Archive for May, 2009
IT Management Lessons From Terminator Salvation
2This past weekend, I went to see the new movie, Terminator Salvation. Before you click away, consider that the premise of The Terminator series of movies and TV shows actually says quite a bit about the ways people view computers, technology, information security, artificial intelligence, and information technology management. These are all the same things that your average Information Professional is supposed to be superhuman at handling.
For those of you unfamiliar with The Terminator movies, I will provide a short, non-movie spoiling summary. Man creates computers. Small start-up invents real artificial intelligence and sells it to US Air Force (USAF). USAF creates a network of computers to command and control the US nuclear arsenal. They call this network Skynet. Within minutes of initial activation, Skynet becomes sentient, decides humanity is a threat to itself, and launches a humanity erasing nuclear war to destroy humanity. After the nuclear war, Skynet has to create ever more human-like cyborgs to root out and exterminate the remnants of the human race.
As for my movie review? The genius of the first and second movies was the plot: Machine hunting humans – was brilliant. But the details were ridiculous in both movies. This has been turned on its side. The last two movies have been stupid plots with budgets that permitted the gorgeous details to distract you even further. In short, the great sci fi is gone but the silliness remains. It is sad really…
Seriously though, what does it say about our profession that people will pay $10 to sit for 2 hours and watch these stories? While suspending disbelief is required for all science fiction and summer blockbusters especially, the fantasy must be at least reasonable enough to get them in the door. Are people really afraid of their IT becoming self aware? Do they think so little of our information security practices that they honestly think that a neural network could launch a nuclear attack all by itself? Do they consider it plausible that machines could actually progress from desktop PCs and servers to indistinguishable from human android cyborgs with super strength and computational powers in only a decade?
I am not sure about the science in the fiction of Terminator, but I do know that it makes me seriously think about my users and stakeholders perceptions of what we do. Maybe we need to take some of the fear, uncertainty, and doubt out of our information technology and add a little more expectation education to our management.
I really want to hear what you think about the scare factor of IT? Tell us what you thought of the movie, too. No matter what… Tomorrow…I’ll be back!
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for May 28, 2009 ©Scott Coughlin .
The Progression Of Content
0Information Professional is the name of our community. This week, my thoughts have turned to pausing to consider what that actually means.
Today, I will discuss what Information is. It is useful to remember the progression of content. Just as all matter is made up of atoms, all the facts of our world are composed of data as a basic building block. Data is neither good or evil, useful, or slanted. A good example of data is temperature as a number. It just "is" because it has no context. Information is just data with context. A temperature with its unit of measure (Fahrenheit or Celsius or Kelvin) makes a fine example. Now the information has some intrinsic value for comparison, but no real use. If you also knew that water froze at 32F and that the current temperature was 31F then your information would have advanced to being knowledge. The data in context, referred to as information is now actionable because you could vary behavior in response to it. A driver in the rain will, can, and should act on this knowledge. The final, currently recognized maturity level of data is that of wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge that has been combined with other knowledge, tagged in database or web 2.0 terminology, to allow predictive action and appreciation of outlier detection. The above rain below freezing scenario should be anticipated as wisdom in January in Vermont as well as generally discounted from the same wisdom at all times in Hawaii. Recognizing this progression of content is key for appreciating the role of the Information Professional.
One major function of Information Professionals is corralling data and then moving content ever higher along this progression. Just as without constant energy input, all natural systems devolve into chaos through decay, someone has to work at turning data into wisdom. This function is commonly called knowledge management, but is better called wisdom generation. This is a prime benefit of properly employing an information professional.
Later this week, I intend to continue this series and explore the other roles and uses of Information Professionals. Please tell us your thoughts on this subject in the comments. Share your concerns and improvements to this story.
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for May 27, 2009 ©Scott Coughlin .
Legends of the IT Profession
2Every community, profession, and society has its own legends. As I was preparing a presentation today, I decided to add some of the folklore of the Information Technology profession. Unfortunately, when it came time to add them, I could not think of a single one. So I ask you, what are the legends of the IT Profession? Do we have any?
Honestly, the only ones that I could come up with were the fairly lousy movies that have been based on the information age. These include such poor ones as Hackers and Die Hard IV. On the positive side, I came up with War Games, Sneakers, and Serenity. Obviously, those are all fictional and then some. The closest to true crime in books that I know of is @large.
It seems to me that one of the keys to becoming a professional community is establishing a shared heritage including some good legends.
So can you think of any stories, fairy tales, or legends for the Information Technology profession? Please share them with us.
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for May 26, 2009 ©Scott Coughlin .