Summer Hiatus

Well it’s been a long break since my last post as I’ve been coping with the long summer break - both my own (well deserved) and others (totally undeserved) holidays.  In the former case I obviously left everything in good order for my colleagues but in the latter they obviously left me a pile of stuff to deal with in their absence. 

In any case I’m back now and have made a number of resolutions:

1. To post more often
2. To post less lengthily (if that is a word)
3. To comment more on other people’s posts.

In deference to the second aim I’ll stop there and go and post something short and more useful; although it’ll take a train journey or something before I’m able to post about other people’s stuff

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The Wisdom of Hype Cycles

Just came across this image after following a link to John Evdemon’s site.  I think the phrase - at least according to one of my friends who is teaching me IM etiquette - is LMAO.

I think my favourite is ‘Harnessing the wisdom of crowds that watch “Dancing with the Stars”‘.  I’ve always loved the phrase ‘wisdom of crowds’ for the way in which it conjures up - at least to me - one of those scenes from an old Frankenstein film where a shabby, ill-educated crowd brandish torches and pitchforks whilst whipping each other up into a bloodthirsty mob.  They may be wise for all I know but the evidence of my own eyes kind of points to dumb.  God forbid that someone who knows something about the ‘Monster’ try to reason with them either, particularly given that we now - no doubt partially as a result of studying such footage - have realised that if a crowd thinks something then it must be right (although I also thought that a crowd with an opinion could be termed ‘a mob’ but then I guess that was before I ‘wised up’ to their authentic wisdom).

The thing that really made me laugh about the phrase in this spoof hype cycle, though, was the way in which it highlights the recent revelation that harnessing the wisdom of people irrespective of its quality is the way to go; the more people who think something the more true it must be - lowest common denominator obviously trumps talent, discrimination or expertise since more people think it’s better.  

I’m really looking forward to the continued democratisation of every field - the more the wisdom of the genuine crowd (i.e. the mass of everyone) permeates the arts, politics and business the less I’ll have to worry about stuff, since everyone will tend to the same level of mediocrity given that its cheaper and doesn’t hurt your head. 

Lol.

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Sunshine as a Service and Blog Guilt

Hello. My name is Ian and I haven’t blogged for 12 days.

I have to say that I’m amazed; I’ve just enjoyed a couple of weeks holiday in the unseasonably fine weather here in Wales and now find myself feeling horribly guilty for not posting over that period.  I only started this blog a few weeks ago and I’m already suffering from ‘Blog Angst’.

Oh well, I’m back in work today and so I’d best pull my finger out and have a look at what’s been happening whilst I’ve been building trampolines and such like with my kids. 

The sunshine was pretty cool, though

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Blagging Kick Off

Hello.  My name is Ian and I am a long suffering technical strategist within a large global IT services organisation.  I’ve basically been working in the Internet space for just over 10 years, cutting my teeth on Java and CORBA, getting over-exited by CBD and then rising and falling with each successive wave of change like a storm tossed, drunken sailor (or maybe like one of those people in a tedious Mexican wave that just keeps on coming despite the fact that everyone’s had enough - whey hey a new technology, doh! sit down, whey hey a new technology, doh! sit down).  Over the last 5 years I’ve been concentrating on SOA, BPM and Internet business models, latterly with great over-excitement (hey, it’s a pattern) around web 2.0, capability unbundling, SaaS, service aggregation, BPO etc. etc.  As you can see the list of areas of interest seems to expand with each wave, going kind of:

Java

Java and CORBA

Java and CORBA and J2EE

Java and J2EE and web services

Java and J2EE and web services and SOA

Java and J2EE and web services and SOA and BPM

Java and J2EE and web services and SOA and BPM and unbundling

Java and J2EE and web services and SOA and BPM and unbundling and .net

…. and on to

Java and J2EE and web services and SOA and BPM and unbundling and .net and software factories and industrialisation and virtualisation and business architecture and web 2.0 and business 2.0 and mashups and aggregation and SaaS and BPO….

I guess there’s no need to labour the point.

Anyway, I’ve been threatening to start a blog for a while now as I’ve certainly been taking heavily from the communities in these areas and wanted to start giving a little back.  As a result I’m going to start throwing my ideas and concepts down here as a way of engaging in the debate.

Why IT Blagger 3.0?  Well having to sound sensible on all of these subjects (and on the growing list of related and orthogonal concepts) sometimes makes me feel like I’m making it up as I go along (surely not).  At the same time who’s going to pay attention to something that isn’t at least 2.0?  As a result I thought I’d just cut to the chase and claim a blagging ability of 3.0 in order to demonstrate that I’m new, social and open.  That’s got to be a good thing, surely?

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