I think that I’ve said plenty this week about Tech IT Easy and where I would like to see it go. Now, the rest is all about making it happen. You should also take my words with a grain of salt, as I’ve been accused of being very goal-orientated before. Goal orientation is something like: taking climbing lessons to eventually climb the highest mountain or writing a thesis to fix a country. I set the bar pretty high, which is meant to motivate, but which can just as easily intimidate (me included).

Today’s post is about writing as I woke up with a thought about it. Blogging is an area with extremely low barriers to entry, which is why so many blogs exist. Anyone can blog and tell a story. But not everyone has a story to tell.

The great writers, which some of us dream to become perhaps, didn’t write to just write. They had, I imagine, a fire within them, that burned them day after day to produce what would eventually become a great asset in someone’s library.

I’m thinking Nelson Mandella’s “Long walk to Freedom,” Ram Charan’s “What the CEO wants you to know” (the equivalent of a blogpost of just the right size in books), Howard Schultz’s “Pour your heart into it,” (reviewed here), and many more which are on my shelves at home.

These books were written by people that had life-experience and just had to share that with the rest of the world. Sure they researched, but more often than not these author in particular just poured out the words. Even “Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world,” which I’m currently reading, was written by a professor that travelled the grasslands that gave birth to Khan (for an idea of how that would like visually, check out “Mongul“).

The point is that today I wanted to write about writing, because I’ve written a lot, too much, before in my life. I started blogging just to write, not having a clue what I would do with it. But I’m more and more of the opinion that the written language was created to preserve that which you want to communicate over time and to many people during its lifetime.

When you want to blog something, think about it a little (or don’t) and then just write that which you want to say. As soon as you start going down the path of having to still research what you’re going to say while you’re writing (a sure sign that you’ll end up talking out of your you-know-where), give up the writing, let the new information digest and try again the next day. Writing is a joy to read and to write when it flows.

Vincent out

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I have to say that I (Vincent) am a little baffled by the amount of effort that goes into IT or ICT. I thought we had these discussions some years ago and the general consensus was: IT is not the source of sustainable competitive advantage.

Yet, when I opened my Economist from two weeks ago (I’m always a few weeks behind), an article mentioned that with this credit crunch, mergers and acquisitions are going down, and with that a major cash-cow for consultants: IT systems consolidation.

I guess I’m wondering why companies, particularly those young babies being acquired, are still working with proprietary systems? Is there some kind of competitive advantage to doing it “your own way?” Or is that simply a myth that people believe in?

For myself, I’ve whined a-plenty about how Excel sucks and Powerpoint sucks, and how I’d like to have software work in my “right-brained way.” But I still believe that Excel and Powerpoint works fine for 95% of the population and for 95% of the time, and that there is no need for a custom-built solution on that—the administrative—end.

There is of course multiple sides to IT, particularly if you are an IT-company or one where IT plays a leading role. Let’s take Amazon, which won’t be acquired anytime soon, which relies heavily on its proprietary technologies, being so specialised that it decided to become an IT-service-provider. Or Lucas Arts, which develops effects for films, also 3rd party, and will certainly use custom-built software.

But when I think IT-consolidation, I think databases, and I’m wondering if one database is better than the other. And I’m wondering, why there isn’t a standard for this yet, as the Amazon’s of this world are clearly pushing for it.

What am I missing here? Why do we need consultants again? Why aren’t we doing everything in the cloud?

Vincent
(give me smart answers, and I may write a smarter post about it )

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