How AutoCAD Changed the World

That's kind of a bold, hype-ish title, am I right?  You're probably rolling your eyes, or saying "yeah, sure, whatever" or something like that.  But give me a chance to explain...

Back in the early 1980's, if you did any "design" or "drafting" work, you were most likely working on a physical drawing board and tracing your ideas out on Vellum, Paper, or Mylar sheets using various kinds of mechanical pencil materials or maybe a Rapidograph ink applicator.  Maybe you used templates and lettering guides, or shape tracers or flexible curves and those stupid-looking weights we called "ducks" or "whales".  In the mid-1980's came the first real significant influx of computerized design technologies.  They had weird names like AutoTrol, CADAM and so on.  They were collectively termed "CAD" for Computer Aided Design.  If they were connected to manufacturing machinery, they were called "CAD/CAM" for CAD + "Computer Aided Manufacturing" (or "Machining").  If they did engineer calculations from design data, they were called "CAD/CAE" some were "CAD/CAM/CAE" and some were just stupid and we called them "overpriced crap".  But they were magical for their time.

Here's the snapshot of "before":  These first-generation CAD/CAM/CAE systems only, I repeat ONLY, ran on UNIX platforms.  Not only that, but most were tuned for specific UNIX platforms, so they were hardware specific, such as DEC, IBM, Sun or a few others (most of which are all gone now).  The software alone was often in the $10,000 to $30,000 range PER SEAT.  The hardware was just as expensive, or even more expensive.  I worked on one system back in that era that was priced at $50,000 for the hardware "workstation" and the design software.  Keep in mind that you HAD to purchase vendor support since they did not allow you to work on it yourself, often keeping many of the features, settings and capabilities secret until you paid someone to reveal them to you.  Oh yeah. Good times they were not.

Then came along some scrappy little company named Autodesk and they had this cheap little CAD product called "AutoCAD" that actually ran on an IBM-PC.  The other vendors laughed and tried to ignore it.  I remember an IBM rep saying to us "that's a toy - a piece of crap that'll never go anywhere".  I sure wish I could have recorded that for later on.

Maybe you've heard the story of the butterfly that caused a hurricane.  This is very similar.

So, as this tiny little snowflake rolled through the fledgling IBM-PC "compatable" market, it began to gather some snow and grow bigger and heavier.  For the peanut gallery out there: I'm not implying it was bloated.  It wasn't.  It became heavier with customers and customer momentum.  Still a bit immature at R9, it made heads turn at R10 and R11.  Then R12 came out and that snowball was now the size of a truck and rolling faster.  As the UNIX market began to respond, it lost some of its footing as well.  The big players started losing key developers and managers to smaller startups, all trying desperately to stir up excitement to fend off this new upstart called the "PC".  Computervision stumbled, which led to Intergraph and Pro/Engineer.  CADAM, Unigraphics and others started making adjustments, and even tried "realigning" licensing costs, but they caught some breathing room when Autodesk stumbled with R13.  Then came R14 and it was pretty much a done deal as far as customers balling up those checks for the expensive UNIX fees, and stroking new checks to the much less expensive PC product lines.

As customers moved from UNIX to Windows and Windows NT at an increasing rate, so too did many stalwart UNIX product vendors.  CAD/CAM/CAE products previously only available on UNIX were suddenly announcing PC versions.  Even the most discerning NASTRAN vendors were poking at the PC market, especially as the PC hardware specs began an accelerated upgrade path.

I saw this firsthand at least four employers, and dozens of businesses I interacted with, and multiple branches of the U.S. Department of Defense: Navy, Army, Air Force, USMC, Coast Guard, even NASA.

No other PC-based CAD product had as much impact on the CAD market, and pushing customers to take the PC platform seriously.  It also pointed the light on their budgets and ROI, and suddenly program managers were faced with making serious choices about continuing on with their life-draining budget expenditures, or doing some soul searching about this new PC-based direction.

The rest is history.

Is the UNIX market dead?  No.  Not at all.  Has it scale back?  Yes.  Most of the major UNIX vendors from Compaq, Sun, Prime, DEC, Silicon Graphics, Helix, Unigraphics, are gone, or have been acquired and renamed.  IBM, Dassault, and Integraph remain vibrant, while PTC has undergone multiple shifts in product and services offerings, but seems to be alive and well.  One major change from twenty years ago has been the emergence of Siemens.

But even with these legacy companies still bouncing along, they've ported most, sometimes all, of their products to the Windows platform.  Love them or hate them, that little snowflake had an impressive impact indeed.

A Short Recap of my Career Thus Far

• 1984, I left the construction world, and playing in bands, for a job as a "apprentice drafstman" (board drafting, Mylar, Sepia and vellum).  I recall lettering 20 ANSI-F title sheets entirely by hand per week for several months on end (notes, references, materials, titleing, very little white space left).  My fingers had permanent dents from holding the mechanical pencils.
• In 1987 after switching jobs a few times (still drafting) I was dunked into building 3D shipboard engine room models using Computervision CADDS 4X.  I worked on that platform for several years.
• In 1990, I was sent to training on Intergraph EMS and VDS and worked on that for almost a year.
• I was sent to training on Bentley Microstation, but picked up a few books and taught myself AutoCAD R10 by staying late at work and sneaking into the AutoCAD drafting room.
• After convincing the CAD dept manager I could work on AutoCAD, I was moved into the AutoCAD group on R11.  The U.S. Navy had just issued an official approval for using AutoCAD to make title sheets and bills of material "only".  All detail design work was still required to be done by hand (plastic lead on frosted mylar sheets).
• In 1992*, the U.S. Navy finally issued an official allowance for AutoCAD detail design work for all contracts.
• After months of struggling with bugs in a custom add-on written in AutoLISP and ADS for our company (by a west-coast employee), I decided to learn AutoLISP and add my own workarounds.  I picked up a few books, but the best was "AutoLISP Programming by Example" by Gene Straka.  One of the best heads-down teach-yourself books I've ever owned.
• In 1994 I wrote my own 2D piping system for AutoCAD R12.  It grew into an HVAC system, and eventually into electrical and structural as well.
• In 1996, I was hired by a large shipyard to lead their first AutoCAD implementation.  It was (gulp!) AutoCAD R13 running on Windows NT 3.51.  It was a very rough experience, but we somehow got it working.  I was also introduced to Brett Rivers, who introduced me to SMS 2.0 and was generous enough to tutor me on how it works and how to use it for deploying AutoCAD and custom add-ons to roughly 3,000 desktops.  That eventually grew to 14,000 desktops.
• In December 1999, I graduated from Christopher Newport Univsersity with my BS in Information Science. 
• In February 2000, I was hired by an engineering firm to build a new shipbuilding CAD suite on top of AutoCAD 2000, and consolidate their standalone licensing under AdLM (prior to FlexLM).  That moved me into license management, including contracts, support, and auditing.
• By 2002 I was on version 2.0 of the new CAD system and had enlisted three team mates to help build out more functionality and features.  We joined the Autodesk Developer Network and the alpha "early adopter" program:  Pinetop, Tahoe, Banff, Kirkland, Red Deer, Neo, Rio (I left ADN before Postrio)
• By 2002 I had been building a lab to prepare for deploying SMS 2003 when the lead for our upcoming NT4 to Win2K Active Directory migration left.  I was asked to take over the project lead.  I ran into a friend who worked at Microsoft who asked if I wanted to join on Windows Server 2003 pre-beta and Microsoft Software Updates Services (SUS).
• March 2003 we completed our migration to Windows Server 2003 and implemented WSUS 2.0 soon after.  SMS 2003 was held back to test the forthcoming SCCM (beta program).  I began working with ASP, SQL Server, and Windows scripting more and more to automate monitoring and reporting.
• 2003 I released "The Visual LISP Developer's Bible, 2003 Edition"
• By June 2004 I was now wearing three distinct hats:  Active Directory Administration, CAD Administration, and CAD software development.  By 2006 I had offloaded my CAD software development duties to the team with only occasional involvement.  I was now focused on software deployment, patch management, auditing, monitoring and alerts, and SOX compliance.
• In Sept 2007, our company imploded when our CEO decided to fuck us all and leave with a smile.
• I was hired by a Microsoft partner and trained on MDOP, Softgrid (App-V) and doing odds-and-ends Windows engineering work for various small businesses.  I also deployed a full SCCM 2007 site for a city government, which had been a while for me, but it nonetheless went very well.  The biggest impact this had on me was getting my head into non-enterprise environments.  Until now, I had only worked in larger corporate environments with teams devoted to each role.  Now it was about individual services to small customers.  I learned 10x in only a few months.
• After a few months the economy tanked (early 2008), and we were laid off.  I was out looking for a job for several months, but nobody was hiring.  I put food on the table by building web sites for various small customers, and helping a law firm with patent application drawings.
• In June 2008 I was hired back at a former employer and taught the fine art of software repackaging to facilitate mass deployment (by now 18,000 computers, I think?).  Wise Package Studio and Wise Script.  I was also tossed back into FlexLM management and FlexNet Manager (which is pretty interesting).
• In July 2010 I was hired by a consulting firm and now I combine a lot of the above (sans CAD work) into a mash-up of projects and tasks:
• Windows Server 2008 R2 management
  
• Windows 7 deployment and customization
• ASP / SQL Server / AD systems automation
• FlexLM license services
• Autodesk deployment builds and distribution
• Repackaging with Wise Package Studio and InstallShield AdminStudio
• Scripting with VBscript, CMD and PowerShell
• SCCM 2007 process automation and custom reporting
• In 2010 I released more books, and again in 2011
• I have no idea why I'm bothering to type this.  It ultimately means nothing to anyone unless they're spilling food on my resume.  I guess the interesting part, to me anyway, is how my ball has bounced in a very unpredictable pattern.  Looking back, I can see the pattern emerge.  But from any one point along the way there was no discernible pattern or path to be seen.  I have learned from some of the brightest and most interesting people I've ever known, and am grateful and humble to having had those opportunities.  Every job change has been tough to handle since I hate parting ways with good people, but I've somehow managed to keep finding incredible people to continue learning.  If I had millions of dollars, I would love to be able to hire everyone I've known to build a "super team" and make incredible things happen.  I doubt that will become reality, but it would be cool.  I have no idea where my ball will bounce next, or if it will roll in front of a bus and that'll be the end of it.  One day at a time.

* I may be off a bit here, but it was somewhere between 1990 and 1992 as best as I can recall.

What Makes a Great IT Professional

This is purely anecdotal crap from the tip of my pointy head.  I've seen many lists of "top 10" skills or aspects, etc., but this is MY list, so I'm applying my own perspective.  This is all shaped by twenty-plus years of working in software development, infrastructure and server support, consulting, and so on.  None of these attributes alone is a reason to hire or not hire someone.  It's a cumulative score and everyone is different.  Quite often we compensate a low score with another higher score and it all evens out.  Or it may be that one major low score is enough to kill the prospect entirely.  I'm sure I've left some things out, and could have likely chosen better names for these "attributes" (even a better column heading than "attribute"), but it's a start.

Rank	Attribute	Explanation
1	Eagerness	Energy is key in the IT field.  I don't need people that look at the clock more than at their task.  I have to feel a sense of enthusiasm for the job.  Eagerness is a key aspect of enthusiasm.
2	Humility	No one is an expert at everything. Even for the few skills we feel confident about, there are plenty of people in the world who know more and perform them better.  Experts are easy to find.  People who understand how to fit into a team and work well with others makes the optimal capability for any operation.  Understanding that what we do in IT is not THE most important thing in this world is part of that.  Having perspective of ourselves, our role in the workplace, our function as a group, and how it fits with life in general are all components of humility. There's nothing wrong with having confidence.  It's important to be able to explain your accomplishments and what they mean/meant to your business and your customers.  But bravado and egotistical mannerisms are a major turn-off to interviewers and employers.  Those traits almost always create friction with coworkers and are bad for a team environment.
3	Current Skills	This dovetails onto "eagerness".  If at least a few of your IT skills are current, it shows eagerness and determination to improve yourself.  How can anyone expect you to help improve my business if you can't show me that you even want to improve yourself?  Don't tell me about Novell Netware, MS-DOS and WordPerfect.  Don't even tell me about LANDesk either.  Windows 7, Office 2010, System Center, Active Directory, Exchange 2010, VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, etc.  Get those on your resume and be able to back them up within a detailed discussion. I ranked this above experience because many of us don't have the luxury of getting hands-on experience with the newest toys while at our day jobs. Many of us have had to go it alone, at home, into the late hours of night and on weekends, just to keep up with this fast-moving field. Such effort demonstrates eagerness and determination.
4	A Sense of Humor	IT operates in groups and teams.  You have to be able to meld with a wide variety of personalities.  From prudish asswipes that never smile, to goofballs that annoy the shit out of everyone around them.  From lazy to driven.  From opinionated to ambiguous.  The more adaptable you are, the more possibilities exist for putting your skills to use.  Having a sense of humor is tantamount to being adaptable.  Let's face it: Nobody wants to work with people that can't smile or laugh.
5	Experience	School is great.  Self-study is great.  But having some real hands-on experience in a business environment adds up to more than anything else.  School cannot teach a CS major how to effectively navigate the terrain of business politics, office culture, vendor relations, shifting business requirements, mergers and acquisitions, and the impact of paid training and bonuses.  Those aspects are powerful forces in the shaping of any solid professional. I ranked this below having a sense of humor because it's easier to find experienced people than people with a good sense of humor.
6	Business Acumen	IT serves one purpose only: supporting business operations.  Period.  Even if your business is IT, someone is doing the bookkeeping.  Someone is knocking on doors and getting contracts.  Someone is taking care of legal matters.  Most of those functions CAN be accomplished without an IT department.  Inefficient, yes.  But they can be done.  IT should make them more efficient and more productive.  IT should lower operating costs, provide advantages over competing businesses, and provide a safety net to prevent catastrophic loss of data.  The better an IT professional understands what the business operation needs and WANTS, the better prepared you will be to work together.  Adversarial IT-vs.-Business environments NEVER work out. Every one of those I've encountered has ended in failure.
7	Team Focus	I'm not talking about meetings or metrics or reports.  I'm talking about sharing credit for successes and accepting blame for failures.  IT professionals who horde their knowledge and don't share it with their peers are bad for team morale and horrifically bad for an efficient and robust business operation.
8	Appearance	Dress professionally.  At least until you've been told by your employer that you can tone it down later on.  But don't show up for an interview with your hair messy, dirty or wrinkled clothes, worn out shoes (or flip-flops).  That shit is for fast food and gas station jobs.  I totally agree with Neil Patel that dressing sharp creates a powerful impression on employers and customers.  This goes along with Neil's "Lessons Learned from Running a Consulting Company" (reason no. 4) On a subjective/personal note: I despise IT folks wearing vendor branding and logo clothing.  Don't be an advertising bitch unless they're paying to do it (and if they're paying you, don't ask me to hire you anyway). As important as appearance is SMELL and BODY LANGUAGE.  If you don't bathe often or use deodorant you're going to offend other employees and that destroys a team environment.  Business does not like anything that destroys or impedes an efficient work operation.  Being less offensive is important to the eyes and the nose.
9	Cohesiveness	Strive to get along with your teammates.  Avoid divisive or hot-button topics (religion, politics, etc.).  Make friends, not enemies.  Avoid drama. Keep your personal life personal.  Don't be an introverted paranoid basket case, but be sparing in volunteering your views and stories of personal adventures/mishaps.
10	Be Flexible	Don't let your official job description box you in.  The person that looks for opportunities to do more and learn new skills is a powerful resource that adds value.  Higher value equates to pay raises, bonuses, training opportunities, and other perks.  Even if you have no desire to move up within your current organization, flexibility allows you to gather more skills and experience and demonstrates eagerness that your next employer will value.

Summary

If "fitting in" and working within a team environment aren't your cup of tea: Don't work in the IT field.  Find something more complimentary of your preferences to work alone or in a different field entirely.  The IT field ranges from small shops with one or two technicians, to freelance consultants who often work alone, all the way to larger corporate shops with dozens or hundreds of engineers, technicians, administrators, managers, architects, and whatnot.  If the environment you're in sucks, find another.  If the work you do sucks, find something else.  Don't waste your life doing something you hate.  But if you want to pursue working in a team environment, you have to strive to be a better team player. 

Desktop vs Mobile: What Won't Change

Michael Pietroforte posted another in his series of articles on dissecting the impact of mobile apps on tradtional (i.e. desktop-based) web applications and web sites.  It's a very good series to read if you (a) work in a field related to web development, web-based marketing, or (b) manage desktops and/or mobile devices on a large scale, and (c) give a crap about tech trends as a whole.  I have been known to occassionally give a crap, but mine don't exude a fowl aroma, of course.  posh posh and all that, pass me another crumpet please?

Here's why small, handheld mobile devices cannot completely wipe out desktops and laptops, or at the very least: tablets.  The following tasks are simply impractical and painful to even attempt on a small handheld device form factor:

• Writing software program code (two hands are better than one)
• Writing books and blog articles (same)
• Managing computer systems effectively (same)
• Professional photography editing (larger viewing area preferred, more detail required)
• Professional music mixing (same)
• REAL Multi-tasking*

Ok.  I'm sure some of you are shaking your heads and spinning up into a decent argument mode right now.  "Oh yeah?! Well, what about…"  Ok, let's hit those counterpoints too…

Some will say that it will soon be common practice to dock mobile devices within stationary systems (large video display, larger keyboard, mouse/pointer, etc.), which is already possible with some devices, but still is a limited practice.  This concept defeats and NEGATES the mobile form-factor argument entirely.  Sure, it makes the core computational device a bit more portable, but you're still only able to expose and exploit the full capabilities while it is docked.  In between it is less capable.  Period.  Sure, you can message, tweet, take pictures, play music and all that, but compared with the docked experience it's a subset, because everything that can be done while undocked can be done while docked, but more can be done while docked.  This is a basic mathematical principle.

Are mobile devices then an inferior form factor?  No.  Just different.  But if we confine our discussion to comparing the aspects of a mobile device with what "threat" it poses to traditional desktop form-factors, then the gloves come off and it's apples-vs-apples from that point on.

* By "REAL Multi-tasking" I am referring to the ability to visually and manually view multiple sub-environments at the same time and simply move the eyes between them to consume their individual dynamic states.  You cannot do that on a smart phone.  Period.  You have to hide one app to access another.  I don't care how tricky the UI engineers get with that process, it's hamstrung by viewing space.  On a desktop video display (or my flat-panel TV, even better, umm…. "Hello?  Winner!") I can have multiple applications open without them competing for display real estate.  I simply move my eyes to see what each is doing and make a quick decision as to which I want to interact with.  On a mobile device I have to use my fingers to view each one, then discern the state and make a singular (serialized) decision about interaction priority, not a multi-nodal comparison with only my eyes (which are faster than my hands).

So.  In the end: desktops, laptops and tablets aren't going to dissappear anytime soon.

IT Jobs

I don't have a crystal ball, but it seems that the IT sector has fared much better than other careers during this recession.  I'm not saying it wasn't impacted.  I was on the front line of the IT impact when the consulting firm I was working for decided to close the local branch and I was on the street - and at the worst possible time: The beginning of the crash.  For three months I searched and found nothing.  Friends, family, colleagues, all tried to help, but employers were just too risk-averse to hire anyone in early-mid 2008.  While other areas like construction, sales, real estate, automotive, transportation services and tourism were taking a heavy hit - layoffs - the IT market was holding tight.  And I mean VERY tight.  While other areas were tossing out the babies with the bath water, IT, for the most part, was spooning out just the specific amount of water and leaving the babies alone.

But over the past year, I've seen a significant rebound in the IT job market.  Particularly along the east coast of the U.S.  The number of contract, temp, temp-to-hire, and full-time offers streaming in from recruiters has grown from one or two per week to one or two per day.  That's a good sign.

It's a great time to get moving on your IT career plans.  Opportunities are growing, jobs are opening up, and the projects are becoming much more interesting.  For years we've been faced with plugging holes.  Most shops are maturing and the types of projects are shifting from damage control into forward planning and optimization.  Bridging gaps, leveraging heterogenious systems, and automation are becoming key project goals across the industry.  Conversations are shifting from "I can't work on that project right now because I have to fix these five other broken things" to "things are working pretty well now, let's work on making our processes work better".

After a decade of mindless, boneheaded blabbering by IT shops that "outsourcing" and "offshoring" were the wave of the future, the net result has been a decrease in interest in working in the IT field for most high school kids in the U.S.  Ask around and you'll see.  Many still think it's a dead-end career.  Mostly because they've heard from others that jobs were being moved to cheaper countries.  Thanks to almost every big-ticket U.S. corporation for spreading that mantra - not!  The opportunities are actually very good, and it appears there are serious shortages of IT applicants in many areas. Recruiters are facing a tough challenge finding U.S. citizens to fill job openings, and are, ironically, having to turn to foreign applicants to fill them.  Reality follows hype, it seems.

By the way, if you know anyone looking for IT work in the Southeastern region of Virginia, there are plenty of IT jobs.  The City of Virginia Beach is looking for a good Systems Engineer.  Some of the skills they're looking for include:

• Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2
• Active Directory
• SharePoint 2010
• Exchange 2007 and 2010
• System Center VMM (Hyper-V)
• System Center Data Protection Manager
• System Center Configuration Manager
• Lefthand and NetApp storage
• WebSense
• Citrix

If you, or someone you know, is interested, go to http://www.vbcareers4gov.com and click on "Search Postings" to find available positions.

What Does “Beta” Mean?

I’ve been a “beta tester” for years.  For quite a few well-known corporate behemoths, and some lesser-known small groups.  It’s fun.  It can be cumbersome work at times, but most of the time it’s just fun.  I get to play with cool new things that nobody (ok, well, a few other people) either know about or get to experience.

The “experience” has been evolving since I first got into this back in the late 1990’s.  Back then, the term “beta” applied to private testing of products or services whereby the vendor sought an interactive dialogue with their testing community.  Quite often on a one-on-one basis.  Those days are, for most larger corporate programs: long gone.  In that realm, a “beta” program denotes an open-public “community preview” where the community is treated anonymously and their feedback is filtered such that only problems with existing features are considered.  Requests for new or enhanced features are ignored. Period.

This is where the old “alpha” term comes back in.  It was barely used in the old days.  Heard of, yes, but barely used.  Today, for larger vendors, the “alpha” programs are the crown jewel of private interaction and feedback communication.  Those programs exist, but they’ve been hijacked by the marketing suits, so that now they only “invite” (internal term is “target”) or accept specific demographics.  By that I mean clients that present the biggest potential revenue from winning them over.  So now you need to fall into one of the following groups to be considered valuable for alpha trials:

• Members of large corporate clients in markets channels where the company wants to make an example “win”
• Members of the Press or book/journal authors
• Partners who develop critical (e.g. “synergistic”) products and/or services

An “alpha” trial is where the product or service is still taking shape.  There is room for adding and cutting features.  It’s the lump of clay dropped on the throwing wheel as it just begins to turn.

A “beta” trial is where the product or service is fully shaped as intended, and the potter simply wants to know if the finished product works or has leaks.  They don’t want to hear about changes to the shape (unless it presents a “critical stop” in the workflow to getting it released).

Another aspect of the retail (“commercial”) software product development process that has changed dramatically, but slowly, is the rationale process for setting goals for upgrades and enhancements.  In the old days it was just a push to make the product more “cool” and “robust”, maybe to match and overcome a competitor.  Today it’s about ROI.  The suits decide what goes on the hit list and what gets cut.  Not the developers.  The developers are becoming more and more of a commodity.  The machine that turns the goals into something tangible for sale. The architects are the only valuable rarity (which is why the “fellow” and “evangelist” positions are prized).  Designing the solution is one thing.  Building is another.  In the old days it was the building part that took center stage.  Today it’s about the business case, the service model, the probability studies for revenue and profit.  Risk mitigation, and so on.  They are the ship’s captain.  The architects are the chief engineer. The developers are in the engine room, shoveling coal into the furnace.  They won’t say it, but most of the suits inately feel this way today.

(caption: don’t they look happy?)

As a technical minded person, you say “but this little feature change would make it so much more useful and easier to do my job”.  But the response is now: “but what does that get US?”

The software technology world got a lot more complicated over the last 20 years.  Business crept in.  Marketing slid under the door.  Legal kicked the door down and took all the remaining chairs at the table. The techies are now serving drinks.

So, while some old-timers still wade into a “beta” program with decade-old expectations of submitting “wishlist” requests and asking for small adjustments, they soon are hit with the frustrating wall of silence and form responses.  This is more true for the lone developer or consultant than for the folks who fall into the demographic list above.  We just have to readjust our expectations and understand the bigger picture, so we can avoid getting our feelings hurt.

Unraveling and Re-Raveling Things

Whilst reading “What Technology Wants” by Kevin Kelly (Viking Adult, 2010, ISBN-13: 978-0670022151), I had the idea to pick something in my immediate surroundings and dissect its substance and impact on the world in which we live.  Try it yourself.

I chose our wooden TV stand.  It has doors with hinges, a drawer and is fastened together with nails and screws.

Going downward in the production “chain”:

This object consume trees for the lumber, ore from rocks and mining to smelt into the metals for the nails, screws and hinge parts, petroleum distillates used for the stain, pigments used for the stain, oil for combustion engines and lubrication, brushes of wood and natural fibers for applying the stain, hammers and screwdrivers, saw blades, milling machines, lathes, routers, joiners and planers.  There’s also a bit of wood glue here and there.

People and machines were used to excavate the Earth to extract various types of ore.  Lumberjacks and machines cut down trees for lumber.  Trucks and trains were used to transport the raw materials to factories and mills to be processed further.  From there they were transported to wholesale warehouses to be purchased, loaded and transported again to yet other factories and mills to be further refined.  In each step they employ yet more people and more machines, all the while consuming resources such as electricity, oil, gasoline, propane (forklifts), compressed flammable gases (welding and cutting). 

Oh yeah, the hinge components and some of the screws are Brass, which means they require two types of ore: Copper and Zinc, which are then smelted and merged to form the alloy, which is poured and cast, forged and machined.

That’s just to get everything to the point of someone being able to assemble this thing.

After each part is fabricated, it is packed, which consumes cardboard, plastic wrapping, paper and adhesive plastic tape.  Once packed, it is loaded onto a pallet, the pallets are loaded onto a truck, the truck is driven to a warehouse and unloaded.  From there it may be moved around, using forklifts, electricity and propane, and reloaded onto a truck or train and shipped to distribution centers.  From there the process repeats as the package is shipped to a retail outlet (or directly to a buyer).  Once purchased it is unpacked, assembled, and the packaging is discarded.  The discarded packaging goes into the trash, where it is picked up by city (or private) waste disposal crews, consuming yet more oil and gasoline or Diesel fuel, transported to a landfill or waste processing plant and, consuming more electricity and oil, it is placed into final disposal (land fill, at-sea dumping, incinerated, etc.).

I would say the cardboard is recycled, but I’m not that optimistic.  Some of it is, I’m sure, but most is not.

Are you still with me?  I didn’t think so. But just in case you are…

Now that you have a TV stand, you buy a TV and a DVR to put into it.  Maybe an XBox 360 or PS3 or Wii also, and the games and game cases, and the cables, and…

So, in the end, how many resources and people touched this “process”?

People:

• Ore miners
• Lumberjacks
• Oil Field Workers
• Truck Drivers
• Weigh Station Staff
• Inspectors
• Train Conductors and crew
• Longshoremen
• Forklift operators
• Crane operators
• Ship captains and crew
• Warehouse staff
• Security guards
• Milling Technicians
• Painters and Stainers
• Packaging Staff
• Logistics and Shipping trackers
• Distributor buyers
• Retail buyers
• Retail managers
• Retail Stocking personnel
• The Consumer
• The Garbage Truck driver
• The landfill bulldozer driver or incinerator staff

Resources:

• Lumber
• Saws
• Cranes
• Trucks
• Pulleys (block and tackle)
• Oil
• Wells
• Pumps
• Pipelines
• Ships
• Storage Tanks
• Refineries
• Ore
• Trucks, Excavators, Drills, Conveyors
• Lighting
• Ventilation
• Cast Metal
• Consumes sand/silica
• Oil
• Electricity
• Forged Metal
• Machinery to forge runs on hydraulics and electricity
• Compressed Air cylinders (pneumatic tools)
• Compressed flammable cylinders (welding, cutting)
• Metal for the cylinder
• Contents (from extraction processes: etc.)
• Machinery to fill, seal and test
• Hydraulic Fluid (from oil)
• Rubber (from oil)
• Paint (from oil)
• Distillates and Stains (from oil)
• Brushes (wood, plastic (oil), and natural fibers)
• Nails (forged metal)
• Screws (plastic and forged metal)
• Hammers (wood, forged metal)
• Screwdrivers (manual and automated)
• Cardboard (again from lumber)
• Paper (labels, guides, again from lumber)
• Plastic Wrapping (from oil)
• Plastic Adhesive Tape (from oil)

Have you spotted the dominant ingredient yet?  That’s right: oil.  And where does most of the oil come from to employ for these numerous processes?  That depends.  Some of these items are manufactured in the United States, many are not.  Those that are obtained and refined within the U.S. get most of their oil from the U.S.  The second largest source comes from Canada.  That’s right: Canada.

I could go on much longer, especially just within the realm of foreign produced components, and the resources, labor, transportation, taxation issues that entails.  But I’m drinking a glass of Malbec wine and it sure is damn tasty.  I gotta sign off now.  Cheers!

Proof that America is Doomed…

(no caption required)

Listen Up Kids: Job Titles Explained

My kids often ask me to explain what a particular job title means and what it implies as far as duties performed.  It's kind of funny, to me anyway, how titles have evolved (or devolved) over the past 30 years.  Some have been deprecated, while new ones have emerged and been adapted into yet newer ones.  But don't be fooled, here's what they really mean:

Technician – A low-level grunt doing the crap work for menial pay.  It doesn't matter if it's health care, information technology, shipping, security, or office work.  It's the lipstick on the pig to make the worker feel better about being lower than they think they really are.

Associate – Same as a technician only less lipstick on the pig.

Engineer – One of the most over-used title enhancements ever.  Especially since the late 1990's.  It simply means you have power to delegate work to technicians and associates, but you don't have any real managerial powers.

Representative – Lower than an associate

Assistant – An associate assigned to work for one person only.

Clerk – An assistant who the company doesn't feel worthy of making them feel important enough to call them an associate or technician.

Specialist – Same as an associate, only that it usually comes with more restrictions on the role or duties.  An associate gets pulled into odd jobs more often than a specialist does.

Vice President – This was once referred to as a department or division manager.  While it once held great meaning, since there were relatively few of them in a given company, these days there are often dozens of them in a company.

CxO – Unless it's CEO, CFO, COO, CIO or CTO it usually means the CEO, CFO and COO wanted the person to feel important even though they don't really get invited to the same strip clubs, poker games and golf outings.

President – Usually the same as the CEO.  Some companies make a distinction, many do not, and many times it's the same person as the CEO.  It's also often a landing position for a former CEO or founding member of the company.

Analyst – someone paid to analyze things and delegate the fixing to a technician or specialist.  In some cases the analyst IS the technician, but the title is granted to make them feel better about doing two jobs for the pay of one.

I'm Just Sayin...

When it comes to economics, there's already a shitload of so-called "pundits" shilling for their share of the sponsor buck (don't think those commercials on CNBC are just for your enjoyment). But when it comes to consumer behavior, man, these "pundits" are as bad and wrong as a 3rd-string weatherman doing a 7-day forecast. I believe that the term for TV pundits working for salaries funded by the markets for which they report is called: "whore". But that's semantic I suppose.

First off, the biggest factor of personal spending habits is debt. Period. Consumers don't adjust their spending on how the Dow-Jones' is doing. Sorry. And they don't go on a shopping spree when they hear pork belly futures or light sweet crude goes up or down. Sorry again. Consumers look at their ever-growing stacks of bills, then their checking account, savings account (if they even have one) and then the credit card statement. That's it. Then they prioritize any leftovers by medical, house repair, transportation, and then "discretionary" stuff like food, clothing, kids needs and maybe a pinch of entertainment (a six-pack of Bud and a carton of Marlboros). It's human nature.

But there's a hidden candle burning at both ends: gasoline.

Yep. Petrol. The stuff that not only feeds the lifeblood of our industrial AND consumer economies, it controls it. When gas prices go up, everything you buy costs more. Quantities per package are reduced to shore up bottom lines. You pay more to receive even less. And you base personal travel decisions on it too. When gas is near $4/gallon, you probably cancel that road trip across the states. You also defer air travel as fares increase to absorb the fuel costs.  It costs you more to drive to places which will charge you even more when you get there.

But even when gas is "reasonable" (whatever that is), you fall back to basing decisions on personal debt. Priorities get compressed or decompressed as debt rises or falls, since income is rarely as variable as debt.

The catch here is that the two industries which ultimately control these two economic forces (petroleum and personal credit) are relatively treated laisse faire by our government. Sure, they get called in front of a congressional hearing, rarely, but nothing ever happens from that. When was the last time a government hearing caused a reduction in gasoline prices or APR terms?

Here, let me answer that for you….: Never.

Here we have two major, no, wait… GINORMOUS forces directly and indirectly controlling our economy with little or no direct oversight. They work on a broken leash essentially. Which means they are really in control, not the Fed or Treasury. The Fed says that they "influence" (their words, not mine) the U.S. economy, even though the Fed is not a government agency. And the Treasury is now simply an extension of Goldman-Sachs. There was another government that long ago followed this very same path: Rome.

If Exxon-Mobil, RD Shell, Chevron and Texaco decided gas should be $5/gallon, it would be $5/gallon. We'd bitch a lot, maybe even carry cardboard signs around in front of news cameras, and the whores in Congress and the Senate would postulate and act as if bringing on the heat, but that’s about it.  It is a "free market" system, after all, and those companies are well within their legal right to pursue profits within the law, even if it causes consumers a little pain. Where else would you go? What could you really do?  To another gas station?  And why would they keep their prices low?  If Exxon posted $5.00/gallon, WaWa would just rise up to $4.95 and the lines would be around the block.  Oldest game in the book.

The same goes for credit card services and jacking up interest rates. Oh wait, they already are.

Sure, the credit services are facing a looming change in legal guidelines, but the new laws really don't eliminate the gouging, they simply require them to tell you before they gouge you. Read it yourself. But most (all but a few actually) have preemptively raised interest rates to hedge their coffers before the new law goes into effect.  Not one government shill has raised voice over this obvious gang rape of the American working class. Not one.  A few PR statements, that’s it.  Nothing official has been put into action to challenge this behavior, because they just don’t care.

So, these two industries control your spending behavior, whether you want to believe it or not, and directly (and indirectly) exert control over the U.S. and global economies yet almost nothing has been done to put a leash on them.  Nothing beyond lip service and PR stunts.  Think about this:  Our government directly regulates air traffic, drugs, food, transportation, banking (sort of), communications, product safety, marriages, defense and intelligence, even prices your utilities can charge.  But they don’t bother placing any such controls on gasoline or credit cards.

Still don't believe our government is not really in control? Hmmm.

Business Idea

Factory assembled drones that look like NATO military personnel.  Release them into nooks and crannies throughout the Middle East.  Suicide bombers will flock to them like mosquitoes to a porch light.

Because I Said So, That’s Why!

Nothing says “I love you” as much as spoonfeeding shit in mass quantities to those around you.  I’ve done this rant many times before, to people that know me this is a regurgitation, but with a twist of lime this time around.

“Dolphin Safe”

Most kids under 30 don’t really know what this term infers.  To those of us over 30 (or 40) it’s an obvious reference to the Tuna industry and their fight to win public acceptance of their eco-friendly methods of mass-collecting and killing natures tastiest creatures (no, not the pizza-fish, the Tuna).

Documentaries went crazy with stories of enormous, wide-cast nets, dragged for miles over the open sea, catching Tuna, but also catching Dolphin, Tortoises, and almost anything else swimming in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The public supposedly became “insensed” at this disregard for nature, although I’ve never seen Americans get upset at anything since the great corporate brainwashing project ended the 60’s free love movement.  The only thing we get upset about now is cancelling our favorite TV shows.

So the canners got together in the bar next to the golf course and concocted this idea of stamping all the cans as “Dolphin Safe” and saying they were using “newer technology” to spare the dolphins and tortoises and only catch those tasty, benign, nutritional Tuna.  Sure.  Magic nets somehow can tell a Tuna from a Dolphin, regardless of those two overlapping significantly in the realm of physical dimensions.  Ever been out to sea on a Tuna boat?  Ever watched them reel the “catch” in?  (I love that term “catch” when we’re talking about nets that can reel in an entire stadium)

But “they” say it’s “Dolphin Safe”, so it must be!  Right?

The axiom here?  If you spoonfeed enough shit, for a long-enough time span, the masses will not only accept it as normal, but will eventually relish it, and even worship it.

We are still being spoonfed shit, but the media production is far more savvy and convincing.  That “long-enough” caveate is now almost 24 hours.  The “enough” (quantity reference) is now roughly about 3 major networks.  So, using this new media capability with the old axiom, we get an equation as follows:

3n * 24h = MA

This translates into 3 (major) networks, spoon-feeding 24 hours of shit to the public, results in Mass Acceptance as fact and norm.  It’s a perfect formula.  It works for WMDs, invasion plans, bank bail-outs, flu pandemics, vaccine distribution, multi-national treaties, corruption scandals, and so on.  Everyone has an agenda if they (a) have a communication channel, and (b) a budget.  The budget is what ties them to an agenda.  Parent companies, contracts, partnerships, PAC’s, you name it.  There is no such thing as “no strings attached”.  Even those Dolphins know that.  But they’re safe, right?  After all: It says so right on the can.

Virginia Beach: If I could only pick 5 projects

If I had the magic checkbook and could assign any 5 projects to be embarked upon without regard to cost…

1. A combination Light Rail and Bus system that not only follows the Norfolk-Southern abandoned rail (East-West parallel to I-264), but branches out to form a circuit that encompasses all of Virginia Beach.  Everyone should be within walking distance of mass transit without waiting hours between pick-ups.

2. Walk-over bridges around Town Center, at Rosemont, and at various points along the oceanfront.  Get people off the habit of walking in front of cars, which as you may know can be hazardous to the health of pedestrians.

3. Connect all the bike paths and add new paths.  Get the freaking idiot “I’m a car too, watch me” bicyclists off the road and onto their own pathways.  Make it possible to cross the city without risking your life along the way.

4. Beef up the parks.  Mount Trashmore should have a performance stage, more benches, wider paths (so joggers can get around slow-poke walkers, strollers, etc.), keep the carnival there all Summer long, expand the skate park, add path lights on the western perimeter, and so on.  Other parks should get similar treatment.

5. Replace Pembroke Mall.  Build a bigger, fancier, cooler, awesomer mall.  It should combine all the cool things of other malls around the country.

Bonus: Offer up better incentives to entice high-tech industry to move into the area.  Not talking about call centers.  I’m talking about manufacturing, software development, and R&D.  We let a lot of talented ex-military folks slip through our fingers.  We should give them a better reason to stick around than just the beach.

Worlds Largest Cruise Ship

Pretty cool indeed.  But I'd hate to be working in the cruise industry right now.  Three cruise line agency offices I've passed this week are either vacant or in the process of shutting down.  More info here.

Why Do Geeks Fear Change?

This is really a frustrating subject for me. For years I have seen and experienced the angst of trying to get a new technology or new product not just on the table, but just to be considered by a team of IT folk. It's really amazing how people that live and breath technology, which infers a sense of change and progress, many of these people absolutely fear change. Here's but one example.

Many reasons are dragged out as defense for resistance to change. Some cite the age old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" phrase. Others argue the stability and security uncertainties aspects. Some argue the licensing costs angle. Whatever the case, these are all flawed arguments when it comes to considering a new technology candidate. Let's break it down shall we?

If it ain't broke...

How do you even know what's broken? How many IT "experts" can honestly say they've used EVERY SINGLE feature and option available to them for any given product? None. Not because that would be admitting some sort of egotistical failure. But because we simply don't need every feature and option. I can't even count how many times I've seen geeks smile when they discover, unexpectedly, that the new product does something better than the incumbent product. Whether it's a matter of time savings or greater flexibility and capability. Again, you may not know your current solution is broken until you give another product consideration.

Stability and Security...

Sure. You are 100% comfortable with your current product. You know every bit and byte it encompasses. There is no way there's a vulnerability hidden inside your baby. Statistically speaking there is no greater assurance that a "released" product is any more secure or predictable than its successor (e.g. an upgraded version). And while there is possibly a greater statistical predictability for one known product over a completely unknown (different) product, there is still no statistical assurance it is safer than the unknown product. Familiarity and vulnerability do not relate. It's an emotional attachment that holds no tangible value beyond the human aspects (training/learning curve, problem resolution response processes, support mechanisms). These are all easily addressed by the "consideration" phase.

Licensing and Costs...

Maybe you're still on the buy-as-needed cycle, rather than the newer subscription model. No problem. Maybe you're convinced that the new version or product won't deliver enough benefit to offset the upgrade costs. Maybe so. But how will you ever know until you really put it into a thorough testing environment? This is what I'm talking about. If you do your testing correctly, it should result in a tangible analysis of time savings, increased capability, and reduced effort (i.e. labor hours) to clearly support an evaluation against the upgrade costs. Don't knee-jerk on this, think it through.

Too many decisions are knee jerk or based on emotional attachment. Emotional attachments are the wellspring of vendor existence. They absolutely LIVE for you to become attached to their solutions. Break the emotional attachment and stick to a logical attachment. Don't fall into the trap. Your duty is to your employer, not the vendor. Saving your company money and providing increased capability are what you should be concerned with. Not coming to work wearing a vendor polo shirt or baseball cap.

Resist the urge to wear (IT) vendor apparel to work. It's a billboard that says "I'm resistant to change - I fear it"