I received a laughable email this morning, from the IT Group’s central administrative assistant. In fact, all employees here at the lab received this email. Well to be specific, its not the email that caught my attention but the attachment: a spreadsheet of acronyms and terms, with their respective meanings.

My first chuckle came when I reached “DDR SDRAM” which if you don’t know apparently means “Double Data Rate SDRAM”. Jump down to “SDRAM” to get “Synchronous DRAM”; scroll back up to “DRAM” to find “Dynamic RAM” and so on, ad absurdum.

The author’s failure to proofread is worthy of a chuckle, but that alone is not the essence of what makes this document funny. After wondering “Who wrote this list?”, I thought to myself, “More importantly, who were they writing it for?” It obviously was not intended to be a consummate list of IT terms — that much is clear not only because of what terms were left out, but because of the countless medical, and otherwise unrelated terms that were included. Here’s a sample:

4GL - Fourth Generation Language

ACT - Activated Clotting Time

BMP - Bitmap

CVVHDF - Continuous Venovenous Hemodiafiltration

FCIP - Fiber Channel over IP

MS - Microsoft (?)

OLTP - On-Line Transaction Processing

P - Pulse

SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol

and my personal favorite:

USA - United States of America

Is this list for IT professionals, or for medical professionals? I’m sure that any medical professional would be equally as confounded with the included selection of medical terms as I am with that of the technical ones. I can’t think of any audience that would benefit from this spreadsheet. As far as I can tell, whoever compiled this list has successfully wasted their and my time. Of course, now I know that 1000mg is the abbreviation for 1 Gram.

This journey led me to a third, more important observation. The terms definition list includes several project management buzzwords that carry a negative connotation such as ‘in jeopardy’, ‘at risk’ and ’scope creep’. All of these mixed right in with other project management terms that make direct references to my IT group. The fact that these terms are the ones being identified for everyone to learn makes it obvious to me that IT is considered a hostile enemy.

What happened in the past 20 years that turned IT departments from proverbial ‘knights in shining armor’ into lepers that are a necessary evil? Twenty years ago user interfaces were barren and functionality was dictated by strict necessity. As hardware got cheaper, solutions got more robust. Users who were used to very limited systems started to get more functionality and even some niceties. Managers were increasingly happy because computers could replace some jobs altogether. Feed someone bread and water for a couple of years, and then see their eyes light up when you offer them jam, or peanut butter, or milk (mmm pb&j with a cold glass of milk!).

IT was in its heyday when direction still came straight from the needs of the end-users. Then some curious things happened to dramatically change the landscape of the industry. The first tragedy came when IT departments started turning into IT companies. Smart entrepreneurs realized that there was a huge ROI potential with their internally developed systems, when marketed to other companies. Great moneymaking idea, but unfortunately this displaced the end-user from their spot as the customer. IT departments became the new customers, translating and interpreting their own end-users’ needs to the software company. Everyone knows what happens when engineers talk to engineers, and to begin with end-user to engineer translation is not as simple as English to Spanish.

In this pivotal role, overweight IT departments and overpaid consulting companies have flourished. They’ve recreated almost every business practice including project management, resource planning, and customer relationship management, all in the name of doing things more effectively but in most cases to the detriment of the processes. Want to cripple a successful sales force? Manage them with Goldmine.

The bottom line is that IT shouldn’t be making business decisions. IT should only make implementation decisions. Sure the separation between the two can get blurry, especially with bad business decisions that call for you to put a square peg in a circular hole. These bad business decisions only happen when the business doesn’t have a good understanding of their environment, and that education is the responsibility of IT.

Educate, advise, but never direct. Play in your sandbox all you want because that’s what you’re there for and you’re probably really good at it. Maybe suggest to your company a finer grain of sand that would pack better with water. Feel free to implement a periodic sand-cleaning process. Never, ever interfere with how the sand gets there or who its bought from. I think my kindergarten teacher tried to teach me something like this… “Mind your own business”

“Welcome to the Prescription Drug and Other Assistance Programs section of Medicare.gov. This section provides information on public and private programs that offer discounted or free medication, programs that provide help with other health care costs, and Medicare health plans that include prescription coverage. For more information on the Prescription Drug and Other Assistance Programs please visit www.Medicare.gov”

I didn’t want to be right this time. NPR broadcast a short story about the newly launched ‘Interim Prescription Drug benefit’ yesterday. In particular, the story focused on the increased customer service demands generated by this poorly organized stop-gap. My jaw dropped when Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep noted that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are launching a new portion of the medicare.gov website to address these new customer service needs. I couldn’t have asked for a better lead-in to today’s post. But believe me when I say that I honestly had hoped to surf my way to the Medicare.gov website and find a brilliantly simple, easy-to-use digital brochure which answers the most common questions, referring all others to a 1-800 number.

Well, that’s not what happened. First though, I need to repeat something I said a while ago about knowing your target audience: “Know your target audience!” My grandmother was responsible for two generations of computer geniuses and it took her a long time on AOL training wheels before she graduated to a real ISP. Occasionally I still need to show her how to add phone numbers to her cell phone. Don’t get me wrong, my grandmother is not stupid — in fact she’s very, very sharp. She can manage a 4 by 4 grid of bingo cards like nobody’s business and though my grandfather got most of the credit for being the livingroom Jeopardy champion I tend to think her averages were a little better.

Its a common misconception that people get stupid as they get older, while ironically it’s the young folk that are causing the problem. People don’t grow stupid, they just grow accustomed to thinking and doing things in a certain way. My Nana (and yours too, I’m certain) knows knobs, levers and switches. Telephones have 12 buttons and her hand is the mute. Her TV shows aren’t on-demand and her movies “aren’t cut off at the top and the bottom.”

You’d think that an organization like Medicare would know their audience. Never underestimate the government that brought us the IRS. What brain-boy thought that a website (of any quality) would be a good primary customer service solution for a product that services mainly individuals 65 and older? Not to get up on a political soap-box, but its not too surprising that the support system built for this ill-conceived band-aid is equally as inadequate. Rather than spend the time and money establishing a public healthcare system (or even subsidy) for those in need, our esteemed forked-tongue leaders have compounded the problem with a coverage plans that you can only change once a year, not to mention that the system expires in 2006! But that’s ok because for those in extreme financial need there’s a whopping $600 a year coming your way. File it right next to last years tax relief check. Sure sounds to me like the Bush Whitehouse has the best interests of America’s seniors in mind.

I could go on and on about how crazy it is that we’re the only major world power without federalized health care, but that’s for another time and place. What really gets me is this website. Check it out… Where do I go to see my new options? Where’s the list of endorsed providers? What number to I call to sign up? Why is ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ below the bottom half of the page? I’ve clicked around to many of the links, and found 10 different places instructing me ‘for more information go to www.medicare.gov’. I AM AT MEDICARE.GOV!

::Deep Breath::

Knowledge that this new plan is mostly a dog and pony show for the upcoming elections doesn’t nullify the fact that this website is just about as usable as a chainsaw with no handles.

2.4GHz Celeron. 80 GB hard disk. 17 inch SVGA monitor. 128 MB RAM. $400 from Dell.com

I remember sitting in my grandparents’ basement playing Zork on my NCR PC4I. That bad boy was a full-fledged IBM XT, sporting a zippy 8 Mhz processor, 16 MB of RAM and crisp 4-color graphics. I guarantee that computer did not cost $400.

There’s a computer in almost every home, school, and gas station. Indeed computer accessibility has come to such a level that they have even found a home in our telephones, cameras and refrigerators. Isn’t it wonderful to behold the promise of technology is coming true?

Wonderful, except for the fact that computers have found homes in our telephones, cameras and refrigerators. This proliferation is not itself a bad thing. A mobile phone is a much cooler tool than a home phone; a mobile phone with a built-in phone book is cooler still. A mobile phone with a built-in camera is, huh?

When something gets cheap, you start seeing it everywhere. If the manufacturer wants to maintain their marketing edge, they gotta add bling. Some new feature has to be added, and the ones that work the best are the features that appeal to our egos. Technology is getting cheap, have you seen the new webcams?

The creation of computers is a man made miracle. We actually built tools to help us reason, to help us solve problems. To do something beyond our physical limits like sequencing the human genome. Anyone who tells you they’re solving a problem by putting a computer in your refrigerator is lying… and lazy.

I’m ashamed of the many brilliant minds who are wasting their time designing cell phones and hand-held computers. The people who did the hard work before us were no less than pioneers. They were a counterculture devoted to bettering the world through the potentials of electric current. Most techies now collect big paychecks for catering to the whims of pop-culture.

On June 21st, Michael Melvill became the first civilian to reach outer space in a privately developed vessel. “Space Ship One” as it was called, was the first product of a well financed venture funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. My heart throbs with envy for this man. There is much buzz surrounding this event — people are calling it a Milestone; a turning point in the history of space exploration. The New York Times quotes one FAA official as saying “The flight today opens a new chapter in history, making space access within the reach of ordinary citizens.”

I have always had a great passion to be a part of space exploration. I would not however, have taken any part in this venture.

It is evident that NASA and other federalized space exploration agencies have lost significant momentum over the past three decades. At the age of 10 I visited Space Camp, where they reported predictions of manned trips to Mars by the year 2000. Four years later at Space Academy the prediction had been bumped to 2005-2010. Ask NASA today and they won’t even offer an estimate. Our most impressive accomplishment to date, the International Space Station is the first man-made ’star’ viewable in the night sky. It has been all but abandoned by NASA because they lack reliable transportation to get there.

Perhaps a swell of success and growth from a private space industry will give NASA and the others a kick in the pants, but at what cost? There is a conspicuous lack of explorers in the modern world. Capitalism and Ego have driven human curiosity into a dark cave. The debased character of IT is not the only example of this. With few exceptions, medical researchers have stopped looking for cures and now search only for the best treatments. Where’s the money in curing someone? They’ve turned life-threateners such as HIV/AIDS and many forms of cancer into chronic illnesses and billion dollar industries.

I believe there are still explorers in us. We can still be the people who sat quietly in awe of the first men on the moon. We can still be the people who cried when we lost Challenger. If private American companies are allowed to set the pace in space travel, pursuits such as science, medicine and the search for extraterrestrial life will be replaced with orbiting Carnival Cruise liners and Hard Rock Casinos on the moon.