Periodic Ramblings

I have installed the WordPress plugin Mobile Press to allow for mobile device formatting when reading Periodic Ramblings on the go with devices such as the iPhone.  Let me know what you think, I have not done much customization yet but it does look good on my iPhone.

Most of us have been part of what I call a “traditional” workplace.  Hierarchical with each  division/department/manager having a certain set of responsibilities and employees that are aligned only to those responsibilities.  For example, you work in Accounts Payable and work only on Accounts Payable projects, not Accounts Receivable and definitely not something outside of Accounting.

In my mind, this is fundamentally one of the  problems with many corporations today.  This hierarchical structure does not allow for easy sharing of resources or the creation of cross-department (virtual) teams to work on a common project.

This is where today’s up and coming workforce will out perform all of us and force a change in how business is done.  With the web, social networking and the focus on teamwork/group projects in education, our next workforce is being taught early on that projects consist of resources and those resources may not necessarily come from the same area.  Think of the Open Source model, where you have contributors from all over the world and imagine methodology employed in the workforce.  Your peer manager, or a manger in a different  business line may have a resource that you need, but in today’s business world, there is no easy way to identify or procure that service.

So, how do we accomplish this “open source” model in the workforce?  By creating networks within the corporation that allow for the sharing of projects, resources and knowledge.  We tend to think that sites like Facebook and Twitter have no spot in the business world.  I though, think this is a short-sighted view and needs to change.  Imagine if all of an Information Technology department put projects and resources on a common portal where people could comment on current initiatives and offer suggestions and resources to other teams.  This should lead to more collaboration and lower time to delivery and costs as resources would be allocated internally and people could enlist the help of other colleagues to assist.

This though, will require a paradigm shift and a method of governance to ensure that projects are prioritized and completed within the prescribed timeline.  Corporations will need to move to a Service Oriented Architecture and enlist Project Offices to track the services as resources to the projects.  This will take some corporations time to develop and implement, and some projects and some areas may need to stay more siloed to ensure that business needs are met.  These groups will tend to be support and help desk oriented groups that offer a common point of contact and provide a single service offering to a specific group or customers.  However, even these siloed groups can offer assistance and lean on other teams for assistance to solve problems or complete projects.

On Monday, Twitter was hacked.  Today, the Wired Blog Network has an article in which they interview the 18 year old who hacked Twitter.

How did he do it?  Brute force dictionary attack.  There is no limit for number of tries at a password on Twitter, so he kept trying dictionary words until ‘happiness’ was successful for the support account.  Once in, he was able to post as any Twitter user.  It seems that he has a history of celebrity prank account cracking to his credit in the past.

As an IT professional, we preach continuously about using strong passwords and most systems have at least some type of lockout on tries and a challenge system for resetting the password that ensures the right user is getting the password.  Why Twitter does not have this, I am not sure, but I would imagine they are looking into it at this point.

So, take some time, think about your passwords and make sure they are complex enough to foil a simple dictionary attack.

I have recently become a fan of the site Socialmedian which was just bought by Xing.  For those of you who are not familar with Socialmedian, it is a website where the users decide the news and create the channels.  You can subscribe to existing channels or create your own channel on keywords and news sites.

I was able to create a channel just about Chicago Sports and share this channel fro others to subscribe to. It combines stories from about 10 different news sources into one source to follow.  Socialmedian provides a list of popular and user added sources and each user can add their own sources to the lits of sources that are available.

No longer is there a need to follow multiple RSS feeds independently, you just need to follow one that combines multiple feeds, but only broadcasts the stories that are important to the reader.

This concept to me is what the future of news is about.  The ability to selectivelly decide what is important and only subscribe to the news that you care about.

Most people on the Internet have heard about Twitter, one the most famous micro-blogging sites on the web.  Twitter allows users to post quick updates that other people can follow.

To this point, I started thinking, why not utilize Twitter or a similar technology in the business world.  I have a geographically dispersed staff and have a hard time knowing where and how to reach them at any given time.

Twitter updates could help them to update where they are, what they are currently working on and how to reach them.  A simple post of “Currently with Fred, contact via pager” or “Working from home, contact via Instant Message” would end countless IM and Email updates that get lost and are not real-time.

Twitter updates could help notify the whole group or organization to problems or announcements.  For example, “I am updating the system right now, so it will be unavailable for xx hours” would end the email chains and ignored system announcements.

I think micro-blogging could replace IM and email in a lot of business settings.  The examples above are IT specific, but could easily be examples from any business line.

Hello and welcome to Periodic Ramblings.  My name is Tom and this is my site to discuss technology.  I have 10+ years of working in Information Technology for small and large companies. I have been a System Administrator, Project Manager and IT Department Manager.  I have focused on all areas of IT including support,  development and migration/integrations.

I have always been interested in how technology can be better utilized in the business world.  There is too much a gap sometimes between the Web 2.0, Social Networking world that we tend to focus on in our personal life and the static, workstation, thick client approach to the corporate IT world.  I think there should be and can be more of a blend between the two and this blend will help companies leverage their IT investments and departments more fully.

So, I ask that you come along for what should be an exciting and unique look at technology.