InformationWeek

November 23, 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:
I read your article "What To Do, Just Sue" about lawsuits being filed against vendors who claimed that their products were year 2000 compliant. This is an area that I would like to get involved with as I have an interest in both the legal and technology fields.

Do you know of any law firms in the New York area that are currently working on such lawsuits that I can get in contact with? If so, can you please supply the names or direct me to where I can obtain the information?

Thanks,

Interested Party

Dear Interested:
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer.

Dear Herb:
While I enjoyed your column "Mission Inversible," I found it interesting that the first example of a good mission statement fails your Inverse Rule of Mission Statement Creation. You say Merck's statement, "We are in the business of preserving and improving human life" is "emotional dynamite." However, according to the IRMSC, the statement would be "We are in the business of destroying and worsening human life." Since the only organizations that might be able to say that are military in nature, I think the IRMSC shows Merck's statement to be lacking.

Sincerely,

Alan W.

Dear Alan:
If you have the opportunity to look at the column again (to do so, just click on the hypertext link above) you will find that the Inverse Rule of Mission Statement Creation is defined by the statement "If a phrase is generic enough to fit into any mission statement, replace the clich� with its inverse and read it out loud. If it makes you giggle, get it out of there."

The IRMSC is designed for platitudes. But even if it were not, I would question your mission statement for military organizations, certainly those in a democracy, where the motto "To defend and protect" is more descriptive.

You have, however, hit upon an interesting concept that produces a logical extension of the IRMSC. Consider if we invent a game in which we look for organizations where the inverse of the platitude actually exists. We could be well on our way to some sort of research award, perhaps even a Nobel Prize in Economics.

I'll start us off and then it will be up to you and our other readers to identify more matches. Let's use the generic mission statement I used in the column, "We are customer-focused and care about our customers." I wrote that the inverse was, "We are not customer-focused and do not care about our customers." Does such an organization exist? Think carefully. Have we ever been in a line at a some (not all, by any means) government office and been treated as if we were more of a nuisance than the source of revenue from which the employees are paid?

Dear Herb:
As CIO of a multibillion dollar organization, you have experience with my problem. In February, the company where I spent the last eight years was acquired by a competitor. The employees were told that the acquisition was a friendly, mutually beneficial merger. All employees benefited from lower insurance costs and other nonmonetary perks.

The issues at hand are more in line with control. The employees, particularly the MIS staff, are not allowed to make decisions concerning any aspect of the network except to do what is necessary to keep the network running, as long as it doesn't cost any money. All purchases must be from the "standards" list. Items not on the standards list, such as tapes for backing up the network, must be approved by the COO.

Our network was homogeneous, consisting of Compaq servers and desktops. Our acquirer buys only the cheapest and has no real standards when you look at the equipment the people use. They require that we do the same.

How do we convince them, that it is far better to have a consistent hardware and software platform rather than just trying to save a buck? We have done cheap in the past, but it was too unstable. We have a consistent, stable network where people are productive. Our parent corporation has an unstable network where people are required to spend extra hours correcting mistakes or working longer hours to catch up on their work.

We think we have a better setup, but have not been able to convince the people who bought us that we are correct. Is there any hope we will be able to? Your ideas, please.

Bob

Dear Bob:
After the takeover, people have kept their jobs, and have lower insurance costs and other nonmonetary perks? As you are probably aware, many people who work for a company that has been acquired would be happy to switch places with you.

Still, I can understand your concern about the issue of who controls the network. Most of us are very proud of providing good service and do not like others to change how we work without our input. But it is not clear to me whether your new employer is making short-term savings at the expense of long-term service or whether they just do things differently from the way you would. In one paragraph you say you cannot buy anything unless it is on the standards list. In the next, you say your acquirer has no "real standards."

If you are to be successful in convincing people that your way is better, you first have to find out what is important to your new management. You need to know if they are perfectly willing to have their systems people spend time fixing problems as a trade-off to capital investments, or if their idea of what constitutes a satisfactory network differs from yours, or even if their culture is such that they welcome ideas from the ranks of the people who do the day-to-day work. After you have this level of understanding, then you can determine the best way to get your opinions a fair hearing. Until you do, your level of frustration will just continue to increase.

Dear Herb:
I just discovered your Secret CIO site today during my lunch break and after reading your columns for two hours straight, I know that I'll be back again soon.

After asking various people for advice on which direction I should take with a budding career, I have found very few advisors with technical knowledge or my best interests in mind.

I will graduate with an IS bachelor's and international business minor in two years from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and have been racking up good technical and managerial experience while I've been attending school.

On the technical side, I'm in my second MIS/Web internship at a huge multibillion dollar corporation and work with Oracle Web development as an after-school job with a small development/consulting startup. On the managerial side, I'm in charge of 12 student Web developers at the student radio (and Real Audio) station, president of the professional organization for the IS major, and a contributing writer to a local computer magazine.

In three years working in IS/IT, I feel that I have gained a good deal of experience, but I have a lot to accomplish before retirement. I find myself most satisfied with my work when utilizing a business sense combining progressive technologies (Web, Oracle, Real Audio, programming) and would appreciate your advice on taking the first step out of college.

What type of company and position should I be looking to work for out of school that will allow me to continue developing skills as well as a financial portfolio? Would it be more valuable to gain certification and experience in a specific technology like Oracle, or try to focus more on the managerial and business side of things? How and when would be the best time to go back for further formal education? Is there a perfect formula for balancing business and technology in a career?

Thanks for your time and advice.

Sincerely,

Dave R.

Dear Dave:
You ask some very important questions about the options that are open to you and which is the best one for you. Given your broad experience as an undergraduate, you are in the situation of the 800-pound gorilla who wonders where he should sit. The answer is: Wherever he wants.

Whether you want to focus on a specific technology rather than the more general business aspects of technology depends on your goals and aptitude. Since you have been involved in so many different activities and say that the business results of applying technology have been most satisfying to you, it is my sense that you are not the type of person who would be satisfied long-term with being a technical specialist.

With respect to the best time to go back for further formal education, I am a believer that it is much easier to continue with postgraduate work than to resume it at some point. If you do not want to go to school full time for your master's degree, then evening school has some decided advantages. If you can handle the workload, the work experience gives you an opportunity to relate real-world problems to your studies. Given that you have worked heavily during your undergraduate time, this path would probably not be foreign to you.

As to your question about "Is there a perfect formula for balancing business and technology in a career," the answer is "no." We are all individuals, and trying to determine a universal "best balance" is probably as futile as attempting to get agreement on what is the all-around best-tasting food or most desirable automobile to own.

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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