Iraqis pick up on the obvious

How much is a security guaranty backed only by Bush's word worth?

Not much.

Another good Cringely piece

Cringely has a followup to his column on consultants, this time tackling the big research firms like Gartner and Forrester.  His critique in a nutshell:  Those firms live off churn, and that is not in anyone else's interest.  Worth reading.

IT Consultants strike again!

This time the victim is the City of Portland.  $20 million goes a long way here.  I'd surely like to know who to blame for this, Potter doesn't cut it since he's leaving anyway.  Who decided on Ariston?

Eisenhower Story

Another reason to like Ike.

A useful reminder of how doctrine isn't born fully formed and perfect, it's a result of constant testing and struggle against diverse circumstances.  There is a book waiting to be written comparing this with the Cuban missile crisis and MacArthur/Truman in Korea.

IT Gone Bad

Related to Cringely's comments on IT, here is a story about a large non-profit in the Portland area at risk of bankruptcy ostensibly because of bad IT.  That's disgusting!

Excellent Cringely column/podcast

Cringely has an excellent column and associated podcast up dated 4/18.  His thesis in a nutshell:  Most IT consultants don't know what they're doing, and trusting such people can destroy a company.  What he doesn't say is that many internal IT departments are no better then consultants. 

The fundamental problem is businesses that don't know what they're doing.  What is the average duration of employment for someone with a given organization, maybe 5 years?  How long does it take to understand all the nuances and tricks, to know what is real and what is merely label?  One year, at a minimum. 

Now add a level of complexity:  how long does it take to gain sufficient mastery to be able to explain these intricacies to someone else?  It's the difference between being a student and being a teacher.  I'd say another year, easily.

So in a given company, at least 20% of the people don't know what they're doing, and another 20% are probably doing the right thing but couldn't tell you why.  Throw in the fact that most of these 40% will not self identify, and it's no wonder requirement gathering sucks! 

Cringely cites a successful consultant, Christine Comaford-Lynch:

A key part of her success was her requirements gathering process. She turned it into a very effective collaboration effort involving the key people who would use the software.

Sounds to me like she was good at separating the wheat from the chaff.

Krauthammer op-ed

This crap op-ed by Charles Krauthammer got me thinking about the nuclear club.  He claims the successful program in North Korea, and ongoing work in Iran mark the "end of the era of non-proliferation."  Really?  Let's look at the numbers:

Country/Year of successful weapon test

• US, 1945
• USSR, 1949
• Britain, 1952
• France, 1960
• China, 1964
• India, 1974
• Israel, prior to 1979
• South Africa, 1979
• Pakistan, 1998
• North Korea, 2006

Nearly every decade since the creation of the bomb has seen a nation, quietly or loudly, enter the nuclear club.  And with the arguable exception of Britain every one of those countries conducted the R&D work in strictest secrecy.  Secrecy in this context is not a sign of nefariousness, it is simply the way successful nuclear weapons programs get done. 

The idea that Iran's program marks some huge breach with the past is absurd, it would be a greater discontinuity if countries stopped trying to get nuclear weapons.

Snarkage:  Krauthammer on regime change:

Total safety comes only from regime change. During the Cold War, we worried about Soviet nukes, but never French or British nukes. Weapons don't kill people; people kill people. Regime change will surely come to both North Korea and Iran. That is the ultimate salvation.

Regime change equals remaking a country into Britain or France!  TOTAL SAFETY!