The Four Noble Truths

Some great Buddhist philosophical insights here for keeping perspective on life and work and remaining personally selfless, detached from transient things, and constantly self-improving (from The Big View).

1. Life means suffering.

To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves and our loved ones will pass away one day, too.

2. The origin of suffering is attachment.

The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short:craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a "self" which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call "self" is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe.

3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.

The cessation of suffering can be attained through nirodha. Nirodha means the unmaking of sensual craving and conceptual attachment. The third noble truth expresses the idea that suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion. Nirodha extinguishes all forms of clinging and attachment. This means that suffering can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. Attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Nirvana is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it.

4. The path to the cessation of suffering.

There is a path to the end of suffering - a gradual path of self-improvement, which is described more detailed in the Eightfold Path. It is the middle way between the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism); and it leads to the end of the cycle of rebirth. The latter quality discerns it from other paths which are merely "wandering on the wheel of becoming", because these do not have a final object. The path to the end of suffering can extend over many lifetimes, throughout which every individual rebirth is subject to karmic conditioning. Craving, ignorance, delusions, and its effects will disappear gradually, as progress is made on the path.

The Four Noble Truths

What China’s Bullet Trains Can Teach Us About Governance

One of the foundations of this great country is that we believe in respecting the rights of the individual. This belief is founded on the Judeo-Christian doctrine that every life is valuable and the loss of even one life is like the loss of an entire world.

The rights of the individuals are enshrined in the Bill of Rights that establishes what we consider our fundamental human rights, such as freedom of speech, press, religion, due process, eminent domain, and many others.

The flip side of the protection of individual rights—which is sacred to us—is that it may occasionally come at some “expense” to the collective. This can occur when those individuals who may be adversely affected by a decision, hinder overall societal progress. For example, one could argue that society benefits from the building of highways, clean energy nuclear plants, even prison facilities. Yet, we frequently hear the refrain of “not in my backyard” when these projects are under consideration.

In my neighborhood, where a new train line is proposed, there are signs up and down the street, of people adversely affected, opposing it—whether in the end it is good, bad or indifferent for the community as a whole.

So on one hand we have the rights and valid concerns of the individual, yet on the other hand, we have the progress of the collective. Sure, there are ways to compensate those individuals who are adversely affected by group decisions, but the sheer process of debate—however valuable and justified, indeed—may slow the overall speed of progress down.

Why is this an especially critical issue now?

In a high speed networked world with vast global competition—nation versus nation, corporation versus corporation—speed to market can make a great deal of difference. For example, the speed of the U.S. in the arms and space race with Soviet Union left just one global superpower standing. Similarly, many companies and in fact whole industries have been shut down because they have been overtaken, leapfrogged by the competition. So speed and innovation does matter.

For example, in the field of information technology, where Moore’s Law dictates a new generation of technology every two years of so, the balance of speed to modernization with a foundation of sound IT governance is critical to how we must do business.

Fortune Magazine has an article called “China’s Amazing New Bullet Train (it leaves America in the Dust!)”

China’s new ultra-modern rail system will be almost 16,000 miles of new track running train at up to 220 miles per hours by 2020. China is investing their economic stimulus package of $585 billion strategically with $50 billion going this year alone to the rail system. This compares with the U.S. allocating only $8 billion for high-speed trains over the next three years. Note: that the high speed Amtrak Acela train between Boston and Washington, DC goes a whopping average speed of 79 mph.

One of the reasons that China’s free market is credited with amazing economic progress—for example, GDP growth this year projected at 8.3% (in the global recession)—is their ability to retain some elements of what the military calls a “command and control” structure. This enables decisions to get made and executed more quickly than what others may consider endless rounds of discourse. The down side of course is that without adequate and proper discussion and debate, poor decisions can get made and executed, and individuals’ human rights can get overlooked and in fact sidelined. (Remember the shoddy school construction that resulted in almost 7000 classrooms getting destroyed and many children dying in the Earthquake in China in May 2008?)

So the question is how do we protect the individual and at the same time keep pace—and where possible, maintain or advance our societal strategic competitive advantage?

It seems that there is a cost to moving too slowly in terms of our ability to compete in a timely fashion. Yet, there is also a cost to moving too quickly and making poorly vetted decisions that do not take into account all the facts or all the people affected. Either extreme can hurt us.

What is important is that we govern with true openness, provide justice for all affected, and maintain a process that helps—and does not hinder—timely decisions action.

We cannot afford to make poor decisions—these are expensive—nor do we have the luxury of getting caught up in “analysis paralysis.”

Of course, there are many ways to approach this. One way is to continue to refine our governance processes so that they are just to the individual and agile for our society by continuing to simplify and streamline the decision process, while ensuring that everyone is heard and accounted for. Recently we have seen the use of new information sharing and collaboration technologies, like those provided through social media—wikis, blogs, social networks and more—that can help us to do exchange ideas and work together faster than ever before. Embracing these new technologies can help us to pick up the pace of the vetting process while at the same time enabling more people than ever to participate.

Perhaps social media is one of the only things faster than China’s new bullet trains in helping us to progress how we do business in the 21st century.

What China’s Bullet Trains Can Teach Us About Governance

How to Strengthen the Office of the CIO - Part II

Punlished at Government Technology

[Editor's Note: This article is the second in a series that explores the CIO Support Services Framework in government.]

In Part 1 of The CIO Support Services Framework, I presented the six major components needed to support the public CIO in managing IT strategically and proactively. In this article, I will explain what IT best practices framework inform these six components and propose a structure for implementing it.

The six CIO Support Services Framework (CSSF) functions are distinct areas that require subject-matter expertise and need to be managed based on the various IT best practice frameworks. While I am not endorsing any particular best practice government or industry framework, below is a sampling according to CSSF functional area:

Enterprise Architecture (EA) -- Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF), and The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF).

Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) -- Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130--"Management of Federal Information Resources" and the Control Objectives for Information and related Technologies (COBIT) by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and the IT Governance Institute (ITGI).

Project Management Office (PMO) -- the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) by the Project Management Institute is the de facto standard project management best practices from initiation through project closeout.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) -- the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) by the United Kingdom's Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and International Standards Organization (ISO) 20000--"IT Service Management." While both are very much operational frameworks, they can also be used to guide service and support at a strategic level in the OCIO.

IT Security (ITS) -- the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), various Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) from the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), and International Organization for Standardization ISO/IEC 17799 -- Information Technology Code of Practice for Information Security Management.

Business Performance Measurement (BPM) -- the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) by Kaplan and Norton from Harvard Business School -- examines financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth measures for the organization.

Although each of the six main functional areas and their supporting best practice frameworks are unique, they can and will overlap, and it is imperative that the OCIO develop a simple and streamlined process for managing these, so that IT and business personnel are not confused or burdened by redundant or circuitous IT processes that hinder, rather than spur innovation and agility. For example, while EA planning guides CPIC IT investment decisions, those decisions inform the next round of EA planning -- it is inherently cyclical. Nevertheless, we must ensure that the overall process flow between all six areas is as clear and simple as possible.

I like to use the example of a Monopoly game board as an analogy for how IT processes should ideally progress from "Go" all the way through -- logically, and more or less sequentially -- without project mishap, ending up on the OMB Watch List for risky IT projects, the equivalent of landing in Monopoly "jail."

The CSSF provides the functional resources to fully support the OCIO and provide the capability to move from simply fighting day-to-day operational problems to strategically managing IT service provision, improving performance and increasing program and project success, through:

Planning (EA)

Investing (CPIC)

Executing (PMO)

Servicing (CRM)

Securing (ITS)

Measuring (BPM)

Each of these OCIO component functions is helpful in managing IT by providing the CIO the capability to better plan, invest, execute, service, secure and measure -- but these are not stand-alone functions -- they are all necessary and complementary.

An organization can have the best EA plan, but without the structured investment processes of CPIC, the plan will not drive, guide, influence and shape IT investment decision-making. In fact, I would propose that CPIC is an enforcement mechanism for carrying out the EA plan.

Similarly the organization can have a wonderful CPIC process for making IT investment decisions, but without a PMO to develop and enforce sound PM policies and practices, IT projects will continue to fail miserably. With an effective PMO, we will have more successful project execution, but without CRM to manage customer requirements and service and support issues, we run a very high risk of rolling out IT capabilities that the customer neither wants nor is happy with. Further, CRM will increase customer satisfaction, but without ITS, CIOs will not ensure the security of the information and systems that the users are depending on.

Finally, with ITS, CIOs will provide users for information security, but without BPM, will miss the opportunity to perform structured performance measurement and management, so that the CIO has visibility to how IT is performing in all areas and on an ongoing basis and can take timely corrective action as needed.

CIO Support Service Framework - Implementation Structure

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Most organizations either don't do any of these CSSF functions well or they don't do them all. The six components need to be executed together -- the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Further, I would propose that the six CSSF functions be implemented under the auspices of the CTO of the organization in order to centralize and holistically manage the functions in support of the CIO.

The result is that the CIO is better supported, without being overwhelmed, and the CTO has a clear mandate for strategically implementing the CIO's vision for the organization.

Of course, one of the biggest challenges to implementing the CSSF is finding and allocating the needed funding to support these OCIO functions. IT operations tend to be underfunded already and stuck in the perpetual firefighting mode. Executives often fearf siphoning the needed money or people away from the short-term firefight to work on long-term strategy and implementation. This is a serious mistake!

Firefighting is a losing battle if you attack only the symptoms, but never address the cause or core strategic issues. Moreover, in the fast-paced technology environment of the 21st century, no IT leader can afford to be looking backward -- managing legacy systems that do not leverage modern technologies, techniques and methodologies for information sharing, collaboration and business intelligence.

If you are spending close to 100 percent on IT operations today, is it really unreasonable to allocate 3 to 5 percent of this to strategy, planning and control? Of course, this needs to adjust when IT budgets get extremely large or small and as the complexity of the organization shifts.

As the prior chief enterprise architect of the U.S. Coast Guard and of the United States Secret Service, I have always been a deep proponent of EA and CPIC to drive better IT investment decision-making. However, now as the chief technology officer (CTO) of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, I more fully understand how the CSSF functions and interplay are needed for the CIO to perform effectively.

Clearly EA and CPIC are not enough to adequately support the CIO's needs, and thus, they need to be extended with PMO, CRM, ITS and BPM. Moreover, these areas function best that function together for the reasons I mentioned prior -- it's a clear domino effect, where astute planning, sound governance, skilled project management practices, competent customer service, solid IT security and meaningful performance measurement are all necessary for the CIO to manage IT more strategically and effectively.??This is why I firmly believe that the CIO Support Services Framework is how we are going to have to manage IT to achieve genuine success for the CIO in the 21st century and beyond.

_______________________________________

Andy Blumenthal is chief technology officer at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A regular speaker and published author, Blumenthal blogs at User-Centric Enterprise Architecture and The Total CIO. These are his personal views and do not represent those of his agency.

How to Strengthen the Office of the CIO - Part II

How to Strengthen the Office of the CIO - Part I

Published at Government Technology

[Note: This is a two-part article on strengthening the office of the CIO to improve IT operations. Part 1 examines the six components of a CIO Support Services Framework. Part 2 will explore best practices and implementation.]

Information technology is plagued with what federal CIO Vivek Kundra recently called "magnificent failures." A recent research survey by theStandish Group identified that more than 80 percent of IT projects were either failing or significantly at risk. Another article described the CIO's role as a nearly impossible job, trying to manage day-to-day firefighting with limited to no ability to get control and manage strategically.

We are investing massive sums of money, time and effort, only to disappoint customers, miss the mark on requirements and fail to deliver on time, within budget and to specifications.

The CIO Support Services Framework (CSSF) is an approach for changing the dynamic of failed IT projects and putting the CIO and other IT leadership back in the driver's seat, by ensuring that the structural components for success are identified, elevated and resourced appropriately.

The focus of this article is to identify, describe and link the core elements that make up and support an Office of the CIO for the purpose of demonstrating how that will lead to improved IT operations. When the CIO is properly supported, program and project management can be executed with strategic intent and alignment.

It is not my aim to discuss the pros and cons of the many solid approaches to IT project and program management today, such as the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT), Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 20000. I will say that while each is comprehensive in its own right, they are skewed by a particular emphasis on a particular function. For instance, FEA looks at architecture planning, ITIL on service support and delivery, PMBOK on project management and so on. What the CIO needs for ultimate success is a way to incorporate elements of all of these perspectives into a bigger picture.

CIO Support Service Framework

Image copyright by Andy Blumenthal

So what is the CSSF? It is an IT framework aimed at standing up and strengthening an office of the CIO so that it can lead strategically and drive improved IT operations. The idea is that just as business drives (or ought to drive) technology within the greater organization, so too within the function of IT, the CIO and his or her strategy must drive technology operations rather than just fighting fires.

In the typical IT organization, CIOs are expected to be both strategist and problem-solver, with little supporting strategic infrastructure to guide, influence, shape and drive their key decisions about IT operations. All too often, problems crop up and even the most skilled and well intentioned CIOs are left to make decisions based on gut, intuition, politics and subjective management whim.

Even if the CIO has an IT governance board to shoulder some of this responsibility, together they are still like blind people grasping in the dark for answers. This framework corrects the structural defects in today's IT organization that cause this situation to occur.

The CSSF has six major components:

1. Enterprise Architecture (EA) -- for strategic, tactical, and operational planning in the organization. EA includes all perspectives of the organization's architecture including: performance, business, information (data and geospatial), services or systems), technology, security, and human capital (this last one is currently missing from the Federal Enterprise Architecture).

In EA planning, we develop the current architecture--where we are today in terms of business and technology resources, the target--where we want to be in the future through business process improvement and technology enablement, and the transition plan--how do we get from where we are today to where we want to be in the future.

More mature EA's provide business, data, and systems models, and identify gaps, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities in the business and IT and recommend business process improvement, reengineering, and new technologies to improve organizational performance.

2. Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) or IT governance -- manages the IT investment decision processes of selecting, controlling, and evaluating new or major changes to the IT portfolio ( i.e. to put those plans to work and make them pay-off). CPIC can ensure that IT investments maximize return on investment, minimize or mitigate risk and provide for strategic alignment to the business.

CPIC also helps make IT investments technically compliant by ensuring that desirable IT behaviors are followed, such as information sharing and quality, interoperability, component reuse, standardization, simplification, cost-efficiency, and of course security.

3. Project Management Office (PMO) -- oversees the effective execution on the IT projects. These projects derive from the EA technical roadmap and transition strategy and from IT investment decisions coming out of the governance board(s) in CPIC. Project management is how we manage all facets of a project to include scope, schedule, cost, quality, project resources, integration, communications, and more, from the initiation of a project through its closeout. Project managers typically develop the work breakdown structures, project schedules, and monitor and manage progress to these.

4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or IT service management -- for managing service and support to our customer with "one call does it all". As opposed to customer management within IT operations which is focused on helpdesk, availability, break-fix, and support issues, CRM in support of the CIO is focused on serving as IT liaisons to the business responsible for overall customer satisfaction, generating and managing customer requirements, supporting business case development, and handling internal business complaints, issues, and coordinating problem resolution with IT operations.

5. IT Security (ITS) -- how we conduct IT security policy and planning. This function encompasses how we plan, assess, and enforce IT security, and not the actual implementation of IT Security, which is an operational IT function. This functional area includes preparing certifications and accreditations, risk assessments, security plans, vulnerability testing, security awareness training, and security policies. IT security ensures the confidentiality, availability, integrity, and privacy of the organizations information.

6. Business Performance Management (BPM) -- how we measure and drive performance, so we know whether we are hitting the EA target or not. BPM involves identifying performance measures, capturing, analyzing and reporting on metrics, and providing the CIO with IT executive dashboard views to inform which programs and projects that are on track, challenged and in jeopardy of failure.

Typically BPM provides for a drill-down capability, so high-level "red-yellow-green" program/project indicators and milestones can be decomposed into lower levels of detail for trends, analysis and making course corrections. BPM should provide a feedback mechanism for how the IT function is performing and drive continuous process and performance improvement in the CIO organization.

Together these six areas make up a holistic and synergistic set of support functions constitute a fully capable Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) in the center.

In creating a strong OCIO, the CIO Support Services Framework wisely separates the policy, planning and oversight functions from the IT operations. This is beneficial in two main ways: First, this enables the CIO to strategically and proactively direct IT operations, rather than being in perpetual firefighting and reactive mode. Second, the separation of duties -- strategy from operations -- creates a healthier organizational dynamic and interplay in IT, where the fox is not left guarding the chicken coop.

Part 2 of this article will explore IT best practice frameworks and implementation of the CIO Support Services Framework.

_____________________________________

Andy Blumenthal is chief technology officer at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A regular speaker and published author, Blumenthal blogs at User-Centric Enterprise Architecture and The Total CIO. These are his personal views and do not represent those of his agency.

How to Strengthen the Office of the CIO - Part I

How To Use Social Media Strategically

How To Use Social Media Strategically in the Federal Government on Howcast

This is an outstanding 3 minute video on Social Media from General Services Administation (GSA) and HowCast.com

The video provides 6 "how-to" steps to implementing social media for the purposes of collaboration, information sharing, information exchange, keeping pace of fast moving events in real-time, and harnessing the collective ingenuity of the public to support mission.

As the video states, "The key is to focus on the organization's goals."

How To Use Social Media Strategically

Health Care Reform is Technologically Deficient

The debate on the news, in the streets, and on the Hill these days is health care reform—getting insurance coverage for those who lack it. And while this is an important and noble pursuit, there is something extraordinary absent from the health care reform discussion—and that is technology—in terms of how we get better care to everyone, the uninsured and insured alike?

We are living with a health care system that is functioning devoid of the most basic technology aids—such as electronic medical records, electronic scheduling, e-appointments with doctors using IM or video, electronic prescription handling, and much more.

If the finance industry is at the advanced end of the technology spectrum, the medical industry is at the extreme low end—and how sad a commentary is that: is our money more important to us than our health?

An article in Fast Company in May 2009 called “The Doctor of the Future” states: “This is a $2.4 trillion industry run on handwritten notes. We’re using 3,000 year-old tools to deliver health care in the richest country on the planet.”

The health care system is broken for sure, but it goes way beyond the 45 million American’s that lack insurance.

• “Health care accounts for $1 in every $6 spent in the United States.”
• “Costs are climbing at twice the rate of inflation.”
• “Every year, an estimated 1.5 million families lose their homes because of medical bills.”
• “Although we have the word’s most expensive health-care system, 24 counties have a longer life expectancy and 34 have a lower infant-mortality rate.”

Based on these numbers, the medical industry in this country is overcharging and under-delivering, and part of the reason for this–as Fast Company states is the lack of technological innovation: “one of the paradoxes of modern medicine is that it demands continual innovation yet often resists change.”

New medical technology programs are available that provide for a vastly improved patient experience.

For example, using the Myca platform the user-experience is simpler, faster, and cheaper. Here’s a view of how it would work: “your profile shows your medical team…to make an appointment, you look at the doctors schedule, select a time slot or at least half an hour and the type of appointment (in-person, video, IM), and fill out a text box describing your ailment so the doctor can start thinking about treatment. Typically follow ups are e-visits. A timeline doted with icons representing appointments lets you review the doctors comments, read the IM thread, watch the video of an earlier electronic house call or link t test results.”

Using other technological advances, we could also benefit the patient by being able to:

• Send electronic prescriptions to the pharmacy and automatically check for drug interaction.
• Enter a patient’s symptoms and test results and get a comprehensive software generated diagnosis along with the probability of each result as well as other pertinent tests for the doctor to consider.
• Provide electronic medical records that can be shared securely with medical providers including medical history, exam notes, tests ordered and results, and drugs prescribed.
• Utilize telemedicine for consultation with medical providers anywhere and anytime.
• And even apply robots to surgical procedures that result in less invasive, more effective, quicker recovery rates, and with less chance of infection.

None of this is science fiction…and this is all possible today.

Therefore, if we are going to call for a revamp to our health care system, let’s go beyond the coverage issue and address the logjam on quality of care for all Americans.

Absolutely we need to address the 18% uninsured in this country, but while we do that and figure out how to pay for it, let’s also deal with providing 21st century care to all our citizens through the modernization of our medical industry benefitting both the patients and medical providers through more efficient and effective care-giving.

Health Care Reform is Technologically Deficient

Faith or Fear?

I love stories of hope and possibility.

I read in the Washington Post, 1 August 2009, about cars that actually enable blind people to drive. This was one of those stories.

In 2004, a challenge was issued from a blindness advocacy group “to build a vehicle that the blind could drive with the same freedom as the sighted.”

Around the same time, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—the same government agency that brought us the Internet—“ran a series of contests to inspire a driverless car that could navigate complex terrain.”

However, at Virginia Tech’s Robot’s & Mechanism Laboratory the challenge of “an autonomous vehicle wasn’t enough. We want the blind person to be the driver, not to be driven.”

To meet this once unthinkable goal, the design team developed a prototype vehicle that blind students this summer are actually testing.

Here’s how the vehicle works: An all-terrain vehicle with a front-mounted laser sensor sweeps the terrain ahead, and a computer in the back processes the information into a two-dimensional map. A computer voice tells the driver through headphones what number of clicks to turn the wheel to steer around obstacles and a vest vibrates to indicate whether the driver should slow down or stop.

By challenging ourselves, bringing innovation to the table, thinking positively, and working through the challenges, we are able to bring opportunities to people that many thought were impossible.

Yet even today, I heard people reacting to this story and saying “Oh, I wouldn’t want a blind person driving behind me.”

But why not? There are reasons to believe that this can work.

First of all, in the vehicle tests, the blind drivers actually did better than the engineers because they followed the directions coming from the computer more precisely.

Second, when it comes to other modes of transportation such as flying, people no longer seriously question the use of technology to aid our ability to see, navigate and fly through all sorts of weather and turbulent conditions. Now a days, a large commercial airplane flying at hundreds of miles an hour over densely populated cities on autopilot is an accepted fact.

I believe there are really two issues here:

On one hand, is the technology itself. How far can technology take us—are there limits?

And the second issue is can people overcome their mindset of fear, doubt, hesitation, and negativity to really stretch the bounds of the imagination to the what’s truly possible?

I think both the issues of technology and mindset are strongly related.

Obviously there are laws of nature and physics that place real limits on even how far technology can take us. Yet, as we press against the boundaries and test the seemingly impossible, we are able do things that practically defy those very laws. For example, who would’ve thought that man could fly like the birds, walk on the moon, communicate thousands of miles in a split second, or cure the incurable? Perhaps, what we perceive as physical limitations are only there until we can figure out how to overcome them with innovation and technology—and of course, the wisdom bestowed from the almighty.

By realizing that the boundaries are not so hard and fast—that they are elastic—we can have hope in going further and doing the seemingly impossible.

Certainly, I recognize the very real legitimacy of the concerns that people might have over the thought of blind people in the driver’s seat. However we must ask ourselves how much of this concern is based on rational, logical factors and how much on a misperception or mistrust of what technology—and blind people themselves—can actually do. To me, it really comes down to one’s mindset.

Through faith, courage, conviction, we can overcome our doubts and fears. We can and must continue to explore, to test the bounds, and to innovate some more.

Faith or Fear?

Enterprise Architecture Design

User-centric Enterprise Architecture provides information to decision-makers using design thinking, so as to make the information easy to understand and apply to planning and investment decisions.

Some examples of how we do this:

1. Simplifying complex information by speaking the language of the business (and not all techie).
2. Unifying disparate information to give a holistic view that breaks the traditional vertical (or functional) views and instead looks horizontally across the organization to foster enterprise solutions where we build once and reuse multiple times.
3. Visualizing information to condense lots of information and tell a story—as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
4. Segmenting end-users and tailoring EA information products to the different user groups which we do with profiles geared to executive decision makers, models for mid-level managers, and inventories for the analysts.

Interestingly enough, in the summer issue of MIT Sloan Management Review, there is an article called “How to Become a Better Manager…By thinking Like a Designer.”

Here are some design pointers from the experts that you can use to aid your enterprise architectures (they are written to parallel the principles from User-centric EA, as I have previously described above):

1. Embrace simplicity—“people often confuse simplicity…with simplistic….it takes courage to be simple…and the simplest solution is often the best.”
2. Look for patterns in the data—“good problem solvers become proficient at identifying patterns.” Further, designers seek “harmony to bring together hierarchy, balance, contrast, and clear space in a meaningful way.”
3. Apply visual thinking—often managers…rely heavily on data and information to tell the story and miss the opportunity to create context and meaning,” instead managers need to “think of themselves as designers, visual thinkers or storytellers.”
4. Presenting clearly to specific end-users—“good design is about seeing and communicating clearly.” Moreover, it’s about “seeing things from the clients point of view…designers learn pretty quickly that is not about Me, it’s about You.”

MIT Sloan states “we have come to realize over the past few years that design-focused organizations do better financially than their less design-conscious competitors…design is crafting communications to answer audience needs in the most effective way.”

This is a fundamental lesson: organizations that apply the User-centric Enterprise Architecture design approach will see superior results than legacy EA development efforts that built “artifacts” made up primarily of esoteric eye charts that users could not readily understand and apply.

Enterprise Architecture Design

Finding the Meaning In It All

What a great, great article in the Wall Street Journal—Tuesday, July 14, 2009—“A New View, After Diagnosis” about how “cancer patients find meaning in the face of mortality…how can you live knowing that you’re going to die?”

To me, the article was inspiring, hopeful, and courageous.

A new therapy called meaning-centered psychotherapy addresses the question that cancer patients have: “How do I live in the space between my diagnosis and my eventual death.” And it answers the call with the philosophy of the Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl, who taught, “people can endure any suffering if they know their life has meaning.”

Meaning-centered psychotherapy works with cancer patients to make “the months or years of life that remain times of extraordinary growth” of “reconnecting with the many sources of meaning in life—love, work, history, family relationships,” and of resolving issues of our past.

Through spiritual well being, we can reduce our anxiety and fear of death and find meaning in life and the legacy we can leave behind.

No, this article wasn’t about work or technology or leadership per se and yet it was about all of them so much more.

How often do we go through our daily lives and question the meaning of it all? (What’s life really all about? What’s it all for? Why do we work so hard? Who really cares? What affect does it have in the end, anyway?)

In fact, all our lives we are searching for and desperately seeking spiritual meaning in what we do.

We are multi-faceted people. We have professional lives, families, friends, community, hobbies, and so forth. And we try to imbue spirituality in what we do every day—to elevate the mundane into the holy—to make the meetings, reports, bills, dirty diapers, dishes, and laundry, meaningful.

Recently, one of my friends who is looking for a new job (in this tough economy) said to me, “I want to find a meaningful job.” And I asked him “what is meaningful to you?” He answered “I’m not sure, but I’ll know it when I see it.”

It seems that we all cognizant of the short time we have here on earth and we want to make the most of it. Yet, despite all the people, activity, and things (“technology toys” or otherwise), we still are not sure what exactly “meaningful” means.

Is the answer really simple and straightforward--is it our good deeds, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and serving our maker? Well yes, of course, but we also have an inherent need to see that there is some positive end-result to our life’s work—a legacy that transcends us. Whether it is through our children and grandchildren that carry onward after us, charitable gifts or trusts that helps feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, or treat the ill, or having a positive influence on the people and society around us—inspiring, motivating, leading, and creating a better world.

Certainly, with a cancer patient, at the crossroads of the life and death, meaning must be found now or lost for all time. Others, not facing imminent death, have more time to explore, experiment, and search for the meaning in their lives. In the end, all of us desire to leave this world with a clear conscience knowing that we did our best, and left the world and the people in it that we touched, better off than had we not lived at all.

Finding the Meaning In It All

Cutting the Budget the Easy Way

Arnold Schwarzenegger , "the Terminator", definitely knows how to cut the budget--with a 2 foot long knife. Yikes!

But all kidding aside, while many critical services were cut to resolve a $42 billion budget deficit in the state of California, Governor Schwartzenegger manages to keep his cool. He posted this video of himself--combining some unique star humor with crowdsourcing--engaging people on new ideas to solve the crisis.

For The Total CIO, this is a great lesson in humility, working on difficult problems (no, not with a knife!), and reaching out to people with humor and passion to get the job done.

Good job Terminator!

Cutting the Budget the Easy Way

Battle of the Tech Titans

Google and Microsoft are going head-to-head, and they are going for the jugular.

ComputerWorld stated in the July 6/July 13, 2009: “Google Set to Wage OS War with Microsoft.” Wired wrote in August 2009 issue according to CEO Eric Schmidt, Google is the “anti-Microsoft”.

According to Wired, the two companies are fighting for the title: King of Technology.

Here’s a quick breakdown:

	Google	Microsoft
Web Browser	Chrome (& FireFox distribution)	Explorer
Operating System	Android, Chrome OS	Windows, XP, Vista, Mobile
Business Productivity Suite	Apps Suite	Office
Search	Google	Bing
Online Advertising	Adwords, Adsense, Doubleclick	aQuantive

On one hand, Google is the undisputed master of the Internet delivering 78.5% of search results in the U.S. (versus 8.2% for Microsoft ) and pulling in $22 billion in revenue in 2008 for text ads. On the other hand, Microsoft owns the personal computer environment with 90% of the operating systems for all laptops and desktops yielding $16 billion in 2008 sales and $14.3 billion in 9 months for it’s productivity applications (versus Google which mostly gives away is email and other online applications); further Microsoft has 70% of the browser market to Google 2% for Chrome. (Wired July 13, 2009)

So is there really a full tech war going on or are Microsoft and Google just chipping away on the edges of each others territory, using so-called guerrilla warfare tactics?

It’s a little of each. Both companies are technology behemoths trying to be the king of the tech jungle. But they have very different approaches. Microsoft believes that computer software is the key to tech kingdom, while Google believes that the Internet is the path to people’s technology hearts.

Google is willing to give away software to challenge Microsoft on its home turf, and Microsoft is investing in its new search engine to erode the core strength of its competitor. It’s a jab for jab face-off where I would imagine we would continue to see the corporate fists flying for as long the two are standing.

From a strategic point of view, Microsoft has such a dominant position on our computers both in our homes and businesses, it is hard to imagine them being easily dethroned. Microsoft also has a war chest and the ability to replenish it to fight a darn good fight. But many companies have been smug and have lost to a determined challenger.

Google is coming out strong for its innovativeness and can’t turn down offer of free products. If the television business is any predictor of a winner-take-all, television’s advertising revenue built an incredible entertainment industry that we all enjoy and which still largely dominates today.

And now I think I will go watch 60 minutes on my big flat screen TV.

Battle of the Tech Titans

IT as a Surrogate Weapon

There is a fascinating controversy going on now over the CIA plans to kill known al Qaeda terrorists. Should we “stoop to their level” and take them out or is this “assassination” style technique out of bounds for a free and democratic society?

Wow. I don’t think too many Americans the day after 9/11 would be asking that question.

We are quickly swayed by the events of the times and our emotions at play.

When 3,000 people—mostly civilians—were killed in a vicious surprise attack on our financial and military hubs in this country; when the Twin Towers were still burning and crashing down; when smoke was rising out of the Pentagon; and when a plane crashed in Pennsylvania—I think most of us would say, these terrorists need to be dealt a severe and deadly blow.

Who would’ve though that just a mere 8 years later, questions would abound on the righteousness of killing the terrorists who planned, executed, and supported these murderous attacks and still seek every day to do us incredible harm—quite likely with chemical, nuclear, biological, or radiological (CNBR) weapons—it they could pull it off in the future.

We are a society with a short-term memory. We are a reactive society. As some have rightly said, we plan to fight the wars of the past, rather than the wars of the future.

We are also a doubting society. We question ourselves, our beliefs, and our actions. And to some extent this is a good thing. It elevates our humanity, our desire to do what is right, and to improve ourselves. But it can also be destructive, because we lose heart, we lose commitment, we change our minds, we are swayed by political currents, and to some extent we swing back and forth like a pendulum—not knowing where the equilibrium really is.

What makes the current argument really fascinating to me from an IT perspective is that we are okay with drones targeting missiles at terrorist targets (and even with a certain degree of civilian “collateral damage”) from these attacks from miles in the sky, but we are critical and repugnant to the idea the CIA wanted to hunt down and put bullets in the heads of the terrorists who committed the atrocities and are unwavering in their desire to attack again and again.

Is there an overreliance on technology to do our dirty work and an abrogation of hands-on business process to do it with our own “boots on the ground” hands?

Why is it okay to pull the trigger on a missile coming from a drone, but it is immoral to do it with a gun?

Why is it unethical to fight a war that we did not choose and do not want, but are victims of?

Why are we afraid to carry out the mission to its rightful conclusion?

The CIA, interrogators, military personnel and so forth are demonized for fighting our fight. When they fight too cautiously—they have lost their will and edge in the fight, we suffer consequences to our nation’s safety, and we call them incompetent. When they fight too vigorously, they are immoral, legal violators, and should be prosecuted. We are putting “war” under a huge microscope—can anyone come out looking sharp?

The CIA is now warning that if these reputational attacks continue, morale will suffer, employees will become risk-averse, people will quit, and the nation will be at risk.

Do we want our last lines of defense to be gun-shy when the terrorists come hunting?

According to the Wall Street Journal, “one former CIA director, once told me that the ‘CIA should do intelligence collection and analysis, not covert actions. Covert actions almost never work and usually get the Agency in trouble.’”

The Journal asks “perhaps covert action should be done by someone else.” Who is this someone else?

Perhaps we need more technology, more drones to carry out the actions that we cannot bear to face?

I believe that we should not distinguish between pulling the trigger on a drone missile and doing the same on a sniper rifle. Moreover, a few hundred years ago the rifle was the new technology of the time, which made killing less brutal and dehumanized. Now we have substituted sophisticated drones with the latest communication, navigation and weapons technologies. Let’s be honest about what we are doing – and what we believe needs to be done.

(As always, my views are my own and do not represent those of any other entity.)

IT as a Surrogate Weapon