A geek in industry or “how to survive in a corporate IT shop”

copyright © InformationSpan Definitions  Enterprise - more than 5000 employees  International - active in more than 3 countries  Global - active in 3 or more world regions and at least 3 countries in each

copyright © InformationSpan Issues  Time zones  Languages  Cultures  Tax  Regulations  “one size does[n’t] fit all”  … and opportunities

copyright © InformationSpan You don’t know everybody  and they probably work on the other side of the world  and they probably don’t think like you do  and they may be divided by a common language do you know what “quite” means in American?

copyright © InformationSpan You have a locked down PC  and it will be a PC  and it will (as of now) be on XP  and someone else will make most of the choices  they will put lots of effort into making sure it all works together  but it won’t accommodate other bits! if this scares you...  use the web, but mind the company’s information it doesn’t help anyone if you compromise your employer!  companies are learning to trust their users education in the things that home IT doesn’t teach personal budget and self provisioning so long as you can collaborate!

copyright © InformationSpan You don’t get to travel  since “9/11”  since cost became an issue  Technology has improved massive internal use of collaboration look at HP/Cisco reality videoconferencing!  But you still won’t get to use Skype (there are real security issues) Internet IM (but internal services are reaching out) desktop video (bandwidth …) SecondLife (all the above!)

copyright © InformationSpan Global regulatory and compliance  The big stick and truly the regulatory burden is awesome!  This one you really do have to take notice of people can go to jail if you don’t  It’s not the same as “security”  do you know about SOX  do you know about Basel II  do you know about the DPA? ... and so on  Note: your and chat gets archived - and can be “discovered”

copyright © InformationSpan Information risk  We always used to say that is a postcard, not a letter  So are blogs, wiki postings, and so on  Many enterprises want to “avoid” risk but you can’t do business without it - business is risk  A good enterprise will understand it’s a balance  There will be a policy anti sharing: information may get compromised pro sharing: often a great way to build your stakeholder community and share information quickly. Streamlines business.

Now the good stuff apart from pay

copyright © InformationSpan there are sources you don’t get elsewhere  Enterprise IT people get attention with vendors particularly! great sources of geek knowledge  Industry analysts (big and small) they watch the world for you think “insight services” to support and inform decisions find your company’s subscriptions and use them! ask interesting questions … and do good stuff with the answers

copyright © InformationSpan beat everyone in breadth of knowledge  you know lots of stuff that most IT people don’t a little about a lot, and a lot about a little!  and lots of people let your academic contacts work alongside new commercial ones  remember the “knowledge I know where to find”  Some key examples: distributed systems; social computing make your knowledge and contacts work for you

copyright © InformationSpan lots of new stuff to learn ERP, MRP SAP B I Data center Six Sigma especially if you know a bit of stats! project management business requirements Metrics can be very creative measure what’s valuable not the other way round! CRM find the stuff that works for you, and focus!

copyright © InformationSpan find the right way to be a tech advocate  friends in upstream (R&D)  business leaders with unsolved problems or frustrations particularly direct consumer-facing teams  architecture and tech strategy who’s doing the tech roadmap? how far out do they look? find the can opener

Enterprise IT has a lot going for it find your feet - and enjoy!