Us vs. Them
I am a software developer (or programmer/analyst, if you wish). Over my 20 year career i’ve flirted with management positions a number of times. I’ve been a project lead developer (as I am now), i’ve been a team lead with several developers working for me, i’ve even been an IT manager with a budget and employees (in an IT department of 5). But, mostly, i’ve been a developer, probably 16 of the 20 years. Writing software is the reason i’m in the industry.
I am always wary of efforts to seduce me to the dark side (management). I find that I don’t think like most of the managers i’ve ever had. I laugh at jokes that make fun of managers or the corporate bureaucracy. And I find that I have a strong bias toward the developer side of the argument, no matter the subject. No matter what the management edict, I question and push back before submitting willingly. I question the reasoning of management decisions, or the source of management facts and information. It’s just the way I’m built.
This leads me to the inspiration of this post: The Gartner Group (The Big “G”, or GG). I work for an organization with about 900 employees in the corporate HQ. The are about 130 folks in IT.
My coworker and friend (see his posts about the Pacific Northwest Software Symposium, where we ate some excellent Pad Thai, and talked about Microsoft, Open Source, and Robert Scoble). Have been discussing the role of Gartner Group in our organization. When we have discussed this with a mutual friend and member of upper IT management, there is clearly a wide divide between us (the developers) and them (IT management).
Our first reaction when there is a mention of Gartner Group is pretty predictable. We roll our eyes, and let out an exsaparated “Puh-leeeze!”. My actual contact with Gartner Group has been limited, a teleconference or two, and a few too many white papers, and far too many web stories with Gartner Group quotes to back up one claim or another.
In our organization, Gartner Group is the first stop before any decision making takes place. Management wields Gartner Group information like a bludgeon, justifying any inane decision with a white paper, or analyst quote. The developers are instantly on the attack when the Gartner Group club is pulled out.
It’s all about trust. Management trusts the large, well funded, analyst organization that provides wishy-washy and vague guidance that can be spun to fit any organization. Developers find such organizations without credibility, because they are populated by people who aren’t fighting in the trenches with them. They are in nice window offices, wearing suits, and fiddling with Blackberries, just like our managers. They are one of them. That’s why we trust Slashdot, Digg, Joel On Software, and that Java developer we met at a conference who has a blog. They are us.
No Fluff, Just Stuff, Seattle Style
I’m sitting in the first session of day 2 of the Pacific Northwest Software Symposium. It’s part of the No Fluff, Just Stuff series of software development conferences. Yesterday I attended sessions on the Spring framework and Agile tools. Today will Agile development and Hibernate sessions. So far, the sessions have been very good. Lot’s of good info, with NO marketing crap. The speakers are generally authors and practiioners, not company representatives.
Arriving in Seattle proved the stereotype: Cool, gray, and drizzly. Natives have tried to convince Kelly and I that the weather has been really nice lately, sunny and warm. We suspect they work for the chamber of commerce. The hotel is very nice. It’s in the middle of an outside shopping mall area, just outside old downtown Redmond. We found a Thai resturant and had some very good Pad Thai to help wake me up before the first sessions. People have been a little surprised to find out that we flew from Kansas City to Seattle for this event. There have been other events that are part of the NFJS series as close as Omaha and Des Moines. I won’t try to explain why we decided we would rather go to Seattle.
Of course, my cell phone rang half way through lunch yesterday with a call from work about a project that is in testing. So, I had to fire up my laptop during one session to change some code and email the resulting EAR file back to the office for deployment.
I’m a little torn at the conference. Next door to the software symposium is the BetterPhoto seminar. I have already spent some time checking out the books for sale out front. I think I would rather spend a weekend at a photography seminar, but I am enjoying the software seminar so far.
Sitting in these sessions makes you very self conscious about your appearance. Just how well do I blend in with this collection of the geekiest people you will generally ever see outside of a Star Trek convention? Do I really look like these people? Unfortunately, the answer is probably yes. And once someone overhears your conversations during this event, your geekiness is confirmed. I guess that’s the curse of being a software development.
