Phil Windley's Technometria

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April 09, 2003

The Future of IT Consulting

Harvard Business School has a new working paper on the future of IT consulting. The paper is only available in excerpt, but there is an interview with its authors that has some interesting comments. I found this comment from the excerpt to ring true:

As an established function, IT in the company now has more degrees of freedom to source services for highly specific purposes and value. One CIO describes the IT organization of the future as consisting of the following:

• Business analysis to understand the needs of the businesses
• Technical architecting to oversee and interface between IT and business systems
• Project management to implement change consistent with the practices of the company
• Management of IT processes

For each of these four capabilities, this CIO easily identifies the IT consulting outsiders who currently provide that service to his corporation. And, he states that his strategy aims to steadily bring more capability on the first three into his own organization. He prefers that these capabilities reside in his organization and then, by default, go to the outside if he has no alternative.

This is completely consistent with what I say in my paper on the modular IT organization. The first three of these fall within what I call the "value innovation" function. The actual management of the IT processes is what I put in the "service provisioning" and "solutions delivery" areas. I also agree that we should keep the expertise inside the IT organization and use consultants for staff augmentation (i.e. I need three more programmers to complete this project, but my organization manages the project) and expertise that's too expensive to keep on staff full-time (i.e. many small and medium sized organizations probably can't keep security experts on staff).

09:14 PM | Recommend This | Print This

Tips for Protecting Your Identity

Much is made of the potential for identity theft in online transactions, but the truth is that the vast majority occursdue to meat-space activities that are much simpler to pull off. I ran across a set of ideas on how to protect your identity and thought they'd be good to record. Some of them are obvious, at least to me, but they probably aren't to everyone. I don't know who the author was. Here they are, edited and augmented by me:

• When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts, do not put the complete account number on the "For" line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels won't have access to it.Ê This is more difficult to do if you use Quicken or some other electronic bill paying mechanism. I've often wished the credit card companies would give me a separate account number from my credit card number.
• Put your work or cell phone number on your checks instead of your home phone. If you have a PO Box use that instead of your home address. Never have your Social Security Number printed on yourÊchecks.
• Shred bills, credit offers, bank statements and other correspondence that may contain personally identifying information. This keeps people from rummaging through your trash to gather information that may come in handy for stealing your identity.
• Mail bills and anything else that contains a check or account numbers in a drop box rather than leaving it in your mailbox for the mailman to pick up. Even better, start paying your bills electronically. This prevents theives from stealing your outgoing mail and using the checks or account numbers.
• Photocopy the important items from your wallet, remembering to get both sides of each license, credit card, etc. Keep the photocopies in a safe place. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel.Ê make sure you have those phone numbers with this information.
• I also carry a photocopy of my passport when I travel either here or abroad. Its probably not a bad idea to keep a photocopy of your driver's license with you when you travel as well in case it gets lost. You might be able to get on a plane and get home with it.
• If your wallet is stolen, its important to cancel your credit cards immediately and notify your DMV and the Social Security administration (if you carry your Social Security card in your wallet---I do not for obvious reasons).
• If your wallet or purse is stolen, file a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where it was stolen, this proves to credit providers you were diligent, and is a first step toward an investigation. There likely won't be one, but you established a record nonetheless. Ê
• Call the three national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and Social Security number. The alert will notify any company that checks your credit that your information was stolen and they have to contact you by phone to authorize new credit. This will keep thieves from opening new numbers in your name, signing up for cell service, etc. It can stop them in their tracks. The numbers are:
  • Equifax: 1-800-525-6285
  • Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742
  • Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289
  • Social Security Administration (fraud line):Ê 1-800-269-0271
  Ê
• Keep copies of all your correspondence with credit card companies. credit reporting agencies, and the government after your information is stolen.

03:48 PM | Recommend This | Print This

Well its Even Worse Than That

In response to the recent uproar over Google News returning company press releases, Karlin Lillington writes ...it seems to me that a lot of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations also routinely publish/broadcast items that are basically just rewritten, unquestioned press releases and government statements, which also aren't clearly distinguished from 'actual' news articles... Well, its even worse that that.

In fact, much of what is not just rewritten company press releases is just rewritten from other papers. I saw the same misinformation quoted and requoted from paper to paper as they read each other's stories and rewrote them. I wrote about this a little in my essay on Living With the Red-Billed Oxpecker. Reporters get some little tidbit of information and have to file a 600 word story, so they go back and quote themselves and others to backfill. The worst are the weekly tabloids since they almost always have an ax to grind, so they add their slant to the story with what they wish were true. I even know of an instance where a monthly magazine picked up the weekly tabloid story and spun it even more afield. Of course, these people never call to verify their facts---that would spoil the fun.

09:31 AM | Recommend This | Print This

Blogging Panel at UEN Summit

I'm going to be moderating a panel on blogging at the Utah Education Network's annual technical summit. I'm unfortunately opposite a session on Mac OS X which I think will garner significant attention. I plan to open with some information on what blogs are and use examples like the Weblogs at Harvard Law and Kern County Superintendent of Schools since UEN provides service to both higher and public education. Today, I notice that David Carraher has posted an article on using weblogs in education that I'll have to read for ideas. I'll probably also draw on my experience last fall using weblogs to help manage my class. Here's the abstract:

Among the problems cited by educators in teaching critical thinking skills to students are the lack of access to primary sources of information, the inability of students to experiment with thoughts and concepts before committing to them (on a test for example), and the difficulty students have getting multiple, valid outside reviews of what they are thinking. Weblogs are a solution to these problems. Weblogs allow teachers to guide informal classroom activity and to see student's work before its time for the test or final paper. Students gain a vehicle for creatively experimenting with thoughts and concepts and easily accessing, cataloging and storing outside information related to their interests. This panel will introduce the concept of weblogs, or blogs as they are commonly called, discuss what makes them different from other websites, and talk about how they can be used to enhance classroom education. The panel will consist of weblog experts from around Utah and be moderated by Phil Windley who operates a popular technology blog at www.windley.com and has first hand experience using blogs in an educational setting.

09:12 AM | Recommend This | Print This