Buzzword engineering, or the curse of Nicholas Carr

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

A good technical advisor can keep government managers from the consequences of ‘buzzword engineering.’

In a recent working group meeting, I was stunned to see a government official present a hand-drawn, cartoonish technical architecture as a proposed solution for a major initiative with presidential-level visibility.  By the end of the meeting, in conjunction with his inability to answer a few basic questions on the “architecture,” the government manager admitted to everyone, “Well, I’m not a system architect.” 

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have encountered “pseudo-engineering” or “buzzword-engineering” inside and outside the government.  The root cause of this is what I call the “curse of Nicholas Carr.” 

In 2004, Nicholas Carr published the book Does IT Matter?  In it Carr argues that information technology has become a commodity and that companies should not seek to invest heavily in it for a strategic advantage.  The name of his original article was "IT Doesn't Matter," which was clearly meant to poke the IT hornet's nest with a stick.  His book took a slightly tamer approach because it purports to be a more thorough and academic approach than the article.  So, even a skimming of the book reveals that he is really saying, "IT matters as infrastructure but not to achieving strategic competitive advantage." 

I am not interested here in debating the merits of his argument; instead I am more concerned with the ramifications and consequences of his bold assertion. 

If IT is a commodity, then it must be easy.  If IT systems are easy to build, then any business person or government official can weigh in on IT solutions — or even be so bold to present cartoon drawings of architectures, regardless of whether they have IT expertise or not. 

This is similar to the events described in a recent article by Tom Nichols entitled, The Death of Expertise.  Nichols bemoans the fact that authoritative expertise is eroding in a Google- and Wikipedia-fueled public sphere.  I have seen these same phenomena many times in technology circles, and I’d say it was more like the  “death of technical expertise” or the more aptly, the “curse of Nicholas Carr.” 

Besides the meeting described above, one of my favorite (and a very early) example of the death of technical expertise came from Cory Doctorow, a journalist and fiction writer, opining on the futility of humans creating reliable metadata in his 2001 article, “Metcrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia.”  In it, he states that “a world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be a utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities.”

The fact that metadata has since fueled major success stories like Amazon, Netflix, Flickr, Facebook, Google’s Knowledge Graph, Microsoft’s Satori, IBM’s Watson and Apple’s Siri (to name only a few) is testament to the naivety of Doctorow’s arguments.  In many ways, it is the same cartoonish version of a technical architecture presented by the government official cited above to the working group.  And in the same way, it shows a significant lack of respect for the audience, the subject matter and true technology experts who actually care about technology and its role as a mission multiplier!

So, what is the lesson for government functional managers?  I have known many government functional managers who took the time to “fact check” an approach or technical position they wanted to take.  Or, even better, they took along a trusted IT professional to important meetings and working groups to ensure their approach and position was on solid technical ground.  All senior-level government officials need a strong technical advisor to keep them from both the technology hucksters and the wrong technology path.  A good technical advisor has a robust track record and will reliably and repeatedly guide an organization to technical success.  Don’t leave home without one.

Michael C. Daconta (mdaconta@incadencecorp.com or @mdaconta) is the Vice President of Advanced Technology at InCadence Strategic Solutions and the former Metadata Program Manager for the Homeland Security Department. His new book is entitled, The Great Cloud Migration: Your Roadmap to Cloud Computing, Big Data and Linked Data.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.