UCF Community Luncheon

Ready to Eat!!!

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Florida Blue Sky

When people ask me why I moved back to Florida, I wish I could package the weather that we are having today as a reply. Georgeous.

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Birthdays, Mortality, and Warren Zevon

I spent the better part of yesterday working from a Panera Bread restaurant while waiting for my power to be restored after Tropical Storm Fay decided to move from my front porch.

While working, more times than not, I am listening to Pandora.  And, as often happens, a song played that brought back many memories – good and bad.  The song yesterday was “Back in the High Life Again” as sung by Warren Zevon.  Warren Zevon died in 2003 of lung cancer, and was responsible for much of the soundtrack of my teens and twenties.

Coincidentally, yesterday was my mom’s birthday (still living) and today is – or was – my dad’s birthday (deceased 2004).

When my dad passed away, I listened to Warren Zevon’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” and is still on an iPod playlist that I made that day of the songs I listened to while getting ready to fly back to Nashville following the news of my dad’s passing.

Listening to the Warren sing also brought back memories of another friend, Eric Martin, with whom I used to listen to Zevon quite a bit back in the late 80s and early 90s.  Eric was a former sideman (a drummer) for Slim Whittman (yes – THAT Slim Whittman).  I gave Eric his first programming job back in 1988, and worked with Eric until his premature death in 1998 of a brain tumor.

What do all of these things have in common?  Nothing really, other than Warren Zevon.

I wish I had something profound to say to neatly tie up all of the memories and feelings that come flooding back every time certain Zevon songs play – remembering Jr. High girlfriends, camping out with friends, late night drinking with buddies.  I’m just not equipped as a writer.

This morning I perused You Tube looking for Warren Zevon clips and was immediately reminded why I love his music so – the guy was a freakin’ genius and talented as hell.  As David Letterman commented, he was “the real deal.”

So, as I listen to Warren Zevon sing about raking leaves with Liza and Liz cleaning up the yard, I’ll be thinking of these people and many other happy memories.

And wondering what I’m gonna feed the family for breakfast.

Rainy Day in Winter Park

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After breakfast, before school

Quiet for a change

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Technical Populism

Many of you experience the desire daily to become a Technical Populist – you know, someone who knows that using certain tools or technologies at work among the Borg are verboten, but does so anyway, because it makes your life and job easier than arbitrary rules set up by your company to try and establish a sense of control and containment among the ranks.

Technical Populism is completely understandable.  We all desire to be able to do what we want, when we want, using what we want.  Having your employer tell you what you can and can’t do through the firewall is just another way for “The Man” to keep you down, right?

Let’s face it – today’s ubiquitous PC in the workplace is largely because of the Technical Populists of the 1980s who refused to be satisfied with the months long delays in getting to their data because of the dictums from the guys in the air-conditioned, raised floor data centers in the basement.

Without those early adopters, peer-to-peer networks never would have found their way into corporate America and we’d still be talking SNA rather than TCP/IP.

However – and this is a big however – there are hard and fast limits as to when and where corporate firewalls and limits need to be heeded, because the consequences of not doing so are very punitive and socially irresponsible.

For example, if you work at a health care enterprise housing and dealing with patient data, you are NEVER to leave the premises with patient data, by statute (HIPAA).  Failing to do so carries civil penalties and is ethically irresponsible.  That far outweighs your desire to “conveniently” sneak a thumb drive to work because it’s easier to copy files that way.

Likewise, if you deal with personal data like Social Security numbers, you should never copy them to any portable device that is not secured to the nines.  Yet, every few months one reads of government agencies and private companies where laptops go missing or stolen containing hundreds and thousands of social security numbers, bank accounts, PINs, other other damaging identifaction artifacts because of lax – or worse, ignored – policies and procedures.

Look – no one is more frustrated than I when I see a department within a large concern being held back from doing their job or getting to their data because of someone building a little empire or withholding the tech goodies simply because they can.  It is maddening to see employees resorting to above the flow means (such as Excel Spreadsheets, Visio Drawings, or Word Documents) to circumvent the inadequacies of corporate online systems because the online systems are not responsive to their needs and keep them from getting their jobs done.  I get it.

I deplore it because of the duplication of effort and overall drain on what everyone is trying to accomplish – but I absolutely get it.

In fact, my life as an independent consultant and contractor depend upon it – but that’s a different post for a different day.

From an IT management perspective dealing with Technical Populism is a lot like parenting a teenager – you know certain behaviors are going to happen, because long term consequences are downplayed in favor of instant gratification.  It’s your job to instruct and educate your technical populists on the valid business, statutory, and ethical reasons behind your corporate policies and infrastructure decisions.  This is not 1950 – if you don’t try and have this dialog with your tech savvy peers, they’ll simply go somewhere more conducive to their talents.

And for you would be tech rebels out there – it is your responsibility to insure that you are not putting yourself and the people who put food on your table into legal jeopardy because you don’t feel like adhering to a policy that seems stupid to you, but maybe took a team of people many months and man hours to negotiate and settle upon.

Believe it or not, most companies want to do the right thing with their stewardship of infrastructure, resources, and policies.

In honesty, I can’t believe I’m even writing this post.  I left corporate America many years ago because I realized that constitutionally I am just not a great employee and focus more on results rather than the Kabuki Theatre that working in a larger setting requires everyone to play within.

But I have seen first hand the harm that neglecting hard won and carefully considered network and computing policies can cause.

Technical Populism can move the ball down the field with regard to introducing new concepts (such as Social Networking and Blogging) into the rigid confines of enterprise computing, and can inject new life into organizations listening to their own echoes.

But it needs to be done responsibly, ethically, and with an eye on the overall good of the company – and not simply the personal convenience of the individual employee.

At the Pediatric Office

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Fail Whale Mug

In all the storm prep hub-hub, I just got to unbox my new Fail Whale mug. Smokin’.

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First Day of Pre-School

My wife and I shared a funny little moment this morning.  She had just returned from dropping my youngest son off at his new day (well, half-day) school.

She observed that all of the little girls were dressed to the nines and had mom AND dad in tow, taking pictures and generally fawning over the first day hoopla.

The parents of little boys, however, were practically dropping them off at the curb with mostly the “see ya later, have fun” send offs.

Having two sons, we both had a good laugh.  It’s not that you don’t love ‘em… but it would be less than truthful to say that you weren’t looking forward to that little bit of quiet time for mom and dad when Jr returns to school, day school, pre-K, whatev.

It will be interesting to see how well our intensive emphasis on potty training fares today.  He had a very good weekend – hoping for the best but expecting – well, you know.