Discussion on:

The Pragmatic Professional

...whatever your client/employer is using.

I agree with the article entirely.

We may all have our favorite toys, but the value added to the employer is what you produce, not what you use.

I use the analogy of crossing a river.

If you (the employer) need to cross a river tomorrow, the Golden Gate bridge built two years from now is no help whatsoever.

However, a felled tree would serve the purpose nicely.

That is what I think we, as IT people need to remember. IT is a means to an ends in business, and not an ends in and of itself.

Judging from some comments I've seen in the various blogs, I wonder if they bother teaching that simple truth in all these IT trade schools.

Not that they are bad. A friend of mine went off to one of the first IT trade schools when I went off to college. He landed a great job and has moved up in IT management since he started, eventually getting several degrees along the way.

But that was a VERY long time ago and recently another friend who was teaching at one of the trade schools resigned because he was being pressured to give passing grades to everyone.

We need the occasional reminder that IT isn't too far removed from facilities maintenance, the tool crib, or janitorial services. Unless you're with a software firm, corporate IT provides is a service department, not a profit center.

Is the wrong first approach.

What does the user require to do the job? often that question is not answered with an OS, it is answered with a tool.

So why aren't we considering those things that will allow us to provide the user with a tool?

Commonality. Pure and simple. We want people to use the same easy to install stuff that may or may not natively install the one thing that they need... but will work for most users.

We truly have not bothered to see the extent of this problem. It is a paradigm shift in that we are NOT seeking to provide a REPEATABLE platform, just a functional one that facilitates the end user.

The winds of change... and all that.

or the end zone stands.

I have my preferences, but if I can't get past them to provide the best solution for my employer, I'm not doing my job properly.