Official Aphorisms

The Trust Factor

Beware of the guy who's telling you during an interview: "What we're trying to build in this company is trust. Trust is one of our core values." This means that that individual, your future boss, is most probably incompetent and relies on others to tell him what, how, when is done, and also insecure, most probably realizing that through his lack of skills and knowledge is at the others' mercy.

The Advantage of Being Ambiguous

My boss was telling me that he had to choose between Will and Bill for the new promotion as a product planner.
Bill is a smart, opinionated guy who's always trying to come up with a solution. Will is mostly talk and not the
greatest individual when the last thing you need is to go out with empty hands from a meeting where people were expecting results. He is also the type of non-committal guy.
In the end my boss picked Will and he explained me why: "Bill is too much into the solution mode. Will is saying: I don't know about that. Maybe it's possible, maybe not. We need to discuss more.
We need people like Will for this role, who leave the door open, you know?"
And who's going to close it? I was about to ask, but I never did it.

Respect in the Workplace

In any workplace there are about 85% opportunists, who have no clue about "what gives" and "what's up" in the project, and about 15% good people, honest workers, who will never get promoted and you will never use their references. And this is the dilemma you're facing: whose respect you should strive to earn? Whose respect is worth it? Whose respect is giving you a sense of fulfillment?

Useless to say that if you choose to take sides with the 15% club of achievers without future, you will become one of them. And your career may take a turn... to anonymity.

So, after all, it may not be such a dilemma.

Interview

I believe that a good tennis player who lost an important match must feel like I felt after a recent phone interview: Oh, boy, did I talk too much and too fast or what? And what got into me to go through that whole rambling when he came up with a simple question that required a short, simple answer? I suddenly felt the total silence at the end of the wire, the cold drift of disaproval: what could the guy have thought about me? And I could have done so well... This job was right on my alley... I had all my basis covered, only had I been smarter. Less excited. I practiced those scenarios the guy mentioned every day during the last few years, as they are part of my job, god dammit, and I am pretty good at it. Only that during this interview I left the impression of a rookie, a damn beginner who struggles to find his path. Disapointing... Really. really disapointing... 

Listening to the Other

Any manual covering the topic of communication in the office is going to emphasize that in any conversation the listening skill is paramount. Some go as far as saying that if you do not have it, you fake it. Listening does not help solving issues: it helps the guy who's trying to come up with a solution to feel good when his ideas as rejected. For the simple thing that the rejecter is a pompous ass who thinks he's always right. And when he fakes the listening, he's doing the poor guy in front of him a favour. That adding to his panoply of skills the generosity.
Therefore listening makes better persons from those who fake it. It's twisted logic here: becoming better through the rejection of a good thing.

Maslow's Pyramid Reversed

There is this Maslow's pyramid that describes pretty well where the people are in the structure of the organization. Most of them are at the ground level, where what they do can be summed up as fight for survival: I'll do what my boss is telling me to do, even if it's wrong and I don't condone, because I have children to raise and a mortgage to pay. This is where the new hires are placed right from day one: since they have no clue where they put the "office traps" and who's going to stab them in the back, they are cautious, always ready to hide if the danger lurks.
On the top of the pyramid there are a few lucky ones, who feel that the work environment is conducive for their creativity and they become the drivers and promoters of the new technological waves. These are the people who make a difference, and they get there after years of hard work and accomplishemnets. Or this is what they say.
Personally, whenever I moved from a company to another, I entered through the top of the piramid, geared up to be the champion of the novelty and make a difference. And after years of good accomplishments combined with marginal failures, I managed to get to the ground level. I always parted ways with my company fighting for survival.


The Executive Boos

A harsh boss, who always chooses to impose his way on the others, ends up creating a vacuum of power around him. That is the perfect life support for yeomen, sycophants, opportunists or plain liers. The smart, hard-working, reliable people are his last line of defence, although the most powerful, but have no visibility into the boss' battlefield and no orders to be engaged. This is the way the tyrant bosses die: left without a reliable guard, they get butchered  through their own avarice for power. Stabbed by their own "ode to the boss" singers.

The Slap

Every other month I get on an early morning plane to fly to Quelleville City. I'm doing it because I have to report the status of work to my boss, who’s going to report the status of work to his boss, the almighty CIO of the company, a one Monsieur Gilles Giroux. Monsieur Giroux - or Gil how all his reports call him in one of the popular North-American’s translation of “liberté, égalité, fraternité” - doesn't have to report the status of work to anybody, and actually doesn't even need to be updated on it. A silly old man, out-fashioned and funny looking, he has lost quite a while back any touch for technology, if he ever had one. It is a big company the one I work for, and my boss works for, and Monsieur Giroux, pardonnez moi, Gil works for, a media industry flagship in the great country of ours. And if this is a flagship, then I’m Admiral Nelson. In spite of all evidence to the contrary and regardless of everyone’s opinions, including mine, the business community really thinks that our company is one of the best on the continent. And someone fool themselves into thinking that is one of the greatest in the world. For me, a highly replaceable nobody in an IT team, one of many IT teams I should say, it’s a wonder how this giant organization is still keeping afloat among the perfect storms of the global economy, eaten from inside out by incompetency, political in-fighting, clumsy executive decisions, and the terminal disease given by the un controlled spreading of hundreds of contractors that are hired based on good looks and decent command of English language (always in this order.) I have been working with this company for over three years now, and every single damn day, at some point in the afternoon hours, which tends to become vagrant especially when it gets closer to Friday, I feel the same urge to grab a pen and a piece of paper and scribble down my resignation notice. Signed: Admiral Nelson. The only thing that stops me from doing it is the fact that my boss, Pierre Chabreuil, is quite far of the immediate reach of my vengeance, located in a small office in Montreal, working at the company's headquarters, while I trudge my days in our Toronto office, lost in a tide of cubicles filled to the brink by tens of unfriendly people I don’t know their names, their roles and in general I have no damn clue of what a heck they’re doing there the whole day.

Today Pierre is chattier than ever. He just returned from his three-week African vacation, where he partied and hunted in private safaris that should have cost an arm and a leg, while looking with equally compassionate eyes to lions, tigers, and locals. Based on people's gossip, Pierre is married into a good Quelleville’s family, and the best confirmation for me is the picture of his red Ferrari, hanging on the wall of his tiny office with no windows, in a stance of la vie à la légère, completely impervious to any work related problems. Today he keeps telling me stories about rhinoceros and elephants and tigers with that thin, light and still refreshing French accent that makes those ferocious and miserable beasts sound smaller and a bit more dangerous that the neighbours’ cat. Even occasionally adorable. As for me,  my best bet is to exhibit sheer amazement at hearing those stories about adventure and animal love (no pun intended!) in exotic places, and nothing really stops me from standing up at times like in ovation, cheering lie a satisfied audience for the quality of the show, clapping my hands in delirious joy for Pierre’s vacationer accomplishments. But I get that far only in my mind. And at intervals I stop short from breaking into a delirious laugh that would sound more like a nervous meltdown. Pierre is my boss and I need to fake deep interest in what he’s saying, especially if it’s close to his heart. I am sure that by constant nodding, while keeping a stupid smile stuck on my face makes me look good, and me harbouring a happy face will make him feel good with who he is, what he represents and what he achieved in life. I really do my best to make my manager’s day.

At some point during the one way discussion, I remember about the purpose of my business trip. Yeah, the status of work, dummy! I feel preying like a hawk hovering on the topic to dart to a weak spot, and I choose a moment when he looks spent of too much talking or just bored with my dry presence – simple minded yeoman! - , and I start telling him about the clowns he hired to work for the business intelligence project. The damn greedy contractors with apparently no code ethic. A bunch of incompetents faking the expertise, pretending they know everything and keep logging hour after hour for make-believe tasks, charging us at skyrocketing fees and delivering next to nothing. Those flimsy documents they walk us through with the air of some brilliant scientists who just found the missing particle of the universe, do not even get close to supporting a viable business intelligence solution. What they deliver is just B.S. business requirements documentation that you could very well use for nature calls in case you run out of toilet paper. Of course I can’t use words like “clowns”, ”incompetents”, “bullshit”,  “make believe” or ”fucking turds.” I have observed right from the onset of our work relationship that with Pierre I have to be always politically correct and play fancy semantics like “his deliverables may be a bit off the target, but he seems committed and we should remain confident in his well proved expertise” when you want to tell him that some sucks at his job.  

Today I am even reluctant to open a subject that in spite of his shell means bad news in the end, maybe because I'm still under the spell of the African red horizons, with shadowy profiles of shaggy lions cut on their canvas. But in the end I have to play my act. Like a skilled gunman I put a positive spin on my projectiles’ trajectories to describe the situation: “a tad of target”, ”need to focus a bit on”, “hopefully they will recover in no time”, “they are indeed the best of breed.”

Pierre realizes in a second that what I’m doing is touting a potential disaster, maybe even a  sunk project that could cost him the next trip to a Kenyan safari. With a face changed by the premonition of future vacations spent in the Quebec's provincial parks, he charges like a hyena from its hiding: “Why are you telling me these things? Don’t you know how much Gil likes these guys?”

For a few good seconds his words cling in the air like the heavy smoke of a cigar that tastes bad. The time gets suddenly suspended, my thoughts get also suspended, my brain wants to move in a levitation state, and the only things that keep pounding, alive, are the safari memories. Then I return with a sigh to my physical existence. His statement and the Ferrari on the wall combine into an explosive sweet-sour cocktail in my mind. In a fraction of a second that lasts longer than a life time’s set of memories, I reach out from my seat with the agility of a gazelle and I land a full slap straight on his right cheek. Then I leave the office, slamming the door with the strength of an enraged baboon, without worrying about my resignation notice.

Innocentia's Dialogues: The Networkist

Innocentia: I know this guy: good looking fellow, with a neat and sleek appearance, exuding health and confidence, dressed smartly, still non-provocative, avoiding two things: to talk too much and to talk too little. The kind of fella who leaves the impression that he enjoys the company of other people, listens to their heartfelt stream of conversation, but he is too cool to intervene and break the magic spell. And instead of commenting or providing feedback or saying a silly thing in or out of context, he reminds us through his cool attitude that the wise guy is more of a taciturn observer,  a gentleman who never says more than he should or not at all , and from this perspective he can grant a few smiles, crack a few light, innocent jokes, and bless our mob with his regal presence. He is a constant reminder to the others that there are only a few things that deserve to be taken seriously in this life, and unfortunately, all of them are deeds of the past, doings of great people, all dead now. And if you’d be tempted to argue his point you’d be deemed a “moron”, a term he never uses to call with or label anybody, although it pops in his mind many times during the casual discussions he has with his peers, at work.

Dubitus: This special individual with the looks of a diva and the charm of a soothsayer is a hunter of a special kind. A favour hunter, of the purest socialite breed. His daily mission is to constantly prowl for opportunities, a lion in the jungle without boundaries of the "could-be", collecting social connections like others collect stamps, throwing his invisible lasso at the unsuspecting victims, stashing their names in his bottomless hat with all his list of contacts. Working hard, being unstoppable at widening his already vast web of connections, his private network. This social predator is what I would call a “networkist”. The networkist is a  natural state of mind, a biological pre-determination, or, simply, a way to be. Nobody can become one if one's not born with it.

Innocentia: The networkist is a charmer whose hobby and deep seeded passion is juggling jobs, with the perfect gig being the next one. A restless character, he is a professional opportunity seeker, a job charmer who totally dismisses the competence as the prerequisite to acquire professional success. He doesn't need to add competence to his panoply of skills. That could actually become detrimental to his genuine nature that relies on his strong predilection for social foray, and personal adventure. The competent individual is most of times a distracting bore and even a pain in the ass, because he is obsessed by thoroughness, terrorized by the prevalence of quality, hopelessly entrapped in the bottomless pit of perfection, overjoyed to take good challenges only for the sake of overcoming them, over generous with  the time spent on wrestling cohorts of details, waiting only for a brief nod to unleash his creativity. Plus he demands from his co-workers what most of them hate the most: an uncompromising passion for the things well done..

Dubitus: A bad apple, if you ask me… A bamboozler in the making.

Innocentia: The networkist is an easy going fella. He is the pretty boy. The kind of person everybody loves and looks for him in a group of people discussing weather, during the lunch break. He speaks the language of everybody, and everybody feels at home in his presence. Being with him is like being with the older brother one hasn't seen for a while. The networkist is a flashy colorful, smooth and slippery chameleon. If the act requires, he can pose into anything, he can dress any clothes, including the ruffled ones belonging to a competent guy sweating up his solutions. How is he doing that? Easy: the networkist has a basic set of work related knowledge (they don't call that for nothing base knowledge), which he recycles dutifully in any conversation, in any written message, at any time of the day. By displaying both courtesy and knowledge, he ends up convincing everyone that he could do it, if only - this is where his mastery becomes evident -, if only the proper environment would be in place. Which means not now, not there. Everybody listening to him nods in agreement and nobody asks: And then when and where, mister? When and where are we going to find that ideal workplace where the people have everything they need to deliver and prove themselves, and if they don’t, it’s entirely their fault. Oh, the world we live in! The humanity! Most of the workplaces are just reasons for excuses, fortresses of mediocrity with thick walls of indiference. The networkist knows that reality so well. He’s so good at detecting and capitalizing on peoples' frustrations, their needs to hide behind gripe, to avoid commitment, to get away without doing it. The networkist enjoys the non-committal environments, he supports them with all his heart. If he is passionate about something, then that’s the non-action, the front seat of the spectator who waits for the cancelled show, knowing that that’s going to happen. His only aim is to always go around the issues, to run away of problems, to advance by skipping the commitment, to consolidate his position in the organization just by knowing the right people in the right places. Those people will support him when need be, will warrant for him no matter what, and they will even fight for him. Our boy, our dear boy! These people are going to be his army of active fans. His personal cheerleaders, his private team of salesmen with a single product to sell: his successful professional life. And what does he need to do to accomplish that? Not too much, you'd be tempted to say, by looking at what he says or does. Everything, a networking science pundit would reply.

Dubitus: But I...

Innocentia: The networkist is an easy going fella. The pretty boy. The kind of guy everybody loves. He speaks the language of everybody, and everybody feels at home in his presence. being with him is like being with the older brother one hasn't seen for a while. The networkist is a flashy, slippery chameleon. If the act requires, he can pose into anything, he can dress any clothes, including the ruffled ones belonging to a competent guy sweating up his solutions. How is he doing that? Easy: the networkist has a basic set of work related knowledge (they don't call it for nothing base knowledge), which he recycles in any conversation, in any written message, at any time of the day. By displaying both courtesy and knowledge, he ends up convincing everyone that he could do it, if only - this is where his mastery lies -, if only the proper environment would be in place. Which means not now, not here. Everybody listening to him nods in agreement and nobody asks: And then when and where, mister? When and where are we going to find that workplace where the people have everything they need to deliver and prove themselves, and if they don’t, then it’s entirely their fault. Oh, the world we live in! Most of the workplaces are just enforced reasons for excuses. The networkist knows that very well. He senses so well the peoples' frustrations, their needs to hide behind reason, to avoid commitment, to not doing it. The networkist enjoys the non-committal environments, he supports them with all his heart. If he is passionate on something, it's the non-action, the sit of the spectator that waits for a cancelled show. His only aim is to always go around, to leave and prosper by skipping the commitment, to consolidate his position in the organization just by knowing the right people in the right places. Those people will support him when need be, will warrant for him no matter what, and they will even fight for him. Our boy, our dear boy! These people are going to be his army of active fans. His personal cheerleaders, his private team of salesmen with a single product to sell: his successful professional life. And what does he need to do to accomplish that? Not too much, you'd be tempted to say, by looking at what he says or does. Everything, a networking guru would reply.
First off, he needs to display a pleasant stance, in any occasion. If he is naturally endowed with a well-proportioned and attractive body, the battle is half won. If is a man, he should avoid displaying the macho features: those end up intimidating, overwhelming, imposing, and this is the last thing a networkist needs, to intimidate people, to chase them away through negligent display of social power. Angelic traits are the best sale: those attract the fans, they make them feel comfortable because they think he’s an easy going, a dear, a lovable chap. The peoples' guy. He also  needs to dress neatly, and properly. Fancy or rebellious clothes may scare his potential networks, they may spawn the impression that he’s unreliable, superficial or simply tasteless. Main stream clothes, main stream hair cut, main stream shoes, main stream opinions, all these should do it. Then the smile, the permanent smile on his face. The sign of him being there for anybody who needs him, ready to listen, happy to oblige. The guy you can always rely on. If need be, and if the stakes are high, the networkist will ante up with the image of his own family: a good looking and pleasant wife, soft spoken and delicate, who’s always saying the right words, and a pair of two children, two angels nicely dressed, well behaved, not saying anything about those curly strands of hair falling playfully over their foreheads. Cute little darlings!

Dubitus: You made me really curious with your latest statements. I'm intrigued now... Why so much fuss about a bunch of trivial things? What’s required to become a successful networkist, beside a ton of luck cominde with two tons of s…?

Innocentia: First off, he needs to display a pleasant stance, in any occasion. If he is naturally endowed with a well-proportioned and attractive body, the battle is half won. If is a man we’re talking about here, he should avoid displaying the macho features: those end up intimidating, overwhelming, imposing, and this is the last thing a networkist needs, to intimidate people, to chase them away through a negligent display of social power. Angelic traits are the best sale: those attract the fans, they make them feel comfortable because they think they finally found their  easy going, dear heart, lovable chap. The peoples' person. He also needs to pay attention to how he dresses. Fancy or rebellious clothes may scare his potential networks, they may create the impression that he’s kind of a dandy, unreliable, superficial or simply tasteless. Main stream clothes, main stream haircut, main stream shoes, main stream opinions, all these should do it. Then the smile, that permanent, charming smile sculptured on the corner of his lips. Not authoritative or haughty, just warm, welcoming. The sign stuck on the door, saying “We’re open for business” for anybody who needs him, ready to listen, happy to oblige. The guy you can always rely on. If need be, and if the stakes are high, the networkist will ante up and throw on the table the image of his own family: a good looking and pleasant wife, soft spoken and delicate, who’s always saying the right words, and a pair of two children, two angels nicely dressed, well behaved, not to mention anything about those curly strands of hair falling playfully over their foreheads. Cute little darlings!

Dubitus: Plain clichés, nothing else. Lots of BS, if you ask me…

Innocentia: The networkist is everyone’s sweetheart, the champion of it all, he is IT. And not even you can negate that, right?

Dubitus: No, noo, nooo. You're dead wrong, lady! Like any other time you tried to persuade me, and you wouldn't even let me talk. Your so-called networkist couldn’t care less about his plain army of dumb cheerleaders: the more the idiots, the better. The rule of thumb is that in a bunch of morons there is going to be at least one to jump in the fire for you, the sacrificial network lamb. And let’s make the things clear, lady: I totally understand there's no fun in wasting one's time just to please imbeciles with power, who end up hovering excited around you, all buzzing like crazed up bees attracted by a big pile of sugar or something else melting in the sun. Of course he hates their noisy presence, their stupid, almighty self-confidence, their boisterous, in your face arrogance, their messed up thinking in bad need of resetting, their repetitive jokes which are clear signs of diminished imagination. But he needs them because among them, at some point in the future, he’s going to spot the fat, ugly face of the providential guy, the guy who’s going to help him to reach his goal. And what with those politically correct stances... He hates them from the depth of his guts. But they are his second nature. He's got to use them many times, like a tennis player practicing the same moves over and over, with his close ones, with friends, and relatives, and even with his wife, during those lengthy, boring, never ending week-ends spent indoors, watching tv, teasing the children, because not a single moron in his network had the good idea to call him over for dinner and chat. The networkist is a lonely wolf. But so is the world surrounding him. Half of it being populated by fellow networkists. And this is the biggest trap for them of all. In spite of the appearance which should point to the contrary, the risk of witnessing the networkists' extinction in some not so distant future is real. The loose around the networkists' necks can get really tight. Their disappearance can happen unexpectedly, can be triggered by an apparently insignificant event, some day, somewhere: a large neighborhood in the outskirts of a big city could end up being inhabited only by networkists, who are going to enter into dead lock relations. I need your help! No, I need your help! Because I forgot to mention a basic principle: a networkist can never be the object of a networking. He is nobody’s network, that is his true nature, and that's that. The disease of the "dead lock networking" will then spread to the city, then to the province, and the whole country may end up being engulfed by it. The death of the social networking could rival the extinction of the dynosaurs on a historical scale.

Innocentia: Did I tell you about this other guy? Very neatly dressed, angelic face, good manners, pretty good joker, I'd say having a touch of shoulda-woulda-coulda comedian in him. Nice family: remarkable house, remarkable wife, remarkable kids. Although no pets, he hates pets. Everything being remarkable with his life, except his own life. Incompetent and demotivated at work, he's been already proposed for a promotion. And I’m already fighting for him. Because I’m in his private circle of cheerleaders, I’m in his network. I will do whatever I can for this guy!

TOGAF and the Art of Compromise

Almost all my life I have been a passionate software developer. Since I finished the wrong university (studied engineering instead of philosophy) and I had to re-qualify on fly under a strange combination of lucky stars and unexpected opportunities, till now, when I can consider myself a seasoned professional with a good nose for what’s good and bad in any software technology. This last statement takes me to a quote I read many years back and sounded something like: A man of culture is someone who forgot everything he ever read. So are the things with a seasoned software professional: he is a guy who has no more hands-on abilities, forgot how to write good code (the lack of practice being one to blame) but developed a genuine instinct that tells him immediately what’s going wrong in an application, or what could make it better.

During my formation years I was ecstatic about using the keyboard and the monitor, writing lines of code that were processing for minutes and were coming up with something silly in the end: like the result of a calculation by using formulas that nobody needs using in the practical life (Pythagorean triples?), or a graphic built out from printable characters, or a tinny, shrilly sound made by low quality speakers. Trivial things that at that historical time (the beginning of the software programming as a separate discipline) meant the world not only for me, but many other geeks trapped into a passion that soon was to become addiction. Afterwards, during few years of professional ferment and innovation craziness, myriads of new software tools and technologies spread all over the place like an outbreak whose nature and intensity nobody could have predicted. The tiny, shrilly sounds became symphonic media, the simple graphics made from printable characters became splendid illustrations hosted by a screen instead of a book cover, and the calculations which matched up the light speed were soon used to re-calculate the light speed. The transformation was total: the technology took over everything. The beginner had already stashed in his private workshop of software tools hundreds, if not thousands, of different applications that were meant to cover everything one would ever put his mind with. And if I’m allowed to use a metaphor here, the mountain we started to trek and climb was actually a binary heap, a tall  technological riddle, with thousands of different paths possibly leading to the peak. All you had to do was to pick one that suited you.

In the process, the lonely software programmer who was sweating and swearing in his cubicle with the smell of basement, struggling to build automated solutions for people who still preferred the wads of paper stashed in their patent-leather briefcases, found himself surrounded, without even noticing, by a regimen of newly hired co-workers who were now wearing the hats he used to wear before: some of them were doing testing only (or quality control and assurance), others were writing down the business needs (or business analysis), others were organizing teams of people in order to deliver a software solution (or project managers), and last, but far away from least, there were those guys who needed to take a breath before starting to write code and think through: For this kind of business requirements, do we need to build a piece of software, or we can buy? And if we build it, how complex would that be? Or what if I use this technology instead of that? Wow, that would save me a few good bucks. Wait, wait, I don’t even need to introduce the new technology, I can re-use one that we already have in the field. These are the architects, the people with an organ for conceptual thinking, in abstract terms, in generalities that can quickly trensform from business prose to technological poetry.

Where did these people come from? Almost all of them, without exception, came from the developers’ ranks. Those developers who had become so prolific in their field of activity that the people started to look at them with trust and respect (some were calling them "geeks" and they meant it!), and asked their advice when in need of a reliable solution. And this is where the things got a bit more complicated. Once a developer, always a developer, as the saying goes. This little axiom remains valid for thousands of architects that have been tossed on the land of opportunity by the huge wave of change. They love the coding, they love the tools, their addiction to hands-on programming is still there, and may never disappear. And what does this mean? Is this a good or a bad thing? The answer is: depends.

If the architect is part of a small shop where they actually need a smart developer to do some design work, then by all means, the guy must know how to code, or at least how to read the code written by others. And that’s okay: he loves with passion the tools, he loves the code crafting activity, he enjoys seeing at work the things he created. He will thrive in such an environment and definitely be up to the expectations

If it’s a bigger shop where the money the shareholders put in the enterprise matter, and their expectations are heavy in terms like accountability, productivity, efficiency  then the last person they'd need in their shop would be a tool lover. What they need are architects, of the best breed if possible. True architects. People with a strong technological background, with an acumen for conceptual thinking, maybe former exceptional developers who realized that there is more to running a business than introducing fancy applications developed by the in-house IT departments. People who love to take care of the forest, instead of counting the trees. People with the touch for globality, for universality, for integration, which in business world are all alternate terms for enterprise.

It’s not easy to find these people. Some of them may love the idea of a conceptual, abstract thinking applied to the enterprise boundaries, but do not have technological acumen. Some others have strong technological background, but they luck the orientation in the business meandres and the deep understanding of the processes and their management at the corporate level. The people who have both are a rare species, but they exist out there. They are called enterprise architects. And for them they built TOGAF. Who are they? A group of people who like to think abstract, to apply structure to the corporate mess, to look at the same business entity from different perspectives (they call that viewpoints.) They got together through an online call, I assume, and they stick a label to their group: Open Group. These guys did a terrific job by working together at a product called TOGAF, which is a framework, or a way of thinking, rather than a set of tools. By the way, TOGAF stands for The Open Group Architecture Framework, and there's nothing fancy about this name, with a Teutonic resonance. Those tools' aficionados who like to call themselves software architects will reject TOGAF because they will find it dry, uninteresting, un-awarding. TOGAF is not for them anyway. It’s for the people who wish to come up with solutions that cross the tight boundaries of the technological citadels, go out there and try to answer to the real needs of the business drivers, and not to their own desire to feel good about what they do and produce.

Being an enterprise architect is not an easy thing, because first off you have to listen to sometimes (what do I say, many times) contradicting feedbacks, face clashing interests, witness the lame shows put up by ignorant, still self-confident individuals, go patiently through a wide spectrum of disciplines, get to know their terms and jargons, and finally building a bridge that can be walked on by everyone who has a stake: this is called negotiate solutions. A negotiated solution will have to be always in the middle, at that point where all parties cease of being unhappy, although they are not happy yet. And they may never become happy. This is called compromise, and the people who achieve this are artists of compromise. From this perspective alone, the enterprise architects are the artists of compromise, and in their hands the compromise could become an art. The art of negotiating solutions.

TOGAF is by all means more of a philosophy and by no means  a tool. Although there are people, very smart people, who had built a tool to support TOGAF. Again: to support it, not to replace it. The tool is called Sparx EA (stands for Enterprise Architect) and using it is a pleasure of mind and (professional) soul. If TOGAF is a religion then Sparx EA is its bible.  This tool combines the best from two worlds: the crystal clear structure of TOGAF (called otherwise an Architecture Development Method) and the capability of UML 2.0 to capture in a diagram the design thinking. This tool makes happy both the architects who enjoy the conceptual thinking and the architects who are still passionate after the software development tools.

Sparx EA is the right terrain vehicle that takes us over the slopes and ditches of the rough landscape of the corporate processes to the flat, serene patch of equilibrium and efficiency called enterprise architecture.

According to the Expert

According to Barry G., this highly spirited corporate coach who’s missing only a pair of wings to bolt like a military jet around the room during his training sessions, shelling all with bombs of energy, jettisoning one memorable statement after another when the load gets too heavy, the theory is very clear on the subject: oneself cannot change. Your inner personality is a done deal by the time you reach eight months of age, and for the rest of eighty years (only for those lucky bastards, mind you!) you are carrying it with you like a backpack filled in with all you need to make it through the vicissitudes, as well as the feasts of life.
“Don’t even try to change!” declaims Barry in a strong statement, supported by an even stronger stance. “You are perfect the way you are, the best human being that God ever created!” Alleluia, you are tempted to say, raising your arms high up in the air, in a gesture of adoration, but you suddenly realize you’re in the big boardroom during a corporate training session. And then  Barry starts talking about what matters the most to him: the communication.  Barry has a point who he keeps re-emphasizing: if we are unchangeable, because our personality is like an imprint in a piece of stone, how can you negotiate two personalities that are deemed to collide? How can you bring to getting along two employees, colleagues in the same team, who dislike, disregard and even despise each other for a variety of reasons, among them the very fact that one of the them is a “feeler” (and yes, it’s true, this is more of a whiner, and there is nothing wrong with it) while the other is a “thinker” (or a "macho" in the street smarts’ jargon.)  Barry has the secret answer to this conundrum and he pulls it off his sleeve (mind you, adorned with golden cuffs!) with the same theatrical gesture an illusionist materializes the bunny from under his long coat's flap, right in a front of you: “You can not change yourself, but you can change the other!” Let’s take a deep mental breath and think for a minute at this logic that sounds a bit crooked: if you cannot change yourself, it means that you are un-changeable; then how can another person be able to change you? This is a tempting conclusion, if only were true.  Barry hasn't said anything about being un-changeable, has he? He just said that you cannot change you but this doesn’t preclude the other being able to change you. In other words, you can be subject to change, but the agent of change needs to come from outside.

And how can you make this work? Let’s imagine a fictional exchange between two thinkers, two macho geeks who strongly believe that every minute of the game they have all their basis covered, which means they have answers for everything. For the argument sake let’s call them Billy O and Johnny A. Their conversation is about a Microsoft component that could impact the performance if deployed on the Web Server.

Billy O: “My purpose was to find a way to re-direct specific pages to a secure connection, without the need to change the application code. And I found it: it's called URL Rewriter.”
Johnny A: “I don't think that's right, Billy! This component, once deployed in the Global Assembly cache area will impact all other web sites in terms of performance. The response time will get slower...”
Billy O: “No, it won't. This is a Microsoft component after all, they tested it. Plus deployment in Global assembly Cache does not impact performance.”
Johnny A: “Yes, it does. You should read more about it, Billy.”
Billy O: “No, it doesn't. I'm afraid you are the one behind with the reading, Johnny. I've done my part and this is a perfect component”
Etc.etc.

This conversation leads nowhere because both Billy and Johnny are thinkers, which means that they have solutions for everything. You can’t tell them what to do, because their brain already knows what to do. Telling them what to do is an insult. Two thinkers telling each other what to do is a case of war.
Then what’s to be done? One of them needs to know the theory. And the theory says that Billy O should start by saying:

Billy O: “ My purpose was to find a way to re-direct specific pages to a secure connection, without the need to change the application code. And I found it: it's called URL Rewriter.”
Johnny A: “ I don't think that's right, Billy! This component, once deployed in the Global Assembly cache area will impact all other web sites in terms of performance. The response time will get slower... ”
Billy O: “I thought initially exactly like you do, but then I read more about it in the forums, from people who raised similar concerns. And apparently it's safe”
Johnny A: “Really? I wouldn't bet too much on these forums..." 
Billy O: “ That's why I'd need to work with you to see if there are some implications on otehr sites that I may not be able to see at this point. ”
Johnny A: “That's not a bad approach. We can even involve a few testers to vet our assumptions...”
Billy O.: "Yeah, why not? Good idea!"
Etc, etc.

Of course, the real life would present us with a totally different  outcome than the clichés we used. But that outcome wouldn’t be that different from the spirit of the last conversation. The confrontational tone would vanish, a more tolerant air of collaboration, and mutual respect would start drifting through the room. I'd suggest you try it. I tried it many times, and many times it worked.

Tips for Tomorrow's Interview

Following are a few tips for young people who go through that horrible night before the interview's day, tossing and turning in their beds, spinning incessantly in their tired minds the multitude of possible scenarios: If he says that, what do I say? If he asks that, how do I respond? If he behaves that way, what’s my behavior?

First off, better save a good night sleep than trying to figure out people you don’t know and situations you can’t control. I know, the stress wasp is flying under your bonnet, and by making plans that would get all your basis covered you're actually building the illusion that you can put the little, stingy flying beast from under your hat to sleep. Nothing else than a good night sleep can actually tame the dragon of the stress. So, forget about the interview… Think about naked women.

But, just before closing your eyes, let’s bust together a few myths related to interviews:

• The person who’s interviewing you has prepared with the same assiduity for the meeting as you did: most probably she perused documentation that nobody’s ever used in her team (and there's plenty of that!), browsed the internet till late after midnight, picking up a few questions that looked really difficult, and tried to memorize the answers (the hardest part of all!)
• The person who’s interviewing you is most probably completely out-dated in terms of professional knowledge. Most of the managers’ roles are very low demanding in terms of brain power and only require basic knowledge from secondary school. But beware of the staff (Johhny, the senior developer, who's a genius when he writes code and an idiot when he expresses basic things, like the need to be nice to each other in the team) she is going to bring with her in order to corner you with technological riddles. Johnny also browsed the internet the night before the interview to find absolutely extraordinary code samples (that, by the way, nobody will ever implement in a workplace run by normal people with normal needs) and to impress their manager with the depth of their skills (now do you understand why am I the best?) His questions for you will be basically variations of the same "I can do this an you can't. "
• If you have the chance to be interviewed by a smart manager, make sure you admit that you don’t have an answer to her question when you don’t have an answer. Admitting that you don’t know is the sure mark of a superior intellect, while rushing to say “I know, I know” is the sure trace of either poor judgment or lack of self-awareness at your own limits.
• Keep your composure, don’t show you are intimidated by the interviewer. Of course she intimidates you, some of them even look scary, a few look gorgeous (even worse!), but the keywords here are “do not show it!” One simple way to get comfortable with the person who’s interviewing you is to picture them naked (don't try that with the gorgeous chicks!) They are most probably middle-aged, semi-obese dudes, and with their bodies heavy and embarrasing, worn out by age and too many barbeques, and by picturing them naked you will gain confidence, especially if you're young and in good shape. If you're older and look more like the interviewer, you can think of our mortality and how frail we all are as a species.
• Do not try to crack jokes during the interview. The sense of humour is a human quality that disappeared in the nineties. Most of the leaders nowadays consider the attempts to joke as sign of political ineptitude and prefer the somber pose of the politically correct moron who is incompetenet but very appreciated.
• Do not get overexcited of what you see or hear during the interview. Any outstanding company will transform into a shithole shortly, at about six months after you joined.
• If you're really getting cornered during the interview, choose the escaping pod of every conversation where you have no clue of how to continue: "Can I get back to you on this?" Interesting enough, nobody will ever tell you "No, I don't think you can!", and everybody will nod in agreement, thinking: "This guy is good: cautious and in control. What do I ask him next?"
• Do not expect to find life changing experiences in your next job, or people who are going to leave a deep mark in your life. They are all just common people, who don't give a rat's ass on things like career or professional accomplishments. All they care about are where to spend their next vacation. And if due to exceptional circumstances you will find two brilliant idiots who have in their hands the chicken who makes golden eggs, but no buyers for it, they're going to be promptly discouraged by the system, stopped from doing anything that would be of some value to the company they work for (like a revolutionary product that would change the market lanscape over night.) In the corporations' world nobody needs people who think revolutionarily, out of box or simply atypical. For that kind of people, you have businesses getting started by two guys in a basement with the money they got by selling their old, crappy van.