IT departments are little short of a ponzi scheme – discuss

I had a meeting with the IT dept at a decent sized company yesterday to talk about a web project and it occurred to me (not for the first time, mind) that IT departments are now simply in the business of obfuscation and self preservation rather than anything useful or value adding.

Increasingly good, increasingly cost effective and increasingly secure software is being deployed across the web through the cloud and these jobsworths are still talking about server and client models – I’m sorry, but Salesforce does not equate to voodoo. And the fact that Salesforce can be integrated with other platforms/apps does not mean it is inherently bad. In my world of getting things done and being helpful, it counts as a bonus that it can be plugged in easily enough.

And what is it with you enterprise IT types and .Net – it’s gash! And it’s expensive. Get with the programme and get on-board with PHP rather than priding yourselves on your refusenik status because you have handed over pots of cash for crap.

I content myself with knowing that I will have the last laugh and that you will find yourselves on an incredibly dull scrapheap unless you get a grip and embrace change.

Thats strange coming from someone that was k1ssing a55 not that long ago……

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/one-for-the-webheads-nice-sites-you-know-and-like

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/email-woes

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/workplace-it-sorry-how-to-demo-a-website-remotely

I see your Glasgow – go on where do you work……..

Well thanks for that, what should I have for dinner too?

Sniff – your website seems to be down. Shurely shome mishtake? Did you forget to feed the hamsters?

Get with the programme and get on-board with PHP

HAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!

Don’t go on about what you don’t understand, it makes you look stupid 🙂

Nope up and running. I think you maybe need to call IT and see if they’ll get you new mouse

I for one would be very careful about getting locked into any cloud service. Client-server still has its place, and each case should be considered on its own merits, rather that just opting for ‘the cloud’ because its new and a buzz word?

Also, not enough random capital letters or swearing for it to be a good rant.

I content myself with knowing that I will have the last laugh and that you will find yourselves on an incredibly dull scrapheap unless you get a grip and embrace change.

I’m contenting myself with a slice of toast and extra butter, but heh! whatever works.

Biscuits for anyone? Kettles on.

Sniff, you must have a block so that Apple users can’t see it – we clearly wouldn’t understand your developmental genius. Doesn’t work in FFX or Chrome – you looking at it on an external connection or a cached copy?

Works ok here sniff, on a mac running Nightly. Wouldnt worry too much about Mr Troll.

Matt, don’t offer tea. I did earlier, and got a warning for it! Post was deleted, too!

Take that as a warning! No tea! 🙂

It’s up now – good job putting 50p in the metre. So, if you’re a wee agency, why you defending the profligate ways of departments?

as someone in Business intelligence (providing data warehousing and management reporting) there is stuff that the cloud isnt ready for, practicable or secure enough yet. He says hoping he will still have a job in five years 😉

Menothim, all departments work on a self preservation principle. However if you couldn’t sell a cloud based solution you:

(a) didn’t understand the clients’ real needs (rather than your perception of them)
(b) didn’t ensure the right stakeholders would be present (e.g. the FD rather than just the IT guys)
(c) are just crap at presenting your proposition

Can’t blame the IT guys who have to deal with the mess if it all goes wrong for sticking to what they know and trust. In many ways its no different to you assuming that PHP is the starting point for all projects.

Whilst the cloud has a lot going for it, I’d suggest it is least attractive to organisations which are large enough to have their own IT department rather than just one guy. I think in many cases the ROI case is not clear for many SAAS models either – especially if you already own the hardware and have the inhouse expertise to build your own solution.

I don’t work in “IT” so am not defending my own corner.

I’m not 100% sure a Ponzi Scheme is what you think it is ??

Being slow to change, and creating unnecessary work, isn’t how a Ponzi Scheme works.

:confused:

I doubt very much that IT departments are trying to do a bad, expensive job. How much do you know about their environment, constraints, budget, resources, existing systems, policies, legal compliance situation?

IT in medium/big companies can actually be quite hard. That’s why some IT people earn quite a lot of money.

We had a supplier with a good, innovative product that our team was thinking of rebranding and selling to our customers. However, they were moving their hosting into the cloud (Amazon EC2). This affected the deal (along with a couple of other issues) – we handle sensitive data, and Amazon wouldn’t let our IT Security people audit their installations (which includes physical security too).

Two months later – EC2 goes down, taking out some major cloud hosted services for a day or so. When this happens to our services, it makes the news – BBC, broadsheet newspapers – as well as being all over the tech sites.

Cloud is good for some stuff, not good for other stuff.

(Poly has a good point too – in house assets can be capitalised, cloud hosted services tend to be opex)

putting 50p in the metre

Miixing your units there, sunshine.

Your rant simply sounds like the paraphrasing of a sales brochure, with all the insight and understanding of an adolescent schoolboy.

I don’t know what a Ponzi scheme is, but I’ve not watched Happy Days for a long time.

The problem with IT is that everyone thinks they’re an expert.

you people are just cross because he’s (rad)core business and you’re
🙄 support 🙄

I just hope he’s away finding out what a Ponzi scheme actually is, so maybe he doesn’t make himself look like a tit so early in the thread next time.

Quite correct, a companies’ critical systems on a server somewhere…, what could go wrong.

And the biggest block to any standardised system/application is the user wanting it ‘to work exactly like the last one’.

And I’m guessing you’ve never got involved with SAP, if you think that about web development?

a companies’ critical systems on a server somewhere…, what could go wrong.

If it’s a critical system, it’s not on a server.

If you put everything in the cloud what happens when it rains?

Maybe the river will flood and wash out the troll?

If it’s a critical system, it’s not on a server.

Eh?

If it’s a critical system, it’s not on a server.

. You hope.

Happily I’m not selling anything – I’ve just been called in to dig a web project out of the mire. The project is in the mire because it was run by enterprise IT guys who then foisted it on an unsuspecting populace.

The problem with the project is that it was run with no end-user focus whatsoever. Hence it’s not doing what the other bits of the business that IT over-ruled need it to do. It was techy for the sake of being techy.

I get enormously frustrated by these depts burning through huge piles of cash by being less than open with the less informed. Happily there are genuine solutions like the cloud looming into view so that IT depts will need to work harder to justify their existence in future.

I agree that the cloud is not right in every instance, nor indeed is PHP. What I do believe those is that very many IT depts in this country – particularly those wedded to MS and .Net – are severely lacking in any useful user focus or progressive thought.

I am making a gross generalisation about the culture of IT depts, but in my long experience of corralling them during web projects I have seen their culture up-close and found it unhelpful in the extreme.

I do know what a Ponzi scheme is, but I thought it was an appropriately troll like word to use to indicate my belief that IT depts are frequently scamming the rest of the businesses of which they form part.

And how I wish I was still an adolescent – rather than someone ground down by the repetition of hearing no, no and no from enterprise IT types.

Eh?

Note the emphasis.

You hope.

Well, yes, I almost caveated that comment with something along the lines of “… unless it was specced by someone who needs a career change” but couldn’t be bothered.

Cougar has a fair point about everyone thinking they are an expert about IT. I clearly am because I use a computer. IT bosses who last wrote a line of code 12 years ago are clearly expert in the web because they’re on LinkedIn.

the repetition of hearing no, no and no from enterprise IT types.

Its not just high level IT types who are like this. It seems to be a power thing as much as anything else going on some of the stuff I’ve worked on.

It cant be easy for any department to recommend solutions that could end up doing some of them out of a job either.

Ok then, as you know what a Ponzi Scheme is, I can now answer the question in the title

No

IT departments are nothing whatsoever like Ponzi Schemes.

I know this because I had my last Website designed by a bloke who ran a Ponzi Scheme and it was shite.

And I invested some money in an IT company, and the investment did quite well as it happens.

Hope that helps.

br – Yay, SAP! We’re just getting it now. I quite like it actually.

Ah the cloud. Sounds so…. powerful and all knowing doesn’t it?

I was trying to think of enough stupid buzz words to put together an amusing yet highly patronising paragraph or two but in the end I couldn’t be arsed.

Cougar has a fair point about everyone thinking they are an expert about IT.

A few years ago I was talking to my mechanic. He was telling me, he’d diagnosed a problem with a customer’s car and the guy was adamant that it was something else because “his mate had told him what was wrong.”

He asked what the mate did for a living and got told, “he’s a butcher in town.” Yet, his opinion trumped that of a time-served mechanic.

People.

Attention IT people.
Don’t forget now.
At the end of the day you’re JUST support.
🙂

Happily I’m not selling anything

Therein lies your problem. We are all selling something – as soon as you realise that you can start structuring your arguments like a sales pitch and stop worrying about the fundamentals of what’s right and wrong.

Now if all IT departments were super slick at “web” projects would that mean they wouldn’t need to call you in to bail them out, and you would then have nothing to do.

I get enormously frustrated by these depts burning through huge piles of cash by being less than open with the less informed.

Ok but how is that a problem specific to IT? It’s just a badly run department, as is the rest of the organisation by the sound of it.

If you are buying something you are obliged to learn something about the subject so you don’t get scammed by the salesman, aren’t you?

If you put everything in the cloud what happens when it rains?

Actually what happens here when it rains properly is the local telephone exchange floods and we lose our internet connection for several hours. This happens a couple of times a year – accordingly we also lose access to our cloud based accounting and crm systems.

I think it was also a thunderstorm that took out Amazons cloud servers near Dublin last year – so perhaps there is some meteorological link…

Molgrips, doubtless other departments burn through cash wastefully too – but picking on them is not nearly as much fun as winding up you IT types 👿

IT project that run over budget and aren’t delivered on time tend to be managed by people who think they know about IT after being in the business 2 minutes, or getting into te business from another area of management and thinking IT is an easy ride, or needing to know a little about IT to get something done (from your earlier posts in the links above that seems to be you).

I cant tell whether your being sarcastic or just generally dont have a clue but you probably dont ride a bike either, just hang about here because you wish you could ride a bike as well as you do IT.