Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Buzzword Bingo and Shrinking Budgets

Seems the 'Community' is spouting Web2.0 and other keywords de jour in various internal/external CIO-level conferences. Personally, I'm not too concerned with Buzzword Bingo. I recognize that many in our collective senior ranks are 'Analog Bosses working in a Digital World'. Therefore, if we can at least encourage them to speak with a 'single voice' and vocabulary, so much the better... Don't change the 'word' too soon. Let the terms become part of their own vocabularies... Once the term is indeed dead or overused, then introduce an updated one. Otherwise, we'll continue to confuse the leadership and I fear, we'll slow down acceptance and understanding...

On another topic: Shrinking Budgets

The reality of smaller IT budgets for this current FY and who knows what will happen in future FYs, reminds me of an old favorite saying among pragmatic engineers: 'The amount of engineering ingenuity is diametrically opposed to the money in my pocket' I think a smaller budget is actually a good thing. Yes, I'm sure if I were on the chopping block I'd have a totally different opinion, but I'm not and actually most of the visionaries within my current organization aren't either. Which in a small way, speaks volumes! Tighter budgets drives interoperability, standards, reuse, leveraging, actually 'designing' a system or Enterprise to work and have real up-time capabilities.

On the Collaboration front, shrinking budgets makes organizations that perhaps in rosier times didn't have to 'share' their technologies or solutions. With the onset of 'One Community' and reality that eventually the DNI (and Congress who mandated the change through legislation) will get his way, perhaps now is the time for real Community Collaboration efforts to be fully supported. Along the way, maybe, just maybe, our individual organizations will also learn to collaborate within their own ranks? (I know, I'm such an eternal optimist!)

Data Point: 85% of DNI's budget is actually under DoD control.