Industry Commentary – Page 326 – IS Survivor Publishing

Mail call on fat network architectures (first appeared in InfoWorld)

Microsoft’s posturing over AOL’s “obligation” to open up its proprietary instant messaging protocol was pretty funny; Micron Electronics’ plan to buy Micron Internet Services from their mutual parent Micron Technology is just plain bizarre. But Oracle’s Larry Ellison, topping the rest of the industry, wins in the definitions category by describing his company’s planned $150 (plus monitor) diskless Linux desktop system as a “network computer”.

This is a system that has 64MB of RAM and runs a Unix variant and applications that are installed locally from a CD-ROM. That makes it a network computer? So, I guess, is the iMac. It’s OK. Ellison coined the term “network computer.” He can define it as he pleases.

Speaking of newly coined buzzwords, my recent columns on fat network architectures generated a lot of e-mail and discussion in InfoWorld.com’s forums.

Many respondents disagreed with my proposition that “thin client” has lost all meaning. Several explained what the term “really” means. Regrettably, no two proposed the same definition …

Other exchanges centered on my conclusion that the one thing thin client architectures all share is their need for a fatter network (hence the name). Either missing my inclusion of servers as part of the network or disagreeing with it, they pointed to products such as Citrix and Virtual Network Computing (VNC) that make efficient use of bandwidth. Since fat network is my term, though, I get to define it, and servers are in.

VNC’s advocates in particular were emphatic about the wonders of their thin-client solution, and challenged me to “prove” my assertion that thinner clients require fatter networks. (Answer: See my definition, above.) If the number of capitalized sentences and exclamation points in its proponents’ postings is a gauge, VNC is worth exploring. The number of capitalized sentences and exclamation points also demonstrates the need for a more businesslike approach to product advocacy if the open source movement is to succeed.

In the end, when the flames had died and the smoke finally cleared, only a few points seemed certain regarding thin-client/fat-network computing:

1. Misuse of the term “thin client” has rendered it worthless. It now means “non-Windows desktops.”

2. The only benefits common to all fat network computing solutions are that they’re easier to deploy, stabilize and administer (please, not “administrate”) than applications installed on Windows desktops. Note to all who wrote: They aren’t more stable, only easier to make stable.

3. Browser-based computing benefits end-users – it allows IS to deploy applications that otherwise would be impractical to create at all.

4. The lonely defenders of HTML-only interfaces acknowledged their limitations, instead asserting that end-users need nothing more. Anyone who has filled out an on-screen purchase order knows better, though – HTML lacks basic facilities, like scrolling regions. To make browser-based applications competitive with modern GUIs you need combinations of JavaScript, Java applets and servlets, ASP, Perl … Techniques for maintaining applications built on all this stuff don’t exist.

5. NCs let you build rich user interfaces at the cost of locking down the desktop – sometimes appropriate, sometimes not – but at the cost of incompatible file formats for office applications. Lotus’ latest version of eSuite may change that, though, opening the door for a mixed PC/NC architecture.

Finally, at least within my unscientific sample, advocacy of thin clients and disdain for end-users correlate strongly. In the “real world,” I’m told, the only software end-users install is games and screen savers; IS knows what end-users need to succeed better than the end-users themselves; and what matters is what’s good for the company, not what helps individual employees do their jobs. Then in the next sentence or posting, I hear that IS lacks the resources to take care of every need in the company.

Put it all together and it comes down to the same, tired formula: We won’t do it for you and we won’t let you do it for yourself because we can’t trust you with the tools.

In IS, I guess, we need to update the old proverb thusly: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he’ll wreck everything.”

Scientific stereotyping (first appeared in InfoWorld)

Consultants collect team-building tools. There’s the “make a square out of these parts” exercise (solution — team members have to swap parts). There’s the penny exercise — everyone gets a penny (for their thoughts, of course) and has to relate a personal anecdote from the year the penny was coined (“1951 … I was conceived.”)

One year, I participated in “Match the secret to the team member,” so often that I didn’t need the Internet to eliminate my right to privacy — by the end of the year I’d even had to reveal that I’d played Glockenspiel in my high school marching band.

These are just ice-breakers. When you want to get hard-core about team building, nothing compares to personality profiling tools. Myers-Briggs, DISCO, Forte … you could choose one for each team member and have tools left over.

Don’t get me wrong — these things do have value. People tend to see the world through their own eyes. Lacking a degree in psychology I can only speculate as to why. My guess is that it’s because connecting someone else’s optic nerves to our own visual processing centers is too hard.

Unfortunately, content to use only our own eyes, we take the next illogical step and conclude that the way we think is the only valid one. That attitude leads to cliques, not to effective teams — when everyone thinks the same, whether two people or ten focus on a problem, the range of solutions they develop will be about the same.

Personality profiles help frame discussions of how different thought patterns complement each other in crafting optimal designs and solutions. With IS and Marketing interacting with increasing frequency, the importance of appreciating diversity of thought can’t be overstated.

Regrettably, that’s rarely where the conversation stops.

Instead, team members commonly use their personality profiles as a stereotyping tool. Having learned that there are just sixteen kinds of human being (or eight team roles, or four determinants of personality, or what-have-you), team members use each others profiles to build ad hominem arguments during disputes (“Well of course you think that — you’re a Perceiver!”) and excuses for themselves (“That’s not a natural act for me — I’m low-empathy.”)

The worst part of some of these tools is that they’re built on forced-choice selection of false dichotomies. Are you a driver or an analytical? Yes, I am … depending on what the circumstances require.

Okay, that’s the second-worst part. The worst part is that these tools should be opening people to new possibilities — new ways of thinking about things. They ought to be expanding horizons, and instead they have the exact opposite effect.

There’s another version of this “scientific stereotyping” that’s even more pernicious. You don’t have to look very far to find books and articles explaining how to manage Generation X’ers, the difference between male and female leadership styles, or how to motivate the vertically challenged (Hint: Don’t play Randy Newman over the intercom).

Let’s follow this logic: I have a 27-year-old team member. She works in my area, we work together on a regular basis, and I meet with her one-on-one every two weeks. To understand what motivates her … I know — I’ll read a book written by authors who have never met her!

Works for me.

Want to motivate a twenty-something employee? Want to understand a new female manager’s leadership style? Do you have an African-American on your team and you aren’t sure what he needs to succeed?

Here’s an advanced leadership technique, hitherto known only to Zen masters living at high altitude in remote regions, brought back to the United States by a courageous consultant since assassinated by the cult charged with protecting the secret:

Get to know your employees. Empathize with them. Ask them what’s important to them. Treat them as individuals.

I know it’s more complicated than administering a Myers-Briggs test and reading a book, but if you master these techniques you’ll be a far more effective leader.

But then, I have to think that way … I’m an INTP.