Filed under: General
Anyone watching the markets lately? Personally I don’t make a habit of it other than to watch some of the key news and issue that stem from a downturn. Perhaps its obvious to all, but why is it that companies that are the hardest hit by these blips in the market are the ones who latch onto “fiscal responsibility” (as a catchphrase and concept) just a touch too late. Isn’t “fiscal responsibility” something that good corporations should practice regardless of the market fluctuation? If not, how else can corporations plan and execute their vision for the future if only focused on today’s bottom line, unknown external influence, and speculation?
Speaking of speculation, it has been somewhat humorous to read through some of the quarterly reports for companies in a similar (but far from the same) line of business as us, hearing their CEO’s talk about how their drastic decline is due to the market. Well, maybe that is part fact, but you’d kind of hope that if a CEO believes that to be the root issue, how the heck can they solve/fix it, the market isn’t theirs to control. Stepping back a bit they might see that their share prices were more linked to speculation than to substance. Does no one remember the .com days?
Over the years I’ve given the speech/rant on why GIS has a bad name in Oil and Gas many many times (I won’t repeat it here). In early implementations the main reason (IMHO) GIS had a bad name was that the technology was not quite ready for prime time (in the context of enterprise solutions), in more recent times the reason for failed implementations has been due to under qualified hacks pretending to have knowledge of technology and workflow — tough to fake it. In the last 10 years we’ve seen a nice boost in the level of savvy of clients and of competitors, it’s a good thing for everyone to be smarter and thinking about the larger picture. Sure you’ll still have people that are focused on the details but that is all about rounding out the workplace.
With the downturn that other consulting companies are facing we are beginning to notice an increased level of slander and a decreased level of forthright communication, competition has become aggressive (even over the small stuff), and the tambour of these consulting companies has changed from the sweet sound of “keeping the client’s best interest in mind” to “if we under bid this we can then put the screws to the client later”. Really? Sometimes I wonder why the consulting industry does this to itself, sacrificing long term vision for short term gain. The face of failure looks a lot like a homeless person holding a sign that says “Will implement GIS for food” or “Will sacrifice reputation for bus ticket home”.
It is always interesting to see how others are misguided from their ideals when faced with adversity. The self-fulfilling justifications flow freely, everything to justify why what is being done is the right thing — believe me, the right thing doesn’t always cause you happiness and joy in the short term, however, it does mean that when you tell your kids about your life in and out of the business world, there won’t be parts you have to leave out.
This past week has been an interesting one to say the least, many great things are brewing and many more have come to fruition. Of course being a private person and a representative of a private company I tend to, ah duh, keep things private so on to the real content of this post…
Had an opportunity to present at the GITA Oil and Gas conference in YYC this week, the topic “Bending at the Knees: Heavy Lifting Using Spatial Services”. The whole idea for the presentation came from a situation that came up early this year where a potential client was very willing to invest inane amounts of cash into servers and server licenses but were unwilling to look past their immediate need (i.e. delivering a web-based map to their customer base) and would not focus a higher value implementation that involved services (aka distributed spatial functionality).
Alright, I’ll take some of the blame for not getting the point across. But there’s only so much that can be done to refute someone who’s “understanding” of the technology and its relevance to business can be likened to a salesman stringing a bag of acronyms together, promising world peace in the next release, and offering discounts to meet quota…I have a weak gag reflex so all I can do is walk away from that stench of verbal diarrhea.
SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is not that new, although if you looked at the commercial GIS software that support SOA and only read their brochures then you might believe a) that they invented SOA b) SOA is new c) SOA is difficult and grandiose d) SOA must cost a lot of money. Hmmm, remember that sound from Family Feud when the contestant got the answer wrong? Yeah, that sound, play it loud and clear, the brochures are mushy marketing material for people who typically don’t have the time to do the research. SOA isn’t new and many of the SOA related technologies go back several decades.
Anyway, the presentation seemed to go ok, although being late in the day and also the presentation right before the vendor sponsored event, it really was hard to tell. The main points of the presentation were 1) services aren’t new, you’re probably already doing it 2) services must be tied to business processes 3) don’t implement services without being willing to adjust your existing workflows. Unlike the verbal diarrhea, I hope that some of those thoughts stick.
