Open Source Pioneer Michael Tiemann On the Myth of the Average
'In a recent article, Michael Tiemann, one of the world's first open source entrepreneurs and VP of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat, highlights an example from the 1950s US Air Force where the "myth of the average resulted in a generation of planes that almost no pilots could reliably fly, and which killed as many as 17 pilots in a single day." He uses this example to argue that IT leaders who think that playing it safe means being as average as possible in order to avoid risks (i.e. "Buy what others are buying. Deploy what others are deploying. Manage what others are managing.") may be making IT procurement and strategy decisions based on flawed data. Instead, Tiemann says that IT leaders should understand elements of differentiation that are most valuable, and then adopt the standards that exploit them. "Don't aim for average: it may not exist. Aim for optimal, and use the power of open source to achieve what uniquely benefits your organization."' -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/03/177233 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 12:25:28 +1300, Peter Reutemann wrote:
'He uses this example to argue that IT leaders who think that playing it safe means being as average as possible in order to avoid risks (i.e. "Buy what others are buying. Deploy what others are deploying. Manage what others are managing.") may be making IT procurement and strategy decisions based on flawed data.'
-- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/03/177233
Funny, I immediately thought of this <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/02/chief_exec_of_the_civil_service_says_we_were_right_to_outsource_in_gov/>: [Chief executive of the Civil Service John Manzoni] said: "In some sense it was right 15 years ago to outsource; it was what everyone did and there's nothing wrong with it. "But actually the future from here has to be transformational and we have to do things in a different way and for that we need all these skills in."
'He uses this example to argue that IT leaders who think that playing it safe means being as average as possible in order to avoid risks (i.e. "Buy what others are buying. Deploy what others are deploying. Manage what others are managing.") may be making IT procurement and strategy decisions based on flawed data.'
-- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/03/177233
Funny, I immediately thought of this <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/02/chief_exec_of_the_civil_service_says_we_were_right_to_outsource_in_gov/>:
[Chief executive of the Civil Service John Manzoni] said: "In some sense it was right 15 years ago to outsource; it was what everyone did and there's nothing wrong with it.
"But actually the future from here has to be transformational and we have to do things in a different way and for that we need all these skills in."
Nice one. Cloud computing could be considered a hybrid version of out-sourcing, as you might keep your talent in-house, but the computing resources off-shore. However, if the cloud provider goes down (eg DDoS) then even good personnel might not be able to do anything... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
participants (2)
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro -
Peter Reutemann