Deep Inside Rochester

The use of laptops and cell phones during meetings and presentations can be distracting to the speaker and others present. However, beyond these etiquette issues, there is a growing amount of evidence to suggest that technology is interfering with productivity.

One term used to describe an adverse effect of technology on our lives is "Continuous Partial Attention" (CPA). See http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/06/supernova_2005_2.html and Steve Levy's Newsweek article. Other adverse effects include workplace-induced attention deficit.

I am guilty of giving others my partial attention, but I am trying to improve. When a laptop is not germane to a meeting or presentation, I've stopped taking it. I've encountered others who are also reacting to the problem.

Within the Rochester site, where the use of laptops has proliferated over that last 1-2 years, I've recently attended presentations where speakers have demanded that laptops be closed. In addition, I know of one high-level executive on site that has banned the use of laptops in some of his meetings. The banning of laptops in college classrooms is also occurring. I recently read where laptops were banned from classes at U of Pennsylvania and the U of Memphis (much to the dismay of the students).

It will be interesting to see how our technical culture deals with this problem as awareness of partial attention increases.

If I haven't lost you yet, thanks for your partial attention.

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 12:44 PM 0 comments

On June 21, 1988, IBM introduced the Application System/400 (AS/400). It was a hot and humid day in Rochester, and John Akers was present for the announce-day festivities. I remember Mr. Akers standing in the hot sun talking to employees while sweat dripped off his forehead.

Many things have changed since then. John Akers was succeeded by Lou Gerstner and Sam Palmisano, and the AS/400 was succeeded by iSeries and System i. The men at the Rochester site don't wear ties anymore, either.

One of the things that has not changed is the dedication and commitment that the Rochester work force applies to the platform. They -- the work force -- represent all that is good and wholesome about IBM.

Btw, the summer solstice is not one of my favorite events. It means that our days start to get shorter and that winter is just around the corner.

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 9:39 PM 0 comments

Some of the unwritten rules in Rochester:

• The original author owns the code they developed until they leave the company (and even then they may be contacted)
  
• One does not make changes to someone else's code (unless explicitly directed to do so)
  
• Drop everything to handle a customer problem
  

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 9:23 PM 0 comments

Oh my, controversy at the content-less blog.

In the June 12, 2006 edition of the The Four Hundred newsletter, there is a reference to the iSeries Nation blog (in the article titled "Project Prometheus: Playing with Fire"). The article prompted me to take a look.

What a sad state of affairs. First, the blog has one message. Second, the site contains this poorly punctuated heading:

This blog is powered by iSeries and running on WebSphere who says its a second class platform!

What does this mean? Is Websphere calling itself a second class platform? Is it calling i a second class platform? Even if the sentence structure and punctuation are corrected, it's still a poor message.

I hope that no one at IBM was paid to write it.

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 10:08 AM 0 comments

"Who am i?"

(To be used if we decide to change our name again.)

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 7:28 PM 0 comments

It's no secret that IBM has plans to utilize the Cell processor for more than game consoles. Although I don't expect to find a Cell processor in System i, I think you can certainly expect to find Cell chips applied to High Performance Computing (HPC).

The potential for Cell in HPC was recently impressively demonstrated in a paper written by scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A good summary of the paper, as well as a link to the full paper, can be read at http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/671376.html.

There is also a discussion of the paper at RWT.

# posted by Bob Donovan @ 6:19 PM 0 comments