A Multiphase Approach To Killing the Living Dead

Here is an arti­cle that I orig­i­nal­ly did for AFCEA Sig­nal Mag­a­zine in Octo­ber 2022. Enjoy.

The U.S. Space Force is going through tech­no­log­i­cal evo­lu­tion as it con­tin­ues to grow from its U.S. Air Force roots. One of the major chal­lenges it is encoun­ter­ing is that much of the enter­prise relies on lega­cy tech­nol­o­gy, which has the foun­da­tions of the orig­i­nal Air Force space pro­gram. It is not uncom­mon to see For­tran pro­gram­mers, IBM main­frames and Switch net­works as part of the pro­gram. This time-test­ed and true tech­nol­o­gy has main­tained aspects of nation­al secu­ri­ty for decades. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the tech­nol­o­gists who have sup­port­ed the tech­nol­o­gy stack are retir­ing, retired or no longer alive. As a result, sup­port­ing the lega­cy net­work often falls on the shoul­ders of the younger work­force, who have no inter­est in sup­port­ing lega­cy tech­nol­o­gy. This cre­ates dif­fi­cul­ty for the Space Force because it will strug­gle to find a work­force to sup­port its “zom­bie tech­nol­o­gy.” For those who are not famil­iar with the term, zom­bie tech­nol­o­gy is a tech­nol­o­gy that should have been retired a long time ago but keeps return­ing from the dead.

The ques­tion aris­es of how to kill the zom­bie tech­nolo­gies. Besides hit­ting the pow­er but­ton, I sug­gest a mul­ti­phase approach to elim­i­nate the liv­ing dead.

Phase 1 — Identify the Target

A con­scious effort must be made to phase out all lega­cy tech­nol­o­gy over the next five years. Fund­ing must be iden­ti­fied in the Space Force/Air Force Pro­gram Objec­tive Mem­o­ran­dum (POM) cycle now and must include train­ing the “zom­bie killers” to get rid of the lega­cy capa­bil­i­ties effec­tive­ly. There also must be fund­ing for learn­ing how to take care of them in the future after the zom­bies are gone.

Phase 2 — Train the Zombie Killers

The focus of the POM bud­get is on train­ing and incen­tives because con­vinc­ing some­one to learn the lega­cy tech­nol­o­gy, to be hon­est, is a hard sell. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, love of coun­try was good enough to have some­one com­mit to solv­ing this issue. How­ev­er, COVID-19 and the Great Res­ig­na­tion dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed the cleared work­force. More often than not, a good tech­nol­o­gist can and will find a job in the com­mer­cial sec­tor that allows work from home. Plus, the tech­nol­o­gist does not have to deal with the has­sle of work­ing in a clas­si­fied area while hav­ing access to crea­ture com­forts that they have grown accus­tomed to dur­ing COVID. This work­force shift has increased the cost of train­ing zom­bie killers. More impor­tant­ly, there must be a plan to tran­si­tion the indi­vid­u­als from zom­bie killers back to tech­nol­o­gists once the zom­bies are eliminated.

Phase 3 — Killing Zombies

The act of killing zom­bies is not going to be pleas­ant. Most senior lead­ers will want the ‘lift and shift ’ approach (known as brown­field imple­men­ta­tion) because it is eas­i­er to train the exist­ing work­force using zom­bie tech­nolo­gies. After all, they have become accus­tomed to using the tools for the past cou­ple of decades. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, lift and shift migra­tions have a low prob­a­bil­i­ty of suc­cess. 1) The cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy can­not adapt eas­i­ly to decades-old tech­nol­o­gy. 2) It will not have the nec­es­sary secu­ri­ty con­trols to meet accred­i­ta­tion. With this under­stand­ing, the act of killing zom­bies will have to be embraced as a new way to intro­duce tech­nol­o­gy, start­ing with the space sys­tems oper­a­tions and intel­li­gence school­house all the way to advance training.

Phase 4 — The New Normal

While all this talk of killing zom­bies is fun, we must be con­scious that we don’t allow the cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy to become the future zom­bies. Sim­i­lar to how the Office of the Direc­tor, Oper­a­tional Test, and Eval­u­a­tion does its annu­al reports, the Space Force should con­duct board reviews to deter­mine the health of its tech­nol­o­gy stack to ensure that it does not fall into the same fal­la­cy as before. If not, hit­ting the pow­er but­ton is always an option if the tech­nol­o­gy shows signs of the undead.

October 19, 2022  Leave a comment

Life Lessons as a CIO

Cheyenne Moun­tain, CO

I have spent the past two years as a Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer and Direc­tor in the hope of mak­ing the deputy gen­er­al man­ag­er role. This result­ed in spend­ing long hours at work, often six­ty-five to hun­dred-hour work weeks, doing unde­sir­able work, and a lot of time with­out the fam­i­ly. What did it get me? An excuse from the new gen­er­al man­ag­er was that the cus­tomer decid­ed to go in anoth­er direc­tion, but I could stay in a less­er role and do all the work I cur­rent­ly do. I respect­ful­ly declined, left qui­et­ly, and planned my next role in life. Even though the out­come was dis­ap­point­ing at the time, in the long run, the lessons learned allowed for a growth position.

Here are a few hard-fought life lessons, and I ful­ly under­stand that hind sights are all 20/20.

Life Lessons

1. Was the long hours worth it? Yes, because it allowed me to gain valu­able insights and be mar­ketable in my next and future roles. The unpaid hours were an edu­ca­tion to allow me to be a bet­ter leader in the future. The rever­sal of this les­son is that I should have been more account­able to myself for my progress ver­sus rely­ing on a cor­po­rate eval­u­a­tion system.

2. Was the extra work of tak­ing the hard roles or the unde­sir­able projects? Yes, because that is where the growth occurs. It is nec­es­sary to do the work. The rever­sal of the les­son is Pareto’s Prin­ci­ple. 80% of the work will be done by only 20% of the work­force. Man­age­ment will trust the work to be done by this 20% because it is eas­i­er than man­ag­ing the remain­ing 80%. The increased involve­ment of HR in day-to-day man­age­ment will also make it dif­fi­cult to push out the non-per­form­ers. This quandary results in the 20% that is doing the work will become over­worked. If you think you are in the 20%, under­stand your worth.

3. It is nec­es­sary to know the dif­fer­ence between man­age­ment ver­sus lead­er­ship. I have met very few Lead­ers in my life. I have met a lot of Man­agers. Both man­agers and lead­ers have dif­fer­ent con­no­ta­tions. Both are human and fal­li­ble. Be care­ful who you decide to fol­low. The rule’s rever­sal is that man can not be an island to him­self. To be suc­cess­ful in life, vet the right men­tors and who you allow in your tribe. This means doing the hard thing of trust­ing indi­vid­u­als to call you out when you are off the path. I also rec­om­mend get­ting men­tors out­side the com­pa­ny that does not have bais.

4. Job Is a job as long as you work for some­one else. If you are work­ing for your­self or towards your own goals, it is a lifestyle.

5. A com­pa­ny’s polit­i­cal lean­ing does not match your own; it will be hard to work for that com­pa­ny. I have seen a com­pa­ny dra­mat­i­cal­ly change its cul­ture to the point that it lost very tal­ent­ed peo­ple and had to fold a divi­sion because it no longer had the tal­ent to win or do the work. The rever­sal of the rule is all a game. Learn­ing how to play the game or when to step out deter­mines how well you do.

6. Get paid for what you are worth. Pay­ment can mean mon­ey, edu­ca­tion, and ben­e­fits. If you can not find your worth with­in the com­pa­ny, move on. In the age of stock­hold­er val­ue, a com­pa­ny will do its best for the com­pa­ny. It would help if you did the same for yourself.

This is not the cul­mi­na­tion of the life lessons learned. But it is also impor­tant to doc­u­ment my lessons for oth­ers to learn.

August 24, 2022  Comments Off on Life Lessons as a CIO

Pueblo Lake State Park

South Shore — Lake Pueblo State Park

I decid­ed to get away this week­end to do some camp­ing, hik­ing, and fish­ing at Lake Pueblo State Park in South­ern Col­orado. Lake Pueblo is a reser­voir that damns the Arkansas Riv­er for hydro­elec­tric­i­ty and agri­cul­tur­al use, along with pro­vid­ing recre­ation­al fishing. 

South Col­orado

With sev­er­al trails along the park, I decid­ed to hike 13 miles of them. I rec­om­mend­ed pack­ing extra water, elec­trolyte pow­der, socks, and sun­block through the park’s hot and arid con­di­tions. There is no cov­er on the trails except for the park bench­es, but water sta­tions at the camp­grounds refill your packs. 

No skulls were found in Skull Canyon.

Also, the park is sus­cep­ti­ble to high winds being on the front range. Ensure that your camp­ground is secured, or you will sore­ly regret it. I had to wake up in the mid­dle of the night, throw­ing all my gear into the tent. I would also make sure your camp­fire is com­plete­ly out before turn­ing it in for the night. The con­di­tions out along the front range are extreme­ly dry. For aspects of fish­ing, not much I can report. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I did more nature watch­ing than fish­ing. Regard­less, it was a good trip and I would vis­it again. 

May 9, 2022  Leave a comment

Apple Tree Fable

Apple Tree

Apple Tree Fable

A farmer worked day and night to carve out a liv­ing for his fam­i­ly. On his farm was an apple tree that the farmer relied on to feed his fam­i­ly. Dur­ing the spring, the tree blos­somed, bring­ing joy to the farmer’s wife. By fall, the farmer’s son would pick apples so the moth­er could use. Dur­ing a dry sea­son, the apple tree did not bear fruit. The farmer’s son did not under­stand why the tree did not bear fruit and blamed the apple tree. In his short-sight­ed­ness, he took his father’s ax and cut down the apple tree. Upon dis­cov­er­ing his son’s actions, the farmer scold­ed his son. 

Cur­rent Day Lesson

A small busi­ness is often a com­mu­ni­ty’s apple tree. When a pro­test­er tears down a small busi­ness in a protest, it demon­strates short-sight­ed­ness and often harms the local com­mu­ni­ty. When a busi­ness clos­es, it deprives the local econ­o­my of a pos­i­tive impact on the com­mu­ni­ty’s jobs and ser­vices. Keep this in mind when you watch the news and watch pro­tes­tors destroy their communities. 

November 12, 2016  Leave a comment

The World Is Yours

2016-11-11_16-04-38

This elec­tion has brought out the worst in peo­ple. Fam­i­ly, friends, and strangers insult each oth­er because their ide­ol­o­gy does not align. If you are seri­ous about mak­ing the world a bet­ter place, edu­cate your­self. Pick up a book and read. Read books with dif­fer­ent views than your­self. Chal­lenge your under­stand­ing and under­stand the oppos­ing argu­ment. Lash­ing out at the oth­er per­son because they have an oppos­ing view show that you lack under­stand­ing of the top­ic. Under­stand Moral­i­ty. An oppos­ing view does not make the per­son evil. It also does not make it right or wrong. Prac­tice com­mon sense. If you call a per­son a racist, big­ot, or homo­phobe, what makes you think they will want to lis­ten to you? Lis­ten. If you have already formed your argu­ments before the oth­er per­son has fin­ished talk­ing, are you tru­ly lis­ten­ing? Let it go. When a wise man argues with a fool, it’s hard to tell who the fool is from a dis­tance. It is bet­ter to walk away when you real­ize the oth­er per­son is stuck in their ideology.

Late­ly, I have been let­ting it go. Ulti­mate­ly, time is pre­cious. I rather focus on improv­ing my under­stand­ing or mak­ing me happy.

November 12, 2016  Leave a comment

L.I.O.N or Not

Lion Roaring

I am con­tem­plat­ing this idea with LinkedIn late­ly, and I want to ask the community’s opin­ion.  With­in LinkedIn, there is a LinkedIn Open Net­work­er or L.I.O.N move­ment in which mem­bers are will­ing to accept invites from any­one.  The pro­posed ben­e­fits of being an L.I.O.N is that it increas­es an indi­vid­u­al’s busi­ness net­work in which they can cul­ti­vate for either busi­ness leads or job oppor­tu­ni­ties.  The neg­a­tive is that the LinkedIn Update feed is over­run with updates that do not tar­get a per­son­’s inter­est.  In my effort to improve my LinkedIn Update feed, my thoughts are to reduc­ing my num­ber of con­nec­tions and who I fol­low.  My ques­tion is by doing so, do I harm my LinkedIn expe­ri­ence in the long run?

November 16, 2015  Leave a comment

Life Experience versus School

1262974_677469248931218_538854134_oAs my son starts his edu­ca­tion jour­ney, I am start­ing to iden­ti­fy the same issue in the cur­rent pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem that turned me off from school. Instead of speak­ing to the stu­dent, school speaks down to the stu­dent. Instead of being spo­ken down to, ear­ly in life I decid­ed to pur­sue life expe­ri­ence over academics.

I am not say­ing that school is a bad thing, though. I learned the val­ue of edu­ca­tion once I was pay­ing for it. What I am chal­leng­ing is how the cur­rent pub­lic school com­mu­ni­cates with stu­dents. It is catered to edu­cate the mass­es, not the indi­vid­u­al’s need or inter­est. It will be my respon­si­bil­i­ty to fill the gaps and ensure he stays moti­vat­ed dur­ing chal­leng­ing times.

October 11, 2015  Leave a comment

New Direction

DSCF4131

I am going to sep­a­rate the IT arti­cles from my per­son­al blog, ClintonAustin.com and move the tech-cen­tric arti­cles to AustinITConsulting.com/blog. When I first made this deci­sion, it comes with some reser­va­tion. Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy has long been an intel­lec­tu­al pur­suit of mine that has car­ried me far, but I am try­ing to sep­a­rate the two from my oth­er pur­suits. I would like to shape my per­son­al blog to be more like oth­er great blogs like Brett and Kate McK­ay’s Art of Man­li­ness or Tim Fer­riss’ Four Hour Work Week. Both blogs have influ­enced my life in the past four years (even list­ing the authors in my grad­u­ate application).

So please fol­low ClintonAustin.com to know what I am try­ing to pur­sue in life. Please also fol­low AustinITConsulting.com/blog for the tech reviews and opin­ions on the IT indus­try. Regard­less, thank you for reading.

April 17, 2015  Leave a comment

Get Better

“You can build your time bet­ter when you find a passion, 

The Inter­net and pub­lic ser­vices give free education,

So it real­ly ain’t a case of rich or poor,

It’s a case of self-moti­va­tion and noth­ing more,

Like Bil­ly says, whether you have or you have not wealth,

The sys­tem might fail you, but don’t fail yourself,

Just, get better”

~ Scroobius Pip

 

April 15, 2015  Leave a comment

80% Solutions

steven

When I decid­ed to start my grad­u­ate pro­gram two years ago, I had a young fam­i­ly, a full-time job, and a con­sult­ing busi­ness.  This peri­od has taught me the val­ue of the 80% solu­tion. The 80% solu­tion means that all things do not need to be per­fect if it is not a mat­ter of life and death.  Do you spend the extra hour doing home­work or get­ting your son ready for bed and read­ing him his bed­time sto­ries?  My GPA has low­ered, but my qual­i­ty of life has increased.

April 13, 2015  Leave a comment

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