“I’m getting married on my head,” My sweet John Robert to me said. “Perhaps my Dear Should wait a year. But now it’s time to go to bed.”
Lost Improvements: An Analogy to Defects
Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them. W. Edwards Deming To summarize Deming’s teaching on defects, they cost an organization thrice. First, the defect is made, which robs the organization of a “working” product or service. Second, the defect must be identified, which also takes time and resources. Lastly,…
The Non-Technical Economy
It seems that everything these days is about AI and how the world as we know it will end. Some are prophesying that entire swaths of our economy will be replaced by AI. Writers are lining up on both sides of the argument. As IT professionals, much has been written (or assumed) about the use…
The Appropriation Paradox
My father joined the army fresh out of high school. After training as a “sigint” operator, his second tour took him to Munich, Germany. He married my mother shortly before moving to Germany and they settled in the small town of Bad Aibling, close to the army base and nestled under the gaze of the…
ITIL 4 and Aggregation Theory
Back in the days of ITILv3, focusing on process was the right thing to do at the time. Building out robust, documented, repeatable processes went a long way toward consistent service delivery, and for many years, this approach to service management was enough. Then in the late two-thousands, significant changes in availability of IT service…
Category: ITSM
Home for the Holidays
Don’t you love spending quality time with family and friends eating and drinking lots of things you don’t need? You gotta love those conversations around the dinner table and if you’re anything like me, you’re thankful that Christmas comes but once a year. I had a number of interesting conversations this holiday, but I’m only…
Category: Higher Ed
To Insure Promptness…
On Tuesday nights, I teach until about 7:30pm and so I go out to eat after class. One of my favorite restaurants is a little “hole-in-the-wall” Chinese place in College Station off of Rock Prairie, T Jin Diner. Watching them work is amazing. To begin with, the food is fantastic. I’ve never had a bad…
Category: tips
Van Halen Breaks AI
I’m a huge Spotify fan. As a GenX’er, I love ’80s arena rock – Queen, Van Halen, AC/DC, Journey, Yes – you get the picture. Spotify feeds my hard rock nostalgia hunger. Spotify released a new feature earlier this year called DJ that is essentially an AI bot that examines your musical tastes and curates…
Career Readiness Skills Higher Ed is NOT Teaching
The list of marketable skills (aka: market ready skills or career readiness skills) has been around for at least a decade. The list is not surprising: It’s also no surprise that higher ed is doing a pretty poor job of teaching these skills to our graduates. NACE has been in the forefront of this research….
Category: Career Readiness