Smart phones make stupid people. And stupid people are in charge of your life.
In the course of my journeys across the information centers of various corporate and government organizations, I've learned of a phenomenon in the office ecology: the amount of exposure one has to a Blackberry, the less inclined they are for rational discussion of anything. It seems that the newer and more expensive model of phone, the more profound this correlation becomes. At the same time, as one acquires positions of authority and power, they use their newfound affluence to purchase dehumanizing gadgets that they hope will reduce their exposure to underlings and other creatures that you wouldn't normally encounter on the golf course.
Evidence? So I'm advising the director of technology for a municipal public school system (that will remain nameless for at least this post) on how to make his reporting system - for which he had purchased 30 licenses - work concurrently for more than 30 people. This was a tack-on for a larger systems integration project - had this been the sole focus of the consult, I doubt they would have found a respectable consultant to take it on. Any solution other than paying for the capacity he desired was acceptible. And of course, he had ideas for why he expected it could be done. 1) He wanted to do it. 2) Reports come in PDF format, and therefore are files, and users shouldn't need to use up a reporting system license to access files.
So far, a respectable rationale for a 15 year old hacker. Never mind that the reports in question produce different results for every user which vary from hour to hour. These are dynamically generated streams of information that never actually exist on a file system, and require credentials - which translates to consumption of a license - to receive. He's feverishly stabbing at emails on his phone with a 4 inch stylus and can't afford to expend the 30 seconds of attention required to receive enough data in his earholes to prevent his division from losing over $4k a day for the next month trying to make this work. In the end, he ultimately admitted to not understanding a damned thing I was talking about because his attention was divided amongst too many (2) things.
This isn't about nerd griping. The point is, there was no accountability or fallout after this failure of leadership and phenominal waste of resources, because it happens every day and has practically become a side effect of operations in many organizations. The efforts of those in charged are extolled by the cheerleaders in middle management that work under them who are all scared shitless over losing their career momentum or jobs, because at the end of the day even they have trouble figuring out how what they do adds value to the organization. I've witnessed it at at least as many organizations as I haven't - school systems, pharmaceutical companies, corporate services, manufacturing... ultimately, all of this is baked into the cost of something that most people need: medicine, education, internet or phone service, etc. So, either costs go up or quality goes down. And Mr. Smartphone gets a raise either way because he's the one that gets to plead THAT case to the board of directors or the shareholders.
I have to wonder if the reason that we're in a economic downturn is because at some point some jackass was too busy wrestling with his email apps to hear the rarely uttered challenge to an ultimately doomed course of action:
"Maybe we shouldn't lend money to people who can't pay it back"
"Maybe properties are being overvalued arbitrarily by consumer frenzy"
"Perhaps we shouldn't take all our advice on middle east policy from people who stand to gain from bad decisions"
Or maybe it's just because an idea doesn't cause our heads to explode upon hearing it, we think it's a good one. That's a whole 'nother gripe.
In the course of my journeys across the information centers of various corporate and government organizations, I've learned of a phenomenon in the office ecology: the amount of exposure one has to a Blackberry, the less inclined they are for rational discussion of anything. It seems that the newer and more expensive model of phone, the more profound this correlation becomes. At the same time, as one acquires positions of authority and power, they use their newfound affluence to purchase dehumanizing gadgets that they hope will reduce their exposure to underlings and other creatures that you wouldn't normally encounter on the golf course.
Evidence? So I'm advising the director of technology for a municipal public school system (that will remain nameless for at least this post) on how to make his reporting system - for which he had purchased 30 licenses - work concurrently for more than 30 people. This was a tack-on for a larger systems integration project - had this been the sole focus of the consult, I doubt they would have found a respectable consultant to take it on. Any solution other than paying for the capacity he desired was acceptible. And of course, he had ideas for why he expected it could be done. 1) He wanted to do it. 2) Reports come in PDF format, and therefore are files, and users shouldn't need to use up a reporting system license to access files.
So far, a respectable rationale for a 15 year old hacker. Never mind that the reports in question produce different results for every user which vary from hour to hour. These are dynamically generated streams of information that never actually exist on a file system, and require credentials - which translates to consumption of a license - to receive. He's feverishly stabbing at emails on his phone with a 4 inch stylus and can't afford to expend the 30 seconds of attention required to receive enough data in his earholes to prevent his division from losing over $4k a day for the next month trying to make this work. In the end, he ultimately admitted to not understanding a damned thing I was talking about because his attention was divided amongst too many (2) things.
This isn't about nerd griping. The point is, there was no accountability or fallout after this failure of leadership and phenominal waste of resources, because it happens every day and has practically become a side effect of operations in many organizations. The efforts of those in charged are extolled by the cheerleaders in middle management that work under them who are all scared shitless over losing their career momentum or jobs, because at the end of the day even they have trouble figuring out how what they do adds value to the organization. I've witnessed it at at least as many organizations as I haven't - school systems, pharmaceutical companies, corporate services, manufacturing... ultimately, all of this is baked into the cost of something that most people need: medicine, education, internet or phone service, etc. So, either costs go up or quality goes down. And Mr. Smartphone gets a raise either way because he's the one that gets to plead THAT case to the board of directors or the shareholders.
I have to wonder if the reason that we're in a economic downturn is because at some point some jackass was too busy wrestling with his email apps to hear the rarely uttered challenge to an ultimately doomed course of action:
"Maybe we shouldn't lend money to people who can't pay it back"
"Maybe properties are being overvalued arbitrarily by consumer frenzy"
"Perhaps we shouldn't take all our advice on middle east policy from people who stand to gain from bad decisions"
Or maybe it's just because an idea doesn't cause our heads to explode upon hearing it, we think it's a good one. That's a whole 'nother gripe.
"Maybe we shouldn't lend money to people who can't pay it back"
Then I would never have any stuff, yet alone a house