Real Patriotism is to see the truth, and say it.

Dulce et Decorum Est

Soldiers fleeing from gas attack

British Soldier

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All were lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

An unlearned lesson...

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime -

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gurgling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
the old Lie:
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

– Wilifred Owens, 1917, published 1920

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is a line from the Roman lyrical poet Horace’s Odes (III.2.13). The line can be roughly translated into English as: “It is sweet and right to die for one’s country.”, “It is noble and glorious to die for your fatherland.” or “It is beautiful and honorable to die for your fatherland.”

“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, sed dulcius pro patria vivere, et dulcissimum pro patria bibere. Ergo, bibamus pro salute patriae” In English this is rendered as: “It is sweet and right to die for the homeland, but it is sweeter to live for the homeland, and the sweetest to drink for it. Therefore, let us drink to the health of the homeland.” It was a frequent 19th century students’ toast.

Perhaps the most famous modern use of the phrase is as the title of a poem, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, by British poet Wilfred Owen during World War I. Owen’s poem describes a gas attack during World War I and is one of his many anti-war poems that were not published until after the war ended. In the final lines of the poem, the Horatian phrase is described as “the old Lie.” It is believed that Owen intended to dedicate the poem ironically to Jessie Pope, a popular writer who glorified the war and recruited “laddies” who “longed to charge and shoot” in simplistically patriotic poems like “The Call.” The line has been commonplace in modern times throughout Europe. It was quoted by Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat immediately before his beheading on Tower Hill, London in 1747. It was much quoted in reference to the British Empire in the 19th century, particularly during the Boer War. Also Wilfred Owen used it in his poem Dulce Et Decorum Est which was written during World War I (Owen was killed in action one week before the war ended in 1918).

The following information on the World War 1 (aka The Great War) was gathered from EmersonKent.com, the website for the relaxed historian. It is a brilliant site and I highly recommend a look. If my history class had been so well organized, I might have cared about World War I in high school.

World War I: A short summary
Over 65 million troops were engaged in the First World War, an unprecedented number in 1914.
Consequently, the war also set a sad record in wreaking havoc.
For the most part, the war was fought in Europe; however, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia saw action as well.

What countries were involved in World War I?
In one way or another, almost everybody. Only the following countries managed to remain neutral:In Europe: Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain.
In the Americas: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela.
In Asia: Afghanistan and Persia.
In Africa: Abyssinia.

The main combatants of WWI
The Central Powers fought against the Allies.
The Central Powers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria.

The Allies were France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, United States, Romania, Serbia, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, and Montenegro.
And here they are on a map.

Europe 1914 – Allied, Central, and Neutral Powers

What were the causes of World War I?
Imperialistic expansion was backed by a widespread net of military alliances. This extensive alliance system was vulnerable, since nothing could happen without everyone’s being affected.

In other words and simpler terms, everybody made a promise to everybody to help them out in case they got attacked. Now, all that needed to happen was someone had to sneeze and everybody would be forced to take sides and fight no matter what.
In fact, someone did sneeze June 28, 1914.

What started World War I?

On June 28, 1914, Serbian radical Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz-Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo. A month later, on July 28, 1914, Austria declared officially war against Serbia and the rest of the globe followed into World War I.

What ended World War I?

Bulgaria surrendered on September 30, 1918; Turkey on October 30; and Austria-Hungary on November 4, 1918. On November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany. World War I was officially ended.

The peace conference was headed by the “Big Four,” David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, and Woodrow Wilson of the United States.

Who won World War I? Who lost World War I?
The Allies were the victors of World War I. The Central Powers lost World War I.

What were the casualties of World War I?
During the four years of war, more than 8.5 million soldiers were killed and 20 million wounded. A total of 15,000,000 million deaths are estimated. Roughly 90% of all Austrian mobilized forces became casualties.

As an ex-military person, I can rarely express my feeling around Veterans Day. I guess the best I can say is that I feel lucky to have finished my term of service in one piece, physically. And doing research on earlier wars, makes me happy to be able to say that I was able come home almost the way I left. So this year for Veterans Day, I will give just a few facts about World War I that I thought I should have known before I joined the military. It might have changed my mind.

On the path to IT enlightenment

Reasonable men adjust themselves to their environment. Unreasonable men attempt to change their environment to suit themselves. Therefore all progress is the work of unreasonable men.
– George Bernard Shaw

History is often unkind to unreasonable men. But I also know that nothing is ever accomplished by reasonable men. They are content with the status quo. They exploit and profit on the frailties of the human condition without making any changes to improve that condition. I strive to make the world a better place despite being told it was impossible. I am not a reasonable man.
–Thaddeus Howze

I was asked to give a short presentation to a group of young people who were trying to get to the straight and narrow path that a career might offer. Some of the young men had fallen from the path of education, of self improvement and had been convinced by the efforts of a dedicated few to return and try again. All previous sins forgiven, all that was required was a re-dedication to the efforts to improve their lives. I was asked to speak to them about taking some coursework in IT done at an accelerated rate in an effort to prepare them for a summer internship in the middle of next year. I became involved with mixed feelings.

Not because I do not think it is a worthy cause. On the contrary, I believe it is the worthiest of causes; without such efforts, my own redemption at an earlier point in my life would not have ever occurred and I would likely be dead, or in a state such that death might be a preferable condition. My trepidation came from having to tell these young men the truth about my occupation; or at least, as I knew it. I love what I do. I have done it now for over twenty five years; not the same job, but the same industry, information technology and communications with overlap into the publishing, banking, government, technology, game design, publishing, retail, small business and educational sectors. How do you distill that into something someone can use?

It’s impossible to write something technical that would be useful to someone who has never even done IT, so I decided to write down the things that I learned along the way; stepping stones that have to be touched on the stairway to occupational success. Thinking about these things, I decided these would be the things I would tell myself if I could meet myself on my way to my first IT job interview.

These are the fundamentals. If you aren’t careful,
violation of these rules can cost you your job.

1. Pick your battles. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win a war. Keep your eyes on the war. Give up some things to gain everything. Outlast your enemies. Just because you did not make them your enemies did not mean they did not declare war on YOU.
2. What got you to the top, won’t keep you there. Don’t get complacent. Stay frosty. Sharpen that saw!
3. Previous success is just that; what you did before. It has no bearing on your present circumstance other than it appeared on your resume. Succeed in a different way this time! Innovate, create something new.
4. Don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is a tool and a quite necessary one.
5. You learn nothing from success. (You got it right the first time!) Failure teaches and the world’s greatest minds learned best from this harsh schoolmaster.
6. If you work somewhere you cannot fail or failure is a punitive event, leave. They are not doing anything important there anyway.
7. Real innovation is risky. When forced to choose between innovation and efficiency management, the long-term win is in innovation.
8. Know the difference between being effective and being efficient. The first deals with deciding the right things to do and the other deals with doing things right.
9. Hire the guy who came in second. He tries harder. Persistence is the real talent. Plus he will love you for taking that risk and work even harder to prove he’s worthy. It has always paid off for me.
10. Be right. But don’t be an ass about it. Do your research; know your craft. Be right but if you make everyone hate you because of it, you won’t last long there, even if you were never wrong. Sometimes it is better to be heard than to be right.
11. Never compromise your work. Stand up for what you know, through dint of your effort, research and intellect to be the right thing to do. Find a way to get it done. IT that is compromised serves no one well and costs everyone.
12. When you become master of all you survey, allow your team to innovate and fail. The things they succeed with will amaze you. Empower your team. Give them the ability to make decisions on the things they work on. Less paperwork for you, more autonomy for them. Make them responsible for their work, because, well they are. Insist on diversity. Hire people smarter than you. (Don’t be afraid. They don’t want your job. If they did, they would certainly have it already.)
13. Hire people who don’t look like you. Avoid groupthink. Give your team the power to tell you that you are wrong. This may be the second greatest thing you ever do for yourself. The first was hiring someone smart enough to tell you that you are wrong.
14. Just because everyone says it can’t be done, does not mean they are right. Believe and do it anyway.

Those core rules are non-negotiable and will likely work for any occupation. These are my IT-related truths. They too may be applied to any occupation. Adjust as necessary.

You must learn to love new things.

1. Every three years all that you know may become obsolete. Even if it does not, the IT industry will certainly have expanded further than expected. You have a lot of learning to do.
2. Start your career learning about everything you can. Specialize once you know what feels good to you and you are able to do with maximum efficiency and minimum wasted effort. Be a generalist when you can, specialize if you must but maintain your versatility. Your employment may depend on you being able to do an array of things.
3. Maintain your versatility over time by taking a variety of IT careers in a variety of business models. Business skills will become more important the further up the command structure of the corporation you want to go. Get some training or some education related to business if your mission is to conquer the executive suite.
4. Learn the soft/social skills of how to deal with people. That is a skill set that will only grow more valuable with age.
5. Find the time to take an assessment exam and to read books that deal with occupational growth and career design (i.e. Myers-Briggs, What Color is Your Parachute, Zen and the Art of Making a Living, the Success Principles by Jack Canfield.) These books guide you to consider your reasons for working in the occupation that you do now and how to maximize that experience, or suggest a career better suited to your skill set.
6. Learn 10 things today that you did not know yesterday. Real facts – don’t cut corners. (3,650 new ideas every year will keep you sharp, and yes, that means you learn on the weekends, too!)
7. Knowledge, Information and Data are not equal. Data is the raw stuff of databases and reports. In and of itself, it does nothing. When organized and understood, data can become information and has the potential to influence events and empower the person using it. Knowledge is the state that information assumes when it has helped to accomplish work. Knowledge is the ultimate expression of data in use. Knowledge is Power. Data is just data.

Know your limitations.

1. If you don’t know your weaknesses or limitations, ask someone you trust and don’t take it too personally if they tell you something you didn’t know. Then you should take the time to know yourself better. When in doubt find an enemy and ask him. He has nothing to gain by not telling you the truth.
2. Lose a bad habit a year, every year until you approach perfection. (You are not likely to become perfect, but people may like to be around you a lot more.)
3. Know yourself; do work that complements your skill set. If you don’t like databases, don’t become a database administrator, even if you know how. You will resent your work and it will show.
4. Learn your strengths and use them, they will grow even stronger. Don’t dwell on your weaknesses; you don’t plan to keep them anyway.
5. Be introspective. Introspection is a lost art. Introspection is the art of looking into yourself to find out who you are. You cannot do it with your iPod or stereo blasting at 11. You cannot do it while you are texting your friends or playing World of Warcraft. Introspection can only be done, in silence and the harsh light of honest analysis of who you are and what you do (or have done recently). If you cannot stand a silent room or be alone with your thoughts, ask yourself why? Then do it anyway. The life you improve will be your own. If you find introspection especially difficult, learn/take a class on meditation or yoga, (or both).

No one outside of IT will really know what you do or understand it.
So kudos may be slow to arrive after you pull the
company fat out of the fire for the fourth time this month.
IT is your family now.

1. Love, admire, respect and support each other’s work. It may be the only acknowledgment you receive from your workplace. Cross-train so you can help each other over time and allow everyone to take a vacation sometime.
2. Complements are rarely given to the technical masses that do the most difficult of work. Know that the bulk of the people who benefit from your work, appreciate it greatly. Why management is less able to do that is still a mystery…
3. In some work environments, your work will barely be acknowledged; do it well anyway.
4. Your work is your signature. When you leave your work behind, it should be a monument like the Pyramids of Giza; built to last, with vision in mind. Also see: timeless.
5. When you become the boss of your own IT Empire, sing the praises of your team to everyone. That praise will be the greatest tool in your arsenal.
6. Under-promise and over-deliver. Keep the masses clamoring for your support happy with this simple mantra. Learn how to budget and manage your time. Be realistic when you promise your client a delivery date. Then deliver on your promise, in spades.
7. In IT, everything takes longer than you thought it would. Make sure you think of everything your client would want and a half a dozen things they never considered. Treat them as you would desire to be treated.
8. Document everything you do. Keep an electronic paper trail of your labors. Hercules had only 13 impossible things to do, so he did not need to take notes. Make a to-do list every day. Keep it on a flash drive or in a wiki. It helps you determine how well you are doing, what you are doing and whether it is what you should be doing.
9. Once a year, make a list of things you want to accomplish in that year and make sure those things get on your daily or weekly to do list. At the end of the year, check that list, if more than half are not done, where is your time being spent?

You must appear perfect in word and deed.
Unrealistic? So what. Who said life was fair.

1. Your parents are responsible for what was, you are responsible for what is. If your life was not a bed of roses, get over it. Every day is a chance to make it better. Real life is progressive and iterative (meaning it builds on the work of the day before. So it will take time to correct all that was wrong. Do it anyway.)
2. Mastery of self must occur before you can master anything else. Self-control means control of your habits, your mind, and your body. The most powerful thing you can do for yourself is to maintain your self-control especially when everyone around you is waiting for you to lose it.
3. If you are out of sorts; get help. There is no shame in seeking support. The IT industry can undermine your self-esteem and morale. If you are psychologically stressed, IT work can drive you to the brink in record time.
4. If you say it, it must be so. Your word is law. Keep your word, your integrity is everything.
5. When in doubt, say nothing. Everything you say will be remembered. When you say nothing, you appear wise and inscrutable. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” No truer words were ever spoken. Remember them.
6. The most powerful words you can say are: I don’t know. But I will find out. Become a master of research!
7. Rest; use your vacation. Learn to walk away. Many IT types have an inability to walk away from a problem. This dogged determination is how they solve the impossible issues that end up on our desks. But it leads to stress, wear and tear on our minds and bodies over time, rendering us less effective over time. Don’t let this happen to you. Take time out. Plan for it. Then do it. You will be better for the time away. (Plus, it lets them miss you, especially if you are great at your job. Familiarity often breeds contempt.)
8. Do things not IT related. The greatest minds in the world have often discovered that things apparently unrelated to your work can sometimes inspire you to find new ways of solving problems. Rejuvenate your mind by doing things that don’t require a keyboard and a mouse. Read a book, take up painting, do crosswords or Sudoku, learn a new language, play a musical instrument… When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Get at least one physical hobby or sport that puts some wear and tear on your body. The sedentary life of an IT guru can add inches to your waist and pounds to you behind. Your mind is only as strong and resilient as the body that houses it. (Weight-lifting, aerobics, running, martial arts, bicycling, swimming, ultimate Frisbee, touch football, soccer, to name a few.) Get your heart rate up and keep it up for 50 minutes a day. Your life depends on it.

Love IT as the complex and dynamic craft that it is.

1. You must enjoy the challenge of finding the straw in a needle stack. You are about to become part of the largest, most distributed neural network on the planet and possibly the greatest technological wonder ever created by humanity. Savor the moment. Done? Now get to work. With that membership, you will also have the great responsibility to ensure that whatever part of that network you build, patrol, protect, guide or create, that you do it with a vision of the future, being mindful of present circumstances and with an awareness of what has gone before.
2. It will, if you choose it, be the hardest job you will ever love. People will tell you that what you do is not work. Do not listen. This career is as challenging as any being done anywhere:
   • IT is as challenging as medicine, because your patient will sometimes span the world, be in more than one place at a time, and have thousands of discrete elements, with millions of parts and billions of lines of code holding it all together. IT changes faster and more consistently than medicine ever has. (To be fair, medicine may soon accelerate the pace now that they are embracing IT in their diagnosis, management and coordination of information. More work for you…)
   • IT may be as hard to handle as law, because there are no precedents for every event. Each time may be the first time that circumstance has EVER been seen. What was true this morning may no longer even be relevant by sunset. Human laws develop at a geologic pace compared to the shifts that technology witnesses every year. (On average, law firms are incredibly slow when it comes to utilizing the full power of IT. I am amazed to see how many law firms are still running Windows 98 or NT.)
   • As difficult as architecture and engineering because what you build must offer stability and adaptability and is constantly under attack from threats within and without and yet must make the people using it feel safe and productive. Depending on the IT you are responsible for lives may hang in the balance. Be vigilant. IT is ever-challenging and has constantly expanding horizons.
3. Learn all you can, all the time. If you are not a strong reader, I recommend you work on expanding your speed and your literacy, because a strong and fast reader has a decided advantage in IT. Technical publications, both in print and online are your friends. Take an 8 hour work day, once a week and do nothing but read technical journals or publications on that day. Your productivity will still be higher than anyone who doesn’t.
4. IT will offer you impossible deadlines, put you in positions to affect the highest stakes (you have four minutes to save the world…) pair you with some of the strangest and often brilliant people, keep you working long and sometimes nonstandard hours, and ultimately provide you with immense satisfaction. IT will give you the satisfaction of creating something out of nothing whether that be a circuit board, a processor, a network, an application, a database, or a website, you will be creating something from the realm of ideas (Logos) and bringing it into the world. Create something the world needs they will pay you handsomely for it. (Sometimes, even if the world didn’t need it, you will get paid too, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.) Know that when your skills mature (in 5 to 7 years), you will be able to call yourself one in a million and mean it.
5. Mastery of this craft makes you rare amongst humans. Even the most sophisticated and educated often pale when confronted by a computer on their desk and a demand to use it. And despite our recent economic misfortunes, work in this field will likely continue to expand to those who stay at the forefront of their fields of expertise.
6. There will never be fewer computers on Earth than there are now. They may be virtual computers under unknown operating systems but the number of computers is likely to continue growing for the foreseeable future. And on the off-chance that the number of computers actually goes down, the skill level required to manage, understand and control those computers will likely be greater than ever. The only people who would have a chance of controlling or working with them would be people who already have the core fundamentals at hand. That would be you.

If you don’t love IT, you will leave it in 2-4 years for something easier, less stressful with a greater sense of acknowledgment from the common masses. Your powers will diminish somewhat but you will always remember what it was like to have your finger on the pulse of the world. Good luck.

These ideas were from my private journey of twenty five years in the IT workforce. I am curious to see if anyone else sees anything familiar here. If not, share with me those things that made it possible for you to succeed. I am always looking for other great tools for my belt.

About the Author: Thaddeus has an Information Technology blog at the Examiner.com. His email address is: 

Forget about Saving the Earth, We Better Concentrate on Saving Ourselves

Saving the Planet?

I can’t stand when I hear people saying that we need to “Save the Planet.” The people who are propagating this meme to the general public are usually media people who don’t know megatons from megaliths. We cannot save the planet because the Earth is not in danger. We are. As an amateur scientist and professional technologist, I am too aware of the science regarding end of the world scenarios and anything with the real potential to end the world is beyond our ability to stop, save for the one that we are bringing on ourselves; our ability to create, manufacture and destroy the environment for the sake of profit.

It is theorized that during the Cretaceous period, approximately 65 million years ago, an asteroid crashed into the Earth in the Yucatan peninsula. This ten kilometer piece of space debris, weighing nearly a trillion tons, moving at nearly 10-30 kilometers/per second (20,000 – 60,000 mph) and with the force of 100 million megatons of energy, (more energy than all the nuclear weapons on Earth today) created a crater nearly 150 kilometers across, blasting tons of earth and rock into the atmosphere. This impact in turn caused seismic events, created tsunamis and initiated volcanoes which added to the blanket of ash that reduced the temperature of the Earth all over the world.

This major reduction in temperature caused the demise of 70% of all plant life on Earth. There is controversy as to whether this killed the dinosaurs immediately or whether it took another 300,000 to 1.8 million additional years to cause their demise. Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for over 145 million years and in the relative blink of an eye, they were gone. But the Earth is still here. Such an event today as the Chicxulub (pronounced CHICK-soo-loob) impact would end all higher life on Earth in a matter of years due to starvation.

There have been at least six other known major extinction events that occurred on Earth, as near as our science can tell. This means that nearly 90% of all life on Earth has been destroyed several times in our planet’s four billion year existence.  There are million of species that remain on Earth today filling every niche and environment possible. The Earth is resilient and life returns again and again. Individual species are another matter entirely.  I say it again for those who can’t handle the truth, the Earth is not in danger, we are!

How did I get here, again?

As a technologist, I am fascinated by the effect of technology on the human species and the human condition. Recently there were three catalysts that made me think about this again. The first was receiving an email regarding electronic waste or e-waste and its dumping on the African continent as well as its illegal trade in Chinese communities. Wayne Hicks, a leading member of the BDPA posited the idea that something should be done about the dumping of toxic e-waste on the shores of Africa and he asked the question: Does BDPA need to take a public stand on the issue of e-waste? After some research, I applauded Wayne Hicks interest in this controversial issue and agreed with his question. A more definitive stand is required.

The second catalyst was a program produced by ABC Television News called ‘Earth 2100‘ that premiered June 2, 2009 at 9:00 PM.  This show talked about a possible future in the next 100 years that would show the eventual decline and fall of the human species. It was during the viewing of Earth 2100,  I heard one of the wisest things I have heard said in years and at the same time the scariest. It was spoken by Van Jones, Founder of Green for All, during the early part of the Earth 2100 show. He said “People are complaining about the economic crisis we have right now? You ain’t seen nothing yet. You know, if we continue down this suicidal pathway where we basically turn living stuff into dead stuff and call that economic growth, this will look like the good old days.”

I don’t personally know Van Jones, but he and I would be kindred spirits because I am in totally agreement with this statement and wonder why our economy is continuing down such a final and disastrous path. Van Jones is the Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). This science fiction documentary could very easily become science fact if humanity continues down this slippery slope of denial and adherence to our failing economic models. And like global warming it will be ignored because it is unpopular until it is too late to do anything about.

The third was a catalyst that I had considered about 10 years ago when I created a game that discussed how mankind would one day wage war over the limited resources and the failing ecosystems of the future. When I created this game, I thought it seemed like a logical, but unfortunate, progression. Humanity has never done well with scarcity and the future promises, that we would eventually market ourselves to death, selling products we do not ultimately need, creating an engine of economic prosperity that does not take the maintenance of the future into consideration. Well, I was not alone in this idea and it appears that the Center for a New American Security had also considered this premise and created their own “Climate Change War Game” to see what the future has in store for the ever-combative, ever short-sighted human species. You can download the materials for this game. These three catalysts lead me to thinking about this again and asking why is there any question as to what needs to be done.

I was reading about natural law theory and realized that humanity, or at least those in charge of the path that humanity is taking as a whole, had forgotten natural law theories.  To quote Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph.D.:

“What do we mean by “natural law”? In its simplest definition, natural law is that “unwritten law” that is more or less the same for everyone everywhere. To be more exact, natural law is the concept of a body of moral principles that is common to all humankind and, as generally posited, is recognizable by human reason alone. Natural law is therefore distinguished from — and provides a standard for — positive law, the formal legal enactments of a particular society.

To sum it up, then, we can say that the natural law:

• is not made by human beings;
• is based on the structure of reality itself;
• is the same for all human beings and at all times;
• is an unchanging rule or pattern which is there for human beings to discover;
• is the naturally knowable moral law;
• is a means by which human beings can rationally guide themselves to their good.”

I reference this because I feel that certain concepts have simply been forgotten in the name of profit. The concept that things happen at a certain rate and no faster is known by farmers, geologists, paleontologists and astronomers (and assuredly lots of other occupations that cannot force nature to occur at any rate faster than it does naturally). They never forget these natural law theories because it is part of the underpinnings of their craft. Farmers cannot force plants to grow any faster than they do (yes they can alter their size, appearance, output but nature determines their overall development rate, for the moment). Geologists and other earth scientists cannot make tectonic shifts take place any faster, indeed they are hard pressed to predict them at all, paleontologists study ancient cultures and don’t expect to see drastic shifts in the nature of those cultures overnight, nor can astronomers who have to work with the speed of light as their limiting agent, see the universe as anything other than a picture whose images are displaced by millions or even billions of years between when we see them and what they may actually look like now. Light may be the fastest thing in the known universe, but even it must bow to the nearly immeasurable distances of inter-galactic space.

It’s Economic Development

Bringham Canyon Mine is the largest open pit copper mine in the world—deeper than twice the height of Chicago's Sears Tower. (Photographed on assignment for, but not published in, "Utah: Land of Promise, Kingdom of Stone," January 1996, National Geographic magazine) Photograph by James P. Blair

Our business models, our economic models, our advertising models, and the manufacturing model that we are propagating all over the Earth, in the name of democracy and free trade, are failing to remember natural law. With the advent of the Industrial and Manufacturing Age, we have compressed time to the point that we can only make money at this new and accelerated rate. Everything must happen right now. Dividends must be maximized; profits must be realized without delay regardless to the cost of human suffering or long-term loss. We must continue to extract resources from the earth, create new, cheap and potentially toxic processes for refining those materials, and in turn, take those refined materials and assembly line the creation of those products that we then must advertise and sell as quickly as possible for a profit. And that is where we curiously, as a society, stop watching that device or product.

The manufacturers no longer take responsibility for that product once it leaves their hands and comes into yours. We forget the other half of that product’s lifespan. That product is used. If the manufacturer built into it a pre-programmed obsolescence date (which, whether they admit it or not, most manufactures understand that their product has a limited lifespan) that product will stop working and will likely be unable to be repaired due primarily to its cheap cost of manufacturing.

This poorly manufactured product is likely created with a process that has deadly by-products during its creation, and those by-products are likely still with this product when it is time for it to be returned to the other half of its existence, as a waste product. Deadly plastics whose by-products include dioxins or poly vinyl choloride (PVC), heavy metals such as lead, selenium, cadmium, barium, and mercury are used in the creation of high-tech products and can leech back into the environment when disposed of improperly. If you are interested in seeing what toxins might be in your community at large, you can use a web-based service called Scorecard.

So how is it that a product that was conceived of by a business, the natural resources harvested from the earth, manufactured in a factory, advertised to the consumer, sold to that consumer, used by the consumer, disposed of by the consumer, in the tens of millions, possibly even billions, should only be a cost to the consumer, when the corporation that created the need for the product in the first place walks away with all of the profit and the consumer (and its attendant government) must deal with all of the costs for the disposal of that product and its potentially deadly side-effects.

Let’s take a quick look at natural for a second. In nature, everything is part of the cycle of life and death. When anything dies, nature has a process, which recovers the natural elements of that organism and returns them to the environment from which they are ultimately derived. It is eaten, broken down, waste products are produced, which are then broken down again either chemically or physically until it is able to become part of the cycle of living things again as part of a plant or animal.

Mankind has failed to take a note from nature’s handbook and build our own devices on a similar path of intelligent design. (And for the record, I am not espousing “Intelligent Design” that religious ideal that there is a greater intelligence in the Universe that we are not aware of.) I am simply noting that nature has managed to work both sides of the creation and destruction cycle by including a transformation element to convert the living back into the component materials from which it is ultimately derived. Mankind has failed to include such a transformation element and it is coming back to us in the form of deadly byproducts of electronic waste.

A Problem of Scale

This is a question of the scale of the problem. We are addressing the disposal of technology at a linear scale. This means a small percentage of the human race is attempting to deal with our waste management and the problem is left to this tiny segment of the population. But we are manufacturing technology at an exponential scale, increasing our need and dependence on technology and its increasing affect on how we do business. And the more technology we create, the more technology that is necessary to manage it. Unless, we as a species, begin handling our technology collectively, we will be overwhelmed by the waste products created today in the name of economic prosperity. Some may say this has already become the case as our oceans become more polluted by environmental run-off from factories, pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers necessary to feed our populations.

How many computers are there on Earth today?

There are currently nearly 1 billion computers in use today. Forrester Research indicates that by the year 2015 there will be 2 billion computers in use. The source for this data is IDC, the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker gathers PC market data in 55 countries by vendor, form factor, brand, processor brand and speed, sales channel and user segment. The research includes historical and forecast trend analysis as well as price band and installed base data. It took 27 years for there to be one billion computers, it will only take seven or eight to reach two billion. How fast will we reach three billion?

How many cell phones are there on Earth today?

John Jackson, consultant wireless analyst at Yankee Group, indicated that in 2006 that the global market, with 1.8 billion mobile devices, will have 49 million new smart phones by year end. Yankee expects the number of smart phones to double again, to 98 million, in 2006, while the number of cell phones worldwide creeps ahead to 1.85 billion. With number like these, you can expect that in 2009, the number of cell phones will exceed 2 billion cell phones.

How many game consoles have been created since their inception?

Since 1983 there have been over 1 billion game consoles from all of the manufacturers sold worldwide. These numbers do not deal with accessories or components outside of the actual device. We are not going to even address: monitors (CRTs, plasma, LCD, and televisions of all types but you can assume there are at least as many monitors as there are computers), fax machines, which were extremely popular for at least twenty years in the US, radio technologies including clock radios, boom-boxes, internal home stereo systems and enhanced car stereo systems, old style telephone systems that are being replaced by Voice over IP telecom systems, large scale mainframe, mini-computers and server systems that are becoming obsolete faster and faster.

Not Rocket Science

For the BDPA, whose chapter leadership shows little or no interest (at least as far as their bdpa.groupsite.com news group link showed) in pursuing the question of electronic wastes, I say, shame on you. I understand you have other issues that need addressing. Equality of your membership in the workforce is definitely a worthy cause that I salute. But I say to you this: If you have no other causes for which your organization will fight for, why should anyone consider your primary cause worth fighting for. The shores of China or East Africa may be far away from you now, but when this current trend of ‘economic development’ is done, America may find itself a ’second or third world nation’ and suddenly find e-waste stealthily being sent to its shores in poor urban communities where the bulk of the next generation of BDPA’s members may find themselves relegated to, due to the poor standard of living that people of color have to contend with in America. This is part of that being able to pay attention to natural law that we were discussing earlier. A paleontologist may be able to point out to you that as empires lose power over time, they lose the ability to protect their population from stronger or more vigorous empires who take their place. This may mean as the United States grows less powerful, more powerful nations may take to doing to us, what we currently do them under the guise of economic development.

Get your leadership to draft a letter, sign it and send it to your Congressmen, your senators, and to the President if necessary. There are thousands of you (as you are fond of saying in your literature) so use that power to be the change you are looking for. While you are at it, get the creators of all of this technology that eventually becomes e-waste to discuss a plan to make technology that can be returned to the Earth, reused, or recycled in a responsible way because that way lies the future of all of us. Find those corporations that understand that we need to do better and use them as a standard for the creation of more organically considered technologies. We need to get people to see that economic growth divorced from Natural Law will be the death of all of us. Not right now, but in the future that is rapidly approaching us.

This is the letter I plan to send to our local government representatives. I doubt that the scale of the problem will register but they cannot say they were not informed. I have included links that will help you find your representative for your local area. Most can be reached by email but for those that have snail mail addresses, I have included links for those as well. If you feel this letter finds some accord with you, feel free to send your own copy to whomever you think will listen.

The White House (courtesy of Wikipedia)

A Letter to Your Representative

To the United Nations, United States Congress, US Senate, and the President of these United States:

We the Undersigned, in the month of our nation’s independence July of 2009, find it reprehensible that nothing is being done to prevent the creation of potentially toxic electronic devices without a viable and safe means of disposal of said technologies. These technologies are being created in the millions annually, purchased in the billions over a decade and disposed of in the hundreds of millions every year. These technologies are showing up on the shores of our neighboring nations as well within our own landfills and poisoning the land and the water as well as killing populations everywhere, all in the name of progress, economic growth and gross domestic product.

Please don’t bother telling us about the economic engine of the world being powered by the creation of new technology and that businesses have a right to create technology that people need. Most people don’t need the technology that is being created at the rate that it is being created. The concept that we should be creating technology that lasts should a part of a well-considered plan to future generations. No one should need a new cell phone every two years. This is irresponsible and wasteful. That need to buy new technology constantly is driven by the very effective use of advertising to convince the populace that new technology should be purchased as quickly as possible, whenever possible. This should be seen as a crime against humanity.

To add insult to injury, those technologies are being manufactured with planned obsolescence in mind, so that technology such as cell phones, which are created in the hundreds of millions, for example, without a plan for their eventual disposal find themselves being sent to third world nations under the guise of “technology exchange” but is more  a euphemism for ‘technology disposal and dumping.’ If it were only cell phones it would be a reprehensible practice but it is cell phones, computers, computer monitors, televisions, telephones, fax machines, copiers… Do I need to go on? Millions and millions of these devices are being created without a plan or a method of disposal or reuse. The cast offs are sent to third world nations without any understanding of how those technologies will be harvested for what little value remains in them. They are likely burned and their plastic housings will release dioxins and other poisons into the atmosphere. The heavy metals within them, those that cannot be harvested for value, like gold, will make their way into the soils and remain there indefinitely, poisoning the land and the water, making those areas potentially un-inhabitable. The current locals who are forced into this slave labor by crime cartels or economic desperation will eventually die, exposed to toxic smoke, heavy metal poisoning, pollution of their ground water or food supply. This is happening right now, not a conjecture, clearly just a fact.

Not an American concern, you say. Not your problem, you say. We don’t have control over businesses that are not in the United States, let alone those that are. If you claim you want to reduce health costs, you might want to consider that many of those health issues can be traced back to manufacturing processes, by-products of manufacturing, or to the disposal of those products at the end of their unnaturally short life spans. If you, as representatives of the people, want to make the world a better place, then it is up to you to review the information regarding e-waste and for that matter, all waste processing and see what can be done to improve those processes, reducing the deadly by-products and work to ensure that the true cost of manufacturing is laid at the feet of everyone involved.

Corporations should also carry the burden of dealing with the toxic by-products even if it increases the costs of their products. It might also force them to make those products last a bit longer and keep them out of the waste cycle, poisoning our air and water supplies. America is a big country and we can hide the bodies of our manufacturing dead for a long time before it becomes an issue to us. We can deny it is a problem almost indefinitely. The operative word is almost. We have seen the effects in China and other nations that are attempting to keep up with the standard of living of America and other first world nations. Such trends cannot continue. We must help them become citizens of the new millennia without the extravagant waste that was part of the American Legacy to the world.

You are right; it is not an American concern. It is a world-wide concern. Everyone needs to be involved. Greed and short term profit are the key operating forces in this orgy of manufacturing genocide. What are you going to do about it, representative of the people? You can keep sitting there and we will replace you with someone that eventually will give a damn. We all keep talking about saving the planet, but the Earth has experienced at least six extinction level events where over 90% of all life on Earth was extinguished and it has survived with tens of thousands of species remaining. If we make the Earth uninhabitable for ourselves, the Earth, living in geologic time, will simply replace us with something else, hopefully more intelligent and capable of planning for the future.

Signed,

Thaddeus Howze
Paladin/CEO: Have Flash Drive, Will Travel
Hayward, California, USA
Earth, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy

Links for further reading:

Environmental Protection Agency as a general source of information regarding the environment and our place in it. The definitive source of all things environmental in the US.

The Futures Group: A young think tank out of Singapore with some avant-garde thinking showing our connectedness and concerned about the future of Singapore. On their site they link the Map of the Decade Illustrated created by the Institute for the Future. They have also made a collection of the IFTFs previous maps and other thought-work available at the List of IFTF and other maps.

The Institute for the Future (IFTF) is an independent, nonprofit research group with over 40 years of forecasting experience. The core of our work is identifying emerging trends and discontinuities that will transform global society and the global marketplace.

Green for All: A green work organization that is studying the potential future of green jobs in the US.

The California Integrated Waste Management Board is the State agency designated to oversee, manage, and track California’s 92 million tons of waste generated each year.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance provides innovative strategies, working models and timely information to support environmentally sound and equitable community development. To this end, ILSR works with citizens, activists, policymakers and entrepreneurs to design systems, policies and enterprises that meet local or regional needs; to maximize human, material, natural and financial resources; and to ensure that the benefits of these systems and resources accrue to all local citizens.

Worldometers: is part of the Real Time Statistics Project, which is managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. Chief project coordinator is currently Sir Thomasson.

Repeat after me: The technician is your friend…

Sixth in a Series: Technology and the SOHO

A good PC technician is worth their weight in gold. They really are. No matter their stereotypes (and there are quite a few) if you have a good tech, you know it and do everything in your power to keep them. A good tech seems to know what is wrong before you fully describe the problem. A good tech has an encyclopedic memory for odd configuration facts that might affect your computer. And when they don’t know the answer, they have a website, blog or friend just an instant message away who does.

They are an unappreciated, overworked, cog in the vast IT machine. They are the front line troubleshooters, the guy crawling under a desk to track a cable, they are the girl getting up at four in the morning because her pager is buzzing and a necessary server just went off-line. The PC technician is our first line of defense against all enemies foreign (Toshiba) or domestic (Dell). But what are the qualities of a good PC technician?

A good PC technician has several amazing powers that when used properly make them invaluable in any environment they work in.

1. They are ethically impeccable. They have access to the most private information of their clients. They have access to the inner workings of the IT environment they are working in. If they wanted to make your life miserable, they could easily. But instead, they put their client first, protect their client’s needs and assets and understand that their reputation as an IT technician is of the highest value. The PC technician believes in providing the best service at a fair price.
2. They have the power and desire to share their vast knowledge with their client. They empower their client with information and documentation. They teach the client what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. They are not looking for the quick buck; they are looking for the satisfied client. A good tech can make you understand the problem and the solution in clear, concise language.
3. They have the power of discernment. They can ask the right questions, listen intently and understand what the client is talking about, even if the client is upset and yelling at the top of their lungs. They can stay focused on the task at hand, even if it has been hours with no results to speak of. They recognize that success may be just around the next bend.
4. They have the power to calm their client. When something is wrong with a mission critical PC, clients often go ballistic, but a good technician soothes the savage client so they can get the information they need to solve the difficulty. They have an affable manner and can remain calm themselves so that they can engage the client in a meaningful manner.
5. They are enthusiastic about their career choice. Their love of computing allows them to be fully engaged when solving a problem for a client. These are the people who eat with their computers, take their PC on vacations with them, speak to their computer like it’s alive. Yes, they may seem strange but it is that connection to their machine, and a possible lack of connection to other people, that gives them such an affinity for troubleshooting PCs in the first place.
6. They have the power of focused analysis. A great PC technician can look at the million possible combinations of things that could go wrong and whittle them away until there are only a few possible choices. A great PC tech can do this in their head, virtually, before even touching the keyboard, eliminating possible choices with lightning speed; once they touch the keyboard, they are on a path toward resolution.

Okay, so I have painted the portrait of a super-being. No PC tech can be all of those things, can he or she? Not likely. But the more of those things a PC technician possesses, the better their chances of being the technician you want in your office, solving your problems. Even I have to admit, when I first started doing PC technical work, I wanted as little to do with the client as possible. I was only interested in the technical challenge of solving the problem. It took me a long time to realize that my work was not dealing with the computer, but with making the client comfortable with me working on their computer.

To be fair, as a client, you have a few obligations to your PC technician as well:

1. Take the time to know what equipment you are using. You would be surprised how much this may help a technician when they are attempting to solve your problem over the phone before they make that hour drive to your office.
2. Keep your workspace clear of unnecessary clutter. Do I need to elaborate here?  I won’t even begin to tell you what some of the workspaces I have had to deal with have looked like…
3. Make sure you have enough space to work effectively in your environment both on your desk and on your computer’s desktop. If you work with very large files, make sure you purchase removable media or external hard drives from reputable companies and make as many backups as necessary for you to feel safe.
4. Take the time to learn how to use your computer effectively. Not just the one program you really like. The more you know, the better your chances of getting the most out of your computer. Your PC technician will likely be more than happy to teach you anything you need to know for a nominal fee. Sometimes they will do it just to ensure that the difficulty never happen again.
5. Try and find a technician who has a style you can work with. If you dislike your PC technician, and you are unable to come to some sort of accommodation, it will be a miserable relationship for you both. Some PC techs like to work remotely, others like to be totally hands on, some like to hold your hand, and others just want the technology to work. Shop around for the technician that suits your needs.

Be honest with your PC technician when he comes to help you. I know that seems like a weird statement but many people fail to realize, that the more your technician knows about how you use your computer, the better his chances of figuring out where or how a problem affected your system. Your IT tech’s job is to take millions of potential possibilities for why your computer failed and reduce them to a small number of potential answers; more information helps refine this process.

• He won’t judge you and like your doctor needs to know everything you were doing when your problem occurred. So if you are addicted to Facebook or MySpace, he won’t care but the fact that you use those sites might explain where you got that latest Trojan horse or virus file.
• If you can replicate the problem, it helps to solve the issue, see if you can repeat it before you call for help. She might even be able to help you resolve it over the phone.
• Know everything that goes on your computer. If your computer is how you earn your livelihood, be mindful of computer and online games. Advanced computer games (especially online games) can cause problems with your configuration.

In an ideal world you would see that technician at least once per quarter, to run a basic diagnostic, that checks for machine performance, runs at least a quarterly virus scan and malware scan (if you have not been as diligent about it as you should), run any updates that my require special handling, and have your tech check to see if your system backup and restore is actually working.

Be nice to your technician! A tech’s lot is a long and difficult one. You would be surprised how far a heartfelt thank you would go to keeping a tech in your good graces. A good tech asks a lot of questions, seeks to understand your business, helps you design technology that will work for your industry and still remain easy for you to use. A good tech will check those things that need handling that you might be reluctant (or forget) to take care of. Once or twice a year, she will likely:

1. Check your computer’s overall performance. They will determine if you need to upgrade your hardware (add RAM or a new drive for more disk space)
2. Check to see if you should erase your disk drive to improve your system performance, if he does not erase your drive he will likely…
3. Perform a high level diagnostic: antivirus, anti-spyware, reduce disk fragmentation, and remove temp files.
4. Optimize your bookmarks or other data collections if they are not managed well or you request the assistance.
5. Check your peripherals and software installations for latest updates to improve their performance.
6. Assess your processes to see if there is a better way for you to accomplish your goals.
7. Check to see if your network or network services are optimized for your environment.
8. Document his work and explain what he has done when he is finished.

Never Underestimate the Value of a Good Reference Library

Fifth in a Series: Technology in the SOHO

Sadik Antwi-Boampong recently established the first library in a poor town in Ghana.

How many of you don’t have a reference library? You know books that support your computer technology after you finish NOT reading the manuals that came with your hardware and software. You realize that there is an industry designed around showing you how useless the manuals that came with your computer are. And you need to do your part to keep that industry thriving. Not for the industry’s sake, but for your own. Manuals just don’t tell you enough. They were never designed to give you more than rudimentary skills in using the hardware and software you purchased. You need supplementary publications and a lot of that information is available on the Internet. However, the best of these books will always cost something. Remember our earlier post: you get what you pay for…

You should keep a library of information regarding your hardware, software, network technology and other assets. Download and keep the PDF manuals and enhance them with books that may increase your understanding. I know you are not a computer person. You are <insert occupation here>. The days of the singularly dedicated IT person standing by waiting for you to call them are gone.

Okay, that is not quite true. IT people are still out there. But corporations are reducing the number of them at every turn. There are fewer and fewer of them while the number of things they are responsible for continues to grow in number and complexity. You may have to wait a while if you are working someplace that has managed to keep IT on staff. If you are a small business, you are not likely to have an IT person at all. You will have to find someone, hopefully someone good, recommended and vetted by someone you trust, or you will have to go to the phone directory and hope for the best.

When I was in the Navy, everyone onboard the ship was trained at boot camp and again at later training schools with the basics and practical skills for firefighting techniques. We were taught how to put out fires, wear breathing apparatus, use fire hoses and perform CPR.

Why you ask? Because when you are a thousand miles out to sea, you cannot call for the fire department. You are responsible to know enough to get you through the day, until you can call for help and while you wait for help to arrive. This is just as true with your computer, especially if your business revolves or is highly dependent on your computer.

Having access to a reference library will, over time, give you the basic skills to handle simple problems with your technology. 75% of all computer difficulties can be corrected by the user without serious technical support by first checking the technical guides that can be found online or with the service disks that shipped with your hardware.

Creating a directory of information about your hardware does not mean you need to do a lot of work, just copy the Adobe Portable Document files about your hardware created by the vendor of your equipment onto your computer (and a flash drive as a backup). These files are usually found on the disks that ship with your equipment. You can also usually find them on the vendor website that you bought your computer from.

If you got a computer without the original disks you may have to do a bit of work using Google to find those files. You can search by the name or model number of your computer, found on a tag in the back. Dell, Gateway and other large manufacturers have databases of PDF files on each model of their equipment. If you cannot find a specification file, you can get general guidelines from the advertising brochures that companies use on their vendor websites.

These files are often called User Guides, Technical Specifications, and Customer Brochures. User guides are what used to be printed as the User Manual. In order to save printing costs, the PDF is all some vendors are giving out now. You don’t usually need to print them for them to be useful, but it would be good to keep a copy outside of your computer just in case. Technical Specs are the hardware specifications, gear inside your particular computer, your motherboard, your hard drives, your CD-DVD drives and any other attendant information to help define your hardware. Your technical person would want this document the most. A Customer Brochure will have general information regarding a model of your computer. It is not as precise as a Technical Spec document, but it is better than nothing in the hands of a skilled technician.

If you keep up with these files, especially when you get new hardware, it will help you when you troubleshoot problems that may show up when you connect that new hardware into your environment. You can also search with precise product names because you have the specification and model numbers in your documentation. Printers are especially difficult with all of the different model numbers and very slight variations producing a forest of devices to search through when you need help with your particular device. If you can, you should create a small network map of your environment if you have more than three or devices, as this will help you if you start having network difficulties in the future. You can also convince your network technician to do the same thing for a modest price. (A platter of brownies usually does the trick. Some might want money, though. Your mileage may vary.)

You Get What You Pay For

Fourth in a Series:
Technology and the SOHO

Your real mission is to get the best value for the price, and ensure the longest functioning life for your technology. The best way to do that is to buy as close to the cutting edge as you can afford. The cutting edge is usually the province of gamers and hardware enthusiasts (with rigs that cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000.)

Normal non-graphic business users can get away with significantly less power (and cost). The range for a good business rig is from $650 to $1500 for a desktop and $900 to $2500 for a laptop. You can spend more if you like, but try not to spend less. The less you spend, the faster you fall on the obsolescence curve. Buy the fastest processor and the most RAM you can put on the computer. These two elements compose the most important devices you can put on a computer and are the most important factors in determining how long your computer can resist obsolescence. Here go a few things to remember about your computer to help you enjoy it for a good long time.

1. Know your hardware and the software that you use. I know how hard it is for some people to focus on their computer’s age, processor speed, and hardware it has shipped with, but this information is very important, especially once your computer begins to age. If you bought your computer new, your shipping information should include all the most important data about it. File all the paperwork that came with your computer, you may not need it now, but two years from now, you will be thankful you have it.
2. Know how old your computer is and keep track of the day you got it. Your warranty will be based on that date. You may be able to extend the warranty on the computer before it has expired, especially if the computer’s hardware has been problematic. Know the operating system that came with it. It is likely that your computer was optimized for that operating system and will work best with that one installed. If you have a very powerful computer, it may not matter what operating system it shipped with as long as you have the driver disks needed for installs. If your computer came with a set of CD or DVDs, keep up with them! You will need them if you ever have to reinstall your computers operating system.
3. If you still have a warranty, familiarize yourself with what it covers and what it doesn’t. A good warranty covers all hardware issues and offers free over the phone technical support for software issues. A new computer should have at least one year of warranty. A new laptop should have a three year warranty (even if it costs more) because laptops are more likely to suffer problems due to their traveling lifestyle.
4. Know your basic internal hardware: Processor name, hard drive, CD-DVD drive, internal cards, (video card, sound card) RAM amount and type of peripherals attached. This helps your technical support person know how best to help you when they come to see you or when you have to get tech support over the phone.
5. If you got your computer without any specification data, use the free application System Information (Sysinfo) to make a printout of the most important data about your computer. The system summary contains the info you need. You can find Sysinfo under the Start Menu>Accessories>System Tools>System Information. You will be amazed at how much information there is to know about your computer.
6. Know the names and versions of the applications that you use the most. This helps when you are troubleshooting, updating, seeking out new versions of your software or updating your drivers. Invest some time in mastering the programs you spend the most time with. Time invested with a program pays itself back tenfold over time. You can usually find the version number under the Help Menu or under the menu option, About <insert software name here>.
7. Its time to buy a new computer if: you spend more time waiting on your computer than working on it. Let a tech come out and evaluate your system to make sure you have the most RAM and the fastest processor your motherboard can support. Let them determine if your technology is running okay, or if there are still things you might be able to do to make it faster.  If after a complete reinstall, you are still waiting, let your current computer go and embrace something new.

Pricing Estimates for PCs

User	Low End	High End	Vendors
Home Desktop – email, web surfing, simple games	$300	$600	E-machines, Acer, Gateway
Student – desktop; web surfing, email, office suites, proprietary class software	$450	$700	Acer, Compaq, Dell, Gateway
Student – laptop (mini-laptop); desktop, web surfing, email, office suites, proprietary class software	$650	$1,000	Apple iBook, HP, Fujitsu, ASUS
Entrepreneur – desktop; web surfing, email, office suites, high speed network connectivity, quality motherboard, 2 GB RAM, video card	$800	$1,300	MPCCorp, Dell, HP
Entrepreneur – laptop	$900	$1,800	Sager, Dell, Lenovo, Panasonic
Enterprise – desktop; web surfing, email, office suites, high speed network connectivity, quality motherboard, 2 GB RAM, video card, CD/DVD RAM drive	$1,000	$1,500	MPCCorp, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Panasonic
Enterprise – laptop – armored shell, quality display, high end video and sound, 2 GB RAM, video card, CD/DVD RAM drive	$1,500	$2,800	Sager, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Panasonic
Gamer – Dual video cards, sound cards, fast processor, 4 GB RAM, video card, CD/DVD RAM drive	$1,600	$6,000	Alienware, Falcon, Velocity Micro
Graphic Design/3D Intensive – fast processor, 4-16 GB RAM, large HD	$2,000	$8,000	Apple, Dell XPS, Alienware, Velocity Micro

Computers can be even more expensive than this but it is unlikely that your average computer user will need more horsepower than we have mentioned above. A computer is a personal choice and likely to be the most important technology you will buy after your car. You (or someone in your household) will certainly a significant period of time on it, so consider it an investment in your future. Spend some money on it, but talk to someone who knows.

“Obsolete before I opened the box!”

Third in a Series: Technology in the SOHO

You have always suspected it. It is true. Your technology is obsolete before you get it out of the box.

Planned obsolescence is real (where companies plan for things to become obsolete or ineffective as quickly as possible to maximize their profits) but computers are really developing faster than any other technology that has ever existed before them.

If cars developed as quickly and as effectively as computers have, you would have a car that would virtually indestructible and drive to the moon and back on a teaspoon of gasoline! A computer is the most advanced technology on the face of the earth with over a billion manufactured parts inside of each and every one.

1. A tightly-packed stack of new $1,000 bills totaling $1 billion would be 63 miles high. In comparison, jet planes fly at 30,000 – 40,000 feet (5.7 – 7.7 miles high).
2. About a billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was in full swing. (One billion minutes is about 1,900 years.)
3. About a billion hours ago, we were living in the Stone Age. (One billion hours is about 114,000 years.)
4. About a billion months ago, dinosaurs walked the earth. (One billion months is about 82 million years.)
5. A billion inches is 15,783 miles, more than halfway around the earth (circumference).
6. This sophistication does not come without cost. Thousands of man-hours have been spent in the design of the manufacturing process that creates computers and millions more on the programming of the operating systems that allow them to do even the most rudimentary task of booting up.

You get what you pay for.

Your real mission is to get the best value for the price, and ensure the longest functioning life for your technology. The best way to do that is to buy as close to the cutting edge as you can afford. The cutting edge is usually the province of gamers and hardware enthusiasts (with rigs that cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000.) You don’t have to spend what a good gaming rig costs to get a box that will do what you want.

1. Free is nice and low price is good, but sometimes, what you need will cost money and you will often pay handsomely for it. The trick is to be able to get help in deciding what something should be worth to you and what a reasonable price for that would be.
2. This does not mean you can’t economize and buy effectively or wait until a good price shows up at your computer store but this rule is one that should always be in mind.
3. Buy the best equipment you can. If after determining your needs, talking to a professional, and deciding what would truly be the best for you, you cannot afford what you need, then wait.
4. Save to get exactly what you need rather than a poor substitute. My experience after buy millions in information technology is: Buy it once and buy it right. But if you buy it cheap you’ll buy it twice. Once for what you thought would work, and then twice because you have to still buy what was truly needed in the first place.
5. Normal non-graphic business users can get away with significantly less power (and cost). The range for a good business rig is from $650 to $1500 for a desktop and $900 to $2500 for a laptop. You can spend more if you like, but try not to spend less. The less you spend, the faster you fall on the obsolescence curve. Buy the fastest processor and the most RAM you can put on the computer. These two elements compose the most important devices you can put on a computer and are the most important factors in determining how long your computer can resist obsolescence.
6. Know your hardware and the software that you use. I know how hard it is for some people to focus on their computer’s age, processor speed, and hardware it has shipped with, but this information is very important, especially once your computer begins to age. If you bought your computer new, your shipping information should include all the most important data about it.
7. Know how old your computer is and keep track of the day you got it. Your warranty will be based on that date. You may be able to extend the warranty on the computer before it has expired, especially if the computer’s hardware has been problematic.
8. If you still have a warranty, familiarize yourself with what it covers and what it doesn’t. A good warranty covers all hardware issues and offers free over the phone technical support for software issues. A new computer should have at least one year of warranty. A new laptop should have a three year warranty (even if it costs more) because laptops are more likely to suffer problems due to their traveling lifestyle.
9. Know your basic internal hardware: Processor name, hard drive, CD-DVD drive, internal cards, (video card, sound card) RAM amount and type of peripherals attached. This helps your technical support person know how best to help you when they come to see you or when you have to get tech support over the phone.
10. If you got your computer without any specification data, use the free application System Information (Sysinfo) to make a printout of the most important data about your computer. The system summary contains the info you need. You can find Sysinfo under the Start Menu>Accessories>System Tools>System Information. You will be amazed at how much information there is to know about your computer.
11. Know the names and versions of the applications that you use the most. This helps when you are troubleshooting, updating, seeking out new versions of your software or updating your drivers. Invest some time in mastering the programs you spend the most time with. Time invested with a program pays itself back tenfold over time.
12. A quick rule to determine whether its time to buy a new computer: if you spend more time waiting on your computer than working on it, it probably means it’s time for a new one. Let a tech come out and evaluate your system to make sure you have the most RAM and the fastest processor your motherboard can support. If after a complete reinstall, you are still waiting, let your current computer go and embrace something new.

Moore’s Law states that the capabilities of computer processors will double every 24 months. Yes, this means approximately every two years, a new processor comes out and computers get faster. This also means that every two years your computer loses potency, effectiveness and becomes slower. Programmers write their programs for the fastest chips possible, so when this new software is used on your computer, the program will feel slower and slower as time goes on because it was not designed for your slow computer. Moore’s Law has been effectively predicting the capabilities of processors for years and is believed to be able to do it for another ten to twenty years at least before physical limitations in the construction of materials and the limits of the laws of physics (as we understand them currently) will prevent components from getting any smaller. They might still grow more efficient but that remains to be seen. When Moore Law reaches its limit, it may be that the current design of computers as we know them may radically change, almost as much as the concept of the computer did compared to the ideas of the 1950s and now.

Weird Al’s video “All About the Pentiums” is the source of the quote for this section. Enjoy!

So You Need to Design a Small Office?

Second in a Series: Technology and the SOHO

What does the successful small office have in it that sets it apart from the unsuccessful small office? The expectations that your time in your office is as productive as possible. Having the technology you need within reach, easily configured, can go a long way toward enhancing your productivity. Your technology list should include some or all of the following:

• A good desk, with the ability to alter part of its height or the ability to raise and lower your keyboard and a good chair, also with the ability to raise or lower it as well as the ability to tilt it forward or backward
• A foot rest to place your feet on, to help give your back the support you need if you are sitting for extended periods.
• A comfortable keyboard and mouse setup if you spend a lot of time with your computer
• A large and easy to use display (or two) to help you stay organized on the screen
• A color-coded cable management system to keep your cables untangled and easily identified
• A telephone headset if you are on the phone for a good portion of your time at your desk

Technologically sophisticated

• A computer (needs internet access, either wirelessly or through a secured medium)
• A friendly operating system that works with you, not against you
• Well designed software, that is user friendly, powerful, works as part of an industry standard and reliable
• A good printer (inkjet will work, a laser printer is better) I recommend the laser printer over the inkjet printer. Two problems are deal breakers for the inkjet.

1. The first is cost. The inkjet printer is very inexpensive as little as $100, but the cost of the ink is prohibitive considering the output level of a cartridge of ink. The average ink cartridge will produce 150 pages and cost $50-100 dollars. The average medium volume laser printer can sell for as little as $300. The average laser writer cartridge costs $75 to $150 but will produce 5,000 to 10,000 sheets of output.
2. The low cost of the inkjet printer is significantly offset by the high price of the consumables (ink). A laser printer is a significant investment but the quality of output, quantity of output, the durability of the device and the volume of output are far better than the inkjet device. The only exception to this rule is if you need high visual quality (but low volume) color output. Then inkjets are only a bit more economical.
3. The second reason is output durability. Inkjet output can be destroyed by something as simple as a sneeze or cough. The ink does not penetrate the paper deeply and can be damaged by sneezing, coughing or even sweaty hands. Laser output is far more durable and stable and can be stored effectively for years.

• A fax machine (or the technological equivalent to be able to send and receive a fax). There are online services as well as office devices that will allow you to send faxes (eFax Plus for $16.95 per month is one such service). Multipurpose printer/scanner/copier/fax machines are how most offices send faxes both from their computer and from the copier/scanner surface of the glass.
• A copier (or the ability to duplicate a page successfully using a scanner and software like Acrobat). A multipurpose scanner/printer/copier often serves this function in a small office. This is not recommended for heavy duty printing as its capabilities are generally sub-par and printing is very, very expensive on an inkjet printer. You can use the scanning function to import documents into the computer, convert them into Adobe Acrobat PDF files and store them on your system, print them out, or send them to someone else as an email attachment.
• A telephone (or technology that allows you to make a phone call such as Skype)
• Buy a GOOD surge protector! Most places have questionable power quality. Old buildings are especially likely to have electrical spikes and drops in power integrity. Depending on where you live, more dangerous than just ‘dirty power’ is lightning!

1. A lightning strike can have over one million volts of electricity and can destroy your computers internal components in seconds. A good surge protector protects your computer by dying instead of your computer if a major power surge should strike your power line.
2. Quality surge protectors will defend against lightning, offer insurance coverage (at least the cost of your tech) and connect your modem or cable line as well. It will also offer spacing to support large power bricks from external devices.
3. A good surge protector can cost upwards of $30 to $100 dollars. (Balanced against the cost of replacing your tech!)

Information-retrieval friendly

• A fireproof and waterproof safe (not water-resistant) to protect your backup files (either on digital analog tape, CD/DVD, a small removable hard drive or on a USB flash drive) and your most important office documents; property deeds, insurance policies, warranties, etc. All of these documents and gear, should be stored in watertight sealed bags within the safe, (just in case the seal is not perfect).
• Good filing cabinet or storage for reference materials, a bookmark system for storing important websites. I recommend the Google Toolbar online book-marking feature or the program Evernote (in working beta format) from the Evernote Corporation as online bookmark libraries. The bookmarks are not stored in your computer, they are stored online, so they are available to you anywhere you have access to a web browser.
• Good asset management of all IT related documents, software, receipts, and warranties. A secondary external hard drive to back up your important files or a tape storage media system if you have a server or small enterprise environment and need to backup more than one computer. See Rule number 7, Backing Up.

Technological luxuries would include:

• An iPod or other MP3 storage device – if the device has a large hard drive, it can function as another form of data storage for files you might need to transport such as PDFs or PowerPoint presentations.
• A portable computer, portable printer, a webcam to create a conference call environment and a small removable hard drive – for the road warrior
• A smart phone or personal digital assistant – If you communicate mostly by email, this is the way to go. The smart phone or personal digital assistant or PDA allows you to connect to your office and get your email and respond without the bulk of a laptop computer. Like any technology it will have its limitations and should be a part of an entire office plan.
• A USB flash drive (2-4 gigabytes, with security features if possible) – One of the best technologies to come along in decades. You can store your data, you can install your programs and run them from the device, you can even store entire operating systems (Linux, easily, Windows with some work) on it and use them from the USB drive.

1. The only weaknesses of this excellent storage medium are its size (so easy to forget somewhere or lose by accident) or its interface (USB is ubiquitous in new systems but not always responsive in older ones such as Windows 2000 or Windows 98.)
2. There is a question of security as well, since if you lose it, you lose all of the data it contains.  New vendors are creating tools to encrypt your data automatically and several of these devices are already on the market. Kingston DataTraveler Elite Privacy Edition is a good example of such hardware.
3. You can also use software to encrypt the data yourself but this is not without its own inherent risks. If you lose your password, you lose access to all of your files. If the password is not robust, it won’t keep anyone out. If it’s too robust, you may forget it. I have included PassWordSafe on the CD for you to experiment with as a password manager.

Remember, you get what you pay for!

• Free is nice and low price is good, but sometimes, what you need will cost money and you will often pay handsomely for it. The trick is to be able to get help in deciding what something should be worth to you and what a reasonable price for that would be.
• This does not mean you can’t economize and buy effectively or wait until a good price shows up at your computer store but this rule is one that should always be in mind.
• Buy the best equipment you can. If after determining your needs, talking to a professional, and deciding what would truly be the best for you, you cannot afford what you need, then wait.
• Save to get exactly what you need rather than a poor substitute. My experience after buy millions in information technology is: Buy it once and buy it right. But if you buy it cheap you’ll buy it twice. Once for what you thought would work, and then twice because you have to still buy what was truly needed in the first place.

The Care and Feeding of Small Office Technology

This is a series of documents dedicated to the use of small office technology and the basic concepts for anyone establishing a technology center in their home.The article can be downloaded in its entirety.

First in a Series: Technology in the SOHO.

Remember that first pet? No matter what it was, you loved it the moment you saw it. And then it hit you, how do you take care of it? Like that first pet, or for all of you parents out there, your first child, you suddenly wish it came with a good instruction manual. Then the beads of sweat start forming; how do you know if you are doing the best for your pet? What is the best food for it? Who do you ask? Should you check the Internet? These are all of the questions you should have asked before you took on this great responsibility.

A small home office is very similar. You started your business and hoped that it would take off. But the kitchen table is not exactly an ideal workspace. Perhaps you can still work at home, but you need a space with the right tools. Maybe your home is not an ideal workspace, so you decide to get yourself a small office space in town. Now that you decided what you want to do, you still need a list of things to get your small office off to a good start. This is that guidebook.

1. You are the most important technology in your office. Nothing you buy is more important than what you started with. Knowledge is your first and best weapon. No matter what your job, in a small office, you are also the first technician for your technology. You have to take the best care you can to keep your gear working.
2. The design of your small office environment needs to take into consideration: needs of the occupation, quality of technology, ergonomic requirements, file storage and retrieval space. Set your office up with comfort in mind.
3. You get what you pay for. Free is nice and low price is good, but sometimes, what you need will cost money and you will often pay handsomely for it. The trick is to get help deciding what your new gear should be worth to you and what a reasonable price for that would be.
4. Your technology is obsolete before you get it out of the box. Your mission is to get the best value for the price, and ensure the longest functioning life for your technology. Know your hardware and its software. Mastery of the technology and software you use most often is critical, because time invested in learning a program pays back tenfold.
5. A small reference library is a must. You should keep a library of information regarding your network and other technology assets. Download and keep the PDF manuals and enhance them with books that may increase your understanding. This will help you troubleshoot basic problems with your technology. 75% of all computer difficulties can be corrected by the user without serious technical support. Keep track of your equipment, especially if you purchase new technology. Often, introducing a new piece of gear will play havoc with your existing setup. If you know your setup well, you can inquire online about the compatibility of a product.
6. Be honest with your IT technician, when she comes to help you. If you are having recurrent problems, write down whatever you are working on and what happens when your system fails.
7. Learn how to backup your important information. Loss of your business data can be catastrophic and over 50% of businesses that have lost their data go out of business in twelve to eighteen months.
8. Maintain your updates and patch your software: A sign of the times is that software is never truly finished being developed. Even though you have paid for it, it often has undisclosed (or undiscovered) bugs and flaws that can only be corrected after you have paid for it.
9. Install and run your defensive software regularly. There are so many threats out there, if you have anti-malware tools installed, they cannot help you if you do not use them.
10. Listen to your computer. Try to be aware of its ambient sounds. If your computer sounds different, chances are it is having a problem. The temperature of your system may affect how it sounds; strange sounds often indicate that your system is in distress. Protect your investment in your computer technology; keep it clean and free of dust, dirt, food, liquids and debris that may cause it to overheat or short out. Get a good surge protector to protect against power spikes.
11. Keep the number of a qualified technical professional; see her at least once a year. Be nice to her, too.

Best Hardware EVER!

1. You are the most important technology in your office. Nothing you buy is more important that what you started with. Knowledge is your first and best weapon. Before we delve into the intricacies of technology and how it can be used in the small office, we need to discuss the most powerful computer on Earth.

• You already have it. You got it the very first day you arrived on Earth and it still has the most sophisticated and adaptable software interface the world has ever known.
• No other creature has managed to develop software as sophisticated, create and master tools as complicated as humanity has. Yes, there are other intelligences on Earth that might rival ours, the underwater phyla of the Cetaceans (whales and dolphins) but they have not managed to change their environment the same way we have due to our use of tools.
• When fully developed, it has allowed humanity to master a near-limitless number of technological, scientific, social or philosophical disciplines, given us an opportunity to learn to speak over six thousand different languages, to navigate the myriad environments scattered across the surface of the globe, the ability to domesticate thousands of species of plants and animals, and even divine the hidden secrets of the universe using advanced mathematics and cosmological concepts.
• It has allowed humanity to build some of the most spectacular structures in our twenty thousand year prehistory, and at one point enter the most inhospitable environments imaginable, plumbing the deep sea, scaling the highest mountains and crossing that boundary into the final frontier; space.
• The award for best information processing platform ever designed on Earth goes to the Human Brain!

The Human Brain…

is currently the best computer known to Man. This organic super-processing computer has no technological equal on our planet. In overall performance, it is superior to any computer ever made. If you wanted to try to make a computer comparable to the human brain, using today’s technology it would:

• Cover an area the size of the state of Texas (over 268,601 square miles!) and stand over 1000 feet tall (as tall as the Chrysler Building)!
• Need to have a nearly infinite storage capacity, (when was the last time you bought a hard drive for your brain?)
• Have to be able to process over 100 billion instructions per second! (take that Intel!)
• Have to have the ability to handle 100 billion bits of information! (take that Microsoft!)
• Have to possess infinitely adaptable software capable of upgrading itself whenever it wanted to! (you can develop a new habit in as little as 21 days.)

But if we are so smart why do we even need computers? Why do we seem so slow in comparison?

a) We don’t. Much of human civilization was completed and able to be done, long before complex computers were even in existence. We built the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World¹, the Seven Wonders of the Modern World and sent men to the moon, all without the use of computers (the primary calculating device during the moon launch was the slide rule). In China, there are people who can still use an abacus faster than most people can use a calculator.

b) The human brain appears slow due to the overwhelming amount of data being processed. Unusual humans who are gifted, have specialized autisms or have suffered brain damage can exhibit computer-like functions like total recall, super-fast calculations or abstract thinking capacities that appear far in advance of normal human functioning. But the human brain at its best can be trained to do many of these feats.

c) Our sense of sight (which is our primary sense organ) is creating a visual information smorgasbord of sensitivity that prioritizes our vision, (what needs to be seen first, the cobra near me or that tree over there), can detect range to an object, discern the nature of an object, and determine what kind of benefit or threat that object might be to our existence.

d) Our eyes process about 575 million pixels of information per second, covering a 120 degree field of vision. This is a constant flow of information and we only discern what is important to us at the time, but no computer is capable of even a fraction of that capability yet.

e) We are constantly sorting and managing a huge amount of data from our senses. All of our senses are linked and capable of initiating information retrieval (so when you smell a cake baking you might remember your grandmother and all kinds of thoughts related to her) are all linked and processing simultaneously. No computer technology even comes close to the capabilities of our human senses!

f) Our brains do not dedicate functions to singular tasks like computers are able to: hence a computer’s apparent superiority with mathematical calculations.

g) We are also processing an entire virtual environment within our head. It is our abstraction of the universe based on our belief systems that we are constantly working with when we are interacting with the real world. This virtual environment is superimposed on our real-time view of the world, helping us navigate our way to our goals.

Why is this important? I mention this because many people have developed phobias about their computers or technology in general, preventing them from harnessing the complete power of that device.

a. Take back control of your technology. Have no more fear of your computer than you do your toaster. You put toast in, press the button and toast comes out.

b. Computers are just like your toaster or your refrigerator, nothing will come out of it that you did not put into it, but just like your toaster or refrigerator you have to be aware of what you put into it, to know what CAN come out of it.

c. Your computer will never do anything you do not tell it to do. So why does your computer do so many seeming inexplicable things, that you did not tell it to do? That, my friends is because computers are a product of their environment.

d. Computers will take instructions from anyone who knows how to tell them what to do. This could be as simple as printing your document or as complex as erasing your hard drive.

Footnote 1: And now a word from our sponsors…

Brought to you by the Wikipedia – Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is a well known list of seven remarkable manmade constructions of classical antiquity. It was based on guide-books popular among Hellenic (Greek) tourists and only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim. The Greek category was not “Wonders” but theamata, which translates closer to “must-sees”. Earlier lists included things like the Walls of Babylon. The list is at its core, a celebration of Greek accomplishments. Only two of the final seven were non-Greek. Interestingly enough, since the Colossus of Rhodes fell down after a mere 50 years (it fell in a massive earthquake in 226 BC), few historians could have seen it standing (Philo amongst them), and as a result; the exact form of the statue is unknown- but it is believed to have looked much like the Statue of Liberty.

Antipater’s first list replaced the Lighthouse of Alexandria with the Ishtar Gate. Of these wonders, the only one that has survived to the present day is the Great Pyramid of Giza. The existence of the Hanging Gardens has not been proven, though theories abound. Records and archaeology confirm that the other five wonders used to exist. The Temple of Artemis and the Statue of Zeus were destroyed by fire, while the Lighthouse of Alexandria, Colossus, and tomb of Maussollos were destroyed by earthquakes. There are sculptures from the tomb of Maussollos and the Temple of Artemis in the British Museum in London.

Wonder	Date of	Builder	Notable features	Date of destruction	Cause of destruction
Great Pyramid of Giza	2584-2561 BC	Egyptians	Built as the tomb of fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu.	Still standing	N/A
Hanging Gardens of Babylon	605-562 BC	Babylonians	Diodorus Siculus described multi-levelled gardens reaching 22 metres (75 feet) high, complete with machinery for circulating water. Large trees grew on the roof. Built by Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife Amytis of Media.	After 1st century BC	Earthquake
Statue of Zeus at Olympia	466-456 BC (Temple) 435 BC	Greeks	Occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple that was built to house it, and was 12 meters (40 feet) tall.	5th-6th centuries AD	Unknown, presumed destroyed by fire or earthquake.
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus	c. 550 BC	Lydians, Persians, Greeks	Dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis, it took 120 years to build. Herostratus burned it down in an attempt to achieve lasting fame. Rebuilt by Alexander the Great. Destroyed by the Goths, and rebuilt again.	356 BC(by Herostratus) AD 262 (by the Goths) AD 401 (by John Chrysostom)	Arson, Plundering
Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus	351 BC	Persians, Greeks	Stood approximately 45 meters (135 feet) tall with each of the four sides adorned with sculptural reliefs. Origin of the word mausoleum, a tomb built for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire	by AD 1494	Damaged by an earthquake and eventually disassembled by European Crusaders.
Colossus of Rhodes	292-280 BC	Greeks	A giant statue of the Greek god Helios, c. 35m (110 ft) tall.	Toppled by an earthquake in 226 BC, with the bronze scrap removed in AD 654.	Earthquake
Lighthouse of Alexandria	c. 280 BC	Hellenistic Egypt	Between 115 – 135 meters (383 – 440 ft) tall it was one of the tallest structures on Earth for many centuries.	AD 1303-1480	Earthquake

The Future of IT in Education

Imagine the Future

We like to see the future filled with possibilities. Education would be freely available to everyone and would come in a variety of new experiences; students using their telephones to attend classes online, while they are on their way to work, content management technologies connecting classmates from areas of the world once considered unreachable, and interactive 3D environments replicating real-time classrooms with tele-presence students and real students in the same lecture hall. In this new world, education would enhance the lives of the people who use it and they are able to freely interact with universities and business organizations instantly, in real time, to find collaborative answers to pressing and difficult questions and having the best sources to choose from all over the planet. Such collective efforts will permeate all areas of business, art and engineering, harnessing the power of multiple minds in a way never conceived of in earlier periods of history. They are sending video messages, having tele-presence conferences, storing and accessing data, and sharing results with the best and brightest of their generation regardless of their social status, race, creed or color. Computers and robotic machines handle the grunt work of society keeping us in the electronic tools and devices we will one day take for granted. Meaningful work is plentiful, no one works doing anything that doesn’t mean something to them. Some work on reclaiming the Earth from earlier generations of abuse, others are organizing the planet’s resources for better accessibility, many are managing the remaining plants and animals of the world for future generations. Businesses of all sizes are handling tasks and filling the needs of a happy and industrious planet. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Learning from the Past

Building that future is much more difficult. Any responsible advocate of higher education must address the nature of change in our society. Change is unavoidable. All institutions experience it, and some weather it better than others. The education engine of America has failed to maintain pace with the changes in society and the economic realities faced by people working today.

This is not a new problem. Its echoes can be traced back to the end of the Agricultural Age. During the late 1800’s as mechanization overtook the worker-heavy farming industry (i.e. the cotton gin), education became the means for people to transition to life in the cities with non-farming jobs, crafts and work in the industrial guilds. By the advent of the Industrial Age in the early 20th century, education was used to prepare workers to be absorbed into the new factories and industrial engines of that period’s productivity. Note there was an economic collapse during that period of transition. Like a computer after a crash, the societal infrastructure needed a restart to handle that transition. This was a second opportunity to recognize the imminent threat to American culture.

As the Industrial Age began to wane, again due to mechanization and process improvements in the early 1970’s (i.e. factory robotics and better information management) more was able to be done with less input by workers. This transition began to move people into the Service Industry as the birth of the Information Age began to create more advanced calculation devices to aid in the development of new sciences. Computers would change the landscape of the working world in ways unseen even by their creators.

We are at that crucial point again. An economic collapse has made it clear that business as usual has ended. The Information Age has made new waves of unemployment as factories close down and the service industry burgeons with the masses of workers displaced from the only life many have ever known. There is more information available than can be managed effectively by any single individual but the educational engine is still the one from the 1950’s, with its emphasis on individual achievement, its designated work periods and repetitive mind-numbing tasks, ready to churn out people to work in factories that no longer exist.

Now people are relegated to an overburdened service industry that employs them poorly and wastes their human potential. No matter the rhetoric spoken in government, education cannot continue to be last of our social priorities, if for no other reasons than, without quality education and its reform, the fabric of society continues to erode and tatter. The resource of the future will be innovation and problem-solving ability. Our only path to innovation can be found in the development of the human capital through education. Welcome to the Innovation Age.

At the Crossroads

Community college campuses are uniquely positioned to capture the population of the future workforce and direct it into one of the most economically powerful areas of the world today. California, being the world’s fifth largest economy will need a workforce constantly updating its skills, its knowledge and its capabilities to continue to compete in a more aggressive, world-wide, world-wise, and diverse economic structure.

In addition, students will need access to the most advanced concepts possible. Cooperative thinking, adaptive reasoning, an understanding of natural law and scientific thinking will be the keys to the workforce of the future. It will not be enough to simply memorize rote facts, the employees of the future need to be able to link those facts, find hidden relationships and solve problems from those facts, with skill and alacrity. They will need to have greater facility with language, mathematics, analysis, cultural awareness, and environmental consequences than any humans in history. A community college’s ultimate goal should be to allow its location at the center of the information technology, bio-technology and new sustainability revolutions to prepare its students for opportunities as members of a future when the synergistic explosion of these technologies co-mingle and improve each other.

Technology’s advance in our society has continued to change how workers and employers interact and provide services for each other. This constant growth and evolution has removed more workers from the workforce than it has employed, thus creating a form of ‘technological unemployment’ or unemployment created by the success of our technology! Fewer workers, armed with technology and technological concepts (robotics, development protocols, software and hardware) are producing more goods than ever in history. This fact has not been lost on governments concerned with educating and employing their populations. Unfortunately, the solution cannot be addressed without planning for future periods of unemployment, similar to what we are experiencing now. This problem can only be addressed with innovation, new ideas, and a revolution in the educational process.

A Modest Proposal

I propose Community College Districts nationwide begin to prepare their technological future to address the issues of a workforce whose path has become uncertain. The future of community colleges is to prepare for this new model of work by assisting students (who will eventually become employees and later employers) in the development of smaller, problem-solving enterprises. Ideally, these enterprises will be staffed by individuals who can see a way to improve society’s ills with the application of reasoning skills, technological acumen, attention to detail and access to a nexus of resources available to them, before, during and after they leave college. The future of education revolves around teaching people that they will perpetually be scholars, and their livelihood will revolve around their ability to creatively solve problems and promoting innovation in all that they do.

We can ill afford to throw money at problems hoping for a solution. We cannot expect the issues of Oakland, or of California or of the United States to be solved by people who do not live here. Nor do we have the luxury of time to resolve issues such as global warming, population overcrowding, and disease management. These problems need solutions now. People are disheartened with the recent economic collapse and many Baby Boomers struggle with their own obsolescence and the realization that their work lives have left them no better off than indentured servants. Society’s security blankets (Medicare, Social Security, 401K, IRA) have continued to lose value in the face of economic collapse. It is likely that older workers will continue to have to support themselves long after they expected to retire. Generation X and Y see little value in aspiring to the same fate as their parents. They view their parent’s dilemma as a systemic failure of our educational model; hence their lack of trust in society and their indifference to education.

A community colleges goal should be no less than the development of a way of thinking that allows its students to constantly be willing and able to adapt new ways of interacting with the world and to be a resource to the workforce no matter where they may be, since with the breadth of the Internet, that workforce can and will likely be anywhere (that also means that students may also be anywhere). The same way FaceBook, Twitter and MySpace have invaded the lives of young workers, community colleges and other organizations promoting education will need to perpetuate a love of continual learning in their students and to be a resource for them to make data-driven decisions no matter what career they are involved in; any place able to define itself as an always available resource will not lack for returning students, seeking an environment that promotes intellectual advancement and continues preparing them for the constantly changing workforce.

IT Challenges of Higher Education

With all of these things as challenges, the question is asked, what part does Information Technology (hereafter, IT) play in this? The developed world has to adopt a more global paradigm that inter-relates all manner of human endeavor, science, technology, education, environment, physics, psychology, sociology, and medicine shifting from the archaic industrial age to the advanced technology of the information age. Our educational model must be revamped, retooled and re-energized, in order to prepare our students to meet the challenges of the new global paradigm. IT is the architect of that paradigm.

Learning institutions need to empower our students to address issues based on information-based decision making using reason, training and problem solving skills enhanced by technology. IT is a vital element in that ability to solve problems by potentially providing ready access to real-time information for decision making; However, a real-time monitored and data-driven environment has not been created (unless you work at the Pentagon) and will be the first real challenge of the proactive organizations of the future. The ability to get digital information regarding resources available to solve problems is the first step to being able to direct human capital, energy, manpower and training toward those issues.

A community college’s goal is the same as any organization that manages information. To create a unified information data complex that allows fast, easy and yet secure access to any information required by any user of the data complex. This simple sounding idea is years away and paving the road to that ideal will require us to have information organized and categorized in such a fashion that it can be understood, transmuted, and translated while maintaining its accessibility to a variety of future users.

Defining the Problem

Organic (non-structured, non-intentional) development of IT within most college campuses has caused a divergence of standards and technologies resulting in a lack of uniformity of services, overlapping educational programs (i.e. business and IT classes), and a lack of ability to effectively manage or identify different technologies district-wide. All campus IT has been relegated to localized management, under the supervision of various IT support staff of widely differing capabilities. Organic IT development is not unique to a particular district; as both UC and California State University systems are battling this same conundrum. This does not imply those managing these IT resources are in the wrong, however, without a guiding set of principles for the purchase, maintenance and development of IT data structures and resources, such multiplicity of systems is bound to occur prohibitively increasing the complexity and the costs of those services. This decentralized management of IT systems, has resulting in an increasing cost of IT overall, a lack of standardization and poorly centralized management and coordination between the groups managing the many resources including IT classrooms, computer labs, library technology, and student service programs (EOPS, DSPS, career centers) across the district.

There are two primary challenges facing any educational facility with advanced technological capabilities. The first is hardware/software interface and infrastructure. What hardware should we use? What software should we use and support? What is the best way to reach our respective goals using what technologies? How do we effectively connect our staff and students to the internet in a secure, effective, and stable manner but not slow as a snail or overburdened with security software? How do we organize our administrative technology so it provides high quality service and is still relatively easy to use? Technology continues to grow and evolve at a prodigious rate, how do we know if we are keeping pace and providing the workforce of the future with the tools it needs? There are six major dynamic forces opposing the creation of any IT infrastructure, service or device. These forces are responsible for all decisions made on any hardware, software or service used in IT.

They are as follows:

Technological Standardization vs. Autonomy/Experimentation

Service innovation vs. Stability/Reliability

User friendliness/Accessibility vs. Security/Privacy

Consensus in decision making vs. Efficiency in decision making

Centralized management of services vs. Distributed services

Proprietary software vs. Open source software

The second challenge facing any educational facility with advanced technological capabilities is resource management. IT is a collection of diverse resources accomplishing a variety of objectives. How do we manage, control, maintain and organize an amazingly complex series of network services to make it possible to administer, educate and enhance the educational experience of our students now and in the future? How do we effectively train staff, faculty and administrators to think progressively with an eye toward future needs? How do we maintain a leading edge without losing our financial shirt maintaining this gigantic infrastructure of hardware and staff?

In addition to those six dynamic forces there are two additional meta-concepts to be considered along with a number of pertinent questions. Those two meta-concepts are Operational IT and Organizational IT.

Operational IT: comprised of educational, infrastructure and administrative services these are the physical hardware and software tools utilized to create the IT environment in total.

1. Educational IT – Primary reason higher education exists. These are the tools used in the dissemination of information and education and in the development of learning resources for students.
2. Infrastructure IT – Tools used to maintain the IT infrastructure including telecom services, network services, datacenters, classrooms, wireless, research facilities and labs.
3. Administrative IT – Tools used by the administration to organize and maintain university information; HR database services, ERP and other student databases, financial services databases, student aid services, administrative and faculty offices.

Organizational IT: the organizational and management protocols, procedures and processes required to effectively manage, lead and organize IT services in any environment

1. Governance – How the IT organization is managed i.e. Governance Committee, Technology Committees, and Division IT leaders and whether IT management is centralized or decentralized or some combination thereof.
2. IT Resource Organization – best practices, SLAs (service level agreements), Staff management, training and retention, asset management, asset retirement and replacement schedules, policy creation and management
3. Operating Costs – Management of the costs of IT: Who is responsible to determine the budget for IT resources campus-wide? Chancellors, Deans, Division Chairs, IT Staff? How are these long term costs computed? What are the hidden costs of inefficiencies in the IT structure?

A Path to Greatness

Developing IT for any environment is a constantly evolving organism. Clearly defined principles, committed staff, considered metrics for success and a well developed plan of action are the elements of a successful IT group. This path requires an honest and forthright assessment of all of the IT resources available to the district office and the attendant campuses. Blame is not being sought, but answers to the question of how to realize the potential of the IT infrastructure. For a community college’s IT to develop toward the ideal described in my opening paragraphs, we must devise a plan that integrates stability (ensuring service operation by trained and qualified staff), reliability (ensuring operation by industry established standards), security (the reasonable assurance of a secured data structure and policies) and scalability (the ability to add and extend the growth and development of the network without compromising its performance or operation).

An outline of that plan follows:

1. The first step is to establish IT as an integral element of the any college organizational structure. IT must be seen as a member of the Administration, complete with its own resources (i.e. budget, staff development resources), support teams and autonomy to solve problems that may have lingered for years without effective resolution. IT management must be given the authority to resolve issues, as anything less will ensure the failure of IT projects in the future.
2. Create a unified help-desk system to manage workflow and document change orders to improve service and to monitor costs. Include a knowledgebase and information wiki able to be updated by any in the IT workforce.
3. Review the major themes to be covered by the district’s strategic plans and look at how technology can be directed toward those business ideals. This requires a review and a breakdown of the district office and the local campuses strategic plans to determine how those plans for future development can be supported by IT infrastructure at the strategic and operational levels. Meet with the technology committees already in existence and review previous successes and current challenges.
4. Create a unified IT strategic plan document which encompasses the business ideals, IT development plans and the educational technology requirements of the district office and each campus.
5. Document and build a model of all IT existing infrastructure, mapping hardware, software and services; this will ultimately require a grand re-organization of the network at all levels (from largest to smallest). However, this restructuring will pay off with the development of future services, allowing for remote management, remote deployments of new technology and standardization across the district. Standardization reduces costs, increases efficiency, and improves management of technology across an environment.
6. Ensure the stability of those networks by establishing the guidelines and policies for their economic, technological and security requirements to be met on an agreed upon level (determined by Service Level Agreements). Those requirements need to be reviewed regularly to ensure they are as effective as when first established.
7. Review and monitor all IT business structures and projects, services, vendor cost allocations, vendor-managed projects, IT budgets, and district-wide funding for IT.
8. Develop an ERP Portal. The creation of an IT Steering committee and the installation of a project manager who is aligned with the needs of the staff, faculty, and administration’s will help to complete migration to this portal technology. Because of the portal’s ubiquitous nature and presence on all college campuses, this should be one of the highest priorities of the district, and for the same reason, the portal needs to hold to the highest standards of service.
9. Define a technology path or potential specialization for each campus. This would reduce redundancies and improving coverage of technologies by the district. This would be done in accordance with educational development plans already in place.
10. Craft an outline for a technology development plan for the campuses. Integrate technologies and develop economies of scale to reduce costs and to improve performance and services to all campuses. This step will take into account new technologies including secured wireless technologies, biometric security, new laptop and netbook hardware, server virtualization (where responsible and effectively improving services), imaging and print management, document and information management systems, centralizing networks and network security and fail-over firewall technologies.
11. Redefine IT staff development processes (standardizing job descriptions, redefining duties of IT staff across the district) to determine staffing requirements for each campus and the district office. Consider models to improve performance for each campus, including the options of centralizing or decentralizing management of technology resources. The rule is: centralize for control, decentralize for innovation. This is likely to include the hire of new staff where appropriate and the training of current staff to improve their ability to function with the increase in technological development and complexity.
12. Review, recommend and standardize on information management, content management and educational support technologies. These include reviewing open source programs for web content management including Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, Blackboard, Sakai and Moodle.
13. Develop conceptual models such as the Information Technology and Infrastructure Library (ITIL, CMDB). This includes the creation and use of process and project management tools to promote the successful implementation of IT infrastructure, development, and operations. Utilize project management techniques (perhaps even hire a dedicated project manager) to get a handle on outstanding or underperforming projects in the district and prioritize resources to improve their completion and success rates.

Is this all it takes?

Not even close. I won’t lie to you. Implementing this will likely take some time. Designing the priorities will be the first step toward the development of IT at any Community College District. Nothing written on five pages can prepare you for the scale of the undertaking. But I have a plan. The principles outlined here are solid and tested. Best of all, they are scalable, so they can be adapted the concepts to any size organization. What you have here is not just a plan but a vision of the future. I will leave you with my favorite quotation. I hang it on my wall wherever I work. It inspires me to always do my best and reminds me that nothing I attempt is impossible.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Bibliography

LELAND, JOHN. “Skills to Learn, to Restart Earnings.” The New York Times Online 01-04-2009¬ 2 Apr 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/retirementspecial/02reskill.html?em

University of California, Berkeley Strategic Planning Task Force, UC Berkeley Strategic Academic Plan, 2002, Page 22, http://spc.vcbf.berkeley.edu/document/AcademicStrategicPlan.pdf