Developing Usable Experiences

Who makes decisions about IT?

January 13th, 2009 7:02 am —  25 views
Curled up cat

Ozzie just wants a quiet place to sleep during the day. Don't we all?

The professor asked a lot of yes/no raise-your-hand type questions during his lecture yesterday, working the response into his message. I though that an effective information sharing strategy for teacher and students alike.

At one point he asks if anybody thought they could run an IT organization. A few of us raised our hands. He then asked if we could make a decision to spend 100 million dollars on IT.

He paused to let this sink in.

In my head I immediately started laying out the infrastructure, thinking about server room configurations, machines, experts to run them, the type of research I’d need to do, etc. While I was in my head pondering this, nobody raised their hands. When I decided I could probably figure it out, I half raised my hand.

The prof chuckled and slapped me on the shoulder before  continuing his lecture.

And for some reason I’ve been thinking about that moment. In my head I wasn’t thinking that my decision to spend 100 million dollars on IT stuff for a business would be a good one, just that I thought I could work through it.

But his reaction makes me think I’m missing something. Which makes me wonder, do I have the vision or am I just fooling myself? Does it take a vision or an ability to envision? Am I grossly overestimating myself?

Much to learn but I’m ready. In that class, for this semester, I’m thinking like a CTO and not a web services development programmer.

Image: The weather has been cold and getting colder. In a chilly concreted-corner of the basement where I’m usually huddled near a space heater in front of a computer I found Ozzie Ghato, a fuzzy curled ball of sleepy catness.

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2 Comments 

Comments

2 Responses to “Who makes decisions about IT?”

  1. Dawn on January 14th, 2009 10:30 am

    Yes I believe you COULD make a 100M decision, and that it would be a well thought out decision that would benefit the organization. Believe in yourself.

  2. Ma on January 15th, 2009 12:22 pm

    I agree with Dawn.

    All through your life you have “thought” you could do “things”. Many things during your childhood were manifesting your latest dream into a reality. As an adult, I see those dreams you’ve always had coming to fruition.* You “could”? You WILL.

    *except for the bear claw tree climbers

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