Another great SysAdvent

Once again, a group of volunteer writers and editors came together to put together 25 posts related to systems administration for the SysAdvent blog. Although I have contributed several articles over the years, I much prefer editing. All of this year’s posts are great, but I’m very proud of the posts that I had a hand in editing. As usual, the writers did most of the work, my suggestions were always minor.

It is done!

About four and a half years ago, I decided to apply to graduate school. Though I had sworn I was done with school when I completed my bachelor’s degree in 2006, the idea of a master’s degree began to seem reasonable. With Purdue’s staff discount and my department’s forgivable loan scholarship, I could pay roughly a quarter of the “retail” price. In January of 2011, I began my coursework.

Since then, my wife and I have welcomed two children into the world. I have changed jobs twice, the second time leaving the university for a much more stressful and time-consuming role at a small company. For four years, I tried to balance my family, my academics, my employment, open source contributions, and (on rare occasion) my own mental and physical health.

It is the hardest thing I have done in my life, and although there is evidence to suggest that I performed well, I never felt like the balance was right. At least one area always got less than it deserved. Sadly, myself and my family were most often on the short end.

Nonetheless, my family remained unwaveringly supportive, even when I was basically non-existent for weeks at a time. My colleagues never complained (to me, at least) about my absences during odd hours of the work day. My professors praised my work, particularly the thesis which I defended in November (more on that in a later post). My Fedora contributions became effectively non-existent, but nobody seems to begrudge me for that, and I look forward to being able to contribute again.

I did not, and could not have, accomplished this on my own. I took great pleasure in having my family in attendance yesterday as I participated in a long-awaited commencement ceremony. For everyone else who provided support and encouragement along the way, no matter to what degree, I offer my most sincere thanks. We did it!

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Calling people people. What’s in a name?

My IT service management professor once told the class “there are only two professions who have users: IT and drug dealers.” It’s interesting how the term “user” has become so prevalent in technology, but nowhere else. Certainly the term “customer” is better for a series organization (be it an internal IT group or a company providing technology services). “Customer” sounds better, and it emphasizes whose needs are to be met.

For a free Internet service, though, it’s not necessarily an apt term, if for no other reason than the rule of “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.” That’s why I find Facebook’s recent decision to call their users “people” interesting.

Sure, it’s easy to dismiss this as a PR move calculated to make people feel more comfortable with a company that makes a living off of the personal information of others. I don’t doubt that there is a marketing component to this, but that doesn’t make the decision meritless. Words mean things, and chosen the right word can help frame employees mindsets, both consciously and subconsciously.

In Fedora, contributors have been actively discussing names, both of the collected software (“products” versus alternatives) and the people involved (“contributors”, “developers”, “users”). Understanding what the general perception of these terms are is a critical part of selecting the right one (particularly when the chosen term has to be translated into many other languages). A clear definition of the people terms is a necessary foundation of trying to understand the needs and expectations of that group.

“People” may be too broad of a term, but it’s nice to see a major company forego the word “user”. Perhaps others will follow suit. Of course, “user” is just such a handy term that it’s hard to find a suitably generic replacement. Maybe that’s why it sticks around?

The IT of politics

Much can be (and has been) written about the politics of IT: the intra-team relationships, the relationships with customers, and the C-level maneuvering. Less is said about the IT of politics. Not necessarily the IT issues of government agencies (NSA surveillance, missing IRS emails, and the ACA enrollment website disaster being three recent examples), but the IT efforts that power the political campaigns themselves.

Ars Technica recently reported on a research paper that examined the use of social media by the Obama and Romney campaigns in the 2012 presidential election. While Obama’s social media team was given some autonomy and reacted to events as they happened, Romney’s team had a greater level of bureaucratic control and schedule. Granted, social media is much more of a marketing issue than an IT issue, but it reinforces earlier reporting about the analytics and volunteer management platforms.

Politics aside, the IT organizations would seem to reflect the backgrounds of the candidates. The results of the respective projects, while hardly inevitable, don’t seem very surprising. There’s a wealth of project management knowledge to be gained from examining the development and deployment of Orca and Narwhal. That is, if they can be studied without the politics.