michaeltegler.com

Invariably during an episode of the original Star Trek series you’d hear the desperate pleading of the Chief Engineer, Montgomery “Scotty” Scott. Bordering on begging Captain Kirk (or Spock) not to challenge the odds on a risky maneuver that will kill them all.

To some he was probably seen as a hysteric, clinging too closely to laws of physics and what the manuals (Who reads manuals anyway?) claimed the upper limits stress the engines or structural integrity of the ship could take.

To me, however, Scotty was engaging in “underselling” the capabilities of the ship, in order to “over-deliver”. Many fictional years later, in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Relics”, Scotty admits he was trying to hold onto the myth that he was a miracle worker. Making farfetched ideas work.

Using the term “miracle worker” is a little glib self-assessment in a work environment, but Scotty is really saying, he may try to lower your expectations, but you can depend on him in a tight spot to come through for you. Because he always does. Obviously we all fail in making the magic appear sometimes despite our abilities and efforts. Fortunately most of us aren’t in a life or death situation so we can go back to square one with only an injured ego.

The nature of “underselling” comes from the reality that no matter how detailed the extent of your planning and experience in coming to a working solution, there’s always something that’s going to go wrong and throw your plan off. This is where the creative thinking in IT becomes a must, but also you must be aware the unknown can happen and add it into the equation and find a way to relay that in non-technical terms to management.

In general, management thinks when they are asking for a business solution that is simple and obvious. To themselves they think in practical terms that make sense. Without truly understanding the nature of computer technology and technology company goals.

Einstein is quoted as saying:

Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.

Even though Einstein said this decades before we had personal computers in millions of homes and businesses. It’s no less true today.

Computers are still pretty dumb, for example, installing a printer on a computer can result in hours of frustration. It doesn’t matter that you have the correct drivers or followed the manufacturer’s instructions to the letter. Every printer has a potential for production flaws. Every software driver has the potential for unforeseen bugs that the software developer misses. The printer manufacturer can not reproduce every computer environment and build. Problems and mistakes happen and it’s essential to pre-figure these unknowns into every solution.

In this example if someone from management were to ask me to install a printer on their computer and want to know how long it’s going to take. It may take me 5 to 10 minutes, without incident (maybe less), but I’m not going to say that. I’m going to say it’s going to take me 2 hours. That way I’ve added in the unknown and if, as it would usually, take around 5 minutes, management is always pleasantly surprised. They just gained 1 hour and 55 minutes of computer time they thought they never get.

If I had said 10 minutes and it ended up taking 30, management is almost always a bit annoyed. I know the feeling. It’s like waiting in the Doctor’s office. Your appointment is at 12:30pm, but you’re lucky if you see the doctor by 1pm. That was overselling.

Overselling, the antithesis of “underselling”, is usually the domain of sales representatives, but also more then a few IT professionals, I’ve known. Sales representatives will often promise me a performance increase of 10x of what my company’s current configuration. Anyone who promises you the moon, you have to automatically take it for granted the moon will never be delivered. You’re bound to be let down by high expectations, so why not set the bar in a realistic place and come out looking great because you “over-delivered” or created a “miracle” on the solution.

In the end despite Scotty protestations to the contrary he was confident in his equipment and creative skill. He just kept it away from management.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Star Trek and Scotty are partly responsible for mine love of working with technology.

To be continued…

I’m sure everyone has their own particular list of favorite applications/hardware. Here’s mine:

Web

Logmein – The free version of this service is perfect. You have no idea how many times this program has saved my bacon. I strongly prefer the ActiveX to the Java version. It could be because I hate all things Java.

Flickr – This ancient Web 2.0 site is still the best photo image storage/sharing service on the web. I have a “Pro” account and about 10 years worth of images up there. Unlike Photobucket and ImageShack. The interface doesn’t make my eyes bleed.

Gmail – So clean and fast. More like an e-mail database/archive. I’ve used the service since it’s inception. I have about 4 e-mail accounts dumping into it and I have yet to come anywhere near the 6 gig capacity.

Google Reader – I never really caught on to the RSS craze until IE7 included a reader built-in. My trouble with it was I had 6 computers and even though I could export and import the feeds to each computer, I had to skip through a lot of stuff I had already read. Along comes the web-centric Google Reader and my problems are solved.

del.icio.us – Bookmarks anywhere. I was using Googlesync for this to keep my bookmarks where ever I went. But like Gmail, del.icio.us is more like an archive then a bookmark management and one I use daily.

Software

Firefox – It used to be all about the plug-ins. Plug-ins for this and that. Even I feel it’s actually starting to lose some of it’s innovation ground. But I really can’t work without the program, some of the plug-ins have literally re-wired my brain.

Windows Live Writer – I was a true believer of web-based applications until I tried this little program out. Like Firefox the plug-ins themselves are what put this above anything similar. So easy to use and with conjunction of Foldershare I can literally write from anywhere.

Microsoft OneNote – Taking notes. Drawing. Copying text with references. Capturing images. Storing and organizing overkill. Probably the best application made in the last 5 years. If you have a short attention span and are completely unorganized, OneNote can actually make sense of the world. This is really what the Tablet PC platform is all about. OneNote is a brilliant program.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 – Corporate mainstay. Like many Microsoft products it does 5000 things you don’t know about and probably wont use. What people don’t talk much about is that Outlook isn’t about e-mail. A huge part in contact organization and scheduling of people and resources. Like my criticism of Firefox, I feel Microsoft has dropped the innovation ball on this one for the past 5 years. That said much like Gmail and Firefox there are simply no better alternatives to Outlook for corporate e-mail clients.

Hardware:

AT&T Tilt – This recently replaced my Verizon XV6700 for this PDA/Phone. It was a nice upgrade and as usual as a new customer of any phone service you get the best price on equipment. Many people have asked me why I need such a beefy phone. It’s got lots of RAM, GPS and a keyboard. I would say that the phone part of this device is not the most used part. The internet and e-mail are by far it’s biggest utility for me.

Samsung Q1 Ultra – A new addition to my technology family. I’m still learning to use it. These UMPCs are different then the Tablet PCs I’m use to. It needed to be upgraded and hacked so I could use it for business, but I’ve had no problems doing so.

Macbook (Black) – I’ve said it before, but it bares to be repeated. I haven’t seen a faster Vista computer, but I primarily use OS X 10.5 and Microsoft latest RDP client beta. My main complaint about this laptop: Not enough USB ports. A serious design flaw.

Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 – Microsoft’s hardware branch is by far the best department in the company. And I’ve been a fan of Microsoft’s natural keyboard design since it’s inception. Yes I use this with my Mac. Apple has insane ideas for what passes for input devices.

Microsoft Natural Wireless Mouse 6000- First off, beyond the really innovative design, this is the most comfortable mouse I ever used. Again used with my Macbook, because the more buttons I get on my mouse the lower my frustration.