Ohio Information Technology

In Part one, I introduced the idea of Test Data Management or TDM.  TDM is not something unique to IT Applications in Cincinnati, Dayton or to Ohio. It’s something that will need to be addressed nationwide.  With more and more government regulations and data privacy concerns, it will be more and more important to not only manage production data, but also test data used for quality assurance as well. 

One of the aspects of good TDM is for the obfuscation (sometimes referred to as de-identification or masking) of data values from a production database in order to make the test instances “safe”.   One of the challenges is preserving data distributions and referential integrity–even across distributed database systems.  This is particularly important in the healthcare and financial industries where PHI (Personal Health Information), social security numbers or banking information could get exposed.

Another aspect is the challenge of maintaining security around the test databases themselves.   Many companies have tight security around production data, but next to none around test and developer data.   Often this data is just a copy of production data that is not masked in any way.   According to a Ponemon Institute study, data breach incidents cost U.S. companies $202 per compromised customer record in 2008, that is compared to $197 in 2007.  With the cases studied a range of 4,200 to 113,000 records that were affected. 

Do any of you reading this have a little twinge in your stomach?  Can’t anything be easy anymore?  Maybe some RX is in order.  That was EASY!!!!
 

“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.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I made the trek to Columbus and attended the Ohio chapter meeting of TechServe Alliance of which STAR BASE, Inc. is a member.  In talking with other owners and corporate executives, everyone is pretty much saying the same thing: “We are seeing more sales activity, just no commitments.”   Seems like everyone involved with Ohio Information Technology firms is in the same boat.  In Cincinnati, things might not be quite as bad as Columbus because there is less state government work.

So why is there a lack of commitment?  There could be many reasons, but it all boils down to what I call the FUD Factor.   Never heard of the FUD Factor?  We would not be a real IT Consulting firm if we couldn’t use a TLA (three letter acronym) and it’s not what you’re thinking!  FUD is short for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. 

When the FUD factor is high, people tend not to make commitments, changes or decisions.  Doing nothing seems like the safest choice.  A high FUD factor equals RISK and as a society, we have become very risk adverse.   When the FUD factor is low, decisions are much easier to make, less risky. 

With the economy down and so much uncertainty, the FUD factor is definitely high.  So is doing nothing really a good choice?  Things tend to move in cycles or patterns, it is the way of the world... Losers become winners. Winners become losers. Day yields to night; nights divide the days; summer gives way to winter. Life goes on...always as it always was...but never the same.

Will you be ready?
 

1. 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. 
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

 

It seems that we have become a keyword driven society these days.  I just got back from the annual NACCB show.  This is where IT staffing and IT consulting firms gather to talk and learn about best practices going on in the industry.  There were several Ohio IT services firms represented.  Star base, Inc was the only Cincinnati information technology company attending.

One thing that is amazing to me is the sophistication of the résumé tracking software that is available.  The IT staffing industry is becoming very automated just like other industries.  All of the software is able to parse a résumé and extract the keywords to populate a candidate profile.  This makes it very easy for the recruiters to do keyword searches.  But woe to those that don’t have the right keywords.  Seems like some are turning keywords into "buzz words" and job specifications. 

I was talking to a fellow owner, who has been in IT consulting for many years.  His firm specializes in Oracle data conversions and IT staffing.  He was telling me about a staffing requisition that required Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle database skills.  The client was going to convert from one database to the other.  This is something that they have done many times and have extensive experience.  But because the résumé they submitted did not have the same exact version number on it, the candidate was rejected.

Those of us in IT consulting know that conversion tools don’t usually change much from version to version and having experience with what the “got yas” are is critical to success.  Apparently this customer was just looking at the keywords and couldn’t see beyond them.

My last post was Losing the Battle and Winning the war.  Today I have a similar title, but that is the end of the similarity.  I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to hear a talk from a professor at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State.   His topic was pretty interesting.  He was talking to a group of IT staffing company owners.  Most IT staffing companies have some sort of CRM, but what he was talking about was the opposite side of this which he called SRM or Supplier Resource Management. 

I’m not going to be able to adequately summarize a two hour talk in a few paragraphs, but one of the things that I thought was interesting is how companies are trying to commoditize IT staffing.  Looking at it from a numbers only point of view, he said that some companies have been able to reduce the cost of IT staffing by as much as 70%.   They have used a variety of purchasing techniques to accomplish this such as reducing suppliers, buying “in bulk”, instituting a VMS (vendor management system).  Being an IT consulting firm that also does IT staffing, I was not feeling too good about some of the trends discussed.  That was until he started talking about the real cost of savings.  

These same companies that have saved so much money, have also reduced their talent level to the point of not being able to accomplish anything.  The reduction in price has come at a cost of reduction in talent.   In some cases, companies were actually spending more than before.   This is because instead of one IT consultant, they may bring in two or more consultants.  There measurement was cost per hour by job title.   Cost per hour was indeed way down, but IT spend was up.

Another problem with the reduction in talent levels is that progress was not accomplished and that resulting in bringing in a high paid expert(s) toward the end of the project to try and salvage it.  The end result was little to no savings and huge opportunity costs to the business.   I guess the moral of the story is like the old saying “you get what you pay for.”

The economy seems to be a popular topic these days.  Last week Michael was talking about the Short Term Impact on Cincinnati and Dayton IT Jobs.   Ohio IT services are not immune from what is happening in the rest of the country.   A well written resume can mean the difference between getting that great IT job or not.

We have seen resumes from one extreme to another.  One individual tried to keep a 20 year career to a one page resume that was so diluted that it didn’t look like he had much experience at all.   Another individual with just a couple of years experience wrote enough to fill in ten pages.   In both cases, resume surgery was needed; one needed a little augmentation, the other some nip and tuck.

Performing a little plastic surgery on your resume means making yourself the most attractive candidate you can be. Here’s what to do:

• Highlight a handful of top "core" competencies. A long laundry list of skills gives the impression that you're the master of none.
• Use bullets to emphasize key accomplishments.
• Describe major projects, duties and tasks. It may be best to leave out minor items. List too many and you appear unclear in your career goals.

Think about removing lines in your resume that may no longer be relevant. Sure you still know DOS commands and trained thousands on their use, but here’s the question: Is that relevant to your career and to technology today?  Try and keep your reader in mind and present yourself in a way that is relevant.  Want some feedback on your resume?  Send it here.  If you want more tips, check this out.  Your next IT Job might come down to how well you present yourself, not your IT job knowledge.

I’ve seen a political ad running on TV a few times, and it really tickles me on the logic that they are using.   The spot is advertising to pass casino gambling in the State of Ohio.  In the ad they talk about how 37 other states are doing it, so how can they be wrong. Everybody’s doing it.

Over the holiday weekend I was doing some channel surfing and came across an old western.  There came a point in the story where a man, apparently an outsider, was walking down Main Street, when he was spotted by a local, who shouted at him "Hey, your kind is not wanted in this town."  Then he turned to other town folk and yelled, "We don't want him, do we?  Let's show him what we do to outsiders."

At that moment, the townspeople who, up until then, had been going calmly about their business angrily erupted into a loud mob.  They grabbed rocks, picked up clubs, drew guns, and charged toward the unwanted man.  Suddenly amidst the impromptu lynching, the sheriff appeared and saved the day by calling off the crowd, then locking the man up for his own safety.  It all happened in a matter of seconds.  How?  Crowd mentality.

But hey, crowd mentality is not always in the movies.  It happens in everyday real life, too.

A few months ago, right after New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had resigned in disgrace, his scandal was the topic of the day on the Dr. Phil show.  Shortly before, Spitzer had resigned his governorship in a news conference while his dejected-looking wife stood beside him.  The question being discussed was:  Given the gravity of the situation and how he disgraced his wife, should she have accompanied him to the podium?

Robin McGraw, Phil's wife, said she would never accompany Phil under similar circumstances.  To her, the dishonor and disrespect of his actions would cause her to let him take the heat alone.  The audience erupted in thunderous applause.  As a viewer, it sounded like the full audience, or close to it, was agreeing with her. 

This is a tempered, non-violent example of crowd mentality.  An articulate person states a clear, sound position that makes sense, and listeners are persuaded to stand in support.  Regardless of what they may have thought beforehand.

Then there was another viewpoint by Bishop T.D. Jakes, spiritual leader and author, who was a guest on the show. He said this, and I'm paraphrasing:  We're only seeing a small portion of their marriage on camera.  We don't know what their marriage is like without cameras.  She accompanied him for her reasons and we can't pretend to know what those reasons are.  We just have to respect them.  Then there was more thunderous applause from the audience.  This, too, sounded like the full audience applauding.  So how can two opposing viewpoints be supported by the very same people?   The Answer:  that's how crowd mentality works.

It plays on the fact that the large majority of people are followers, waiting for a leader to establish a direction, announce a cause, or express an opinion they can agree with so they can jump on the bandwagon and follow it.  And they'll sway in the breeze, leaping from one viewpoint to the next, if each sounds good enough. 

Sometimes it seems like that’s how IT decisions get made too.   If everybody else is doing information technology outsourcing, then we should too.   There was a saying in information technology years ago that “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”.   Today some could say maybe Microsoft is in that role.  

So is the crowd shaping your IT Strategy or are you?  Sometimes there is safety in numbers and other times there is not.   A good IT strategy consultant can help you decide.   Just because Everybody’s Doing IT is not a good reason.  Could your IT give you a competitive advantage?

Cincinnati, OH IT Community

I have been involved in the Cincinnati, Ohio Information Technology Community for twenty years and during that time I have witnessed a great many changes.  Perhaps the biggest change that I have personally witnessed is the trend of companies to leave the city of Cincinnati and the State of Ohio in pursuit of a better tax base or more favorable land deals.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled “The Self-Inflicted Economic Death of Ohio” Chester E. Finn Jr. states that Ohio has the fifth-heaviest state and local tax burden in the country (up from 30th in 1990) and finds itself stagnating.  The unemployment rate, 6.3%, is above the national rate of 5.5%, even as the state's work force shrinks as people leave.

The company I work for STAR BASE, Inc. a company that was founded to serve the IT needs of organizations in and around the Greater Cincinnati area.  We have built subject matter expertise in the areas of information technology, application development, system integration and custom applications.  Clients in the area have also have asked us to provide them with candidates as well for their own internal information technology projects.

However the overwhelming question remains, if companies are moving out of the areas as the above article indicates, what value is there in claiming we are a local owned IT consulting firm?  Being an active member of the technological community I attend meetings at The Cincinnati Circuit  which is the Information Technology Association of the Cincinnati region. The organization is very good and all of its members are sincere in the goal to support the growth of Cincinnati technology.

However, I would suggest there is a real disconnect in the pursuit of this goal.  Not only are companies leaving but a recent article in the Cincinnati Enquirer suggests that bright students are choosing to go out of state to study.  The article states that almost half of the top high school seniors are planning to pursue their education at out of state campuses.  National statistics have shown that once these individuals graduate they go where the opportunity and money is and right now that does not appear to be in the State of Ohio.

Everyone that is a part of the Cincinnati, OH information technology community needs to make locally own businesses aware that we have outstanding technological talent in the area despite what the above statistics show.  Business and the community must work harder in making their political representative aware that we need to do every thing we can to protect our investment of good technological talent.  IT Outsourcing does not mean providing talent for another state or community.  We need to encourage young people that are attracted to technology that we have some of the best talent in the nation right here in Cincinnati.

Universities need to make sure they continue to offer courses in application development, IT strategy, infrastructure management, IT process automation and much, much more.  It will take the entire community to make a difference but it starts with the recognition that we have good local talent here and we need the assistance of the politicians and the government to make a real change not simply talk about it.  The technology community along with the business community needs a real “call-to-action” for any measurable changes to occur.  The politicians need to listen for a change!

Organizations are bombarded by change, and many are struggling to keep up.  Eight out of ten CEOs see significant change ahead. The gap between expected change and the ability to manage it has almost tripled since 2006.  Back in 2006 I gave a speech about change and the rate of change and how that was going to affect business application development.   What follows are excerpts from that speech that talks about change.

I would like to wish a very happy birthday to Lucy Johnson.  Lucy was born in, 1901.  She is celebrating her 105th birthday today.  How many of you know Lucy?  Quite frankly, I don’t either, but I do want to talk about some of the things that Lucy has seen during her life time.   In 1903, if she were in Kitty hawk, NC she would have seen Orville and Wilber Wright make the first powered flight.  If someone would have said to her, I need to get to the airport to catch an 11 o’clock flight to Chicago she would have thought you to be crazy.

If she were in Dearborn, MI in 1903, she would have witnessed the first Model T’s coming out of Henry Ford’s new factory with this thing called an assembly line. It would have been quite a feat to hop in “the machine” and drive from Cincinnati to Dayton, Ohio.

In 1913 the current Federal Reserve System was established and in the same year the current income tax system was established.  (Personally I don’t think 1913 was a very good year).   In the 1920’s, Air Conditioning and refrigerators became popular.  In the 1930’s, talking movies became widespread.  In the 1940’s, we entered the atomic age and the first electronic computers came about.  There is more computing power in a talking greeting card today, than existed in the world in 1945.  In the 1950’s, we entered the space age. In the 1960’s, we landed men on the moon and returned them safely to earth.

The list could go on and on.  Some experts claim that Lucy has seen more change in her 105 year life span, than was seen in all of human history up to that point.  Think about that for a minute.  There has been more change in the last 100 years than there has been for the thousands of years before that.  

In the 15th century, for example, it is said that the faculty at Merton College, Oxford, were cautious about stocking their library with books because they were not convinced printing was here to stay. They were wrong. 

In the 18th century, economists hailed the Machine Age as the ultimate in technology. They were wrong.

In 1950, Tom Watson, Sr. of IBM predicted that seven computers would serve all the nation's computing needs. He was wrong.

If we look back at the years that STAR BASE Inc. has been in existence, it seems like some things have changed a great deal and others really have not changed much.  In 1991 most companies were running DOS on their PCs, which were 66mhz 486 PCs.  Most companies did not have internet access, let alone Google.  Most companies did not have any email.  We have seen the rise and fall of OS/2 and JAVA was something you drank.

Some things have not changed.  In 1991, George Bush was in the white house and we were fighting a war in Iraq.  On September 17th, 1991, Linus Torvalds, released Linux to several Usenet newsgroups.  Pretty Good Privacy is introduced.  Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, is an e-mail encryption program.

What is really exciting it to look ahead at the next 15 years.   Moore’s Law says that computing power will double every two years.   In 2006, IBM researchers announced that they had developed a technique to print circuitry only 29.9 nm wide using deep-ultraviolet (DUV, 193-nanometer) optical lithography. IBM claims that this technique may allow chipmakers to use current methods for several years while continuing to achieve results predicted by Moore's Law.

So what? You may ask.  This allows for smaller faster devices to do things that we haven’t even thought of yet.  Some experts have predicted that we will see more change in the next 15 years than Lucy Johnson has seen in her life time.  Remember, some believe Lucy saw more change in her life time than what had happened in all of human history up to her birth.

Most of us in IT business solutions are going to be around for another 15 years, so we are going to see a tremendous amount of change.

As you can see things are always changing and they are going to continue to change at an exponential rate.  Technology is going to continue to evolve.   Some say the Cincinnati and Dayton areas will end up as one large metropolis.

There is one thing that constant among all the change and that’s people.   We all have to learn and adapt to our environments.  At STAR BASE, I think we have a very good process for hiring people.  It’s not an easy process to go through.  Not only do we objectively test for skills, we also ask questions that reveal something about the individual.   One of the questions we ask as part of the interview process is:  What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given?  (Think About that).   There is more to hiring for IT Jobs than make sure the person has the right acronyms on the list.   The more things change the more the stay the same. 

The IT staffing business can be crazy sometimes.  Customers are looking for ways of lowering their costs and my expenses keep going up.  During these uncertain economic times, it seems that companies will do almost anything to get business, even cut corners.

Last year at one of the Ohio chapter meetings of the NACCB  (www.NACCB.org)  we had a speaker share with us about background checks.   Most background check companies are now pulling credit history to verify where the person has lived.  While you and I don't get access to the credit scores, the credit headers are still pulled, and that means (that least according to our speaker) that we fall under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.   The way it was explained to us, is the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not allow information to be shared with third parties.  This is very similar to the HIPAA law that doesn't allow personal health information to be shared with third parties.

Previously most IT staffing companies would share the background check of the IT consultants’ with the customer, if it was requested.  Now we can’t do this and the question being raised is the background check and drug test actually being done?

At $75 a pop,  I’m sure some IT staffing firms would like to eliminate that cost, but I view it as very inexpensive insurance.   We certainly don’t want to be the IT staffing firm that sends a sex offender into an organization.

So what’s the correct way to handle the situation?  First would be for the client to share, what would disqualify the person from coming into their organization.  For example, the criteria may be no felony or sex offender convictions.  Then we can disclose if there are or are not any items that might disqualify the person.  In my example above, the person can not have any felony convictions or any sex offender convictions of any kind.

The criteria should be as specific as possible.  I have seen criteria simply stated as a clean background check.   Does that mean a speeding ticket might disqualify an individual?   In some cases, it certainly could, but others may view that as no problem. 

In the end, I think it comes down to do you trust the people you do business with.