Mr. Aggarwal

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. – Mark Twain

A man flying in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. Reducing altitude, he spotted a man on the ground and descended to shouting range.

“Excuse me,” he shouted. “Can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him a half hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man below responded: “Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees North Latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees West Longitude.”

“You must be an engineer,” responded the balloonist.

“I am,” the man replied. “How did you know?”

“Well,” said the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”

Whereupon the man on the ground responded, “You must be a manager.”

“That I am” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you’re going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”

All the organs of the body were having a meeting, trying to decide who was in charge.

“I should be in charge”, said the brain, because I run all the body’s systems, so without me nothing would happen”.

“I should be in charge”, said the blood, “because I circulate oxygen all over, so without me you’d all waste away”.

“I should be in charge”, said the stomach, “because I process food and give all of you energy”.

“I should be in charge”, said the rectum, “because I’m responsible for waste removal”.

All the other body parts laughed at the rectum and insulted him, so in a huff, he shut down tight. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, and the blood was toxic.

Eventually the other organs gave in. They all agreed that the rectum should be the boss.

The moral of the story?

You don’t have to be smart or important to be in charge… just a “rectum hole”.

A turkey was chatting with a bull. “I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree,” sighed the turkey, “but I haven’t got the energy.” 

“Well, why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings?” replied the bull. “They’re packed with nutrients.”  The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fortnight, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree.  Soon he was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.  Moral of the story: Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there.

A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, “Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?” The crow answered: “Sure, why not.” So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.  Moral of the story is:  To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up. 

I remember a time in enterprise technology when developers, albeit a small percentage, were “cowboys” – you know, people who “shoot from the hip”.  I’m not talking about the irresponsible, incompetent people, but instead the people who knew what needed to be done, knew how to do it, and wouldn’t wait for other people to make it happen.  Yes, a bit uncontrolled, but insanely, insanely productive.

I can’t help but feel an overarching culture shift in technology from ROI to security.  This special “security beats ROI” mantra was always reserved for the most uncool, slow, unproductive organizations (and unfortunately, it seems government always got the brunt of that since they were never driven by profitability).  Well ironically, the trend seems to be reversing.  Many areas in government seem to be taking a customer-focused, run-our-organization-like-a-business approach, while some businesses are taking a do-it-securely-and-perfectly-even-if-profitability-is-at-risk approach.  Now, I am not saying that either is right or wrong.  There are certainly reasons to focus on profitability that need not be explained.  And the argument to focus on security and risk mitigation is also valid that need only be explained in one word: Enron.

But, I guess the part that I miss is that rogue developer who would come up with something cool and amazing [in the enterprise] every few months just because he wanted to make an impact.  You know where all these developers have gone?  Google and small businesses/startups.  Google makes everything a beta product, they charge the public for almost nothing, and most importantly, they make enough money in their advertising that they can splurge on cowboy developers.  Thus, you can be a developer at Google and work for years without touching anything that would be considered a material risk to the business.  It is no surprise that they are attracting so many of the smartest.  Part of me hopes that the security-beats-ROI trend in the enterprise is balanced back just a little so we can see our cowboys flourish again.

For someone who implements and appreciates technology as much as me, I avoided a personal blog for quite some time.  I have participated on community blogs and written articles on sites that presented information in a blog-type fashion, but I haven’t buckled down and done one for me.  So, now that I am writing in my own personal blog, I have to ask myself if this is all it’s hyped up to be…

The answer: Yes.  The second answer: Ask me in a few months when the novelty has worn off.

I have been creating and running forums, blogs, and group/community sites for years, but I must say, there is something a little enticing about having your own blog, that only you contribute to.  At this point, I only think it will only become more popular.  It’ll be interesting to see what percentage of people have their own blog and a trend on that figure.

There are times when you really wish certain electronic equipment had their power cords attached to the devices themselves, rather than being unpluggable.  I was just on a web conference with a customer and my foot apparently knocked out the power cord from my router — it took me a few [painful] minutes to figure out what had happened.

By the way, I can’t even count the number of power cords I have for the various electronic equipment I have purchased; I have absolutely no idea to which device they belong.  What are all the advantages, again, of unpluggable power cords? 

The best armor is to keep out of range. – Italian Proverb

It is not enough to aim; you must hit. – Italian Proverb

If you scatter thorns, don’t go barefoot. – Italian Proverb

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. – Niels Bohr

To err is human–and to blame it on a computer is even more so. – Robert Orben

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Failing to plan is planning to fail.  – Unknown