Gavin’s Digital Diner

The failure statistic is often cited, usually with a moan and a wail. It goes like this: 30, 40, or 50 percent of all IT projects go bad. The rest — the ones that actually succeed — well, they go “slightly bad too.” At least some of them do. In the end, nobody’s happy. Jobs [...]

Naming an epoch using the superlative prefix of “post” — as in post-industrial, or post-modern, or the particularly unsatisfying post-millennial — is the one true indicator that we haven’t a clue. When I hear it, I tend to silently grumble the opening lines from A Tale of Two Cities:
It was the best of times, it [...]

I learned of the game the hard way. Sometimes it’s called “Follow the Lady” — you probably know it as “Three-card Monte.” It depends on the art of misdirection, distraction and illusion, and just a little sleight of hand. And now it seems, it’s played every night on the evening news. Even “The Daily Show” [...]

It was many years later that I was to remember that day in Seattle. How I had ended up where I was, standing next to who I was, was beyond me. But, there I was — I was at the “top of the WAC” – the Washington Athletic Club — staring out the windows at [...]

Her name was Jane. We met, quite unexpectedly, at Zaventem Airport in Brussels. At the Avis counter. It was such a random thing, but when I saw her I knew — no hesitation — whatever the cost, I just knew. Some things are just meant to be. With Jane, it was meant to be. Jane. I [...]

I was recently asked to dream up all the ways these new fangled information and communications technologies can save us from the carbon-based perils of flying. Flying dumps tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Not good, that. Technology, of course, that’s the answer, or so they say (who ever they are).
The litany goes something like [...]

There was a recent posting on the Information Systems Manager’s forum that has me dredging up the past. There, the question was posed as to the value of blogs – more specifically do they lead or follow, or are they relevant at all. Should one read ‘em or ignore ‘em?

The author of the note postulated [...]

The grass is always greener. We all wish we were something we’re not. I wish I were younger, perhaps better looking and less of a romantic, too. Mail room clerks dream of being CEO’s and CEO’s dream of working in the mail room. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”*
I often hear that [...]

Over on the NTEN blog, there’s been a discussion of charitable giving — posing the question: “Does online engagement lead to more money?” A simple question, but further down in the discussion there was an implication that online engagement generated not just “more money” for the individual organization but “more in general” — actually increasing [...]

So, with all this talk about logic puzzles, the voice of the people, and the value of various types of communications, I decided to do a little homework. After all, I publicly committed heresy. And, while several people (privately) agreed with me, and others suggested that we get to make our voice heard every election [...]