Life in Orange

Spin me: Is VSTS changing everything?

Last night, it finally hit me [after a SeaSpin Chapter meeting]…It’s something that I’ve been thinking for at least 6 months, but couldn’t find a way to express it. What is it? I’m sure some people are aware of the amount of changes that will be triggered by VSTS [yeah, Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2005]. But, what I’m talking about goes beyond the developers’ space, I’m talking about the impact on the "business ecosystem" surrounding them.

This is a product that will spin the heads of many beyond their imagination - in positives and negatives ways - because:

o      Small VB shops and boutique consulting firms will be enabled to be compete against medium and big consulting firms on government gigs without a huge overhead or the immense amounts of paperwork [How? A new MSF – CMMI (level 3) is embedded on it]. This won’t be done without pain [of course]…these same shops and consulting firms will have to change their mindset to be able re-configure how they would want to work. This will require training beyond the normal-technical product. It’s a cultural change.

o      “Project Managers” in general could become pretty popular and many for the first time will have time to focus on other than chasing around people to understand their status or calculate the project’s CPI or really know how many issues and risks their project have at speed light and be able to do something about it ASAP. On the opposite side of the same token, some will need to ask if they really need a project manager with this new tool ;-).

o      How about 'offshore' firms I don’t think they’ll be able to hold still to their prices, do you? I can believe that many US based companies will prefer to have a local (within their proximity, with the same culture, same time zone, and same usage of the language) ‘fairly affordable’ firm with a CMMI Level 3 compliance than a thousand miles away firm with a CMMI Level 5. Do you think these firms will be pis…of..? Maybe they’ll also adopt the product too? I wonder what they will do.

o      And the Big Process Frameworks software products…how would they justify such a big pricing difference? Just with the weak areas of VSTS (i.e. requirements gathering). How long could they sustain that? Until the next release? In the meantime, at least, a few shops will live from closing this weakness [how many so called ‘integration’ plug-ins are there already available to fill in the gaps], right?

Well, I believe my point has been made…and I quote John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends, as Shel Israel did in his Naked Conversations (Chapter 2): “Everything never changes. Something has changed and that something will impact everything.”

I like them naked too (my review of Naked Conversations [The Book])

I simply loved it. I can’t wait for Scoble and Israel to write a sequel where I can imaging a chapter dedicated to the details of technologies & tools, another to how much they have influenced people with their first book and another chapter amplifying the reasons why some people just don’t blog.

Hey, it took me just 2 weeks to read it (using only downtime and taking into account I’m not a native), not badJ!

At first, I thought it sounded a bit too evil (part of the 1^st chapter) for me, but as I moved on I couldn’t wait to get to the dos and don’ts.

I ended up browsing chapters 5 and 6 and jumping ahead to the Wrong & Right as well as the Big Picture sections [chapters 10 thru 15]. Then, I went back and read 6, 8, 9 and closed with 7. As I was reading chapter nine [pages before the FUD Barrier], I was waiting for my car [it was being serviced]; I laugh and laugh so much to the point that one of the salesman having a break at the dealer’s waiting room had to ask me…what are you reading? It sounds like you are really having fun. What is it? The guy freak out when I told him it was a ‘technology’ book [you wouldn’t believe his face…imaging looking at a woman reading a bright yellow book titled ‘Naked Conversations’ and being told that is a geek’s book]. Hahaha! I bet he thought it was going to be something a lot more interesting. He simulated writing down the title [he wasn’t going to forget ;-].

Anyway, I’m really glad DAnderson extended me an invitation to Scoble and Israel party to celebrate the launch of this ‘ozone’/awesome book. It made a huge difference for me. What do I mean? Yeah, this book is one of the reasons why I’m giving the blogosphere another try. It made me realized how far off marketing is from reality and also why I failed a couple of years ago when I tried to blog in “Spanglish” – which I still think can have potential since here [the USA] there are magazines and books [i.e.The House on Mango Street]  in this ‘language’.

By the way, Scoble, Israel, if you decide to write the sequel, I’d really like to volunteer to find out if Big 5 Consultants blog externally? And understand their blog-worries (are they are fearful that customers will go ballistic if they find them blogging)?

My final recommendation = read the book. I got great tips that will make blogging work for me this time. I also got great advice on how to avoid getting ‘dooced’. Here, I’m right?! I started blogging! And [of course – as stated in the book] I’m going to try to make my manager, executives, and spouse read it. I hope it’ll help them understand why conversing nakedly ;-) is so important for me and should be for them nowadays. The blogosphere is here to stay, blogging definitively not a fad!

Why Germans and Spanish don't blog?

David Anderson points to the fact that the naked guys couldn't figure out why Spanish/Latins and Germans don't blog. As a Latin/Spanish person who lived in Germany....I can say we love to meet in person, love to gather to eat, drink and solve the problems of the world. While it will take about a year before you can be invited to any German "conversation" [yes, they can very very reserved - I learnt to appreciate this a lot], once you are in, then they would never let you go [they know you'll be the heart of their parties ;-]. So, instead of lonely virtual conversation with the world Spanish speakers and Germans are using the irreplaceable face-to-face conversations.

Wish me luck...since I'll be trying to blog in a language that's not my own...hummm I'll have typoos, make grammar mistakes, people won't get some of the things I might want to say, and I might not even sound funny when I want to. It doesn't matter! I plan to change my nacked friends' perception.