The Myths of IT – Part 1

About 15 years ago, I started my journey through the wonderful world of IT. I realize I am not as old as this guy, but I think I have been around long enough to form my own opinions in regards to some of the myths of IT. Well, at least my perspective is that they are myths. They may be truths for you.

1. Big enterprise experience trumps all. – I’ve been in big environments, small environments, and places in between. To me, there’s not a whole lot of difference. Okay, so the tools might be more expensive in larger environments. The equipment might be a bit beefier in some regards. However, the fundamentals are still the same. In a larger company, chances are you have less responsibilities than someone at a medium or small company. You’re just working on an exponentially larger number of devices than your small/medium company counterparts.

Why is it that people seem to think large network experience equates to more professionalism or better knowledge around whatever it is you do? Here’s a dirty little secret about large networks. They typically employ a lot more people. Guess what that means? It is easier to hide out. It is easier to be mediocre and not have anyone notice. After all, you’re an engineer in a Fortune 1000/500/100/50/whatever company. They wouldn’t have hired you if you were a bum would they? The truth is most IT managers, and certainly most HR managers don’t really understand what it is that you do. That is NOT true for all IT managers. If my manager happens to read this, you are the best. Remember that when it’s annual bonus time. Some IT managers have technical backgrounds and are more than capable of determining technical skill sets. Let us be honest though. Managers are supposed to be good at managing people and expenses. You don’t hire managers to manage routers and switches. You hire engineers and administrators to do that. My last job had a network that was easily 20 times the size of the network I am on now, and many people would consider my current network to be a decent size. Does that give me credibility when it comes to a lot of IT managers? Sure. Should it? Probably not. Sadly, I have had to witness really good engineers get turned down for their dream jobs because they didn’t have “large enterprise” experience.

2. Certification equals ability. – Let me just throw in the one caveat that just came to mind. Yeah. That’s right. I read your mind. The expert level certifications from Cisco(CCIE,CCDE) and Juniper(JNCIE) are usually indicative of ability within an engineer. If you’re a systems person, feel free to add whatever certs you have within your respective discipline that give you instant street cred. Let me go out on a limb even further and mention that if you got your CCIE or something similar 10 years ago and let it lapse, I still consider you an able bodied practitioner of technology even if you can’t put those acronyms on your business card anymore.

Within the IT field, we all know about the “paper” MCSE(or whatever it is called today) and CCNP/CCNA. Yes, those are the ones who crammed for a test and passed it with a little luck and a plethora of TestKing, HotCert, Pass4Sure, or even legitimate study materials. You see them on various forums asking for things as simple as “How do I configure EIGRP on a Cisco router?” and their user profile shows they are a CCNP. You’ve probably even worked with them. They have managed to get by simply by faking it. They learn a few repetitive things over the course of several years and are able to do the most basic things. When something hard comes up they get to pass it off to someone else. Eventually, they land another job making even more money somewhere else because someone was impressed with the acronym soup that came after their name in an e-mail signature. Since there was no big technical interview for this new job, they were able to astound the IT manager with the depth of their knowledge. Maybe they have some “big enterprise” experience under their belt. Years ago, I held a lot of these certifications in high regard. Due to the large number of people with certifications they clearly did not take seriously, I no longer get excited by those little acronyms. I’m almost biased towards the people with no little letters after their name. Yet, job advertisement after job advertisement lists these certs as pre-requisites. Manager after manager wants those little letters. If you are a reseller, I understand your requirements. You need discounts. You need references. I get that. It’s the corporate IT types that I am referring to.

3. Gartner knows all. – Are you a Magic Quadrant(Am I supposed to put that little “TM” thing after that?) fan? Do you read with all fear and reverence the reports that are issued that say so much and yet say so little? If so, I hate to burst your bubble, but there’s a general disdain amongst many of my technical peers when it comes to Gartner reports. Oh sure, they make the reports pretty wordy. They use lots of buzzwords and phrases like “visionary” and “ability to execute”. It’s enough to make an IT marketing professional weep tears of joy!

“Yay! Another report from Gartner on the market leaders in the “Layer 5-application-accelerator-firewall-router” device thingy space. Oh look. Flim-flam networks is in the top right square and Jim-jam networks is in the bottom right square. I guess we better go with Flim-flam instead. Cut the purchase order to Flim-flam and let’s buy today. In fact, buy 2 of whatever they sell! What do they sell? I don’t know. It’s a layer 5 thingy and I think we only go up to layer 4 in our switches. We’re losing ground to the competition without that layer 5 thingy that Gartner tells us we need. We’re visionaries! We need to own the hardware that backs up that claim!”

If you have never read an entire Gartner report, let me suggest that you do. Try this one or this one. Now, after reading either of those, find me something of substance that a technical person would be able to relate to. Is the lact of specifics done on purpose? I wonder. In the interest of fairness, I should point out that Gartner is not the only group I have a problem with. I also tend to ignore reports from “independent” test labs in which a vendor funds the tests. I know. I know. You gave the loser the chance to refute your findings. Here’s perhaps the funniest example of when these “independent” tests go wrong. You have to read all of the comments to get the full effect of it.

Well, that’s it for part 1. Just 3 little myths. Something to ponder over. If you disagree, let me know. I have an open mind, so I am always willing to change it given an effective argument. Just don’t give me a Gartner report telling me why I am wrong. 😉 Part 2 will have a few more of these IT myths. I’ll post it sometime in the near future unless the IPocalypse happens!