Peering problem with NSP

Wed Nov 1 19:38:25 UTC 1995

 > From: Michael Dillon <michael at memra.com>
 > Sure it has. But a lot of professionals have the attitude that details
 > need to be hashed out discreetly in private so that a polished,
 > professional front can be shown in public.

Let's look at this statement and discuss professionalism a little
for fun.

Let's say that you and a team of engineers are planning a new program
and budget.  You have one idea, lets say.... 'WIDGETS r IT'. But
another competing department under the same cost center firmly
advocated 'GIZMOS r US'.

Many bad managers and poorly organized groups of people enjoy having
the two differnet positions argued in front of them because they
enjoy the power of arbitrating between two different positions.

Now,  another firm believes in a differnet approach.  The two
opposing positions work together *before* going to the person
with control of the money and works on a joint approach, looking
at the strengths and weaknesses of the 'WIDGETS r IT' position
and the 'GIZMOS r US' position.  Instead of being attached 
emotionally to their ideas they detach from the situation
personally and work together on the strengths and weakness'
of the ideas and develop a comprehensive package and take it
up the organization to the money person.

Now, instead of arguing and a public power struggle, the organization
works as a team, presenting the ideas to a decision maker who
in-turn enjoys the pleasure of a team atmosphere.

Of course, some managers and executives thrive on chaos and disharmony
(the weak ones) and that is how they maintain control.  If they
can prove to their upper management that without their ability
to arbitrate the mission fails or the goals are not met, then
their position is secure.

The Internet brings nothing to redefine professionalism, ethics
nor human nature.  It is just another medium to communicate.
AND, just like all media, newspaper, telephone, smoke signals,
telegraph..... there is good communication and poor communication.

Patience, kindness, compassion, understanding, ojectivity,
and ethical conscious are human aspirations that are grand
human endeavors, much grander than pushing little datagrams
around the wires.  The problem, IMHO, are the architects and
engineers whom have elevated the art of 'dump truck packet
moving' to a goal loftier and more elegant than social   
consciousness.

Nothing new nor redefining about that..... to believe
otherwise is to form a opinion without being cognizant of
history, human nature, and technical progress... and to exhibit
a basic lack of insight into a macroview of the world.

{ can't see the forest for the trees; can't view the mountain
  living in the valley; Hmmmmm. Let's see... from eastern
  thought... Hmmmm. Fish believe the entire world is the
  ocean and fight and argue with frogs proclaiming the
  wonders of the land }

I'll stop here.  Don't want to push the 'hot buttons' on
to many techno-dweebes  that believe cutting code is the only
worthy human pursuit  :-)

Regards,

Tim

-- 
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tim Bass                           | #include<campfire.h>                | 
| Principal Network Systems Engineer |       for(beer=100;beer>1;beer++){  |
| The Silk Road Group, Ltd.          |           take_one_down();          |
|                                    |           pass_it_around();         |
| http://www.silkroad.com/           |       }                             |
|                                    |  back_to_work(); /*never reached */ | 
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