InfoWorld: The battle for decentralization: May 02, 2003: By Chad Dickerson: Networking
The days of the paternalistic top-down IT department are nearly gone. My message to chief technologists everywhere: Your users have left the nest; the best thing you can do is hope they make the right choices and occasionally call you for advice.
This sums up the different philosophies on technology in my current workplace. I’m on the empowerment side, in case you were wondering.
I just re-read Haroun and the Sea of Stories with my son and heir and it’s one of those “kid’s books” that resonates with adults. I was amused to read the passages where the irrepressibly talkative Guppee army takes the battlefield against the secretive and paranoid army of Chup. The Guppee forces have discussed, debated and dissected the plans, agreed, endorsed and embraced them, and take the field with the confidence that understanding makes possible. The Chupwalas, with no faith in their leaders and their plans, abandon the field in disarray after betraying their comrades, and the Guppees win the day: openness and inclusion 1, secrets and paranoia 0.
The other part that made me pause was when our hero meets the sworn enemy of stories, fun, and imagination in any form, who explains that he hates stories because each story represents a world he can’t control. And he wants to control everything, so stories or anything outside his grasp must be destroyed.
We’ve all known people who feel so comfortable in their box, they want everyone else in one too. Don’t think different, or at all, if it makes anyone uncomfortable.