The New Sliced Bread
Thursday afternoon. As I started working part-time since last week, I decided to have a quiet night indoors, have a glass of wine, rent a movie.. you know how it is. So, I jumped on my bike (a normal one, not like the powered horses Jorge's riding), hop by the supermarket and stop by the videostore. The supermarket part was easy enough, so I arrived at the videostore quite shortly after my departure. Upon entering the shop, my eye was caught by the poster for a new film starring Harrison Ford (I still can't see that guy in any movie and anticipate him pulling a whip and doing something heroic like robbing ancient Aztec gold). The name of the film was 'Firewall', and the story (according to the excerpt on the back of the DVD) was about a guy who was to bypass his own securitysystem, or at least something like that. It didn't seem like a very interesting movie, so I didn't bother to examine it too closely, but something did strike me as rather odd.
About 5 years ago, the term 'firewall' was one that wouldn't ring a bell in the head of the innocent bystander. After all, computer security was a rather ancient myth, practiced by people who could laugh about a joke that was written in binary, or thought that anyone who didn't knew every switch to every command-line utility in an operating system was an amateur. System administrators ruled their networks with an iron fist, where concepts such as 'customer' and 'service' were as foreign as the millenium was to the COBOL-programmers in the 60's. But nowadays, even my neighbours (and my parents, for that matter) understand the concept of a firewall. With scary speed, computers and the usage of them has found their way into most households. Internet has become so common that we advertise them in commercials, and a company that doesn't a webpage isn't even considered a real company. E-business and e-commerce are the biggest booming businesses, and administrators bow to the wishes of the company now that CEO's and every other employee has realised that IT is there to service their needs and not the other way around.
There has most certainly been an enormous shift in IT and its place in the everyday world. When I started as a helpdesk-employee at a company here in the Netherlands (which was in '98 or '99, I can't quite remember), the sysadmin sat at the opposite desk. Disturbing him during work was about as hazardous as sticking your head up a crocodile's mouth and tickling its tonsils; you only did when there was no other choice. (Hi Jorge! :P )
If customers came in and wanted something that wasn't technically viable, a stern glare from the techies and a firm 'Nope, can't do' was enough to turn them back to their desks, feeling rather ashamed about even having entertained the notion of a new idea.
All of this worked fine for a few years, until something dreadful happened. After Y2K, the IT market was overflown with both knowledgeable and .. well.. not-so-knowledgeable IT-people. Unfortunately, the amount of work on offer was suddenly a lot less. The millennium had passed and the world had not gone under (to the disappointment of a select few, I'm sure). Despite the fact that a lot of techies were in fact completely and utterly clueless, this didn't stop a lot of companies from hiring them (after all, that had worked well enough a few years earlier, right ?). This time, however, their incompetence showed. People had learned (and learned very swiftly too) during the Y2K matter, and the fact that IT had almost been the cause of a lot of grief during the last midnight of the 20th century, made a lot of people realise how large a part it really played in everyday's business.
This, of course, had a very nasty result. Suddenly, IT got the priority that it hadn't had beforehand. The realisation that IT was the new dawning era and the key to succesful enterprises made a lot of people sit up and pay attention.
Surely, this was a good thing ? Well, not if you were one of those people who had managed to get away with weasling companies out of a lot of dollars through lame and completely clueless 'consultancy'. Companies suddenly began to demand standards and even went as far as to demand service. Shifting from a dominant position that was virtually untouchable, IT-personnel was suddenly expected to deliver service. After all, if IT was to be the key to succesful delivery of information, people would be damned if they wouldn't decide how the IT-people gave them that information.
Standards were developed and implemented. The focus of IT began to change, going from 'making sure the technology works' to 'making sure the customer is happy with what he or she gets, despite the technology'. Administrators who still felt that they ruled the network were informed that their dominant position had changed; from now on, the customer was the main focus. As the market was already overflowing with IT-people, being fired was suddenly a lot more likely than it had been a year before.
Adjustments came. Standards were set. IT became a fundamental part of the core-business, being an underlying element that is much more recognized for its needs than it used to. Consultants are expected to have an insight in simple business elements such as supply and demand, continuity and ROI. Times changed. People got fired. Businesses became smarter. The world shifted.
Nowadays, everybody's connected. The general awareness of IT and computers has increased to the point where you will find people discussing their Internet-connection or their new computer at birthday parties. Computer magazines in every shape and form are available from most shops, and everyone (and I mean everyone) has an opinion on IT.
That's what flashed through my mind when I saw the movie 'Firewall' announced at the local videostore. The next thing that flashed through was how I thought all of this is a good thing. Sure, I also enjoyed my time as a BoFH (*** Operator From Hell, check Google if you don't know it..). It was fun to be 'The Guy Who Makes Things Happen'. But something is only new for a short period of time, as people have a marvellous talent for adjusting. IT has stepped out of the shadow and ran into the spotlight. We all know what it's about, and it's the best thing since sliced bread. Hell, it's the new sliced bread.