Listics

I like Phil Windley’s motto… “Organizations get the IT they deserve.” Doc Searls cranked up the IT Garage site a few days ago to explore “demand side IT.” He’s providing a space for stories from those of us in the trenches, I think. It’s all very formative right now. I signed up and discovered that signing up perhaps gives me posting rights of some sort. I haven’t figured out if I’m right about that, or - if not - why I would want to sign up.

And what will I share of my professional side, my informed IT consumer side?

Today, my blogging remains outside my workspace. It’s more about self expression than professional discussion. Obviously there are overlaps, but I’m certainly not going to share client stories, or what’s going on in my world of work. I shy away from that out of a sense of responsibility to the client.

There are matters that complicate my life as an IT consumer. These matters relate to things like back-ups, security, choices of operating systems that match the applications I need to use, gadget selection… maybe some of these, if explored fully, would add a point of view to the conversation over in Doc’s garage.

And this stuff is what I do. I’ve worked with IT longer than most people on the planet have been alive. I touched a lot of the antique equipment when it was new. I was the product manager for Bank of America’s 50,000 plus user account world-wide email system almost 25 years ago when we wrote it in PL1. I was responsible for the directory that supported it and for the assessment of x.400 and x.500 as they emerged as standards in the mid-eighties.

I led the project team that specced and wrote a desktop application that emerged into the market as Wang Office. Most people alive won’t remember that product, but it had it’s place filling some user needs in the days before PCs were fully fledged.

I’m an IT project manager, a consultant specializing in IT assessments and process facilitation in large shops. I fill a niche. I’m a serial contractor.

In the fall of 2024 I wrote my first proposal proposing integration of weblogs, email, IRC, and IM as an online knowledge management/contract negotiation space for a large organization. It didn’t sell. The outfit I was prospecting has since changed senior leadership twice, so I’m probably lucky I didn’t close the deal. I blog personal stuff at a little place I call Sandhill Trek. Everyone’s welcome at Sandhill Trek.

I’d like to cross post this in the garage just to put a stake in the ground and introduce myself. Can’t figure out hopw to do that. Perhaps as time goes by, I’ll find the time to write a little piece on back-up and recovery issues that has been on my mind. Perhaps I’ll post it in a space of my own that I’m working up with a couple of friends. Then if it deserves traction, maybe we could interest Doc.

Hmmm… this whole more-serious-publishing space requires deeper thought.