Meanwhile, back at the farm

So the obvious question coming from my previous post is “What are your new responsibilities?”  I was unable to talk specifically about what they were when I generated the previous post.  But now the announcements have all been made and I can talk openly about it.

Effective July 1 I will be working with the Software Engineering team on modeling a data warehouse for BYU-Idaho University.  In addition to the data modeling, I will also take part in building the Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes and the reports.  The data warehouse architecture is fairly complex and involves gathering data from many different disparate systems which include an Informix database, some MS SQL Server databases, and possibly even an IBM iSeries.

This will be a fun challenge for me and I look forward to learning these systems and innovating the data warehouse.  This will be a giant leap for me in many regards.  First, being an Apple / Linux fan, most of my experience has been in scripting (ruby / java) and the general *nix environment.  The environment I will be working in will be the Microsoft development stack including C# on .Net, MS SQL Server, and Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).  Although I’m not terribly excited about leaving the comforts of my Apple OS X and Linux environment, I’m prepared to make the best of it.

Learning new programming languages and working in new environments is always good.  You get to see how other languages handle different problems and it makes you a better programmer in the end.  Since this is a personal goal of mine, to always improve my programming skills,  I look forward to the things I will learn.

I thought it would be nice for me to brain dump many of the things on my mind lately. Each of these deserves, and will probably end up as, a full blog post. But for now, I just want to get them down.

Consumerization of IT

Last week I attended the Partners in Business Lecture Seminar at Utah State University in Logan. I went very skeptical that I would learn much, but I walked away with many new ideas. One of the big ideas was the idea of the “consumerization of IT”. This is not a new concept, but it was new to me. I’ve been asked to participate with a taskforce at BYU-Idaho that was setup to view current policy for what technology is approved for use in the classroom and make recommendations for new policies. The ideas around the consumerization of IT have really helped me understand what is really going on. What is the “consumerization of IT”? Wikipedia to the rescue:

Consumerization is a stable neologism that describes the trend for technology companies to bring new technology to the consumer market ahead of business markets. Resulting in a switch of technology power from the work place to the home. Most employees are now finding that their home based IT is more capable than that provided in their workplace. The term popularized by John Taylor and Douglas Neal of CSC’s Leading Edge Forum is one of the transforming drivers of Web 2.0

If that doesn’t mean anything to you, consider the problem that IT faces. Traditionally, IT has had full control over the software and hardware that organizations use on a day-to-day basis (well, for the most part; Craig Burton has an interesting analysis that shows employees have been bringing their own technology for a long time). With the soaring adoption rates of online applications in the home, users are desiring to use these online applications at work. Because there are no existing ways for IT to provide governance over these applications and the data that they hold this trend poses increased risk to the enterprise. In fact, Rob Clyde, CTO of Symantec at the conference stated that it is a problem without a solution at the current time.

Consumerization of IT Management Framework

My conclusions on the consumerization are that this is a trend that is not going to stop any time soon. Rather than develop restraining and comprehensive policies that restrict employees from using online applications and cloud based services, IT needs to take a more minimalist approach. As part of the taskforce, I’m proposing a framework for handling the usage of online and cloud based applications. The framework rests on three core principles:

• Real-time Policy Development & Education
• Digital Citizenship
• Minimalistic Governance

I’ll be working on an essay that I will post here that will explain these pillars in detail and an example of how technology can aid in implementing the pillars within an organization.

Image via CrunchBase

I’ve been using del.icio.us (now http://delicious.com) for over a year to manage my bookmarks for me.  It is essential that I have an online repository for my bookmarks because I often jump to multiple machines and I like to have my bookmarks handy.

I use the official delicious add-on in Firefox to quickly access my delicious bookmarks and to add new bookmarks without even visiting the delicious web site.  I usually only visit the web site when I want to manage (remove/edit) my bookmarks.

delicious advertises social bookmarking, which I never really paid much attention to.  Just having an online repository for my bookmarks was good enough.  But earlier today I was visiting a friends blog and noticed that they also used delicious due to a link on his web site.  After clicking on the link I was taken to the delicious page that showed all of his bookmarks.  As I looked through the list I noticed that there were a lot of things there that looked interesting to me.  I thought, this is sorta like micro-blogging, except with a URL to this person’s favorite sites.  It show’s the things he’s interested in and gives me more insight into the project he’s working on.

It then hit me that delicious offers an RSS feed for the links.  Just like subscribing to a blog, I subscribed to his links in Google Reader.  Now I will automatically get updated with any site he bookmarks.  Beautiful!

If you use delicious, let me know cause I want to follow your links too!  If you want to follow my links, you can click the link on the sidebar of my blog or just jump to this link here: http://delicious.com/mikefarmer

I’ve recently been struggling to keep up with my RSS reading on Google Reader. I find myself going to Google Reader, almost habitually, five to six times per day.  Over the past couple of weeks I started to wonder if I’m reaching the the point where the value of reading all this information every day is really helping me or if it’s just Info-candy.

What is Info-candy?  To me, info-candy is information that is interesting but doesn’t benefit you in the long term. It’s fun to read (sweet to the taste) but when I’m finished reading there is little that is memorable or lasting that comes from it.  The problem with info-candy is that it is everywhere.  It’s really easy to find, easy to read, and it is really addictive.  For me, I feel like I am getting a lot done and learning new things only to realize that it has very low relevance to what I’m working on or what I want to work on.  But yet I want more.

Info-candy is easily understood when contrasted with its opposite (which I can’t think of a clever name for so I will call it Meaty-info –inconsistency is intended).  Meaty-info requires far more time to read because it has to be absorbed and understood.  You may have to look up some of the words on wikipedia or another resource.  You may have review the information a time or two to get an understanding of what the author intended. Meaty-info, I’ve found, rarely comes from major technology outputs like Techmeme or TechCrunch.  Instead, I’ve found that finding really thoughtful bloggers is really the way to go.  Here are some examples of individuals blogs that I read that frequently publish Meaty-info:

• John Udell http://blog.jonudell.net/
• Phil Windley http://www.windley.com
• Jeff Atwood http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/
• Joel Spolsky http://www.joelonsoftware.com

Those that frequent IT Conversations will quickly recognize these names. The Meaty-info I get from these authors is enhanced and more easily understood when supplemented with a podcast. Podcasts can quickly reveal depth and provide listeners with greater understanding on complex and very meaty information, which is why I love them.

Here’s the real point that I want to make: Just like real candy, some Info-candy is good and can initiate some interesting thoughts or ideas.  It’s really good at getting you excited about trends and new technology. It doesn’t, however, provide lasting knowledge that is both usable and applicable to a wide range of interests.  Meaty-info, on the other hand, broadens thinking, explores concepts, and enriches your experience.  I’ve gone through my Google Reader feeds and started to cut back on the candy — call it a diet.  I’ve also committed to taking more time to chew on some great meat, digest it, and make it a part of my overall skill set.