Filtering the Web for your own good

I was present at a CEO gathering in Toronto earlier this month and after the formal presentations in the afternoon that caused everyone to enter Stage I sleep, a bunch of us walked across the street to an Irish bar where we had a few and exchanged about current events - such as Komrade Duceppe tanking in the polls these days - but most importantly how we can enforce more control on our employees.

One topic that generated a lot of talk is why and how we should filter Internet access to prevent employees to loose precious billable time. 20 years ago it was difficult to squander a full hour by playing with an IBM Selectric unless you had ambitions to become the next Stephen King. But today anyone can log on to the network and spend half a day shopping for high-end speakers, learning about Lindsay Lohen latest arrest or inquiring about the psychiatric profile of your "friends" on Facebook. All of which cannot be billed to a customer and do not add to our profitable growth mission, therefore it serves no purpose.

As a result, organizations are relying on productivity-enhancement software such as WebSense and BlueCoat to restrain the human tendency to constantly procrastinate. If one cannot access his favorite fly-fishing Web site, then he might get back to work and actually deliver something. You'd guess only Gen Y slackers indulge on this, but it's not the case. Even boomers do it, they'd rather configure a Lexus on the Web than do real work.

The tricky part is determine what categories of sites are verbotten and which ones are suited for billable work. Some CEOs around the table obviously sporting liberal viewpoints favored an "open" environment where only hardcore stuff was filtered.

This is the kind of 2-edge sword that I don't want to bounce back. Being open is an invitation for total disaster, and being highly restrictive is just asking to be bugged 20 times a day with requests to "unlock" specific sites.

Me, I'm not too sure on what my position should be, and this uneasy feeling scares the beejesus out of me. I should be more assertive. My therapist says people gearing toward their late 50's & early 60's are more mellow, they're not trying to make a case of everything. I'm on mission to prove otherwise. Older Mike will be nastier than Youthful Mike. Yet, I have my share of doubts, but don't tell anyone.

Dear members, you input is appreciated nevertheless. Damn I hate to feel like this.

Komrade Duceppe and the Legion of Canadian Communists

A few members have dared to poll me recently about my political views in the light of the upcoming federal election.

Needless to say, I am a man of conviction and as long as CGI can pursue relentlessly profitable growth I will be a very happy CEO. Having said that, the man pictured above gives me the creeps and reminds me that we should move our headquarter to a more sensible place like Bay Street where business is not treated on such an emotional level.

Meet Komrade Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois, a political party on the federal scene whose goal is to act like a separatist provincial party.

Look at him. If you were the casting director of Silence of The Lambs, you'd kick Hopkins out of his trailer and give the lead role to this guy without talking to legal first.

Look at him again. Tell me honestly that you don't see a radical, short-tempered man that reminds you of a certain early 20th century European dictator. Draw a short mustache on your screen. Get it, now?

Look at what Wiki has to say about him: In his youth, he advocated communism, and held membership in the Workers' Communist Party of Canada (WCP), a Maoist group. Duceppe later claimed that his three-year membership in the WCP was a mistake brought on by a search for absolute answers.

Communism? Maoist organization? Absolute answers? Does it sound like deja vu to you? This why I call these bozos and their provincial counterparts the Blue Commies, they are trying to reinvent what the Bolsheviks did a hundred years ago, except their message is more subtle this time. This what the post-war marketing brought, more insidious ways to plant political ideas into the minds of citizens. Goal is the same, but Komrade Duceppe thinks he's way smarter than Vladimir and Joseph. I'd pay a hundred bucks to see what's on the wall of his home office.

Duceppe even went so far as to intentionally spoil his 1980 sovereignty-association referendum ballot arguing that Québécois should instead focus their efforts on staying united to fight their common capitalist enemy.

Common capitalist enemy? Ok, my mind is made up. Put this guy in charge of the country, and he would nationalize CGI, kill all outsourcing and consulting deals with capitalist countries (er, that means 99.9% of our business) and probably shove a powerful union down our throat to add insult to the injury. He might ban Windows as well and come up with a government-built OS, who knows what these wackos are capable of.

Next time you meet one the Bloc minion at the grocery store and he/she wants to shake your hand in order to get your vote, ask him/her about the communist state of mind of Komrade Duceppe. Let me know how it goes, I think it will be extremely funny.

Sometimes a burger is just a burger

Dear FakeMike, your latest post outlines a profound problem in the IT industry, people are fed up with utterly complex technologies and the delusional managers who love them. It seems no IT project can evolve without turning into a huge clusterfuck with childish ego wars and dumb snake oil salesmen grabbing the client's attention. It's no wonder smart people quit their job and look for a more sensible professional life. A burger joint might not be terribly exciting, but at least the burgers don't call for a change management meeting with change request forms the minute you alter the menu. John from Calgary.

John here seems to have a point, but his limited perspective prevents him from seeing the big picture. I'd say John will never land an executive VP position, but that would be mean. Well, not really.

True, burgers won't complain when you change the menu nor they need firmware updates nor are they the subject of an “architecture” where the relationship between the burger, the fries and the large Coke is discussed at great length in relation to business requirements and best practices. Still, that's no reason to quit IT and especially your position at CGI. Unless you plan to trump Joey Chesnut, I’d stay out of the food business.

This is a typical problem with mere mortals such as John, they don't see the big picture, they cannot grasp the full extent of profitable growth so they limit their view of the world to what their senses tell them.

John sees a clusterfuck, I see a lucrative opportunity to expand and deepen a relationship with a deep-pocket customer over a 10 years period minimum.

John sees insanely complex technology, I see a fantastic opportunity to bill a large number of hours to install and configure whatever he's talking about. Since the complexity escapes everyone including the manufacturer engineers, there's no shame in charging an obscene rate.

John sees a delusional manager, I see a great potential for the firm to drop a couple of expensive "strategy advisors" in the manager's office and gear the mentally-challenged director in a direction that ultimately will lead to large contracts for us.

You see, profitable growth is in the eye of the beholder. So John, if you're unable to grasp the true reality with your limited intellect, yes maybe it's time you go flip burgers as beef patties are - exactly - a beef patties. But ask yourself this: did Ray Kroc saw just a burger or a way to revolutionize the American food industry? It's the same here, I see tremendous opportunities when all you see is tedious work and painful client relations. This is the difference between top-shelf CEOs like me (for instance) and whining guys like you.


Let me know when you're there, I can't wait to see your new outfit.