December 16, 2009
General IT, ITIL, Standardization
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Policy creates structure for an organization. Policy limits errors, waste and creativity. Policy makes the irresponsible produce expected results. It can also corrode high responsibility levels.
A creative, high initiative and responsible person can be structured to carefulness, seriousness and inactivity. Excellence demands more than thinking outside the box – it requires acting outside the limits. Quantum leaps means taking risks, not only managing or mitigating them. Emphasis on policy and structure builds an organizational system, a machine producing the expected output. Geniuses, the wildly creative and people of outstanding initiative and responsibility create the unexpected. Sometimes the brilliant. Sometimes havoc. But desperately avoiding the trouble will leave out the excellent. With policy one can regulate and make all the people behave according to the rules.
There is much to recommend toeing a party line. Well organized groups can raise the standard of output. Toyota comes to mind. Henry Ford pioneered it. But it will never foster an Einstein, an Edison or a Da Vinci.
Individuality must be preserved for an organization to excel. And policy must never replace common, uncommon or even rare sense. The essence of good structure is to keep it minimal and really, really simple. The litmus test is if an organizational concept can be conveyed to a ten year old in 15 minutes. If not, it’s too complex, too cumbersome.
Unfortunately some policy is needed. But only because all the people are not brilliant and in constant synchronization. Because an army of telepathic geniuses needs no command.
May 23, 2009
General IT, ITIL
2 Comments
Sure, George liked sushi, but that was not why they called him “Gollum”. The reference to “Lord of the Rings” was not due to him having big eyes or a fair skin complexion either.
George was not the social type. A bona fide nerd, one of the best in his field. He knew the network by heart, the routers, switches and the relation between all the servers and infrastructure components. He was the heart of the IT department.
His acute lack of social skills had scared away any potential girlfriend. He was the typical troll on the Internet forums, a bully by keyboard and shy in real life.
Most of the users would avoid the Gollum, even when their PC was dead. They used a co-worker’s PC for a few days until she came back less snivelling from the cold. They worked from home or went to more meetings -until they had to give in and call 4400, the number to the IT department. The others in IT didn’t take the phone, they ware even more shy than George, or perhaps intimidated from him upbraiding them for every mistake they made.
So George would do the honour. He would aggressively grab it off the hook, anticipating another mindless stupid question and inquire in a less than friendly voice; “What?”. As a stuttering user tries to explain that the accounting program would not abide by her commands, George would go with his usual intimidating routine. Not because he truly believed he was above a mere user in intelligence or skills, although he was, but simply because this was his way of covering up his social insecurities.
He hated the users. He hated the business side of the equation. He hated stupid questions. He loved reading Dilbert.
Feared by users and co-workers alike but respected for always getting the job done. Nobody wanted George. They needed him.
One day when all hell was loose, the General Manager came down and with smoke and sulfur let loose a mixed barrage of demands, criticism, accusations and insults. George was trembling inside while looking his usual cool on the surface. This didn’t help as the GM wanted to impinge on him. He wanted a reaction. It became a traumatic event for the IT hero. Inside his head George noted all the criticisms and complaints which he later compiled into one long list.
Systematic as usual George went to town with this. The outpoints needed correction, the list needed to be closed. He gathered the forces of IT - all his co-workers were rallied. The penalty for not succeeding in impressing the GM: The outsourcing of the whole of IT and George & Co out on the street.
Time went. The General Manager was held at bay by promises of a structured and standards compliant IT department.
George had created the perfect structure catering for all the issues on the GM’s problem list. With 26 processes and 4 functions, George had created ITUL - The IT Universal Library. Elaborate flowcharts, excellent policies, Key Performance Indicators with the ultimate dashboard showing metrics in flashy graphs and bells and whistles. This was sure to impress any pointed haired boss.
The presentation outshone the Gollum and the GM was sufficiently confused to accept the elaborate structure.
George got what he wanted; A Service Desk as the single point of contact for all communication to IT. He would recruit a half-wit nice babe to take the calls. Enough of him enduring stupid user questions. He would be left alone.
And with the Service Level Agreements between IT and the Business, he could calmly point to that contract when friction arose.
With policies and processes left, right and center he didn’t have to take responsibility for anything but following the structure. And the GM had put his signature to it.
Ah, he was off the hook. IT was done with the human interaction. It had boiled down to structure and removed the intangible from the equation - stuff like compassion, inspiration, creativity and the human touch. It could now be programmed and treated like any computer. It was measurable, correctable and predictable. No surprises and a gradual increase in persistent results. Life was again calm.
The competitor, on the other hand made a quantum leap the next year by inspiring the best of their technicians to revolutionize how IT could enhance business opportunities. But that is another story entirely.
—–
In looking at this sequence of events, one may wonder if George actually got to the root cause of the General Manager’s frustration. If it wouldn’t have been better to bridge the gap in understanding between the Business side and the IT side. If he would have taken the responsibility to ensure that the General Manager gained enough knowledge of IT to better understand what powerful tool it can be in generating value for the company. And if George gained better understanding of the business, his own frustration may have been mellowed. Building a better understanding may have gotten the company much further than building a stringent
structure.
Attitude, inspiration, creativity and understanding is far superior to any structure, policy, process or tool. Because structure, policies and processes are just tools - to help the company innovate and create value.
The real value lies in the people. Let the people run the structure, not the other way around.
Quantum leaps come from creative genius. And the genius may not be all that obvious. Inspiring the hidden genius may be a key to quantum leaps.
April 20, 2009
General IT, Free Software
3 Comments
With the record industry and friends in the blue corner and a whole generation in the red, the stage is set for the fight of the century.
The film, record and proprietary software industry is rejoicing the acceleration of their own demise. The Pirate Bay verdict is putting gasoline on the fire that has been burning steadily stronger since the last crucifixion - Napster. Crucifixion of rebels may not bring the people in power the effect they are seeking.
It has been said that stopping piracy of copyrighted material is like stopping the sea coming in. Resistance is futile. It is - not because people are inherently thieves but because they are inherently creative. Give people the opportunity to contribute their creative powers and they will do so in hordes. Witness Wikipedia or the Free Software movement. It’s disrupting the status quo of the cultural man-in-the-middle. But that man is living on borrowed time. Time to let him go.
The cultural distribution industry will die. The distinction between the creator of culture and the consumer will dissipate. Today everyone are cultural consumers. Tomorrow everyone can be creators. With free flowing culture and everyone building on what everyone else has created, the ant hill innovation of culture will again be the rule. It has too long been the exception - by force of law.
The Free Software industry is spearheading the concept. Here a 14 year old wizkid can have real impact on enterprise grade software. As long as she can program quality code, her contributions are included in heavy weight products like Voice over IP or webserver solutions. Scary? Sure - for the Old School thinkers and doubters. Opportunities? You bet - for the ant hill innovation.
Make no mistake, the Free Software industry is a booming industry making headlines every day. It is reshaping the IT world, showing the power of individual contributions.
Not to long ago, the Old School thinkers and doubters dismissed Free Software as “unserious” and “insignificant”. Now even Microsoft is getting serious about Free Software.
In the world of free flowing culture, the now men-in-the-middle will have to reincarnate to keep their jobs. The record companies could look to thriving companies in the Free Software industry for inspiration. They should focus on new and better services helping the artists produce better art and for consumers to get what they want instead of acting as a distribution overhead. If they do not reincarnate, they will keep sinking and remain six feet under.
The Pirate Bay trial is just the climax of an industry that has long been beating up their customers. It’s bad business practice to criminalize and fight a whole generation of customers. With Pirate Bay after-polls showing more than 80% disapproval of the verdict it’s an up hill battle for the aging industry. Instead of inventing better methods of generating and distributing culture, they have insisted on keeping a tunnel vision on their immediate cash cows. And defending it to their own death it seems.
The Old School often rebuts with “how can we or the artists generate cash if everything we create is taken for free”. Well if we turn it all around in a simple thought experiment we may see this in different light… If the music industry was all free and spearheading the ant hill concept with the software industry being all closed and proprietary, we could imagine a conversation going like this:
Musician: “You should open up and embrace the ant hill innovation”
Programmer: “how would we make money, what on earth could be a viable business model for free software?”
Musician: “Well we have a range of business models for different contributors”
Programmer: “You guys have an easy time at it, you could put on a concert any time you needed cash. No one would pay to see me hack away on a keyboard”
It’s easy to see what revenue streams would disappear and much harder to envision new opportunities. Especially when the current revenue streams are making one fat and blind.
We don’t see the porn industry whining and taking The Pirate Bay to court. This industry is extremely competitive, may be the biggest industry on the Internet and the one with the most successful alternative revenue models. While not an argument endorsing the porn industry, it is to show that a free market does indeed bring out creativity.
Rip away artificial monopolies like copyright and patents and as long as there is demand for culture, money will find its way from the consumer to the creator. Albeit without the man-in-the-middle.
Although it’s hard to envision the possible plethora of business models in a truly free market, it is not hard to come up with a few intriguing ones. We could see a moving from distribution companies who pretend to serve the creators of culture over to companies rigged to serve the consumers. This would include jazz groups arranging concerts, special membership perks and first releases to members and at the same time funding new productions for their consumers. The old model of commissioned productions could also see a new spring.
In addition to free market business models, the society could see value in creation of certain types of culture. The society could see the benefit in investing in jazz music, folk music or 3D digital artwork while leaving pornography to cater for itself. Such a long term investment could be facilitated by the use of state income or by lowering the tax for culture providers.
But talk is of course cheap and the proof of the pudding lies in the eating. The best way to get real traction toward a free cultural society is to show new viable business models. This is why the upcoming Genero model for cultural distribution is interesting - a free system catering for any type of user license with minimum distribution overhead.
What if we took all the creative power used for protecting what is already created and put it to use in creating more culture? What a creative society we would have. With more content providers, less lawyers and fewer law suits.
May the new generation win the Battle for Ant Hill.
June 11, 2008
General IT, Free Software, ITIL
No Comments
With the advent of ITIL, COBIT and other IT Governance frameworks, a comforting assurance in the field of IT is more real than ever. But is assurance really enough?
A Service Level Agreement is defined (wikipedia) as “An SLA is a formally negotiated agreement between two parties. It is a contract that exists between customers and their service provider, or between service providers. It records the common understanding about services, priorities, responsibilities, guarantee, and such?collectively, the level of service. For example, it may specify the levels of availability, serviceability, performance, operation, or other attributes of the service like billing and even penalties in the case of violation of the SLA.”
When an ISP delivers IT services to a customer, the customer is assured by the SLA given in the contract. The assurance is based on the customer’s trust in its vendor, its size, financial strength and history of the relationship as well as the actual contractual text. The penalties given to the customer in case of SLA violations is ordinarily covered by the ISP. The amount is usually low, amounting to fractions of the monthly bill.
An ISP is covering its base by making sure it is not liable for any damages caused by downtime, response times, service time or lack of adequate performance. These costs are instead covered, often without a conscious decision, by the customer. The penalties offered in an SLA are usually a small fraction of the actual cost of damages caused.
The tradition of insurance is sadly lacking in the field of IT. This may be attributed to the complexity of the technology. The great divide between business and technology is widening with the perceived complexity of systems involved. The attentive reader may have noticed the use of the word “perceived” in the preceding sentence. It was purposefully included as irony in case someone should miss the obvious reality that technology is vastly lacking in complexity compared to humans and the many fields of human interactions.
Perceived complexity may appear as a result of a desire on the part of the originator to protect his own position. By surrounding himself with a mystic complexity, the person may seem to enjoy reverence if not understanding from others. There are additional reasons for the great divide.
Complexities does not beget understanding or indeed assurance. It begets blind trust in those who apparently understands the intricacies. And insurance is harder to come by.
The great divide is furthered by the introduction of proprietary software. Here the user is barred from inspecting how the software really works. The so called “source code” is closed from inspection. It is not only practically impossible to see the software’s inner make-up, it is even illegal.
Compounded by an obscured security track, the path of proprietary software alienates possible insurance. Proprietary software has often used security by obscurity as a defence from cracking or data theft. Actual security is secure by design, not just by obscuring the security holes. By simply obscuring the flaws, there is no good way to make sure the secrets remain.
By opening up the source code, the software maker will have to address the security risks directly and handling them by design rather than obfuscation. The common objection to opening the source code is that the cracker will gain access to how the software works. In practice this potential risk is balanced by the need to factually address security. It also adds the benefit of possible insurance, a novelty in the field of IT. Insurance of IT is made possible only as the insurer is allowed to inspect the systems he is to insure.
Insurance of IT may very well be the next big market for insurance companies.
April 16, 2008
General IT, Standardization
1 Comment
Look not at what you see but what you don’t see. Answers may lie in missing information.
When Novell struck its now infamous deal with Microsoft, a crowd of cheerleaders tried to convince us that the deal was the second coming for Novell and for free software. An hour long chat session was even conducted where top Novell executives fended off criticism and spread the good word.
But no one asked the important question.
Later Microsoft struck a deal with ECMA and lobbied ISO to the extreme. The company is busy convincing the world that it embraces open standards and even free software. Publishing code on Sourceforge, opening up their latest document format, hiring free software developers and employing a PR army to tell us that they have turned nice. What on earth is happening? Has hell frozen over?
Some have been easily convinced. Others have been cautious; with natural skepticism and even verbal attacks on this newfound strategy. And Microsoft have defended its position, telling you to look at its actions, see how open they are, showing off their New Ethics Order.
But no one is asking the important question.
What question?
Here we go:
“Dear Microsoft, how is this good for your shareholders Return On Investments?”
A public company has an obvious commitment toward its shareholders ROI. It has a business and moral obligation toward those who has invested in the company. All strategic decisions must focus on a greater monetary return.
So, ask not how the deal is good for Novell. Ask how the deal is good for Microsoft. Ask not how OOXML as an ISO standard is good for the world. Ask how it benefits the Monopoly’s profit.
April 9, 2008
Standardization
6 Comments
The demo went from about 12:15 and lasted for about 45 minutes. The demo was only 50 meters from the GoOpen (Norwegian text) conference, and with good preparation (although short notice), about 150 turned up in the rain.
This was only the second IT demo in Norwegian history according to Dagens IT. It attracted even mainstrem media (as seen in the report below).
It was an emphatic crowd - lots of energy, good speech by Steve and important points delivered by several others. Pictures were taken, and I am sure there will be more pictures and videos online in the next few hours. Here are some from photos from fickr:
Per Inge Østmoen’s photo of me appealing to ISO to create a standard for standardization. After I sent my Open Letter to ISO, the UN/CEFACT have according to Computerworld (dk) started it’s process to create a standard for its standardization work. This may set the precedence needed to coax ISO into doing the same.
Update (20:55): More photos from the demonstration by the eminent photographer Per Inge Østmoen.
April 9, 2008
Standardization
No Comments
The OOXML protest reaches the main written Norwegian news channels. I know, it’s in Norwegian - so either you read our language or you learn it on the fly. The video is rather international, though:
VG video
VG article
Dagbladet article
Dagens IT article
April 9, 2008
Standardization
14 Comments
The demonstration was completed about an hour ago - more about that later (with pictures). Here is the speech by Steve Pepper held during the demonstration - and it is a very good summary of the whole OOXML case:
Friends, Bloggers, Free Coders, Supporters of Open Standards!
We are not here today in order to bash Microsoft.
We are here because we believe in open standards.
We are not even here today because we are opposed to OOXML.
We are here because we are opposed to OOXML as an ISO standard.
We are not here because we want to discredit the ISO.
We are here because we want to defend ISO’s integrity.
We are here because we want to draw attention to the scandalous behaviour of the people in Standard Norway whose job it is to represent Norwegian users and software vendors.
And we are here because we want to prevent the adoption of a damaging IT standard in Norway.
I will get back to this shortly. First I want to spend a few minutes explaining some background for the benefit of people who don’t understand what this issue is all about. Please bear with me.
This issue is all about documents - digital documents.
It’s about how we store documents and how we interchange documents with one another. I’m talking about the kind of documents many of you create every day: reports, letters, articles, school essays, books, theses, spreadsheets, and the like, using programs like Microsoft Word and Excel.
But let us forget documents for a moment and talk instead about hair dryers.
Let me show you an ordinary hair dryer, bought in a shop here in Norway. It has a plug. The plug has two pins. I can plug this hair dryer into any electricity socket anywhere in Norway.
The reason I can do this is because all sockets are the same. There is a standard for sockets in Norway.
The same standard is used in large parts of Europe and elsewhere: If I go to Denmark, I can take this hair dryer, plug it in, and it just works.
I can do the same in Finland, Sweden, Germany and many other countries. I just plug it in and it works.
But if I go to England, I can’t just plug it in, because the sockets there are different. They have 3 square pins instead of 2 rounds ones.
If I go to the US or Japan, I can’t just plug it in, because their sockets are different again. They have 2 flat pins instead of 2 round ones.
Documents are like hair dryers. We want to be able to plug them in to any piece of software and be able to work with them. But that’s not how it is today. If you create a document in Microsoft Word and send it to someone else, that person cannot use it unless they also have Microsoft Word.
I believe that is wrong.
People should not have to pay money to Microsoft in order to read my documents. The way things are at the moment, Microsoft effectively has control of the documents you and I create.
That’s not how it should be.
Open standards can solve this problem, and that is why I believe in them. That is why I have spent the last 13 years representing Norway as a volunteer in a committee for international standards. I have worked with many standards, including SGML, XML and Topic Maps, and I have been Chairman of the Norwegian ISO committee since 1995.
Two years ago, my committee approved an open standard for office documents called ODF. ODF was developed through an open and democratic process in an organization called OASIS.
The purpose of ODF was to provide an alternative to what we call “proprietary” formats. Instead of document formats that are owned and controlled by a single vendor and that force you to use a particular piece of software, the ODF people wanted to define an open format that would make it possible to plug your documents into any piece of software.
ODF was developed, as I said, through an open and democratic process. But one important player was absent from that process. The vendor who dominates this market, Microsoft, refused to participate, and they have refused to support ODF since it became a standard.
Instead they decided to create a competing standard called OOXML and to use Ecma as a back door into ISO.
That is why we are here today.
We are not against OOXML itself. In fact, we thank Microsoft for finally - after twenty years of market dominance - documenting its format in an open specification.
However, we are against ISO’s approval of OOXML. The reason for this is simple: It is not in the interests of users like you and me to have two standards for the same purpose. It would be as if Microsoft were to come here and start installing sockets with 3 pins rather than 2, and then force us to buy their hair dryers.
We are not against ISO either. What we are against is the way in which what has always been an open and democratic organization, where each country has one vote, has been subverted by a large multinational corporation.
I do not hate Microsoft. I would like to welcome Microsoft into the standards community, but only if Microsoft abides by the rules and in particular the spirit of the standardization process.
Microsoft has a bad reputation in the standards community. They are the Big Bad Wolf of standards, just like IBM was 20 years ago. But IBM has shown that it is possible to change.
I hope that Microsoft too will change. I think it is possible. But it will only happen if we, the users, force them to change.
Microsoft needs our help. We have to tell them to stop behaving like a bull in a china shop. They have to help them understand that standards work is about co-operation, not about conflict. Standards should not be created through warfare. They should be created through collaboration.
Microsoft has a lot to learn, and it will take time. It will also take time for Microsoft to earn the trust of all those whose work they have sabotaged during the last twenty years.
Microsoft now says that it now believes in open standards. They need to understand that it will take time before everyone really trusts them. They have to start showing less arrogance and more humility, and they have to prove in practice that they mean what they say.
They can take the first step by admitting that they were wrong not to support ODF.
I call on Microsoft to admit its mistake in trying to force OOXML through ISO’s fast track procedure, and I call on them to support ODF.
I call on Ecma to withdraw OOXML from ISO and keep control of it themselves. We need it for legacy documents.
I call on Standard Norway to admit that it was wrong to overrule its own committee of experts and on them to change Norway’s vote from Yes to No.
I call on the Norwegian Government to stand firm against Microsoft and not to approve OOXML as a Norwegian standard.
Finally I call on users all around the world to look to Norway and follow the example we have set. Raise a storm of protest! Uncover the irregularities that have taken place in your country! Insist that your Governments change their vote to reflect the interests of ordinary people and not the interests of monopolists and bureaucrats.
Kjære nordmenn, vi er ikke alene. Dear Norwegians, we are not alone.
Countries representing the majority of the world’s population voted No to OOXML - and for good reason.
Let me quote just one example. This is from a speech given by the South African Minister for Public Service and Administration, Ms. Geraldine J Fraser-Moleketi. She was speaking at a Conference on the Digital Commons and Open Source Software in Dakar, Senegal just three weeks ago. Here is what she said:
“The adoption of open standards by governments is a critical factor in building interoperable information systems which are open, accessible, fair, and which reinforce democratic culture and good governance practices.
ODF is an open standard developed by a technical committee within the OASIS consortium. South Africa is amongst a growing number of National Governments who have adopted ODF over the past year.
It is unfortunate that the leading vendor of office software, which enjoys considerable dominance in the market, chose not to participate and support ODF in its products, but rather to develop its own competing document standard…
If it is successful, it is difficult to see how consumers will benefit from these two overlapping ISO standards. I would like to appeal to vendors to listen to the demands of consumers as well as Free Software developers. Please work together to produce interoperable document standards. The proliferation of multiple standards in this space is confusing and costly.”
Ms. Fraser-Moleketi: The people of Norway are with you, and we beg your forgiveness for the unacceptable behaviour of our standards bureaucracy.
We were robbed of victory in ISO by a mere 3 votes.
Without the irregularities in Norway, that would have been just 2 votes. Reports are coming in of similar irregularities in other countries, including France and Denmark. Let’s get those non-representative votes changed. Let’s throw OOXML out of ISO.
Microsoft thinks it has won this battle, but I say it’s not over yet.
It’s never over until the fat lady sings, and this fat lady only just got started.
April 8, 2008
Standardization
No Comments
Having attended the Norwegian GoOpen conference today, I must say I am delighted to see so many people getting the idea of free software and how openness will forward innovation. More than 500 people is attending GoOpen - which will prove good for tomorrow’s demonstration.
At the and of the day, Computerworld arranged a debate about OOXML, free software, Microsoft and related subjects. Ron Tolido, CTO in CapGemini had just before made a reference to Robert Mugabe when speaking about how the Norwegian OOXML process was mistreated.
The journalist asked the debate panel if they thought the reference to Mugabe was appropriate. Well, I did not think it was appropriate myself, but the answer by Håkon Wium Lie made the day: “I cannot comment on that as I do not have sufficient information about the situation in Zimbabwe“.
April 7, 2008
Standardization
6 Comments
It ain’t over until the fat lady sings - and she ain’t gonna sing until the majority of the Norwegian committee is heard and action is taken by ISO. A demonstration will take place outside the plenary meeting of the ISO subcommittee responsible for the roughest ISO landing ever. Here we go:
Steve Pepper, the former Chairman of the Norwegian committee responsible for deciding the Norwegian vote on OOXML, is calling for a demonstration to take place outside the building where SC34, the ISO committee that has been landed with OOXML, is holding its spring plenary.
The demonstration will take place outside Håndverkeren, Rosenkrantzgate 7, Oslo, Norway, on Wednesday April 9 at 12.00. Among the slogans are:
* No to ISO approval of OOXML!
* Defend the integrity of ISO!
* Microsoft: Support ODF!
* Ecma: Withdraw OOXML!
* Norway must say no to OOXML!
Steve Pepper is supported by the majority of the Norwegian technical committee who were against approving OOXML, but who were overruled by the bureaucracy at Standard Norway.
“I call on all those opposed to ISO’s approval of OOXML to join this demonstration”, says Steve Pepper. “Standard Norway defends its scandalous act by pointing to 37 identical letters that were formulated by Microsoft and sent to Standard Norway by Microsoft’s partners and customers during the open hearing.”
“If they want numbers, we can give them numbers. Join me on the street and show your disapproval. Please pass this message on around the globe. Let’s use *our* technology for everything it is worth.”
Hopefully, I will see you in Oslo, it’s a nice city 
For reference, here is a list of process irregularities in Norway.
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