InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
July 6, 1999
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 column "The Crisis That Won't Be". Yeah, right! You may be the CIO of a multi-billion dollar company, but your views on year 2000 are haphazard and irresponsible.
I believe that your "crisis-that-wasn't" scenario is almost laughable to any intelligent person that has done his reading and knows the plain and simple facts. Perhaps it's your high-ranking position that has taken you out of mainstream thought and given you the blind level of confidence to overly simplify the year 2000 problem. Or maybe you're just another of the countless number of high-ranking corporate spokesmen that make these claims with a hidden agenda. Keep the general public ignorant, and if they begin to think for themselves even slightly, tell them everything will be okay, and that they have nothing to worry about.
Have you heard of oil? It's the black stuff that fuels the entire planet. It's the raw material that is at the bottom of the food chain in the ever consuming ecosystem otherwise known as the world economy.
If today were January 1, 2000, everything from getting the oil out of the ground, refining it, to transporting it to its final destination for consumption, would be greatly compromised--more compromised than today's world has ever seen. Lack of enough oil is just one of thousands of horrendous problems the world population will be facing when the new millennium arrives. Somehow you can state that this will be "the crisis-that-wasn't". How can you say this?
Marty Z.
Dear Marty:There are several reasons why I can say what I am saying. One of them is that every CIO I know has spent a great deal of time and money working to avoid the major crises that you expect to occur. As we get closer to January 1, 2000, their confidence in their ability to handle any disruption is increasing. If we assume that the mainstream thought to which you refer is that of the people responsible for eliminating year 2000-related computer failures, then I would have to disagree with your statement that the problem is being oversimplified.
So far as your concern about the oil pipeline, I question why you think it will be disrupted. The major oil producers and refiners have examined all of their business and process control systems and corrected everything they can find. The problem may have started out as a large one, but hundreds of millions of dollars later, it has become manageable, according to those in charge of the remediation.
I stick with my prediction that the disruption will be no worse than that which we suffer in a major winter snowstorm. There will be isolated problems, but they will be quickly fixed. The major concern I now have is that people will panic in the days before December 31, and we will see hoarding of food and gasoline. I suspect the problems from these actions will be worse than the turn-of-the-century computer bugs.
Dear Herb:"The Crisis That Won't be" is very well written. It reaches the same general conclusions that I have. There is one issue that still nags at me a little. A person (singular) is capable of making good decisions, but people (herd mentality) are stupid and panicky.
Let's assume that your conclusions are true (which they are). With the millennium arriving at the culmination of an entire year of yellow journalism, hype, and panic-sewing, isn't it still possible that the doomsayer's views of year 2000 could be brought about out of a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Hey, I've done the math--if one out of every 20 people wipes out his bank account out of fear--we will still have a banking collapse even if the computers work. If one out of every 10,000 Americans takes extreme action (hoarding) at the same time, normal consumers will find empty shelves and the panic can spread.
My question is this: knowing that President Clinton's year 2000 czar is actually interviewing public relations firms to try to mitigate the panic which we all know will come, what can those more sober thinkers do not to let the evitable become the inevitable?
Charlie D.
Dear Charlie:If you have ever gone into a food store when the weather forecast is for some snow, you see people stripping the shelves of bread and milk as if a blizzard of epic proportions were being predicted. Thus, I agree with you that a select portion of the population will indeed hoard in the last few weeks before New Year's Day.
The result could be some spot shortages come December. However, many companies are building inventory levels or additional production plans to counter this issue. Even the government is printing extra money anticipating a run on automated teller machines in the last week of the year. This planning will mitigate some of the problems, since unlike a snowstorm, we have a lot of knowledge as to exactly when December 31 will arrive.
I think that the best thing for us to do is to spread the word that the crisis to be, will not be a crisis. We will not be able to reach everyone, so the popular press needs to avoid sensationalism and to report accurately how well companies are preparing for problems. Even so, some people will believe the worst. If the worst doesn't happen, don't be surprised if, on the morning of January 1, they blame the rest of us for conspiring to trick them into buying a lot of things they didn't need.
Dear Herb:I just wanted to tell you I enjoyed your article "The Crisis That Won't Be." I agree with your hypothesis. I'd like to add one factor that I believe lowers the calamity factor even more. Time itself. Most commentators miss the fact that only a small percentage of the world's computing devices will be affected at rollover time. I think the really large systems have been under remediation for years and most will have been tested by this fall. Systems like Social Security, the U.S. Postal Service, etc. haven't been left to the last moment.
The fact is that many systems have had to do year 2000 calculations for years. Their IT teams have focused on their remediation long ago. The assumption that most of the world's IT systems will roll at the same time is a fallacy that needs to be combated, or it will cause a panic. The banks and markets can be taken down by a panic, and then we will truly feel the impact of year 2000--not the computer problem, but the improper perception of the preparedness of computer systems, is what can cause harm. Articles like yours are what will turn the tide on this dangerous year 2000 myth.
Thank You!
Glenn K.
Dear Glenn:Thanks for your letter. I don't know what percentage of business and instrumentation systems will be affected. I do think that most major systems are going to work with only minor glitches and that these glitches will be fixed quickly. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that people will believe that the problem is under control. To quote President Franklin Roosevelt, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear, itself." Fear, however, is a powerful motivator.
Dear Herb:I need to know your company so I can sell the stock and tell all my friends to dump it as well. If you are their CIO, they are burnt toast.
Your year 2000 column was a sick joke. When the lights go out in Tokyo the morning of December 31st, you may figure out how stupid you are.
But if you still don't figure it out...Please stay in a big city during the rollover.
Pretty please....
Cal
Dear Cal:If our company stock sinks below the waves, so will many others, so there is no need to be selective and just choose us.
As with most other CIOs, I'll be watching carefully as the clock turns to January around the world. I will certainly pay attention to what happens when New Year's day hits Tokyo. Even though I expect to be getting ready for our annual New Year's Party at that time, I will check to see if you were correct in your prediction.
Dear Herb:First I would like to say what a fan I am of your column. It is the only column in the magazine that I always read to the end--both for content and for the humorous presentation.
A comment about your article, "The Crisis That Won't Be." I am a year 2000 coordinator for my company and have been working on the issue since October, 1995. I agree with your point about the ability to respond to defects. In fact our organization is particularly good at it.
My concern is that there could be so many year 2000 defects encountered in a short time frame that we cannot adequately respond. I often explain that our objective is not to eliminate all defects in advance, but rather to reduce the number to a manageable amount. Of course, we cannot predict the level with certainty. So we continue to test. We fix all defects we know about, so we can only guess that we'll not be overwhelmed by the number we actually encounter in production.
Sincerely,
Jordan W.
Dear Jordan:Your approach makes a great deal of sense. I would just add that it's important to have a contingency team in place that is responsible for being on site as the clock switches to the New Year. During the remainder of the year, this team should run through contingency testing exercises in which they set priorities for the unexpected. Obviously, we can only guess the number of errors we will actually encounter, but what we can do is undergo drills now to hone our ability to perform triage effectively so that the most critical problems are fixed first.
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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