Are you innovating?
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Comments posted to this topic are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/awarren/areyoui
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interesting views.....however obviously the fact that you are in a completely different timezone from the rest of us gives you an advantage in providing solutions....
"Regular Columnist : Andy Warren
Posted: 09/30/2004 "
you wouldn't happen to have a copy of the next set of winning powerball numbers available?
Good Morning!!
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I am very much of the opinion that it is small inch pebble steps that change the world rather than the big bang approach.
If you take a step out of the IT department and look around the various departments you will probably find someone using a PC who has written the killer app for your company, but it is locked up on their computer, or in their department.
There is the flip side to this as well. Someone sees a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
I am deaf and need to use a special telephone. In the old days the handset used to have a rotating volume control so I could adjust the volume and write notes at the same time. Now-a-days, thanks to the ministrations of a surviving brain donor, phones have a volume control on the body of the phone so adjusting the volume and holding the handset is a two hand operation.
I worked with a colleague who has one arm. He had to ask a colleage to press CTRL+ALT+DELETE!
Wheelchair access! Don't even get me started on that one!
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I like the three examples provided, Andy - and can't help but think we obviously need to be more aware of the types of solutions our colleagues are creating.
The question is, where is all that information stored and how do we access it? I suspect that we come up with solutions and think that we are the only ones who have faced that problem; and by extension, the only ones who have developed a solution for that particular problem.
Is there a “Best Practices” site, or some such location where we might look for "value added" solutions?
The other point is, how do we get the folks who are sitting on neat solutions to share those with others, who may be facing a similar road block?
I would appreciate your feedback.
Neil Lensen
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The proverbial "can't see the forest for the trees" concept. Most of the time, we focus on our "main" jobs and don't step back to see what we can do to help the company acomplish it's core purpose - if you even know for sure what your company's core purpose is. Usually it's some variation on "make your customers very very happy".
Good thoughts here. We all need to step back from the monitor a few times a month and ask ourselves "What I have I done for the customers lately?".
Student of SQL and Golf, Master of Neither -
There is a fascinating book on this topic; called "The Evolution of Useful Things":
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679740392/002-7551932-7452055?v=glance
The author shows how a lot of the things we use today came to be. In studying the history of "stuff" he shows how most things invented are the way they are through improvements on improvements, and nothing really comes into existence in close to it's ideal form.
Good article, Andy.
cl
Signature is NULL
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I agree: Good article, Andy.
I'm looking forward to the traffic signal showing how much time is left on the YELLOW (and maybe even FLASHING THE RED to STOP! STOP! STOP! before going solid Red) so drivers stop running Yellow lights and killing people when the light is Red.
Thanks for encouraging us to slow down and think. Enjoy life.
Norm Johnson
"Keep smiling ... it gives your face something happy to do
... and it makes people wonder what you're up to!"
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Putting up stoplights doesnt stop people from getting killed by motorists... unless they have high power rockets tied to them that blow the cars up before the hit the pedestrians...or maybe more sublime the cars are made of Nerf...
Now putting ramps that run under or over roads might reduce those chances. I like the rockets though... very robocop...
It saddens me that many devices or conventions were done with protecting the user... but truly have lost use... such as the assinine Ctrl Alt Del options (though i've never used the accessbility options for how that is mitigated ... voice input or more functional windows tasks bar???)....or the hearing related phone nonsense....
profit and the protection of that wealth is what drives all innovations.. and thats all i have to say about that matter.
PS: and re the "The proverbial "can't see the forest for the trees" concept"
are you logged in as Administrator or have amdinistrator privlidges to browse the network? Maybe check the results of starting a dcpromo to see if the domain can be found...
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Andy,
This is still a great article. The ketchup tab is a almost no cost solution with great benefits to many users. Not a sexy project to add to your resume so the user gets the only benefits. Good example of simple things we can miss in IT.
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