Ciske's Blog

Changing the Education system

Filed under Education

I watched this RSAnimate video today and was blown away by the speach.  Added annimation made it better.

[youtube:zDZFcDGpL4U]

Mathmatics, Computers and Ancient Egypt

Filed under Blog , Education

I ran across this video today that completely blew my mind.  It has to do with the way the ancients did math. It has me questioning the way we teach our kids.  Clearly there is more than one way to solve most problems.  Learn from the past, appreciate the now and transform the future.

Pride of Ownership: This Baby Is Not Yours

Filed under Business , Education , Governance , Management , Opinion , Software , Software Development , Strategy , Technology

I regularly get asked by people just entering or interested in the Technology field what my best advise to a budding technologist would be.  I hate that question.  There is so much to know and so many experiences to share.  How do you boil that down to one elevator pitch?  Someone queue the music: I’ve given a ton of horrible advice.

I’m pretty sure that to most of those outside of our industry pride of ownership is a good thing.  Society encourages people to buy houses, start businesses, etc. All thinking that this will lift the community because people have a ‘pride in ownership’.  In other words, because they own something they will continue to invest in it to make their property better. 

However, I believe, that pride of ownership in our industry is toxic.  I have noticed over the years that pride of ownership in technology leads to two things, terrible product delivery and stunted innovation.  Product delivery constantly fails because your developers are taking liberty with the code.  They are going to try to pay back some technical debt because they think or *know* that if they just had another ‘crack’ at that function or class they could improve it.  Stunted Innovation occurs for much the same reason.  Why look at other technologies?  Your team or yourself is completely engaged in the current paradigm.  If you change you kill your baby.

There is no doubt that the technology team plays an integral part in creating value for the organization.  As I’ve blogged before this is what IT’s value proposition is.  However, as a technologist, you need to realize that the product you created is the product of Technology, Marking, Sales and Customers coming together. Also known as business value.  The technology doesn’t belong to you.  It belongs to the organization. This is the difference between great companies and great failures.

Sounds harsh?  I mean your or your team created the product? But it didn’t.  The product was a successful implementation of the businesses needs.   To put it simply, You were the doctor in the delivery room.  There were a cast of others that had the same level of commitment and smarts to help give birth to the product.  I think I can speak for most of us when I say just be thankful that we walk out with clean shoes!

If, as an organization, you think that you have a pride of ownership issue please feel free to contact me. Once you are free it’s the most liberating and enabling existence of IT. I’m happy to evangelize. 

Bringing the IT Profession to the Classroom

Filed under Business , Jobs , Education , Opinion

I have a confession to make.  I love what I do for a living.  I’m one of those fortunate few who never really has to work a day in his life because I love what I do.  At times I feel guilty when people ask what I do for fun and I have to make something up  not related to IT.  The fact is that no matter what hobby I pick up all I can think about is what website or technology can I create to augment my enjoyment. 

A little background story on this post.  I was speaking to a few friends the other day about volunteering to teach a practical computing class in secondary school or even offering internships.  The feedback from the friends (all who were teachers) is that they really don’t offer that today. Apparently, at least in Texas, the barriers to entry is a bit overcoming.  It’s clearly an underdeveloped program.  We can do better and let me tell you why.

When I was in grade school my mom actually volunteered to teach a Basic class.  No kidding.  She taught the class to a bunch of 4th graders (if I remember right).  I was fascinated.  I grew up with a mother who was an AS400 programmer.  I distinctly remember during her college years playing with her ‘punch cards’.  Now that I have kids who type on my keyboard when I’m not present I have a new appreciation for KID (Kid Induced Defect).  It’s no wonder she has a full head of white hair (sorry mom).  We always had technology in the house, always.

No kid wants to follow in their parents footsteps, and I was no exception.  To top it off according to my math scores in High School I wasn’t cut out for the Technology field.  I just didn’t get it.  I went to college to be a teacher and then finally I wanted to be a lawyer.  I accomplished neither.  I came out with a degree in poly sci and international relations.  Clearly a great setup for working in a single flavor snow cone shop!  However, I never stopped ‘messing’ around with Technology.  It was something that I actually knew more about than most kids my age just because of my exposure to it.  If there is “classically trained” then I was clearly un-classic. 

I came out of college a few years before the dot com incident (that’s what I call it now).  A great time for someone like me to find my calling.  I was there to see the web grow up.  Not to mention I was one of the lucky few who knew how to make my 14.4 kbit/s modem work by adjusting the IRQ settings.

So what does all have to do with wanting to teach gum chomping students who are more interested in using the iPhone than knowing how to leverage it?  It’s all about exposure and making the conceptual relevant.  Technology is everywhere.  It’s also an exponential multiplier of productivity and profitability.  Clearly an advantage in the ‘real world’.  The pace of innovation is incredible.  Think about where we were in terms of storage and processing power 5 years ago?  The laptop I’m typing this on has exponentially more capability than my TV,  phone, DVD player, camera and alarm clock combined. 

I think we should be, at a bare minimum, exposing our students to the magic behind the curtain if you will.  An exposure to programming and it’s practical application will help more than it will ever hurt.  I teach an ‘Intro to SQL for Analyst’s’ class at the company I work for.  It’s often filled with financial analysts who are realizing that a spreadsheet is no longer sufficient for doing the types of analysis they need to do the job.  More importantly, their current exposure to technology tells them that there must be a better way to get the answers they are searching for and need. 

So, let’s arm our students with at least the foundation.  I guarantee at some point they will use the exposure to further their positions and knowledge.  The technology community is filled with bright, passionate and dedicated professionals.  Let us volunteer to teach our next generation of colleagues!