The Four Hundred

Another year, another opportunity to get it right. We are nothing if not a nation of second chances. Just ask our beloved professional athletes regularly caught drugging or beating their unfortunate girlfriends yet seldom losing their jobs. Or, the current crop of public servants indicted and convicted by one administration and rewarded by another, granted a second chance to serve the nation whose laws they disregard. Welcome back, second chancers; our memory is short and our tolerance boundless.

And why are we a tolerant and forgiving bunch? Because, as it is widely understood, IT professionals are morally superior to athletes and politicians. Everyone knows that, except athletes and politicians. We want what's best for the world and its people. Everyone knows that, except perhaps the world and its people, but that's because, in addition to our other virtues, we are a modest group and, unlike those others, not given to excessive self promotion. Most of us--and I am almost certain I'm on solid speculative ground here--can only affirm minor, private failings. Right? After all, we dunk doughnuts, not basketballs, and lie to ourselves, not to Congress, and thus are obliged to create our own second chances. Which, in fact, we do annually, secure in the knowledge that we can always rewrite the program if the current version fails to please. We even have a hopeful-sounding name for our second chances. We call them New Year's resolutions.

Ah, yes, this year we're really going to do it. Exercise more, drink less, spend more time with the kids, charge less on the credit cards, lose weight, gain muscle, get a degree, pay off a loan. Or, as a friend of mine summed it up a bit more pragmatically: "limit my chocolate intake to dark and semi-sweet." What are the chances? We know it's all a fraud, just like listening to the prepared statements of athletes and politicians apologizing for getting caught in some indiscretion or for saying what they really think.

But what is life without hope? So, ever hopeful, I offer five New Year's resolutions for the IT community, a second chance to set things right.

1. Computer manufacturers should quit measuring the value of their products by how fast they run.

Does anyone really care? Here's the latest. The Associated Press recently reported that the Japanese have built a machine "so fast it performs more computations per second than there are stars in our galaxy." And it's just about as large. It's so large, in fact, they have to house it in a building the size of an aircraft hanger. So, any guesses on how many calculations it can execute per second? If you guessed 35.6 trillion, you know more about star density than I do. Of course, only a computer that could perform that many calculations could also measure them, so the estimates could be a flop or two off.

Not to be outdone, IBM was quick to respond that it will surpass the Japanese in 2004 with a 100-teraflops machine. This has all the juvenile swagger of two guys comparing their you-know-whats. My teraflops is bigger than your teraflops. And, like two guys comparing their you-know-whats, the issue isn't size (and, in this analogy, certainly not speed) but whether or not they can do anything useful and pleasing with the damned things.

So what is this behemoth going to be doing? If, as the Japanese insist, it's modeling changing weather patterns and predicting earthquakes, the achievement should be applauded. If, on the other hand, all of those terrible teraflops will be used to produce the next generation of ghoulish weapons, perhaps we should look beyond the childish notion that theirs are bad and ours are good, and consider the full impact of what we are computing. Actual use far outweighs the importance of size and speed. To paraphrase a higher authority: what does it profit a man to gain a teraflops and lose his planet?

Just when they had him on the ropes, Gates finally figured it out. The government sells protection, among other things. A few years ago, the full force and fury of the Federal Government, along with nineteen states, the European Union, Japan, Brazil, Israel, and assorted competitors, were all puffed up and eager to slap Gates down. The Department of Justice, then headed by the fiery Janet Reno, believed it had prepared a pretty convincing case against Gates, citing monopolistic tendencies, shredded antitrust provisions, and wanton bullying of the competition, all orchestrated with more than a hint of hubris.

Tellingly, at the time, Microsoft had only four lobbyists working on its behalf. IBM, by contrast, had over two dozen and AT&T, nearly four dozen. Such disregard for the regulatory powers of the federal government revealed an uncommon naivete. Alas, those days of boyish innocence are gone. The sky over Washington soon darkened with lobbyists and some serious money was slipped under congressional doors. The stall-and-pay strategy worked brilliantly. Reno is once again a city in Nevada, and the new--and from Gates' perspective, improved--Department of Justice examined the same evidence and, whodathunkit, it seems it was all just a big misunderstanding. A settlement advantageous to Microsoft followed as surely as favor follows money.

While two dissenting states--Massachusetts and West Virginia--and the Software & Information Industry Association and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (both supported by Microsoft's competitors) have made two separate appeals to the final proposed settlement from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (which was accepted by seven other states that originally did not agree to a prior settlement agreed on by the U.S. government and Microsoft), these four organizations have to stay the course and press ahead.

What goes around comes around, and two years from now another Justice Department may reexamine the case and find new evidence that resembles what was there all along. It's difficult to believe that all of the original suits were totally capricious. In any event, there must be some revenge for all of the grief that Windows gives us. (That last bit is sarcasm, not legal argument; although I admit it is tough to tell the difference sometimes.)

It's tough being a first-time manager: ignored from above, despised from below, with a workload heavy enough to break a mule's back. To exacerbate matters, new managers have the tendency to try to do everything themselves, and in the process drive their employees crazy. Nothing will burn out managers faster and annoy employees more than micromanagement. There is no need. New managers, listen up: you can do relatively little and look relatively good while not doing it. The secret is delegation.

With diligent practice, you too can shove most of the serious work onto others, just like the guys at the top. And once you have safely discarded that annoying workload, you can advance to doing the truly important work of going to meetings. "I have to go to a meeting" may be among the most beautiful words in the English language to a manager. They justify your absence for hours at a time. Pick up your dry-cleaning, go for a jog, maybe play nine holes of golf. Meetings can make it happen, but you can only spend your days in meetings (wink, wink) once you've delegated your unreasonably excessive workload to your indolent staff.

In the interest of balanced reporting: Come on, kids, you're carrying this delegation thing a bit too far. The closed office door, the two hour lunches, the offsite planning sessions. Who are you kidding? If you'd actually done any planning, our 401(k)s would probably still be worth something. The economy remains troubled. Leaders are urgently needed. You've already delegated all that is humanly possible, and now it's time to step up. And don't be trying to replace us with machines. We run the machines, and it would be no trouble posting your social security and credit card numbers on the Internet.

What have we done to be treated like this? Don't know about you, but I just want to speak to a human being, preferably one who--at minimum--has a modest mastery of the English language. I want to tell my problem to someone who will at least pretend to be sympathetic and may actually do something to help me. I don't want to listen to sixteen different options that have nothing to do with my call. I don't want to take orders from a disembodied digitized voice directing me to provide personal information before a software instruction decides I'm worthy of assistance. And I don't want to descend through multiple layers of phone hell only to be told that all (meaning both) of the customer service agents are busy now. If your blood pressure is rising, press 1 now. If you are having a full-fledged coronary, press 2 now.

And while we're waiting for service, may we all resolve to have a healthy, happy, and professionally fulfilling New Year. We may as well do it now, before we run out of second chances.