Exploring the world between business and technology

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.” –Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer

I’m leading two digital lives. One digital life leaves me feeling glum and underwhelmed and my other digital life leaves me feeling open, connected and free. The Serenity Prayer has become my guiding maxim for managing my dual digital lives.

After being a long time holdout, I caved in not so long ago to the cult of Steve and bought my first MacBook Pro. Truth be known I’d planned to buy one about 2 years previous but didn’t have the readies to make it happen. I’ve regretted that decision as I’m frankly over the whole Windows thing. Anyhoo, I’ve been using my Mac on the job for a a while now and really like the experience particularly the seamless interconnectivity with my iPhone. What’s more I really like using tools like Evernote, Dropbox, Things, 1Password, Numbers, Pages and I’m getting to know Keynote for presentations. I’ve also setup VMWare Fusion so I can run any Windows apps for work such as MS Project, which I can’t stand but that too is a story for another time. In summary, I’m a convert. I’m a happy Mac user.

It was with some personal trepidation then when I started doing some work for a large financial institution. I did have some concerns that the IT Fun Police would try and stop me using my Mac at work but I was planning on being sensible about it. I assumed or more honestly hoped that they wouldn’t hassle me if I didn’t connect my Mac to the corporate network and kept it isolated. Still I thought it wise to not make a big deal about it.

On day one of the new job I was handed the brand new Dell laptop. Here’s where I entered a digital time warp. The laptop came with some locked down Standard Operating Environment image which had a bunch of old software, a hard drive where I’m only allowed to use 30Mb of local disk space, no command line prompt, no access to the Windows Control Panel and no Internet access at all. Nope – have to “apply” for that. I assume I’d get approved without any dramas but I can just imagine the ultra filtered list of sites that I’d be permitted to use all the while knowing the IT police are watching my every move and if “inappropriate material” should accidentally come my way I’d be up for instant dismissal, no questions asked. Can’t say I’m interested in a filtered, censored version of the connected, digital world.

I feel just like that woman in the maternity ward of Monty Python’s Meaning of Life….

“What do I do?”
“What?”
“What do I do?”
“Nothing dear, you’re not qualified!”

Am I qualified to use these tools? Clearly not.

Then there is my iPhone. In a desperation move I thought there may be some chance I could connect my iPhone to the corporate Exchange server. At least I could get my calendar synch and my email sorted. After all, the iPhone can actually do this. Nope – can’t do that. According to the corporate policy (myth?) iPhones are apparently nowhere near secure enough for accessing calendars. Again, rrright. Let’s just park the whole argument about my email and calendar not needing to be secure because there’s nothing there being vaguely interesting enough to justify securing. Not planning on fighting that battle.

I have accepted the things that I cannot change. I cannot change Enterprise IT Fun Police and thus have learnt to live within their restrictions. I continue to use my Mac though which keeps me happy and productive. Armed with a 3G pocket wi-fi and iPhone tethering, I’ve created an island of connectivity to the world beyond. Using their laptop with all the restrictions keeps them happy. Manual synching of calendar activity via email and an old school USB drive does a good enough job to bridge the gap but I feel like I lead two digital lives. One is the 2011 version, the other is like I’m stuck in a digital time warp where the Internet doesn’t exist and useful tools which are available for free through open source and as Software as a Service offerings are figments of some sci-fi writer’s imagination.

What this all means for trying to deliver some innovative, business-driven, modern solutions to address ever increasing business cycles is a story for several other future blog posts, or a book one day…