Three laws for IT personnel

About ten days ago, I asked if IT needed a PR rep. I even had a PR blogger weigh in on the issue. Today, I found a post that would have answered my question quite efficiently. Visibility, Automation, and Simplification.  That sums it up!  Just like Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, we now have Three Laws for IT personnel.  

Hurricane relief

Ok, I’ve sat on this posting long enough.  I haven’t posted it, because I feel guilty for not doing more.  I’d like to be a part of a relief trip, but haven’t found one I can be a part of yet, and I always seem so over committed lately.  (I can’t say I’ve looked very hard, either, to be honest.  Sorry!)  Anyway, just so the word might get out to a few others, here it is.

There is still a lot of work to do in the south after the hurricanes of 2005.  I’ve been reading Sue Mead's account of her trip on the GM blog.  She also linked to this local article where the youth from her church that accompanied her were interviewed.  

And then, there is this well written post, which makes us aware that some support for the New Orleans volunteers is getting ready to dry up unless we spread the word.  The writer makes a good point that the government is getting some good ROI with the money spent on this camp.

Some fun

Ok, you can’t help but laugh when you read this from Scott Adams.  He’s making fun of the congressman that got videotaped taking $100,000.  Here’s the story on MSNBC.

Too damn funny.  Meg Spohn, a blogger, has been posting a series on the Magical World of Clever Pranks.  This recent entry takes the cake.  Hilarious!

Getting Help

Repost.  I had this posted on my old blog.  Since the response to this post, last week, I felt reposting this was necessary.  I’d be more than happy to link to other lists outside of Indiana, if people are willing to forward them, or put them in comments.

Finding the right resources is often difficult and overwhelming.  My wife and I have experienced times of complete frustration and exasperation.  So, when we find nuggets like Michael's List, a website where a lot of the information needed is consolidated in one place, we are very grateful.  Granted, our child doesn’t have autism, but many of the agencies that help autistic children often overlap and have programs that are helpful to my child.  If nothing else, they can point to other agencies that can lend a helping hand.  In a local meeting the other night, my wife met up with parents of other children who are transitioning from high school to the “real world”.  Unfortunately, the word didn’t get out to many of us of the programs available to help our children.  So, websites like the one listed above become a great place to find resources to help.

Salvaging a B25 bomber

Great pics from a salvage effort.  B25 pulled from a lake.

One more thing to worry about

So when the VA spills the personal data of 26.5 million veterans into the public domain I guess I should worry.  I’ll be putting up fraud alerts at the credit report agencies.  I don’t find this funny at all. I worked in a fraud department some years ago, and I found it horrifying to hear the stories of the effort victims have had to exert to salvage their credit.  Here is a great post on dealing with identity theft. Some links that are helpful on this Business Week blog too.

Update:  Here's another link for advise.

747ski

My wife got this picture from a friend.  Here's a story to make this picture have some context of why it is so funny to me.  I'm Polish.  My grandfather fled Poland during WWII and settled in England.  He was in the Air Force, so he endured all the jokes.  Anyway, one Christmas, my aunt and her husband bought my grandfather a T-shirt that said, "I'm proud to be a Polack.” You know the one…where it’s spelled wrong, crossed out, spelled wrong again.  Now the funny part…my grandfather gave it back to them and said, “It is still spelled wrong.”  He just didn’t get it. He didn’t have a sense of humor. AT ALL.  We still love him and miss him.

Does IT need a PR rep?

I’m sending an email to a PR blog for this one to see what they might say too.  When I read this post I thought, “does IT need a PR rep?” Part of me finds some humor in this, but the more I think about this, I realize that technology has run over itself to some degree (or at least the CIOs referenced).  Like many companies today, maybe IT needs to rethink itself too.  Carr quoted a CIO that said much of what is done today is plug-n-play. However, IT professionals are supposed to be aware of the new technologies and constantly ask themselves, “how does this help my company?”  Aren’t many companies still trying to unlock themselves from various sorts of legacy systems?  Isn’t SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) supposed to be a saving grace to bridge the gap between disparate systems?  If Web 2.0 folks can get their start-ups funded by the VCs and angel investors, why can’t CIOs get their budgets approved?  Are they selling their profession short?  Don’t we IT people have more to offer?  Carr summed it up best in his post:

“You have to wonder: If IT mattered, why would CIOs be trying so hard to disassociate themselves from it?”

I work in IT and would like to think my peers and I still have something to offer.  This article makes me feel like the upper echelon in management has abandoned me.  Maybe these CIOs needs to ask us what we can offer and we can load him up with some great ideas that will save the company some money and put us on the cutting edge!

Update: after reading the comments on Carr's blog, maybe I was hasty in my rant. Dave and Vinnie brought up good points in their comments. Still, you have to wonder if some CIOs are bailing out on their staff when you read the referenced post.

Update2:  PR weighs in. 

Intellectually challenged.

Parenting a child that is intellectually handicapped (she is mildly handicapped) can be frustrating. During our daughter’s schooling, there were nights when we went to bed crying, frustrated and wondering what kind of future she might have.  See this article in Newsweek. Hope! It breaks a parents heart to see their child, who has the same desires and aspirations as other kids, held back.  We’ve been fighting the “held back syndrome” throughout the school years.  This is great news.

A great debate

Wow! What a post.  This is a lengthy read (it took me about 20 minutes), but Ben hit a topic that generated a lot of comments – good comments.  This was a true debate.  People were civil and polite, but made their points professionally and courteously.  Wouldn’t we like to see more of this on the internet?  People sharing different points of view without getting personal?  It all revolved around the box store vs. the indie book store.