Why 2000 Twitter?

Interesting issue with Twitter right now – they do not allow you to follow more than 2000 (or a gap between following and followers). Is this a performance issue to get rid of the whales?

Personally I use my twitter feed as a newsfeed. I can find out what a large number of people are thinking about the issue of the day. There really isn’t another way to do that right now easily, so the following no more than 2000 people really impacts me.

I could understand this if it was a performance issue – but then simply tell people that it is a performance issue.

As it is, i feel bad as people follow me and I cannot return the favor. I suspect its time to get rid of the worst type of twitterati, the follow you for a day and then drop you (so they gain followers and reduce following).

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leaving breadcrumbs

I’ve talked in the past about lighthouses embedded in solutions to help prepare people for issues or problems. Another tool for developers is leaving bread crumbs in your comments that will help another developer walk through issues and bug fix your code.

Yeah I know – all code shipped it 100% bug free. But there are always bugs in the hardware or hardware/software combination that we couldn’t prepare for.

In reality it seems a simple concept (leaving bread crumbs) but we often forget the little things. In the IP/IC world having the ability to add specific break crumbs may improve the overall usability of the information.

But we forget things like that often. Except you can’t forget the bread crumbs when making good stuffing – it kind of changes everything.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!

.Doc

Neat freaks and slobs living together

Of course this has been a theme for a number of years on a number of televisions shows and movies. From Ghostbusters its my favorite line “Cats and dogs living together.” We never know what this merging of opposites will create.

Except, in the space of knowledge management (or really IP/IC management – as knowledge management is a much bigger nut). In that world you have people who need IP/IC (searching) and people who are building IP/IC (content creators). But if they are speaking even a slightly different language we are in trouble.

For example, think of all the directory standards that exist today. Kerberos, LDAP etc…the list goes on for awhile. If you build a product that speaks directory you have to speak all of these languages, but not all of the nomenclature is the same. What do you mean by synchronization?

Which is actually the neat freaks and the slobs coming together. They don’t speak the same language and so it impacts search. Personally i like to shorten directory services to Directories, but i have friends who only use DS and LDAP. If I search for directory in a KM system, I won’t find it because the neat freaks or slobs (not telling which one I am) have placed the document in with their nomenclature.

You want communication in your IP/IC system? Build a common taxonomy that allows people the freedom to express their solution while making sure the next person along can leverage that.

Freedom means knowing what comes next.

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Competing for the cloud

I am still trying to figure out the metaphor, cloud computing. I understand that it is a metaphor for distant and things you cannot touch but I wonder why clouds? Watching a flight of geese as they crossed the sky yesterday afternoon I wondered. Clouds bring good things (shapes we can watch) and rain (to help crops grow). But clouds are actually controlled by a number of other forces.

1. So why Cloud Computing?
2. It’s a cool and catch name, but is it the right name?
3. Should we instead go for Remote Non-Customer Managed Data Center (RNCM) instead?
4. What about SEPD? SepD has a nice ring to it (Someone else’s spinning Disk!)
5. Or could we consider (MAISIDC) My data is sleepless in someone else’s data center?
6. Or possibly a little more arcane with something like “It Ain’t my data center” AMDC

Clouds bring bad weather (tornados, torrential rain, hurricanes) and frankly the more I watched them yesterday didn’t really instill a sense of wonder as to the data that might be floating around out there. I would be more afraid of the data falling out of the cloud and raining down on me like well, rain.

We need a better name than Cloud computing.

.Doc

A flight of fancy

(I’ve always liked that phrase).

What, if?

The radius of a circle or for that matter the diameter and circumference can be calculated. The distance from the earth to the sun is known. We’ve identified particles within atoms that are smaller than the atoms themselves.

What, if?

There have been major conflicts involving the deaths of thousands, if not ultimately millions of people in the past 30 years. They continue to happen, why?

What, if?

Computers are logical tools that help us shape good decisions and follow logical processes to their ends. Computers don’t call in sick on Monday’s when they do repetitive tasks, over and over.

What, if??

Technology has both extended our world and ended it more quickly. We’ve become effective at killing people in large numbers. We’ve become effective at saving people in large numbers. Why? Why do we as a species not understand the potential of the advances in our grasp?

The world is worth saving. It may be too late for C02 emissions but it is not to late to figure out a way to help humans survive the hotter world. Technology can save the day for humanity if we simply stop pushing it away.

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The path to a cloudy day

On the last day of a conference, usually late in the day they always put the “interesting” but small audience presentations. I’ve done a number of those (and a few first day, early “impact” presentations.)

Recently I saw a presentation about cloud computing that has stayed with me. It was a webcast focused on the concepts that would “change” with the upcoming world of cloud computing. They talked about push and pull technologies and about the concepts of what the cloud would bring.

But the thing that interested me the most was the overall concepts that were being presented. the concepts of change and how painful that would be in the short run.

I nicknamed the session the path to a cloudy day.

The concept of change required to implement a cloud computing solution.

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Finding a way through the rubble of failure

I’ve worked with a number of IT orgs over the years. We often start meetings with the concept of failure – “we” they say “can’t do that” and then they talk about the previous projects they have had that have failed.

“failure” they say is the biggest driver in starting new projects. While I can see that, and often agree with the concept that failure is a critical component of success, I then ask them about the post mortem process they undergo.

How do you go from failure to success? The first thing is you have to learn from where you have failed in the past. You have to do a serious root cause analysis of the overall concepts of failure.

• Why do your projects fail?
• planning?
• too much planning
• too little planning
• Capacity
• too little
• too much
• too new
• Skills
• Our people can do the job
• Our people cannot do the job

From here, the other considerations would be do you select the right technology up front?

Do you always upgrade one version behind the shipping version?

How are business requirements captured?

Do you have a traceability matrix for your solution? Can you show the changes over time?

How do you capture and manage risk? Do you share relevant risks across all projects?

How do you do your operations today?

How do you do change management?

All of these questions, brought together in a single document will show the post mortem of a project. Over time, successfully talking about where you have failed will result in a decrease of the failure points within your projects. Edison tried over 200 combinations before he got the right one to create the light bulb. He however never called the first 200 failures – they were simply tests that didn’t produce the expected results.

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If the last one to leave could turn out the lights, please…

I recently found out that something that I helped build has died.

It is a funny thing, the human ego. When you help build something you have a sense of ownership that isn’t real but yet is still there. You feel that your contribution was in fact the thing that made the solution. You are the parent of what you built.

Why is that?

Because we seek to be part of something greater than ourselves. We seek to be something that lasts beyond the paper it is written on.

So I watch the death struggles and I lament.

What was.

What could have been.

What?

Tears of sadness are something all of us experience at times. Melancholy that what was to be could never be. That our expectations for the world around us were wrong or at least were in fact misled.

Where was the lighthouse warning me of the rocks ahead?

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Can inactive move from anti-pattern to pattern?

I was discussing architecture yesterday with a dear friend. We were joking about the concept of everything must be a pattern in the architecture world of today. But I got to thinking later, what about inactivity? Could inactivity be a pattern? Could a successful IT shop use inactivity to gain a competitive advantage?

By default inactivity is an anti-pattern. But could it in fact be a pattern for IT Success? You would have to have a managed approach to your inactivity. You couldn’t just remain inactive. This would be a planned process where you considered when you need to stop being inactive and start moving.

So perhaps the pattern here is really planning your inactivity. Let someone else work out the kinks in the new solutions. You poised right at the edge, waiting are then able to seize the day.

The pattern of time based inactivity.

.Doc

I can’t see the forest, for the clouds

Everything is now cloud computing. (I bought a new cloud connected can opener yesterday, it will tell the grocery store what I am opening on a daily basis and notify can makers if I use the opener incorrectly so they can send a service technician). In fact I was at the animal shelter and they offered me a cloud connected cat.

Interesting concept, cloud computing. Perhaps we should change the name, calling it internal (or company owned) data center solutions and external (someone else owned and managed) data centers.

Like anything in its early stages, cloud computing is screaming for a foundation. That foundation should come from a group like IEEE. The reason for a third part to engage and define the name and process is that it will force people to build their solutions within the initial boxes of “cloud” computing.

One of the things that I feel we should improve during this great cloud transition we are about to undergo is the consistency of solutions. The true value proposition of a cloud solution that you reach out to is that your data is secure but it is also common – in the same format as the other people you are working with.

1. Cloud solutions = this to this (with both this’s being end points)
2. Experimental Cloud solutions = this and beyond or this and beyond (where either this is the end point listed above) and should denote that they are experimental clouds.

Hopefully someone with authority is reading this

.Doc

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