March, 2006

I read Graham's blog " What's a Versatilist " where he rather eloquently expresses his thoughts about the meaning of the term. This was originally going to be a comment to his post however due to it's length, I'm responding as a blog post. What we have now: IT Specialists and Generalists A "Specialist" has deep skills but their range is narrow. Their peers recognize their skills but outside of...

"Take a fling on a startup. Experience will be invaluable. If it fails, you will have gotten valuable training for your next job." Dr. Mike Stonebraker, Founder and CTO, StreamBase Systems Professor at MIT World’s foremost pioneer on RDBMS; founder of INGRES, POSTGRES, Mariposa, Illustra 2005 IEEE John Von Neumann Medal Winner Computer Reseller News Top Five Software Developers...

The term "versatilist" was first mentioned to me by Stephen Ibaraki and we had a very interesting discussion over coffee one day about what it means. For some reason, perhaps peculiar to me, I have difficulty in getting the word to roll of my tongue. Every time I try and think of "versatilist", "virtualist" comes into my head instead. At first I found this quite frustrating and put it down to some...

In an effort to provide you a central location to help keep you up to date on Microsoft news, I'm trying a new feature: Microsoft Newswire. Take a look below… Let me know if this is something that you find useful. Barnaby Daily Newswire Microsoft Business Solutions Gains Stability, Strength CNET - 3/29/2006 Stability and a focused, long-term strategy from Microsoft...

This is the final podcast in a series that is running in the Globe and Mail. These podcasts address some great topics dealing with Productivity in the Canadian market. The previous podcast addressed Collaboration , this final discussion is around IT Security and ROI . The series is available to both read and download at www.globeandmail.com/productivity . Additionally, I will be posting links...

As a UG Leader I know only too well the "volunteer" world. It is definitely not all "sweetness and light" but overall it provides an opportunity for personal satisfaction which is often hard to find in other ways. It may be cliche to say it is about "giving something back" but for those of us who have been given the opportunity to do that, it is certainly part of the story. What better satisfaction...

Margaret's March 20 th blog, "Global IT Skills shortage fact, or fiction?" has been generating discussion outside the CIM forum. I encourage you to make comments here too. Let your views and voice be heard. Part 2 of the series from Margaret Evered: ___________________________________ American actress Billie Burke (1885 - 1970) quoted, " Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese...

I have been following Margaret's March 20 th blog, "Global IT Skills shortage fact, or fiction?' with interest and reading the comments. CIM co-host John and I had a recent discussion on it today, and I just finished an hour with a researcher for the US department of labour O*NET program where they called for input and we discussed these issues and the profile of IT workers in the future. I find Margaret...

I encourage you to obtain a copy of the Financial Post Business April 2006 magazine on news stands ONLY on April 7, 2006 as an insert in the National Post newspaper . For the article on IT security threats, Microsoft security expert Derek Wong provides his valued insights. Derek will also be speaking about the top 10 security threats at INFORMATICS 2006 held in Victoria May 28 th to 30 th . CIPS...

So I was having lunch with this guy from Mainframe ( www.mainframe.ca ) and we were talking about stuff: What Creo was like in the good old days, what's up with the local high-tech scene, and of course, the topic of project management, especially in the field of software development. I of course had a bit to say about managing software development projects but I held back for the most part so as to...

As part of the ongoing IT Manager Interview series , Stephen Ibaraki had the opportunity to interview Karen Ormerod, president and CEO of Osteoporosis Canada. Karen has recently taken Osteoporosis Canada through the process of migrating from a Novell Groupwise environment to a Microsoft Exchange environment. Listen to the interview to get Karen's view on managing the process and the benefits that...

A question I often get is, "How can I progress career-wise and stay ahead?" Invariably, a good strategy is to keep informed. To help you, I am sharing an interview I did this week with Computing Canada (CC) Editor Patricia MacInnis, a leading and respected voice in the Canadian computing scene. Patricia provides insights into these topic areas: Top news items for IT managers in 2005...

By now you can't have failed to have heard of Vista, the desktop portion of the Longhorn project and the next generation of Windows desktop. How much thought have you given to or how much knowledge do you have about the implications as an IT Manager? Well, 3D here we come! It may not be apparent but every screen object in Vista is a 3D object even if it appears as 2D. Have you heard of WinFX? WinFX...

As part of the new IT Manager Interview series , I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Ian Collins, IT Co-ordinator for Lutherwood Child and Family Foundation. Ian has recently gone through the process of migrating from a Novell based environment to a Windows Server based environment. In the interview Ian talks about some of the benefits that they have seen after doing the migration. In...

You may have seen some of Graham’s comments previously on the Canadian IT Managers blog. Having read through them, I decided to invite Graham to become a regular feature here. Enjoy, Barnaby ----------------------------------------------- As IT Managers are you encouraging your employees to go to Code Camps. If not, why not? Sure they are "geek fests" but they are also valuable learning...

There's a new editorial feature, Blogged Down (BD) , in Computing Canada (CC) where editor Patricia MacInnis features an upcoming interview that appears here in the Canadian IT Managers forum (CIM) . Computing Canada (CC) is the oldest, largest, most influential bi-weekly business/technology print publication with an audience that includes more than 42,000 IT decision makers in medium to large enterprises...

I was talking with Margaret Evered recently and she has a lot to say that needs to be heard. Margaret has an impressive 20+ years in IT management and fully appreciates the challenges IT managers have in finding qualified staff and retaining them. I invited Margaret to blog her views in Canada’s only premier forum for IT managers and pros. Margaret brings an impressive background so take the...

Oh my heavens, you're a bright shiny new manager, you've been given a glorious new project to lead and what's this? You can't even go to the can without the janitor giving you advice on what you are doing wrong and how to fix it. How ever did the world turn into such a cruel, callous place? Just wait, it gets better. There was never a product launched nor a project completed if only the person-in-change...

DJ Dunkerley provided Part I/II earlier this week. Here's Part II/II: ____________ With CATS, what you really want to do is eliminate redundancy by only testing each parameter with every other parameter once . There is no algorithm (that I know of) that can generate the test cases for you, you need to sit down with colored pencils and a paper and draw up columns of letters that represent the...

Yesterday we outlined our company's vision called "People-Ready". It is a major step for us and I thought it best to have our president Phil Sorgen say a few words about it. Without further delay, here's Phil... -------------------- Yesterday we announced our "People-Ready" business vision and I thought that it was important to take some time and share with each of you what this means and how...

I invited DJ Dunkerley back in late February to provide two posts on Project Management (there's a profile at this link). Here's another series on Product Management and QA, to give you that needed edge. ________________ As anybody who has ever tried to build test cases for an application or system of moderate complexity knows, you quickly run into the well-known multiple-branching problem. Essentially...

I want to mix it up for you and we have a broad audience. So here is some variety - a message or lesson and some fun too. Something a little "Frisky," as DJ puts it. DJ Dunkerley that is - he provided a post previously Feb 27 th and Feb 28 th on Project Management. From DJ: ______________ Career Advice for Twenty-Something IT Managers Actually, I wanted to title this post "Questions & Conversations...

A friend sent me a link to an article that highlighted the Top 10 Projects ranked by expected spending for the year. It sparked a good conversation between us and as a result, we both reached out to our colleagues to try and do an ad hoc validation of the list. The feedback seemed pretty common and while no one was surprised at the list, they generally felt that it was somewhat out of alignment with...

I feel there is an online revolution in social collaborations through services such as blogs, RSS, and Wikis. This Canadian IT Managers (CIM) forum is a great example of what is to come - more interaction, more community, and ultimately a fine vehicle for working together. There is also the Mix06 conference in March which is all about this change. In this interview with Ross Mayfield, well known in...

Hi everybody, I just wanted to put in a plug here for what's probably the best book ever on securing Windows-based networks, namely Protect Your Windows Network by Jesper M. Johansson and Steve Riley. The authors of this terrific book both work at Microsoft and are seasoned security professionals, and both of them maintain blogs that are worth watching as well: see Jesper's Blog and Steve Riley on...