Docandersen&#039;s Blog

In 1979 I thought about what I envisioned the future to be. I had been leveraging/using a PDP-11 terminal connected to our high school it was huge. I envisioned (then) a brief case that would include a phone, calculator and circular slide rule.

That is now all replaced by one iPhone. In fact my iPhone can do so much more than my vision that I guess I was off by a lot, less I limit my vision to 1989 then its still pretty solid. That is of course the reality of visions. I could have been disingenuous and said I like Nostradamus foresaw all that was to be. But Nostradamus was very vague (I suspect on purpose) so what he wrote would always find a voice (and interpretation).

The future is a funny thing. My predictions today are much like the ones I made 33 years ago, guesses. I am more of a technologist today than I was then (although in fairness I was an AV geek back then). The best way to look ahead is to examine the past.

The digital or “connected” generation. This is a unique question but it is as human as any question can get. In the 1800’s when you left home, in some cases that was the last time you EVER saw your family. Humans have sought more and greater connections since the very first letter was sent. So while I do not buy the moniker the digital generation, I do buy the fact that humans will continue to seek more and more ways to connect.
Phones will get smaller. At some point this is a ridiculous assertion. Phones will require screen real estate. Now it is possible in the future we will see roll able or foldable screens that will allow us to have more screen in a smaller package but for now the physical screen size remains a limit.
What lies beyond cloud? Today we are heading into the world of shared resources and pools of compute power. What lies beyond that? The next big thing will change the software industry that exists today – truly shared software resources. You won’t buy an application you will buy time on the application. The way the pricing models are today this would be prohibitive. But tomorrow? Ah sweet tomorrow promises new pricing models that will drive the overall rental cost of software down. This is beyond good enough, its about using the right tool for the job when you need it but only paying for that tool when you need it.
See through monitors (they are available now but expensive) that could become the cube walls of tomorrow. Imaging the value of a cube if the entire wall you were facing was an interactive monitor.
Roll able or foldable screens (see mobile above)

There is more to come –

.doc

Is it the right direction?

May 19, 2012May 19, 2012doandersen

What does tomorrow truly bring? People talk bout the current generation of kids being the digital age. They strive for connection at levels never before seen. I would argue with that point in that the children who ate 14 to 18 now (and even up to 20 or 21) have more access to communication devices in a number of different formats that any other generation. A cellular phone carried by a 14 year old in 1988 would have not only been shocking it would have been well, very abnormal.

Today it is the norm.

I think the reality of communication is the message that is being carried into the world. Facebook, twitter and SMS have become communication platforms that people leverage to feel less alone.

There is a difference that we are all missing right tow – a reality that is caused by the communication change around us. My family came to America about 120 years ago in two different groups. One from Ireland and the other from Denmark (yes like most American’s we have a number of other components but those are the two main pieces). They left the land they grew up in knowing that the highest probability was they would never see the land or talk to the people again.

Today you make the same journey in less than 12 hours. You can land in the old counties and call the new world via your cellular device and talk to your family (I’ve done it many many times). Connection is becoming different and we aren’t paying attention. The digital child of today isn’t creating a new way of doing things, they simply have the tools that allow them to do things that people have long wanted to do, but couldn’t because they lacked the tools.

It is not that the generation digital’s are different, they, like the first farmers many thousand years ago, have the tools to change their lifestyle. The question is are we heading in the right direction?

.doc

Que Sera Sera

March 15, 2012March 15, 2012doandersen

The path to the future takes us from products (and complexity) to solutions (and simplicity). The overall concept of simplicity involves some initial change.

Computer software products are too complex today. You know they are too complex because the various captive services organizations are growing not shrinking (and providing direct services as well as strategic services which in the end is bad for them and the market but that is for another day).

Given the complexity of products today you can imagine that a solution built on complex products is by de-facto reality even more complex. But the products of today fall short of the real business need that drives what people need to consume.

Now the other side of today’s products and their overall complexity is the movement towards mobility and the reality of more simplified solution overall in the mobile space.

This results in a market that is balanced on a single point (complexity) and pivoting on the point around the end state (products don’t as is meet customer needs).

Simplistic mobile solutions bound to complex enterprise solutions resulting in unhappy IT professionals and unhappy customer’s (both of IT and the product companies).

The search and even quest for simplicity will drive the next 2-3 years of computing and computing technology. The reality of the old song “Que Sera, Sera” no longer applies. We need to focus the computer software industry on creating simple products that result in “less complex” solutions.

Can it happen? Is anyone listening?

.doc

time for a revolution!!!

March 8, 2012March 8, 2012doandersen

I’ve been pretty harsh on captive services orgs. I wrote about a number of failings they have recently. To switch it around a little I wrote quite a bit about this in my book Transitional Services, the concept of captive services organizations bridging the gap between product complexity and the customer.

I know you can always hire a smart guy, but the reality of the world is the smart guy charges more each time you have to hire him. It’s the same model used by drug dealers (a taste to create dependence). You become dependent on the smart guy and you need those services.

The reality behind this diatribe is that software solutions are too complex. This requires the captive services organization, but as a customer why shouldn’t I start asking for simplicity? If I am going to buy a solution from a company, why should I have to pay for the consulting that is required to build and operate the solution? Sure if they have to fly someone in from another place I should pay for the travel and expenses – that is fair. I should also have to pay a small amount, call it the overuse fee. If I have to pay something I won’t overuse the service (ever wonder why gas stations charge for air now? First they can, second people used the air station and never bought gas ergo now everyone pays for both).

So from this I have my new rules for captive services:

Document the problems you solve and make that available (this is beyond TechNet and msdn for Microsoft and Oracle.com for Oracle) build the fixes back into the installers for the applications.
Charge me for travel, charge me for some level of the cost of the resource but frankly the shame is yours if you charge me beyond market rate. Its really your problem not mine. (the government has never had to bail out a company in the software industry.)
Share your IP. Oh yeah and the next time I hire one of your consultants make sure that you’ve shared your internal tribal knowledge about me as your customer. I don’t want to train every one of your consultants in how I do business.
Over the next 5 years make your solutions easier.
Document those solutions better.
Share.

It is time for a revolution.

.doc

Establishment as a basis for not changing…

October 18, 2011doandersen

http://chuckandersen.wordpress.com/

A view on maturity.

I was talking to someone this morning about maturity. Computing as an addition to our world is pretty immature. Things that we expect from professionals like medicine and education are not always expected from computing.

The other side of that argument is the one I want to focus on. The older and more mature a profession is the greater the gap between practitioners is.

Think about the range of medical practitioners that are still within the concept of the profession vs. the limited nature of computing today.

Physical security and physical security systems are fairly mature. Security within an IT infrastructure is maturing. The rest of computing is still often the wild wild west. It sometimes makes it hard for IT people to keep up with the business perception.

The agility of a profession can be traced directly to its overall breadth. Conceptually you can’t have an extremely mature and broad profession with practitioners from various orgs and groups still practicing if you wish to be agile.

Change is the one thing mature orgs do slowly and immature orgs do quickly. One because they are established (and therefore can) the other because they aren’t established and have to.

.doc

Amazon Rocks!

May 8, 2011doandersen

Happy Mother’s Day to all!!!

Today the topic is Amazon. I am a huge fan of their customer service (I’ve blogged about that before) but currently am an even bigger fan of their trade in service. I have been a long time ebayer, but frankly the fees (and the quality of the transactions) has decreased so much I don’t really like selling things there, anymore. So what do you do with things you no longer need? You go to amazon and trade them in for credit!

I have realized that it is so much easier to work this way then to take the time to list (argue) and sell on ebay. Ebay’s customer service is so poor now that its not even worth messing with. Sadly for them, I have a perfect selling record (no negatives ever). But now I do the Amazon thing,

In fact today I am bundling up some stuff to send in. My wife uses the gift certificates to buy books for her career – so it works out perfectly.

.doc

More on the concept, are you what you play?

April 30, 2011April 30, 2011doandersen

Many years ago when I was a “beginning” teacher I did some research (which was a lot harder back then – everything was on paper and there was no internet) about the link between violence (movies and television) and violence (children hurting other children). At the time the research was less than conclusive – with my ultimate conclusion being the concept of “virtual violence doesn’t beget physical violence.”

Fast forward 25 years and the question is there again. Does virtual violence increase physical violence? The concept of aggression is a critical one for humanity. It almost seems to be a core component of what we are and do at times.

Yesterday I talked about the person and the online games they play. Is there a correlation (and I believe there is). In fact I wonder if aggression isn’t something that we are building rather than reducing.

Are we increasing violence?

I wonder.

Look at the world around us. What we accept today is far greater than what we accepted 25 years ago. You have to do a lot more now, for a “R” movie rating than you did before. Violence has almost become de rigor in many genres of movies.

So I ask again, are you what you play? I laid a simplistic view yesterday of online games. There violent games, cooperative games and games that increase socialization. Does what you play determine who you are?

.doc

Question 1, continued how do we communicate?

April 8, 2011doandersen