http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2002-2006 by the authors Fri, 27 May 2005 10:59:36 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/27/005159.php#comment-159119 IT is only an enabler and not the solution, and it certainly isn't going to be that when a lot of Brynjolffson's best practices are only paid lip service. Employee empowerment is an absolutely ludicrous concept, as most IT employees are more concerned with their jobs being handed to lower-cost sources, and as such will not feel empowered to do anything other than stay under the radar of whatever resource actions are current. Meritocratic pay is an absolute joke, given that many companies have violated the one inviolable rule (at least as far as I'm concerned) when it comes to staff - they've cut base pay. Given the vagueness of performance objectives and forced rankings during evaluations, it's impossible to get paid according to your merit unless you game the system or are a favorite of the power structure. Likewise investment in human capital - in most IT shops raises have been non-existent for the better part of this decade, as have been training dollars, the logic being that a fresh fish willing to work insane hours who's had the opportunity to play with the latest technologies in school is a more cost-effective investment than a senior person with production system responsibilities. ]]> 159119@blogcritics.org Fri, 27 May 2005 10:59:36 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/27/005159.php#comment-159085 Not badly-engineered, disconnected-from-business-reality, implemented-to-sustain-and-grow-IT-budgets IT doesn't:) ]]> 159085@blogcritics.org Fri, 27 May 2005 09:48:45 EDT