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You’ve heard the buzzwords before: Business Intelligence. Data Mining. Decision Support Systems. They all mean the same thing basically - figuring out to take the information that an organization creates in the general course of business and use it in such a way to create more business.

Let’s go to the video

This ZDNet Whiteboard video features Angela Shen-Hsieh, President and CEO of Visual I/O and discusses how business intelligence needs to evolve to present that mass of data that resides in an organization’s databases in a manner that’s easy to understand.

Beyond that, the systems should have a little bit of intelligence to highlight trends and relationships that might not be obvious. They can include email alert features to notify stakeholders of sudden changes. And they should have some type of interactivity to answer questions based on stored data.

Now, obviously her take is a little self-serving because Visual I/O sells just the type of business intelligence software that she’s advocating. Even so she has a little bit of a point.

Going beyond the spreadsheet and database

In the video, Ms. Shen-Hseih says that data needs to evolve beyond the simple spreadsheet and database. The data has to go the “last 18 inches” from the screen to the brain.

[Author’s Note: She must sit closer to her monitor than I do. But I digress…]

Anyone who’s been in IT for a while remembers the days when systems did little more than produce stacks of printouts. These forest killing reports spewed the information out in towers of paper. When I worked at the Police Department, I remember seeing such reports piling up on officer’s desks and literally being used as door stops, but little else.

Over time, programs became more sophisticated and we could generate tables, charts, and graphs that illustrated what the data buried in those reports meant. The problem was the programs weren’t very easy to use which meant that business stakeholders had to make a request to IT to get reports formatted the way they want.

This created a problem for several reasons.  Sometimes, the stakeholders didn’t want to ask for help. Sometimes they didn’t know what they wanted and had to keep going back and reexplain their needs. Other times, IT was just too understaffed or unable to produce the reports in the amount of time needed.  Therefore, the databases continued to grow, but noone who cared could access the information they needed out of them.

Things are getting better however as new tools are emerging which give stakeholders the ability to find their information and have it presented how they want it. You can create dashboards and email alerts which proactively give the needed data. It’s not quite there yet, but it’s getting closer every day.

BI 1.0 vs. BI 2.0

Echoing the buzzword “Web 2.0″ that we relentless hear about, you may have heard of the term Business Intelligence 2.0 or BI 2.0. That term reflects a lot of what the video is talking about.

BI 1.0 refers the ‘old way’ of producing business intelligence. You have a stack of data sitting on a hard drive and BI 1.0 tells you what’s there.  You sold 100 widgets to a company in Peoria on Monday and 200 widgets to another company in Kansas City on Tuesday.

BI 1.0 takes events that have happened in the past and allows to determine what happened and how. It doesn’t however tell you what’s happening right now or what may happen in the future.

BI 2.0 refers to new systems that are being made which will try to be more predictive. They take past data, and when possible real-time data, and give you information on the fly. In the best case scenarios, they can tell you what’s going on up to the minute and even give you some proactive powers to spot trends and made decisions on things before they happen.

BI 1.0 systems generally relied on rigid database or spreadsheet structures to collect data into discrete predefined fields and from there generate its information. As you can imagine this is very restrictive.  BI 2.0 systems are designed to be more open accepting inputs from multiple different sources.

Much like Web 2.0 which is powered by XML, BI 2.0 as its own method for exchanging data called XBRL. XBRL stands for Extensible Business Reporting Language and does for BI systems the same thing that XML does for Web programs - defines a standard framework for presenting data and then allows a program to just pull the information from that framework.

Business Intelligence Resources

There are plenty of resources on TechRepublic and ZDNet that discuss Business Intelligence.  Some of the resources we have to find out more about BI 1.0 and BI 2.0 include:

• Business Intelligence: Driving Better Business Performance for Companies With Changing Needs
• How to Leverage Today’s On-Demand Business Intelligence Solutions to Achieve Your Corporate Objectives
• Actionable Analytics: Creating Competitive Advantage in Growing and Midsized Businesses with Business Intelligence
• Use enterprise dashboards to speed up and improve business decision making
• Best Practices in Operational BI: Converging Analytical and Operational Processes

Other sites on the Web that discuss Business Intelligence include:

• Business Intelligence.com:: The Resource for Business Intelligence
• SAS | Business Intelligence Software and Predictive Analytics
• Microsoft Business Intelligence Suite
• Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation and Tools
• IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence

Finally, don’t forget to check out the Business Intelligence resources found on TechRepublic’s sister site BNET.

The bottom line for IT Leaders

We’re all sitting on mountains of data that are growing second by second. Used properly, that data can be a formidable weapon for organizations to use to get a competitive edge. It can also cause endless rabbit holes to chase for organizations that don’t know what they’re doing.

Call it what you will, business intelligence has been the Holy Grail of IT for decades. We keep getting closer to providing the information that stakeholders need to make good business decisions.

When we’re on the side of providing valuable tools to the organization like this, we’ll be less likely to find ourselves outsourced.

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Of all the major stressors that we face in life, two of the biggest are changing jobs and relocating. So when you’re considering doing both, you want to make sure that when all things are said and done, you’re in a better place in life. Naturally, one of the main ways is to make sure that a major move is going to result in higher pay. But what if higher pay winds up with a lower standard of living?

Let’s say you’re a network administrator in Louisville, Kentucky, making $50,000 a year and you’re offered a job for $85,000 in San Francisco, California. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right?  Not necessarily.

Location. Location. Location.

Obviously, the difference in pay has to do with the difference of the cost of living between San Francisco and Louisville. Both the East and West Coasts are more expensive to live in than other areas of the country. But the question is HOW much more expensive?

That’s where BankRate.com’s cost of living comparison calculator comes in handy. In it, you enter the amount of money you’re making in one city, and it returns the cost comparison to dozens of other cities across the United States. It will show you how much money you need to make in a new city to break even with what you’re making where you are now.

It takes into consideration such factors as:

• Housing
• Medical care
• Electricity
• Clothing
• Restaurants
• Entertainment
• Groceries
• Gasoline

So, when we take our $50,000 network administrator from Louisville who’s offered $85,000 in San Francsico, you can see that by taking the job, he’ll wind up over $6,000 poorer.

Watch out for taxes

The site leaves out one very important area: taxes. Tax implications can have a very significant impact. For example, if you’re making significantly more in a new city, you may find yourself in a higher federal income tax bracket, which can erase any gain you’ve made. Also, state and local taxes vary across the United States.

Let’s take Louisville, Kentucky, and Tampa, Florida, as an example. The cost of living comparison calculator shows that Tampa is 2.27% more expensive than Louisville. However, Kentucky has a state income tax and Florida does not. Louisville also has a local income tax and Tampa does not. Therefore, even though the cost of living is 2.27% higher, you immediately save upward of 8% in state and local income tax. Making a move at the same rate of pay from Louisville to Tampa can increase your standard of living by 6%!

You can compare tax rates from city to city at several different sites. City-Data.com will show you tax and other information about cities around the country.

The bottom line for IT leaders

If you’re offered a pile of money to relocate to a new city, don’t just jump at it. Even a significant pay increase may make you worse off if the taxes and cost of living are way out of line to what you’re used to. On the flip side, you may be able to take a pay cut and wind up in much better shape.

The bottom line is: Be sure of your bottom line before you make up your mind.

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Ever have one of those days that when you get to the end of it you’re driving home wondering why nothing ever gets done? You’re an IT leader — a person of power and persuasion who’s supposed to be accomplishing great things. But, at the end of the day, nothing gets done. Why?

Sometimes the problem is in the mirror. Stuff doesn’t get done because we just put it off. Decisions are either difficult, unpleasant, or just not a lot of fun. There’s always some other convenient distraction that can be made a “priority.” So you just schluff it off to another day.

Other times, you try your hardest, but there’s something or someone else in the way. There’s never enough staff or money. Incompetence or indifference from upper management limits your power to be able to implement your ideas. You’re faced with buggy software or features that just aren’t where you need them to be.

What’s your problem?

There are probably a combination of things that are acting as blockades to the decisions and plans that you’ve made. Take the poll below and see what your main blocker is compared to other TechRepublic members and sound off in Comments:

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The First Amendment guarantees everyone the freedom of speech. You can say anything you want as long as it’s not slanderous. Or discriminatory. Or violence inducing. Or…. well, you get the point.

Beyond the things that will get you hauled off to HR or worse, there are plenty of other things that you can’t say either. These things may not land you in jail or in the unemployment line, but they can cause damage to your career and reputation. Here are a few.

“This will solve all your problems…”

The first thing you need to be watchful for is that you don’t overpromise on a project or technology. You want to make sure that you can deliver on everything that you tell users you can accomplish. Naturally if you don’t, then they won’t trust anything you have to say.

You may already be careful not to intentionally overpromise, but you have to be equally careful not to accidentally overpromise. A user may misinterpret what you say you can do and set their own level of expectations. This happens quite often when users don’t understand technology as well as you do and don’t ask for clarifications. They’ll fill in their own blanks, mostly with ideas that aren’t realistic.

Be clear when discussing technologies or projects you’re working on. Don’t oversell what you’re trying to do to make yourself look good. At the same time, don’t let the user get an overinflated view of your abilities. In either case, when things don’t turn out as expected, you’ll have a lot of explaining to do, and your reputation will be tarnished.

“This will take (3 x reality) to accomplish…”

Along the same lines of overpromising on a project is sandbagging on it. It may be tempting to set goals and expectations so low that you achieve them with ease or exceed them by spectacular bounds. You may think that it makes you look like a hero, but eventually it will just make everything you say look suspect.

For a geeky example of what sandbagging does, think back to Star Trek: The Next Generation. As always, the warp drive goes down and Picard wants it fixed. Scotty from the original series just happens to be on board in a particular episode when this happens and Geordi gives Picard a time estimate. Scotty gives a sly smile and asks Geordi: “How long will it really take?”

Scotty is shocked when Geordi informs him that he told Picard the truth. He asks how Geordi is going to be viewed as a miracle worker when he tells people how long it will really take.

In a subsequent book that was set in the old series, the warp engine goes out on the Enterprise and Kirk asks Scotty to fix it. When Scotty tells him how long, Kirk divides the amount of time in his head by 2 and decides what to do next.

The exact same thing will happen if you consistently sandbag. You may look like a miracle worker in the short term, but eventually users will catch on. If you’re lucky, they’ll just not believe what you tell them. Worst-case scenario is that they’ll set their own internal goals and expectations, which are unachievable, and you’ll be in serious trouble when you can’t meet them.

“We’re never going to make it…”

The flipside of overpromising on a project is way, WAY underpromising on it, saying that it can’t be done or it will be difficult to accomplish. You want to be realistic when discussing project goals and objectives, but if you are consistently negative in your approach, it won’t bode well for you in the long term. You’ll wind up being labeled as either a whiner or just simply incompetent.

Naturally, you can’t always be bubbly and positive, but just be mindful of the amount of times that you’re saying “No.” Also be aware of the tone and words that you’re using when doing so. If a user’s expectations or desires are unrealistic, take time to say why and offer positive alternatives if possible. You want to be seen as someone who gets things done, not Mordac the Preventer from Dilbert.

“A ‘computer’ is like a car…”

By now you know, most of the people in your organization don’t know technology as well as you do. However, when explaining technology to them, don’t assume that the person you’re talking to has just graduated from kindergarten and oversimplify what you’re saying. This is the twenty-first century and most people have a passable understanding about how things work, with some naturally notorious exceptions.

Save the simplification for those exceptions. Just be sure to watch your tone when you do so. Don’t come across sounding like Mr. Rogers.

The exceptions are usually easy enough to spot, but don’t assume. If you’re not sure someone has a certain level of expertise, don’t be embarrassed to ask them how detailed they want you to be. And tell them politely to let you know if you’re oversimplifying.

On the flipside, make sure you’re not overusing computer jargon and terminology. All professionals, be they doctors, lawyers, or IT professionals, have a comfortable language that they use to talk to each other. Out of habit, sometimes we fall back on that language and jargon when talking to less technical people. Save the jargon for another IT professional.

People will feel more comfortable talking to you and will respect you more in the long run when they can understand what you’re saying.

“That’s not my job… “

Another sure thing you can say that will get you in trouble in the long run is to say, “It’s not my job” or “It’s not my fault.” Passing the buck or assigning blame when things go wrong will definitely get you in trouble in the long run.

Usually this is only a problem if you do it consistently, and especially when things are legitimately your problem. Most people will understand when things are out of your control, and they bring them to you. When that happens, try to find a way to put a positive spin on the problem and help the person find a solution. Don’t make it YOUR problem, but at the same time don’t be dismissive of the problem and the person doing the complaining.

Ultimately you want to look like a problem SOLVER in your organization. If you can’t solve problems when they’re presented to you, your users will find someone who can.

“We can speed up disk access by plugging our SATA drives into SCSI controllers…”

The final way that things you say can get you in trouble is just by saying stupid stuff. You are supposed to be a knowledgeable IT professional. Don’t make up facts or statistics to make your point. You can try to bluff people who don’t know as much as you do, but when they fact check you, you’ll be in trouble.

When you’re talking to people make sure you have your facts straight. Understand thoroughly what the technology is you’re discussing. Try not to confuse things or have to stumble around when answering questions. If you’re unsure, say so clearly, tell the person you’ll find out the information, and then make it a priority to follow through.

You’re paid to be the “expert” so make sure you come across as such. Even if you can’t know everything, make sure you’re a reliable source of information for those who need it by following up with timely, correct information.

The bottom line for IT leaders

Never forget — words mean things. The things you say to people matter as much as the things you do. To  some people, they mean more. If people can’t trust what you tell them, then your reputation and ultimately your career will suffer. Choose your words with care.

Forget about your First Amendment rights. Remember your Miranda rights. Everything you say can, and will, be used against you.

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Web 2.o has become one of those terms that’s been used to death. It’s become a cliched term for just about any Web site that does more than merely display content. A company changes the look and feel of a site, maybe tosses in a little AJAX, and voila’ — Instant Web 2.0 Web site. We’re interactive and cool!

It’s not originally what it was supposed to mean, but it’s basically what it turned out to be. It became one of those terms that was used to mean many things and now means nothing. Among the meanings was a Web site that featured Internet applications — again created mostly using AJAX or some other more modern Web development language.

That’s where the term RIA, 0r rich Internet application, comes in.

How’s RIA different from Web 2.o?

The term Web 2.0 was supposed to cover a lot of things. It included not only the way the site was built, but the things that went into it as well. Beyond the basic look and feel, Web 2.0 meant that there was supposed to be more user interaction and participation.

Along the way, it also meant using newer, more powerful programming languages for Web development. These languages and tools allowed Web developers to create more powerful Web-based applications.

The term RIA focuses on this part of Web 2.0. It also goes beyond it because a rich Internet application can be built from more tools than a traditional Web 2.0 interface or program. Web 2.0 refers to AJAX and some Flash-based applications. RIA has many more options.

RIA basics

The idea of RIA is to create applications that are more OS agnostic. Rather than contain code for a specific operating system, applications are created to run inside a Web browser. They’re hosted on a standard Web server and run on a client’s Web browser no matter what operating system they’re using. Ideally, the Web browser itself is irrelevant as well, but often that’s not the case.

Programmers have sought this Holy Grail of “Write Once, Run Anywhere” since the dawn of the Computer Era. C was supposed to accomplish it. Then Java. And now we have rich Internet applications.

Unlike the other attempts, RIAs can be built using any number of different platforms.  Some of the most common ones include:

• JavaFX
• Flex
• AJAX
• Adobe AIR
• Silverlight
  

XML is also a key component of rich Internet applications. It allows applications to talk to each other and pass data more easily.

Many of these development environments require a Web browser plug-in or client-side application to work. This limits their portability for some minor OSs, but by and large they do a better job of portability than Java or C applications do.

There are many examples of rich Internet applications out there now. Two of the most high-profile ones are Google Docs and Microsoft Office Live. For more examples of RIA in action, check out Adobe’s list of sites using RIA.

RIA resources

The term is still evolving, and vendors use it to their advantage when selling their wares. Here are some resources on RIA on TechRepublic and ZDNet:

• Live from Redmond: Building Rich Internet Application Using Microsoft Silverlight 2
• The Increasing Hardware and OS Independence of Modern Applications
• Developing Rich Internet Applications for SAP with Adobe Flex
• JavaFX: Sun’s Late Start in RIA Race
• The Importance of Tools in Rich Internet Application Platforms
• Rich Internet Application Predictions for 2008
• Ajax or Flex? How to Select Rich Internet Application Technologies

Other sites on the Web that discuss RIA include:

• Adobe — Rich Internet Applications
• The Open Sourcery
• Rich Internet Applications and AJAX — Selecting the Best Product
• Flex.org - Rich Internet Application Development
• Curl, Inc. - Richer Internet Applications

The bottom line for IT leaders

RIA offers a new opportunity for those organizations that want to escape Microsoft’s death grip. In bypassing the operating system, RIA developers gain a wider audience for their applications and give end users more choice in clients. RIA also gives users a more “rich” experience when visiting Web sites, which can increase user activity and interaction on a site.  If you’re developing applications in-house, it might be worth a look.

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There’s a common stereotype when it comes to age and IT workers. Because the IT industry moves so fast, it’s hard to keep current on the latest trends and technologies.  This is especially true when you’re mired in your day-to-day chores and don’t have time to fiddle with the newest piece of hardware or software. Therefore, older IT workers are sometimes judged as being not on the cutting edge enough to move IT forward.

The stereotype continues with the Old Guard clinging to creaky old equipment while sneering at young IT workers who look dumbfounded when faced with a DOS prompt. The young whippersnapper drags, drops, and clicks furiously with the mouse, while the more experienced IT guy types one or two lines of commands and goes off to do something else.

The young lion exacts revenge by installing a Linux server that essentially does the same thing that twelve of the old systems used to do. The old guy scratches his head and wonders what a concrete cleaner is doing in the server room. The youngster snickers and downloads another 10GB of music to his iPod.

Like most stereotypes, there’s usually some basis in reality, however distorted, at the bottom of it. The trick is to make sure you don’t allow yourself to be trapped into it. Don’t do anything that will allow you to date yourself either one way or the other.

The challenge of the older IT pro

Let’s face it. There is always too much work to be done. There are too many calls to answer. Too many systems to patch, update, and maintain. By the end of the day, you’re too tired of dealing with machines and just want to unwind.

After a while, it’s understandable that a bit of near-burnout would settle in. You can find yourself mixed up in a combination of overwork and settling into a comfortable routine.  Once you have things working well enough, why upset the apple cart by, say, installing a bunch of Macintoshes?

On top of that, we know as seasoned IT pros that the budget is almost never there. Even if we were inclined to want to install some new technology or at least try things out, there’s no money to do it.

Before you know it, you’re in the year 2008 maintaining Windows NT and NetWare 4 servers. What’s an old IT pro to do?

First of all, you must make an effort to stay current. It will probably mean going out of your way to make time to do it, which means maybe even taking some family time away from home. Scott Lowe recently had some ideas about how you keep up to date on technologies.

Second, you must remain open minded about doing things differently. It’s not called a Comfort Zone for nothing. The knee-jerk reaction to change is to go on the attack sometimes when someone proposes a new way of doing things. Jason Hiner pointed out how we sometimes cling to out-of-date technologies out of habit. Don’t let that happen.

It may sound like a lot of effort, but if you don’t keep current and remain open minded, some 20-something-year-old kid will wind up taking your job for half your pay at some point. Or worse you could wind up reporting to him.

The challenge of the younger IT pro

The young IT pro has almost the exact opposite problem of the older IT pro. Like all young people, they’re fresh out of school, in their first or second job, and out to conquer the world. They’ve been indoctrinated with all the new technologies and ideas in school and can’t wait to try them out. The up-and-coming generation hasn’t known a world without easy-to-use personal computers and know them in and out. At the same time, they haven’t been beaten down by budget battles and the same endless questions over and over.

It’s tempting as a young IT pro to go into a situation and start identifying and wanting to fix problems right away. It’s easy to become frustrated and irritated because things move so slowly. It’s as if nobody seems to notice or care that there are better ways of doing things.

Plus there’s all this ancient equipment and software to deal with. Your system at home is running the overnight builds of almost everything, and yet here you are dealing with software four revisions back and hardware built while you were in middle school. It’s just too hard to run and use.

As a young IT pro,  the first thing you need to learn is patience. Most businesses have a tendency to move very slowly in deploying technologies. Businesses focus on investing in things that are tied directly to revenue first, and often IT is viewed as a cost center. As such, it’s often overlooked budgetarily.

Plus, things move slowly because there are reasons why they are being done the way they are. Policies and procedures have grown up over time to deal with problems that have popped up. It’s tempting to shortcut the process sometimes, but it’s there for a reason — usually because of a previous lawsuit or to prevent a future one.

Second, you need to learn how the older systems work and respect them as well as the people who have been using them. It’s easy to dismiss them as antiquated, but in doing so, you’re also disrespecting the decisions of the people who implemented and chose to maintain the systems. Not a wise career move, especially if you’re vocal about it.

Instead, learn the older systems. You can find tons of old computer books very cheap in most bookstores. Sites like TechRepublic have years of content online to help. You can even try to buy old stuff on eBay and work with it in your spare time.

The bottom line for IT leaders

Like the rest of life, there is a generation gap when it comes to the IT profession. As an IT leader, you need to make sure that you don’t fall into it. If you’re an older IT worker,  be open to change and keep up to date. If you’re a younger IT worker,  learn patience and respect and be open to understanding how and why things are done the way they are.

Doing so, you can help to break the age stereotypes in IT and keep from dating yourself.

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Often unless people are implementing their own ideas, or you’ve done an excellent sales job in advance with your ideas, they’re rarely excited about change. Some people just deal with it and go with the flow. Others grumble and complain but then wind up adjusting as well. The ones you have to worry about it are those who resist at all costs.

This third group obviously presents the most problems. They may attempt to torpedo your project. They’ll take pot shots at your technology choices. They may even make personal attacks both to your face and behind your back.

The wisdom of John Edwards

Back during the Democratic presidential primaries, the term “change” got kicked around quite a bit. In the midst of the New Hampshire debate, John Edwards summed up the concept I’m talking about here when he double-teamed Hillary Clinton with Barack Obama:

Any time you speak out powerfully for change,
the forces of status quo attack.

Politicians know all too well the art of attack. Unfortunately, it’s also an art we have to understand as IT professionals when we’re trying to implement change of our own. It’s not necessary to know how to craft the attacks, but you need a strategy to deal with attacks when they come.

Angles of attack

There are different methods that the forces of status quo will use to attack your project. The most common angles of attack are:

• Attack the need for the project
• Attack the cost of the project
• Attack the technical solution
• Attack the implementer

Build a business case

The first two lines of attack are probably the easiest to defend against. Doing so isn’t a lot of fun however. This is where the “business case” comes in. Building a business case is probably one of the most tedious tasks that we have to do as IT leaders.

The benefit is clear: Once you’ve built an iron-clad business case and had it approved, the first two lines of attack fade away. The best the forces of status quo can do is to challenge the assumptions that you’re using in the business case. Financial and needs assessments can be difficult to challenge though. This is especially true if you’ve attempted to address these possible questions in the case itself.

Attacking the technology

It’s kind of like the old cliche’: If you ask 100 IT pros how to hook up a network you’ll get 100 different answers. For almost every problem we face, there are multiple correct solutions. This is good because it gives us the flexibility to do the job the way we like and still get it done. On the flip side, however, there are an infinite number of ways to do things wrong.

Nontechnical folk don’t care HOW we do it, so long as it gets done. They don’t know the difference between the dozens of right ways and hundreds of wrong ones either. That ignorance is the foothold the forces of status quo take advantage of.

Say, for example, that accounting needs some additional servers set up for file storage. You decide it’s a good idea to take the opportunity to get some new equipment and consolidate the servers under Windows Server 2008 and do so with virtualization. The forces of status quo are happily running NetWare and immediately question the expense of Windows Server 2008 and the stability of multiple virtual sessions. The controller’s eyes glaze over when you say the word “virtualization.”

Your business case can address some of these issues in advance. However, it’s hard to anticipate in a document like a business case what the attack alternative is going to be.  Plus, you may not want to go into that much technical detail about the tactics of the solution in the business-case document.

The best way to deal with attacks on the technology is by completely understanding what it is you’re proposing as well as what the alternatives are. This may seem obvious, but often, like the forces of status quo, we sometimes just go with what we know. Linux people will suggest Linux solutions, Mac fanboys will go the Apple route, and so on. Being confident in your solution and being able to debate the merits of it and alternatives calmly and knowledgeably will go a long way.

The personal attack

Personal attacks can come two ways and are hard to deal with. Some people may call you out to your face and in a group setting. Such boldness and effrontery can easily throw you off your balance. The knee-jerk reaction is to counterattack, but that’s usually what the person is looking to do anyway. Try to stay calm and stick to the facts of your proposal. If possible, ignore the attack or deflect it without directly attacking the attacker.

The silent backstabber is more of a problem. You may not know this is happening until it’s too late. Your only hope to defend against this is the personal relationships you’ve built previously with coworkers. If the people around you know you well enough, they’ll know better than to believe the bitter whisperings of a disgruntled coworker.

There are more ways to handle disagreements with coworkers in our 10 Things blog.

The bottom line for IT leaders

When implementing change, you’re bound to face resistance. Most of the time it will be professional and aboveboard. Occasionally, it won’t be. You need a strategy to deal with the forces of status quo when they go on attack. Remember to stay calm and refocus the attention on the reasons why the change is important. Address, deflect, or ignore the charges as appropriate. When it’s clear that what you want to do has benefits for the organization, you stand a better chance of surviving the personal attacks.

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Salespeople have two goals in life — to contact you and to separate you from your budget. Obviously, they can’t do the latter without successfully doing the former. I previously showed you the strategies that tech salesmen use to get past your gatekeeper. Now that you know them, you can build some defenses against those strategies.

Suggestions from TR members

In the comment section of the original post, TechRepublic members shared some of their strategies for dealing with cold calls and salespeople. These went from the respectful “No, thank you.” to the ant-under-the-magnifying-glass routine of endless holds and transfers to other parties.

For example, james.gentry said:

I don’t like being interrupted either, but I also respect the time of the people on the other end of the phone. They have the same 24 hours in a day that I do, and they are just trying to make a living like I am. A simple “No, thank you, and please take me off your call list. Have a great day!” takes about five seconds and gets me back to work.

At the other end of the spectrum, Bizzo says that his partner:

…has a great way to deal with these people…

When she gets the call, she says “I’m sorry. I need to put you on hold for a while” and puts the phone down, doesn’t hang up just puts it down, and carries on with what she’s doing. And five or ten minutes later, she picks the phone up and says:
“Hello? Are you still there?”
“Yes! I’m calling about …”
“Sorry to interrupt, but I need to put you on hold again.”
And the process continues.

Somewhere in the middle,  techrepublic@… commented that:

I respect the marketers if they respect me. I’ll be polite to first-time cold callers and ask them nicely to remove me from their list.

When they don’t, he resorts to the time-wasting game.

Taking advice and turning it

In the original video, the speaker listed five different tips for getting past the gatekeeper:

1. Be honest.
2. Use humor.
3. Ask a technical question.
4. Say, “He’s expecting my call.”
5. Use e-mail return receipt.

Fortunately, there’s a strategy we can use for each one.

1. Be honest.

The presenter recommended that the salesperson should be “brutally honest” about needing to contact you. There’s nothing better than brutal honesty in return. If you’re not interested and don’t want to be bothered further, say so in no uncertain terms. Be professional and polite (even if the salesperson isn’t necessarily). Take the salesperson’s information and let them know that when you have a need, you’ll be sure to contact them.

If the salesperson is snarly with you, some additional brutal honesty may be necessary. This can take the form of informing them that the reason you’re not purchasing from their company is the attitude of the salespeople. Additionally, feel free to inform them that you’ll find out who their sales manager is and let them know as well.

2. Use humor.

I personally didn’t find the presenter’s attempt at humor very funny at all. As a matter of fact, it sounded reasonably obnoxious. But, when the salesman tries to be funny and says he’s going to hound you until he makes the sale, then you can be funny as well:

“Haha! Cute. And while you’re doing that, I’ll make sure I get your company blacklisted from our preferred vendor list and drop an e-mail to the Better Business Bureau and FTC while I’m at it as well.”

3. Ask a technical question.

Some tech salespeople know what they’re talking about. Others could be selling shoes as equally well as they sell routers. You can quickly measure up a salesperson’s technical level and deal with it accordingly.

If you sense a salesperson isn’t that adept and uses the “technical question” tactic, feel free to counterask deeply technical questions and bury them with lingo. When they say they don’t know and they’ll have to get back to you, you can use the opportunity to say that you choose to use “qualified vendors.”

Should the salesperson actually seem to know what they’re talking about, you can use it as an educational opportunity for yourself to find out about the product, even if you have no intention of purchasing. You may come up with other ideas to implement to make your job easier. Thank the salesperson for their time, inform them you’re not in the position to make any purchases for a while, and tell them you’ll contact them when you do.

4. Say, “He’s expecting my call.”

The tactic the salesperson uses here is to send a blind cover letter or e-mail promising to follow up. And then they tell your gatekeeper, or yourself, to “expect the call.”  Countering this may take some additional work. Let your gatekeeper know that you’re never “expecting a call,” unless they’re told differently. Have the gatekeeper “check the schedule” and take a message. Chances are the salesperson will never be on the schedule.

If you’re not lucky enough to have a gatekeeper, then you should try to be proactive and let the salesman know instantly that you have no interest and won’t be expecting a call. Tell them that: “As a matter of fact, DON’T call me. I’ll call you.”

If the salesperson insists on hassling you, inform them of how doing so will drastically reduce their chances of making a sale.

5. Use e-mail return receipt.

This is by far the easiest technique to defeat. It’s great, too, because it falls right in our technical area. If the salesperson decides to use the return receipt, you can just have Outlook refuse to send one.

Most of the time, Outlook will prompt you that there’s a return receipt on the message and ask if you want to send the confirmation. You can make this happen automatically in Outlook as well.

To do so, click Tools | Options in Outlook. When the Options screen appears, click E-Mail Options. You’ll then see the E-Mail Options window. Click Tracking Options.  Finally, in the bottom of the screen, click the Never Send A Response radio button, as shown in Figure A below.

Figure A

The bottom line for IT leaders

Like yourself, tech salespeople are professionals who have a job that they’re trying to get done. Even though it may seem otherwise, that job isn’t to annoy you and interrupt your day. Admittedly it is to separate you from your budget, but to do so they’re hoping to actually meet your needs.

Even though they can be annoying, as fellow professionals they’re due a little bit of respect. That is as long as they’re being respectful themselves. If you’re not interested, be clear and leave no room for doubt.

Salespeople have many things in their bag of tricks to access you and try to get your business. By not becoming instantly frustrated yourself and employing your own tactics, you can deflect a lot of the unnecessary calls. You might even wind up with someone who can make you look good down the road.

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Digital Rights Management (DRM) is supposed to give content creators control over who accesses their content. All forms of DRM work essentially the same way. Embedded inside of a data file is code that is looking for an authentication key from the client who is trying to open it. If the client doesn’t have the key, the file won’t open.

Most keys are issued from a central DRM server. Yahoo recently shut down the DRM servers for its music service, which will wind up stranding anyone who bought music from them. Although it naturally raised the ire of customers, it also highlights a problem we have as IT leaders, that is, making sure these systems remain up, running, and reliable so that users can access their DRM data.

More than just music

Most people are familiar with DRM as it relates to music bought online. However, DRM controls are equally useful in regular business. You can use it to protect design documents, planning spreadsheets, and other sensitive data.

It doesn’t take much to get up and going with DRM controls. If you’re a mostly Micrsoft shop running Windows Server on the back end and Office 2003 or later on the desktop, all it takes is adding support to the platforms and you’re ready to go. Microsoft calls it Information Rights Management and includes a module for it in Office 2003 as well as Office 2007. On the server side, all you have to do is configure Rights Management Services in Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

The headache of supporting DRM

Although it’s pretty easy to get up and going, supporting it on an ongoing basis can become problematic. You must ensure that your users have a reliable connection to the servers at all times. The more DRM becomes more widely used, the more the services become mission critical on the back end.

The controls that limit access to the data come back to bite you as you become controlled by the technology yourself. Adopting DRM locks you in to the solutions you’re currently using. You can only hope that the vendor you’ve chosen will use the same DRM scheme in later versions and doesn’t choose to abandon support for it. Otherwise you’re stuck with using old technology.

Another problem is that you have to make sure the servers you are using are always accessible. If you have only one rights server on the network and it crashes a lot, then naturally it’s pretty much useless. Likewise, if the network it’s on is slow and unreliable, then you have problems as well. Rights management services just increase the amount of maintenance and tuning you have to do on a network.

Dealing with end-user problems

Users themselves can create headaches when DRM controls are in place. There’s the problem of getting them to use the controls to begin with. Added on to that is the additional support calls you face when users start wondering why they can access a file on one device, but not another.

Finally, be prepared to deal with the backlash you’ll face if and when you decide to stop putting DRM controls in place. You’ll need to put together a phase-out plan to get the DRM data out of DRM. You’ll need to identify all the data and get it converted as well as educate users about what to do with any files that are left. In a worst-case scenario, you’ll face something like Yahoo did and have to refund money if you’re using DRM to control data accessed by customers.

The bottom line for IT leaders

Content creators and folks concerned with security all love the idea of DRM. As an IT leader, you need to educate them about the implications of deploying DRM in your organization. Be keenly aware yourself about all the work you need to do to support the system plus what you may have to do. And be mindful about the pain you’re in for when the DRM systems inevitably get abandoned.

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There’s a new term being bandied about called “cloud computing.” Cloud computing is a bit of a catch-all term that can mean different things to different people. It’s very conceptual in nature. Some vendors use the term interchangeably with the term “distributed computing.” Others substitute it for the term “utility computing” or “hosted computing.” Others use it when they mean SaaS.

When you boil it down, cloud computing is really a mix of all those phrases. What’s key is to understand what your particular vendor means by it. Once you have the other terms nailed down, you can infer what a specific vendor means when they’re selling you their product.

Distributed computing

The concept of distributed computing has been around for some time now. The idea is pretty simple: You take a bunch of computers and link them together for a specific use. All the computers share the same data, harnessing the power of their collective CPU cycles and storage space. You wind up with one giant virtual supercomputer or a massive network that’s more than the sum of its parts.

You’ve probably heard of distributed computing first through the Seti@Home project. This is an effort of volunteers who have linked together their computers in the search for extraterrestrials. Each computer downloads a slice of data that’s been gathered from the Arecibo observatory and runs an algorithm that searches through the data for patterns that would indicate ET communications.

Utility computing

The key word in the term “utility computing” is the word “utility.” Vendors use the term to put you in the frame of mind of a public utility like the phone company or the electric company. The amount of computer resources you use is metered, and you’re charged for the usage. The more you use, the more you pay

Most likely you’re using a group of computers in a utility computing solution, either as a group of CPUs working together in a form of distributed computing or as a massive storage solution. However, it’s also possible to have a single computer, such as a mainframe, at a vendor’s co-location that you have access to.

The cloud

In networking, we sometimes use the term ‘cloud” to refer to any wide area networking scenario such as a Frame Relay cloud. When used in the term “cloud computing,” the word “cloud” refers specifically to the Internet. It’s one of those cases where marketing folk have co-opted technical jargon for their own nefarious purposes.

Cloud computing ™ Dell???

Cloud computing is used by many different companies including Amazon, IBM, Salesforce.com, Sun, and Google, just to name a few. Interestingly enough, however, Dell has recently said that it owns the term. Chances are that such a trademark wouldn’t hold up in court. Even so, it’s interesting to see what an important term cloud computing has become — big enough that a major company wants to claim it as its own.

Putting it all together

So what does it mean when you put the concept all together? Cloud computing boils down to little more than a way for you to take some of the work you’re doing today on systems that you run in-house and doing them elsewhere. When a hardware vendor like Sun or Dell uses the phrase, they’ll mean it in more of the utility computing sense, where you’re renting the services you need from an off-site area. Companies like Salesforce, Google, and Amazon lean more to the  SaaS  meaning of the phrase, where you’re running services that they provide on their equipment. IBM, for one, uses the term to mean whatever it takes to get your business. Either you can run your services on their machines, or they’ll work with you to create custom apps that they also host.

Cloud computing resources

Because so many companies use the term differently, it can be hard to keep up with its meaning. Here are some rescources that discuss cloud computing:

• IBM Introduces Ready-to-Use Cloud Computing
• Computing Heads for the Clouds
• How Cloud & Utility Computing Are Different
• Dell Cloud Computing Solutions
• Amazon Web Services @ Amazon.com

Cloud computing resources on TechRepublic and ZDNet include:

• Is Google’s Plan Realistic or Do They Have Their Heads in the Cloud?
• Putting the Desktop in the Clouds
• Cloud Computing: A Look at the Myths
• How Much Is a Unit of Cloud Computing?
• Enterprise Cloud Computing Gathers Steam

Finallly, CBS Interactive’s News.com has a video with Dan Farber that covers some of the issues around clould computing.

The bottom line for IT Leaders

When a vendor starts throwing terms like “cloud computing” at you, try not to let your eyes glaze over. Depending on what the vendor’s main line of business is, they could mean several things with the term. Just remember what cloud computing can mean to you — taking some of the systems that you’re using now and handing them over to someone else. This can be a good thing from a management and budgetary standpoint, but it can be a bad thing from a security and reliabilty standpoint.

When you take all of it together, you can drill through the fog of the marketing meaning of cloud computing to see if the vendor is selling nothing but air.