Business IT Outsourcing

Seven Deadly Sins of Consulting, Part 2.

Monday, July 26, 2010 by Jeff Welsh

See Part One here. These deadly sins are not limited to IT Consulting in Cincinnati, but everywhere. I wish that someone would have shared the list below with me earlier in my career. It might have saved me a few grey hairs and sleepless nights. I have to admit, I have been guilty of a couple of these in the past, but that’s why it’s called experience.

5. Blame it on Rio. And I am not talking about the movie, I am talking about pushing the mistake/error onto something else like, the Operating System, another consultant or worse, one of the client’s employees. While the problem could very well be any of those things, your job as a professional consultant is to find solutions and to set an example in leadership and even diplomacy. While you may see glaring errors or mistakes and perhaps your way would have been the better way to do something it is best to keep the criticism and commentary to yourself. (See #3 in Part One)

6. Bubble gum and baling wire. Many times consultants are brought in to fix something. The last thing you want to do is to take a shortcut that you aren't sure will last. Band-Aids are fine if you know you are coming back to make a more permanent fix. But eventually, those shortcuts will fail and will need further attention and the time to failure is an unknown. It could be the minute you drive away or months later. This is not the type of chance you want to take. It frustrates the client, and it makes you look bad. You also don’t want to make the client totally dependent on you. A client told me once that Peter (not the real name) is very talented; the problem is he is the only one that knows how it works and can manage it.

7. Showing up, Gotta Go. (AKA I gotta hangnail). Once you’re on a gig, most clients want to see you on some sort of regular basis and some might have a “core hours” expectation. It’s important for both the client and the consultant to know what each should expect. I once heard a client make a comment about another consultant that went something like this: “Larry(not the real name) runs out of here all the time and uses sickleave for a hang nail!”

Here is another list that has some similar ideas here. I’m sure there are others. So go forth and sin no more!

Seven Deadly Sins of Consulting, Part 1.

Friday, July 23, 2010 by Jeff Welsh

You have probably heard your parents or grand-parents talk about when they were younger and how they had to walk to school, up hill both ways. When they shared this story with you it was to prepare you for times when things weren’t so easy and to provide you with their knowledge and advice from their hard earned experience. I wish that someone would have shared the list below with me earlier in my career. It might have saved me a few grey hairs and sleepless nights. I have to admit, I have been guilty of a couple of these in the past, but that’s why it’s called experience.

1. Bill for time not worked. This will be the quickest way to end up out of a consulting gig. Make sure you bill the client only for the time you actually work. This can be tricky if your clients are friends. When you go to a job like this, you know there will be a period of time spent socializing, especially when you first arrive. Don't bill for this time. Start the billing period when you start working. Sometimes clients will have celebrations during the day. If you don’t want to appear anti-social, by not going, just don’t bill. If there are any questions, ask the account manager to find out. If you are the account manager, ask your client manager at one of your one to one meetings if it’s ok to bill. Some client’s have a culture where that is part of the expectation.

2. Negotiate rates and make deals with the client. If you work for a consulting firm, you know there are channels for clients to go though to make requests.. Most firms have some sort of account manager to handle those issues. Direct the client to the account manager. I had one consultant that actually went so far as to look in the client’s AP system to see how much we were getting paid and then wanted to negotiate a higher rate with the client. This particular action did not end well for the consultant and he has not been able to be considered for other assignments in this client even when his skill set was ideal. Never, ever work out a side deal or moonlight with a client this can comprise your integrity and jeopardize the trust between you, the consulting company and inevitably the client.

3. Act like a prima donna. Yes, you’re good, that’s why you have been hired. I actually heard a consultant tell the client that their employees were stupid. Hello? You are there to serve those employees. You don’t know what kind of constraints they have had to work with. Hind sight is always 20-20. Its always far better to politely make suggestions. You may find out your brilliant idea was considered previously and there was a very valid reason for it not being implemented. It’s much better to NOT have egg on your face or your foot in your mouth.

4. Miscommunicate or undercommunicate when engaged at a client I believe that the client should know what is going on with their project. Many times I have had to be the bearer of bad news. I also like weekly status reports to let the client know what I have worked on and what I’m planning on doing. If at all possible I like to let them know a percent complete. Years ago, I heard another consultant tell the client he was “unit testing”. The client assumed that meant he had all the functionality done and was testing. The reality was he had about 10% of the functionality done and was testing just that one small piece. When the truth came out, it was not pretty.

Tomorrow I will finish off the last 3 sins.
To be continued……

Business Analyst: The Most Important IT Role

Friday, June 11, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

Now didn’t I say that Business Analysis has far reaching impact on the organization? A new Forrester research report supports my claim as it ranks Business Analyst #1 of the 13 Most Important IT Roles.

The age of IT specialization has been replaced by an emphasis on skills that can translate across the enterprise. According to Forrester, this shift can be traced to a number of emerging trends:

* Maturing technologies such as software-as-a-service and business intelligence are changing IT skills requirements;

* The growing array of outsourcing options have altered in-house staffing priorities, with more specialized skills increasingly likely to be outsourced; and

* The continued search for cost-reduction opportunities has changed how IT decisions are made.

With those trends in mind, here is Forrester’s list of the 13 Most Important IT Roles, based on the percentage of IT executives who believe each role is growing in importance.

#1 – Business Analyst – 70%

Talk about holding all the cards: Not only do these IT pros know the business, they also have their fingers on all the insight. As the saying goes, knowledge is power.

#2 and #3 – Architecture and IT Strategy/Planning – 66%

As IT has evolved into an increasingly important part of business, both of these roles have become critical in ensuring that every department has the infrastructure and tools that it needs.

#4 – Project Management – 65%

What business doesn’t need people who can mange multiple personalities, master numerous business processes, understand different aspects of the business and make sure things get done?

#5 – Security – 62%

With the onslaught of breaches and identity theft that constantly filters through the headlines, not to mention the growing mandates for better access controls, is there really an explanation needed here?

#6 – Service Management – 60%

The whole thing about the customer applies here to, as managing IT from the customer’s perspective has become de rigueur.

#7 – Client Relationship Management – 56%

We’re in the age of customer service, and anyone who’s mastered the art of managing CRM environments is worth their weight in gold.

#8 and #9 – Business Continuity and IT Financial Management – 55%

With companies paranoid about their systems surviving natural and man-made disasters, and cost-effective IT spending more important that ever, it’s no wonder these roles are on the rise.

#10 – Portfolio Management – 50%

This is a growing area driven by the desire to demystify the measurement of the impact of IT investments.

#11 – Asset Management – 34%

Like other spin-offs from more general business roles, this is another specialized function better outsourced.

#12 – IT Research – 30%

Research? That’s what consultants are for.

#13 – Human Resources (within IT) – 20%

HR for IT is an increasingly unnecessary luxury in an increasingly self-service environment.

Take a closer look at that list and you will notice Business Analysis has been ranked #1, #2, #3 and #10.

IT Governance Needs to Change to Gain a Competitive Advantage

Friday, May 7, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

Futurists have been fore-telling the look of the business enterprise and the IT Department for years. The latest version from the Corporate Executive Board state that we are in for rapid, radical change. It fore-tells that the IT Department in 5 years will bear little resemblance to the IT Department of today. As business users become more tech savvy, the business units will absorb a lot of today’s IT functions. Along with continued IT outsourcing, they predict that only 25% of today's IT professionals will still be in IT in 5 years.

The CTO blog does not forecast such a dismal future for the IT professional, but it also acknowledges the need for better alignment with business strategic goals and faster IT solutions delivery.

Whereas, I will not completely buy in to the idea that 75% of today’s IT professionals will not be working in IT in 5 years or that change will be so rapid or radical. It is increasingly apparent that change in IT solution delivery is necessary, and that is where I suggest that business organizations start; in particular IT Governance.

I hope to see today’s IT Governance Committee, which approve and prioritize IT business solutions projects, replaced with a Business Improvement Project Review Board who approve and prioritize all business improvement projects. This new Governance Body will consider all business improvement projects; those with business solutions and those with IT solutions. As I mentioned a few weeks ago this new board needs to better track all projects and continue to give its support to all projects at every stage of the project. Once the cost of the project outweigh the benefits, or other external forces make continuance of the project unwise, the project can be stopped and decrease the expense to the organization.

Along with that we will see the idea of a Project Management Office (PMO) replaced with a Business Improvement Office (BIO). The BIO will be staffed with people with business backgrounds and those with IT backgrounds; however, cross-training and best practices will require all members of the BIO to look for the best solution, considering both business and IT solutions, to meet the needs of the business. The BIO will take over the project management, business analysis and quality assurance aspects of a project.

Continued competitive pressures will force the BIO to change its practices in order to achieve faster solution delivery. Some will embrace the Agile methodology; others will develop some hybrid methodology taking parts from both the Agile and Waterfall methodologies. However they achieve it, continued pressures for competitive advantage will require continual improvement in the methodology to push for faster and faster delivery while not sacrificing quality.

Many references now forecast a change to IT Departments and IT staffing as we know it today. It will be interesting to see the changes as they come about and see which forecast was most correct.

Homeshoring, the new trend in IT Outsourcing!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

According to an InfoWorld article this month, the U.S. IT market has added 25,000 jobs in the first two months of 2010. This is the largest month-to-month gain in IT staffing jobs in the U.S. since 2008 according to U.S. Labor Department statistics.

A contributing factor to that increase may be a new trend in the IT Outsourcing called “Homeshoring” or “Onshoring”. This is an alternative to offshoring your IT outsourcing by placing it in low-cost, non-urban U.S. areas. Monty Hamilton, CEO of Rural Sourcing Inc., recently spoke at the 2010 Outsourcing World Summit, where the idea of homeshoring was well received.

As salaries in India increase because of past American offshoring IT strategies, rural America becomes more competitive. This along with the other benefits, such as culture and the favorable time zone, may spark an increase in the coming years to homeshoring.

Mr. Hamilton notes that Small to Mid-sized Businesses (SMB) are first to realize the benefits of homeshoring. He also makes note that a few jobs may still be lower cost as offshore, such as moving stack A to stack B. However, when it comes to IT staffing, enterprise application development and IT strategy consulting, homeshoring is the growing trend.

Is IT Qualified To Satisfy The Business?

Monday, November 9, 2009 by Aaron Whittenberger

“IT executives increasingly implement marketing initiatives to improve the communications with their business customers. But these efforts often focus solely on the brand aspects of the services under the IT’s control without understanding the business’ perception of IT. To maximize the success, IT must add business satisfaction assessments to its tool kit. Understanding business satisfaction requires qualitative and quantitative data that capture customer expectations and perceptions through different types of interactions such as interviews, panels, focus groups, complaint systems, and surveys. This report provides best-practice recommendations, survey templates, and questions to guide IT executives through the deployment of a business satisfaction assessment. It applies Forrester’s deep expertise in external customer satisfaction to the interface between business customers and their internal IT suppliers.” says a new Forrester report.

I have served on countless business application development teams within several organizations in the Southwest Ohio and Cincinnati Information Technology community, one thing I can say is that most IT organizations do not gauge business satisfaction with IT business solutions. I have served in only a couple of organizations where the business serves on the IT governance committee. An organization does not have to be “big” to have an IT governance committee. No matter what the size of the organization decisions are made as to priorities in IT work. IT governance does not have to be a long drawn out process or take great time commitment from the business or IT executives, but business involvement in IT governance goes a long way in gaining business buy-in as you roll out the IT business solutions to the business.

Involvement in IT governance is just one way that many organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area can improve the IT-business relationship. The Forrester report goes into ways to solicit and gauge business satisfaction with IT business solutions. Doing so should affect decisions concerning not only IT business solution delivery but also IT Infrastructure and IT outsourcing initiatives.

Takin’ the Basset Hound to the Farm (Part One)

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 by Jeff Welsh

Seems like it has been a while since I have had a chance to do a post. For the last 3 weeks things have been absolutely crazy in our IT consulting world, but in a good way. We had a chance to go to the Techserve Alliance national conference in Las Vegas. I have heard all the jokes, including the one about it staying in Vegas. We did learn that just because you are pre-checked with the airline, does not mean that your bags are. We got our bags checked with literally a minute to spare and fortunately all made it back to Cincinnati.

Upon return, we signed a support contract for a new customer. They trust us enough to outsource their entire IT applications support to us. We have a real life example of an IT Strategy that was discussed at the conference (See #3). Not only was IT strategy discussed but business strategy as well. Here are some highlights:

1. Market Differentiation - customers have lots of choices, how will you stand out?

2. Improve Systems and methodology for delivering service- excellence, efficiency, depth of service.

3. Outsource what you can-eliminate the busy work that does not add strategic value.

4. Deal with the economy being slow to recover till 2012, spend your money wisely, hire wisely, fire quickly, and refine what is working, stop what is not.

5. Build Alliances with like minded providers in different industries and sell collaboratively to serve the customers' need.

My favorite of these five is number four. Said another way, its takin’ the basset hound to the farm. I’ll expand more on that in my next post.

IT Outsourcing in for some big changes

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 by Aaron Whittenberger

A new report from Gartner Research Firm

IT Outsourcing is not going away anytime soon, but a new report from Gartner Research states that the market is in for some big changes. The report predicts that one in four business-process outsourcing firms will disappear within the next three years.

The article in InformationWeek gives advice to CIOs who wish to initiate a new IT Outsourcing contract on warning signs to look for in your prospective BPO partner that would indicate this firm may not be able to fulfill any new contract:

1.    Are they losing money?
2.    Are they winning new business?
3.    The loss of marquee clients.
4.    Poor capitalization is impeding growth.
5.    Toxic exposure to tainted financial firms.
6.    Lock down your exit strategies.

In another article in EconomicTimes I read that IBM will goble up half of India’s IT outsourcing business in 2010.

This is not to suggest that the offshore IT outsourcing business is coming home. IBM’s business is international. With IBM awarding one-half to 1 billion dollar contracts, many India firms will not be able to compete in delivering hardware, software, IT consulting services and integrated business solutions. IBM is one reason that 25% of IT BPO firms will meet their demise within the next three years.

Take a Team Approach to IT attacks

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 by Aaron Whittenberger

You more than likely already know you need the best security possible to prevent an attack. You also need IT infrastructure and IT staffing in place to respond to an attack if one happens.

Incidence response should be one of the most important items on your IT security agenda. Your company must be prepared to respond to an incident once it occurs and quite possibly to stop the next one.

As of late, disgruntled employees violate internal policies or misuse system access for their own monetary gain or for revenge on employers due to mergers, outsourcing of business or IT jobs or employee lay offs. Internal threats are as real as external threats.

IT experts say that security professionals with the right skills can help lower the number of and potential for incidents at any organization with their responses.

An article in this week's GovInfoSecurity.com outlines the experts you will need:

Network security specialist: A person familiar with intrusion detection systems.
Penetration testers: Someone who can assess a system's potential vulnerabilities.
Incident handlers: People who understand attack methodology and can apply critical thinking skills to respond to incidents.
Forensics Analyst: The person who looks for evidence after an attack.
Research Analyst: The person to keep abreast technological advances in incident response activities.
Team Leader: Leads the team through crises and communicates to the business incident activities and cost to the business.

The article also outlines a typical methodology the team should follow to respond to all types of attacks:

Preparation and Training: for both prevention and incident response.
Identification: fast identification of an occurring attack and its impact on the IT infrastructure can help in minimizing the duration and cost of clean-up.
Containment: Once an attack has been identified, steps must be taken to minimize the effects of the attack.
Recovery and Analysis: The recovery period allows analysis and lessons learned of What happened? Why did it happened? Was the response effective?

Is your IT infrastructure safe from internal and external attacks? The proper IT infrastructure safeguards and IT staffing with proper security skills can help ensure your organization's security.

Are IT Jobs on the Rebound?

Sunday, August 30, 2009 by Aaron Whittenberger

A Network World article reports that the U.S. gained 7,400 IT jobs in August. Gaining back what was lost the month before and following five months of losses of IT jobs in the U.S. Hopefully this is the first signs of the U.S. coming out of the recession that has gripped the country.

Adding to the good news for IT Services Companies in Cincinnati, across Ohio and the country; as well as application development personnel is news from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that demand for H-1B Visas are on the decline. They expect the entire 85,000 visas to be given out this year, just not as quickly and with the same frenzy as in the past few years. FierceCIO continues to state that ‘employers are putting a greater emphasis on hiring American workers, buying American goods and abandoning offshore outsourcing’. Where I do not believe this to be the general direction of employers in America, some smaller employers may have taken this direction but large firms continue their offshore IT outsourcing plans.

So does all this mean that better times are in store for IT business solutions professionals in America? I remain pessimistically optimistic.

Object-Role Modeling - Part 4 - Ring Constraints and Subtypes

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 by Mark Murphy

Ok, I have two things to talk about today, neither of which can be modeled directly in an E-R diagram or in UML. As an application development team member, I tend to see patterns. For example, a manager is a kind of employee that has subordinates, or vendors and customers are very similar, and have pretty much the same roles, except we buy things from vendors, and sell things to customers. Wouldn't it be nice to say in your model that a manager is a type of employee, or that both vendors and customers are individuals in my address book.

In this example an Employee is identified by an id, and has a Name. In addition, a Manager is a type of Employee that has a budget. Manager is the subtype.

In addition to having a budget, another thing that differentiates a manager from other employees is that the manager has subordinates. We can model that by saying that Manager supervises Employee.

There is one last thing to do here. We want to make sure that a Manager is not his own supervisor. If we did not put any constraints in place, then any employee could supervise any other employee, including himself, or his supervisor. To do this comprehensively we would want to make sure the structure did not eventually end up in a ring where A supervises B who supervises C who supervises A. The constraints that restrict how these structures can be built are called ring constraints, and there are several types with very mathematical names. Unfortunately each tool represents these ring constraints differently so you need to know the names. In ORM there are six of them, and they have names that conjure up notions of higher mathematics:

Irreflexive - means that the two roles cannot be filled by the same instance of an object. Our Manager supervises Employee fact type is irreflexive meaning a particular manager cannot be his own supervisor.
Symmetric - means that if a relationship exists between two instances of an object, then the same relationship exists in the opposite direction. If Ohio borders Indiana, then Indiana borders Ohio. Our Manager supervises Employee fact type is not symmetric.
Asymmetric - is mostly the opposite of symmetric. If a relationship between two instances of an object, then the same relationship does not exist in the opposite direction. Our Manager supervises Employee fact type is asymmetric. Note that asymmetry implies irreflexivity.
Antisymmetric - is kind of like symmetric with asymmetry in specific instances. So in the antisymmetric relationship, if the same instance of an object is playing both roles of a fact, then it is symmetric, but if different instances of the object are playing the roles of a fact, then it is asymmetric. Here is an example of an antisymmetric fact type: Number is greater than or equal to Number. It is symmetric as long as the numbers are the same, otherwise it is asymmetric.
Intransitive - Intransitive has to do with chaining relationships together. If Object A relates to object B, and Object B relates to Object C, then intransitivity say that Object A may not have that same relation with Object C. Consider parents and children. Joe is the father of Mark who is the father of Tom, then Joe can't be the father of Tom unless there are some illegal behavior going on. That is intransitive. In most organizations, the Manager -> Employee relationship is intransitive. Note Intransitivity implies Irreflexivity.
Acyclic - Means that for any object, I can't follow the chain far enough to get back to the starting object. A parent can not be it's own descendant. This constraint is very expensive to impliment in terms of processing resources, so it is typically not specified. Usually Acyclic relationships are specified as Asymmetric. Note Acyclic implies Asymetric which implies Irreflexive.

If your brain now hurts as much as mine did when I was first trying to figgure out these ring constraints, you might find Verbalizing Business Rules: Part 12 by Terry Halpin useful. Much of this post was inspired by this document. However, be prepared to spend a lot of time in deep thought, and possibly additional research. As I said, different tools depict ring constraints differently, so here is what the Manager supervises Employee looks like in Norma (a Visual Studio ORM plugin).

That Star Treck badge looking icon means Asymmetric, Intransitive.

Well, that's enough on that topic. If you are looking for more information, here are some resources:

www.ormfoundation.org/

www.orm.net/

and a book by Terry Halpin and others:
Database Modeling with Microsoft Visio for Enterprise Architects

Welcome to My World

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 by Jeff Welsh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY

Check out this video, it’s so dead on. Many of us in the IT staffing industry have dealt with this first hand. “I can get <fill in IT skill> resources for $20 an hour less from XYZ". Companies’ sometimes act like they are buying a commodity product like copier paper, rather than skilled IT consultants.

No manger would ever dream of going to one of their employees and saying, I can get Bob to do your job for $10,000 less per year, yet it’s becoming more prevalent in the IT staffing business.

One of the huge issues facing our industry is the use of H1-B IT consultants. Our leaders in Washington are looking legislation specifically targeting IT consulting firms that use H1-B consultants to limit our ability to do so. This is in the interest of saving American jobs. Unfortunately, the bill currently being debated does not limit multi-national companies, so only the smaller companies will be hurt.

I would love to use local IT consultants for all of our engagements, but the price pressure dictates we do things we normally wouldn’t chose to do. But then again, we’re really just hurting ourselves.

Pandemic IT Economy

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 by Jeff Welsh

What do those 3 words have in common? They are certainly 3 words that you usually don’t use in a single conversation, let alone a single sentence. But in this day and age, maybe we should. Let me ask the question this way: How would a pandemic outbreak affect your IT infrastructure given the layoffs forced by the economy?

Not only do we need to worry about IT infrastructure, how about business continuity? IT managers need to look at business continuity and disaster plans. The problem today is that consolidations, layoffs and restructurings may have scrambled response plans. People who were once part of a critical team may now be collecting unemployment.

While the CDC isn't calling the swine flu outbreak a pandemic, and the World Health Organization has raised its threat level, which at Level 4 in its six-level scale because the swine flu currently has "sustained human-to-human transmission."

I’m recommending that managers review their call lists and decision-making chains. There could be a weakness in plans because of organizational restructuring that people need to very quickly take a look at.

If an organization does not have a specific pandemic plan, any plan that considers a "significant absence" of employees may work as an alternative plan.

The standard model used in pandemic planning is to consider what would happen to a business if 40% of the workforce was absent for an extended period of time.

In 2006, in response to earlier concerns about the bird flu, Gartner Inc. offered specific suggestion to IT departments, such as storing 42 gallons of water per data center worker, enough for a six-week quarantine. This may seem a little extreme, but I have to ask the question, How prepared are you? Maybe a our IT Wellness Check could shed some light

Oracle and Java

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 by Matt Warman

The news this week is Oracle buying Sun. As a Java application development guy, this is very important news. I recently wrote about my feelings for an IBM merger, so this pairing is interesting. Larry Ellison had big praise for Solaris and Java, but nothing on MySQL. This is my take on the big points and questions I have.
Solaris
It is apparent that Oracle wants an OS to be a full service enterprise application development provider. They want to compete against Microsoft and IBM. I don’t see Oracle doing anything to hurt Solaris. I think Oracle can do a better job than Sun in this regard, as long as they use Sun’s customer service model.
Java
Oracle is a big Java user. The question for me is will Oracle "IBMify" Java? Creating proprietary hooks where none is needed to make a profit is dead wrong. Java is the dominate language, but other languages were dominate in the past. If Oracle can resist the temptation and just be the caretaker, java application development will be dominant for some time. If not, Java is open source, which means a "free" Java will be around, but multiple, incompatible versions of Java will kill it. I see Scala as a viable successor to Java, so I think the fragmentation issue will disrupt application development, but not move everything to .Net.
NetBeans
The fate of my favorite IDE is in much better hands with Oracle than IBM. NetBeans is a big part of Sun’s offerings, so I don’t think there is an issue.
MySQL
Many people lament that Oracle has MySQL finally. There is some well founded concern, but I see Oracle using MySQL as an entry into smaller markets. If you can brand MYSQL as Oracle’s "lite" database, then small businesses can use MySQL, and then seamlessly move to Oracle when the business grows.
Questions
What about JavaFX? This is the first step to the great convergence of write one set of code to run on mobile desktop and web. How much autonomy will Sun staff have? What about Glassfish? Only time will tell.

IBM Buying Sun? Say It Isn’t So!

Monday, March 23, 2009 by Matt Warman

As an enterprise application development team member, I have had a long history with both companies. I started in this business with IBM’s CICS and COBOL. Publishing one update every 10 years or so, COBOL could not compete with the newer languages of the time (Java). IBM only started looking at viable additions or enhancements after losing lots of business. Having seen what IBM did with their languages, the outlook is not so rosy with Java. I also came from a vendor (Silverstream), which took Java and created proprietary extensions. When Silverstream got bought out by Novell and disappeared, my focus was to convince employers that I did in fact know Java. Since then, I have had a personal dislike for non-standard "enhancements" to technology. IBM’s WebSphere falls directly into that category. Taking a perfectly usable Apache web container and adding "enhancements" so it doesn’t follow apache documentation, but needs IBM support makes me angry. Their JDK implementation leaves many things to be desired. IBM has a history of taking open source technologies and contorting them so only IBM trained personnel can use them. To most application development team guys, IBM is a huge thorn in their sides. It is management not IT that purchases big blue.
It’s not just Java, but many of my other favorite technologies that IBM may toss. Glassfish is a free, easy to use application server that uses the latest EE5 code base. WebSphere 7.0 has been recently released to use IBM’s EE5 edition. 2 years after Glassfish! I am a long time MySQL user, I don’t ever want to use DB2. I can’t imagine using DB2 for my passion projects. NetBeans has made great strides in the IDE space, and is becoming the choice of many application development team members. Whether you use all IBM or all Sun is moot; we have choice and competition, but not for long.

IBM’s lack of focus on marketing and developer mind share (anyone remember OS/2?) are important reasons why I hope this doesn’t happen. In a perfect world, Google would swoop in and buy them. Their cultures are very similar (many former Sun people work at Google), and the competition would still be there.
Yes, many of these technologies are open source. They will not just disapear; but without corporate backing, they will not see light of day in the corporate space. The reason Red Hat and SUSE are major Linux distributions is that Enterprises can have Service contracts. If IBM chooses to abandon them, I don't see widespread use, unless the technology is overwhelmingly compelling.

Tools are Supposed to Make your Life Easier

Monday, March 9, 2009 by Mark Murphy

Tools are supposed to make tasks easier. A hammer makes it easier to drive nails, application development tools make it easier to deliver complex applications efficiently. Too often though, applications, tools for users, do not make the users' lives easier. Consider an on-line banking application provided by a major home improvement company (you might think they would get the concept of tools). I want such an application to make it easy to manage my 12 month same-as-cash transaction so that I can have say $50.00 automatically transferred from my checking account and applied to the purchase on the first day of each month until it is paid off. And to make it totally convenient it should recommend a payment amount and payment date so that I have the lowest possible payment while still paying off the purchase on time. I can dream can't I?

That isn't even close to reality. Instead, if I had regular purchases, or more than one 12 month same-as-cash purchase, I would have to go on-line, and make a payment. Then after the payment posted, I would have to remember to go on-line again and, through their special messaging system, send customer service a message telling them how to apportion the payment that just posted. No thanks, it is easier just to mail a check, and make sure I don't have more than one large purchase from them in any given 12 month period.

The result of application development is tools that must support the business and the user. These tools must allow the business and the user to work more efficiently without extra steps artificially inserted into the process. Too often application development teams have a corporate mindset. That is, if you have a way to complete your task, that is good enough. There is no competition, and the user doesn't have a choice. When that attitude becomes a way of life, they forget that consumer's do have a choice, and will happily look elsewhere if the tools make their lives easier.

Quit Talking the Economy Down

Thursday, March 5, 2009 by Jeff Welsh

I was talking with someone at lunch yesterday about the economy. Our consensus was the news media is talking down the economy. While things are not great, they are not as bad as the media portrays. This is especially true in IT staffing. The chart below shows that IT employment has come down slightly from the peek last year. Employment levels are up significantly from just a few years ago.

If you would like to read the full report click here. By the way, the restaurant we were having lunch at was full as well.

What Can IT Staffing do for Me?

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 by Michael Kiffmeyer

If you're looking for a way to save some money in the tough economy, you may want to look for some help from an IT staffing firm. Beyond typical staffing assistance, most IT staffing companies also employ IT consultants and software designers who can all combine to save you money, increase productivity, and increase your efficiency.

Believe it or not companies like mine, Star Base Inc., can do all of this. Over and beyond placing candidates for your projects, Star Base can help improve productivity by ensuring that your company is using the right software for the right application. If application development is not your organizations area of expertise IT staffing firms can recommend new software or write custom software that can meet your organizational needs.

Information technology staffing firms can help increase your efficiency. My organization has developed subject expertise over the past twenty years. We know all of the tricks and shortcuts that many people do not know. Not only can we develop business applications and process improvement we can train users how to do tasks faster and can help identify jobs at your organization that can be handled by a computer but are not. This usually saves companies time and investment

Finally, IT staffing companies can help reduce costs. Yes there will be an initial investment, which is a very tough decision these days. However, in the long run they will find ways to save money and more than make up for their initial costs. If the IT professionals can find ways to have software perform jobs currently being performed by company staff, they will free that staff up for you to use on company core competencies that can produce more goods and services while reducing payroll

When excess waste is minimized increased productivity follows. So you see, IT staffing companies offer much more than simply placing IT personnel. They have the expertise to help cut back on wasteful activities and help you focus on activities that are efficient and designed to maximize your margins. In a highly competitive marketplace, where all of us are stretched to do more with less, this is a competitive advantage that is worth having.

Business Analytics

Friday, February 20, 2009 by Jeff Welsh

I’m on the advisory board of Xavier University’s IT section. At our meeting yesterday, I had an opportunity to meet with several of the students that are in the MIS program. One of the things that came up several times was the condition of Cincinnati IT jobs. The students are looking for either internships or jobs when they graduate this May.

While the Cincinnati, IT job market might be tight right now, I think it is more important than ever for potential employers to take a look at these students. The Xavier, students might not have as many of the IT TLA's (three letter acronyms) as students from other Cincinnati area universities, but they do have a good business foundation and a good knowledge of business analytics.

One of the questions I asked the students was if they were leaning more toward the business side, such as business analysis, or more toward the development side. Their answers were almost evenly divided. All of them understand the business value of IT and that successful companies have to take advantage of IT solutions.

This Is Your Opportunity

Friday, February 6, 2009 by Michael Kiffmeyer

I read today that unemployment has risen to 7.6%. Yes, its official – we are in a recession. However, that does not mean there isn’t opportunity because there is. If everyone believed everything the press is saying our economy does not have a chance and the United States is going to cease to exist.

I also read today that the U.S. government is going to re-visit its parameters for H-1B Visas because they are being used by recruiting body shops rather than giving foreign nationals the real opportunity that they seek. This means that application developers and specialist are going to be able to make up ground that they have lost to foreign nationals in the past.

My suggestion is for developers to increase their skill-set now before the economy begins to get worse. Information technology consulting has never been a steady business it always has had peaks and valleys. When the economy is good projects are plentiful. When it starts to decline projects usually come to a grinding halt. But is you have multiple skills it decrease your odds of becoming a statistic.

Organizations try to do more and more internally rather than outsource it when the economy begins to falter. The more skills a person has the better chances one has to stay employed. This holds true for IT staffing, development and consulting. Additionally, when a developer or infrastructure architect can show an organization how to safe time, investment and people through the implementation of their solution they will endear themselves to that particular organization.

Good information technology strategy can more than pay for itself in this economy. Organizations everywhere are dependent on technology and they need processes to become dynamically automated so they can accomplish more with less while the move towards models of efficiency that will contribute to the productivity of the organization.

Make it your mission to learn more applications and methodologies that can greatly increase the productivity of any company. To do this is to build value for the organization and you by ensuring there will always be a job for those that are willing to innovate and create a better way.

This is your opportunity. Make it happen!