answer your question. All of the used bits do not go into individual bit buckets, rather they go into a single bit bucket, the GBBITS. The GBBITS, otherwise know as the Great Bit Bucket In The Sky is not a religious metaphor as many people think. It almost certainly exists. If it did not, it would make no sense for so many of us to spend so much time trying to retrieve lost files and data. Further proof of the unified nature of the contents of the GBBITS can be demonstrated by evaluating how many times we think we have recovered needed data only to experience the crushing of our joy into microscopic dust when we learn that what we have reclaimed is not what we thought, but only useless junk we've never seen before.

To the best of my knowledge, there is little, if any, research being done on BBC, or Bit Bucket Compression. My understanding is universities are not offering tenured positions in this field of study. One reason may be that compressing an infinite number of bits results in an infinite number of compressed bits. However, physical law limitations have not stopped the accreditation of equally valid curricula and I see no reason why we should not expect a similar acceptance of the relevance of examining BBC.

The issue of BBP or Bit Bucket Pollution is of serious concern to all of us in the information systems business. The question of whether the Environmental Protection Agency is spending enough time on this problem is one that we should begin to investigate. Little medical data exists, as I understand it, on the effects of living near bit bucket generators. Certainly, our representatives in Congress could form committees that are as worthwhile as many of their existing ones to determine where the nation stands on this situation. We neither want to have BBF (Bit Bucket Fallout) or, even worse, from a national defense posture, the potential of BBG, a Bit Bucket Gap. After fighting four major conflicts and enduring a Cold War in the last half century or so, we have an obligation to our children to ensure their future safety and happiness.

You are to commended for your diligence in bringing this question to the fore.

So far as the year 10,000 problem, I also agree with you. In fact, I have written about this potential tragedy. You would think people would understand the ramifications after going through the year 2,000 problem. They do not realize that 8,000 years can pass a lot quicker than anyone would suspect. It is distressing. I do not understand why they have not learned anything from the old maxim: Once bitten, twice warned. In any case, I see both year 10,000 and GBBITS analysis as great employment opportunities for supposedly obsolete COBOL programmers.

Herbert W. Lovelace is CIO at a multibillion-dollar international company. Herb practices his day job under an alias and has changed the names of colleagues to protect the guilty.

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