The RSS feed is http://corpseattle.com/seattlefire.aspx and you can find documentation about it at http://corpseattle.com

enjoy..

In other random news, I'll be participating in our internal Microsoft Managed Solutions (MMS) pilot.  I can't talk a lot about it, but it's some pretty interesting stuff.  There's a news article on the topic here.  Without directly knowing anything about the pilot (I'm only a participant), there seems to be a huge opportunity in the marketplace for this.  I'm excited to experience it first hand and see what it's all really about.

And lastly, I've started taking some MBA classes through Seattle University.  The current class I'm in is having us all use SPOT watches (MSN Direct) for the quarter and write a paper on our experiences with the technology.  I just got everything set up yesterday and will be posting thoughts on my website at Nonantum.

Dr. Carr gained fame a few years ago with an article in the Harvard Business Review.  His article bluntly stated that IT doesn't matter.  It sparked significant discussion.  He recently published a book entitled "Does IT Matter?" that drives the same message.

His line of reasoning is that the effort involved to gain a competitive advantage from IT is so large - and the project's ROI so long - that it's extremely difficult for companies to gain an advantage.  When you combine that with what's typically a low barrier for your competitors to copy you, you've lost.  Using some assumptions (Moore's Law, etc), he rationalizes that the first movers on a technology actually lose in the long run.  First adopters incur high costs since whatever the technology is hasn't reached commodity status.  Due to the high cost, the ROI is drawn out.  To the extent competitors wait a bit for commodity status, they can gain a faster ROI and take away any advantage you had - leaving you not only without your competitive advantage, but also with less-than-realized ROI.

There are a few assumptions in here of course.  For example, not all technology quickly moves to commodity status.  I agree with his fundamential argument, which is very simple.  If you have a project that costs a lot, gives you only small advantages over competitors, and it's easy for competitors to get onto equal footing with you, that's not a great project to get into.  But, I would argue to the extent that you can gain a fast ROI, a substantial competitive advantage, or where there are barriers to competitors entering, companies can use IT as a competitive advantage.  Unless there are early adopters and many followers, no technology will ever gain commodity status.  So, it certainly is reasonable for companies to continue searching for ways to use IT as a strategic and competitive advantage!

Anyway, Dr. Carr is an engaging speaker.  While I don't agree entirely with his arguments, they are certainly thought provoking.

Microsoft is running our mission critical SAP system on SQL Server 2005 Beta 2! The SAP R/3 system, which handles Microsoft’s worldwide Sales, worldwide Finances, worldwide HR and American Payroll, was deployed internally on SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 in late August. We’ll highlight our internal use of SQL Server 2005 at the PASS conference in Orlando at the end of September.

The upgrade to Yukon went smoothly.  We'll be writing some whitepapers on the upgrade experience and some of the technologies we'll now be able to leverage on our SAP implementation, such as mirroring.  Detailed information on our internal SAP implementation is published at http://www.microsoft-sap.com.  We also run (free) periodic customer and technical workshops.

WSDOT (Washington State Department of Transportation) has done a nice job of embedding road sensors all over the area - and then aggregating the data and making it available for free, real time, to commercial enterprises.  This page (http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/pugetsoundtraffic/webflow/datafile.htm) describes their process, and this link (http://images.wsdot.wa.gov/nwflow/wireless/) actually contains the raw data files.  There's also an FTP site available that's described in the explanation.

When you have control of the page that you want to link to, you can include this code in the html:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
if (top.frames.length!=0) {
    if (window.location.href.replace)
        top.location.replace(self.location.href);
    else
        top.location.href=self.document.href;
}
// -->
</script>

But when you don't have control of the code, you can format the hyperlink to use a site that basically has the above script, plus a redirect command to your “real” destination site.

For example, if you email the link http://boston.com to someone in Hotmail, they'll get the frame around the new window when clicking on it.  But if you email them the link http://hyperurl.com?url=boston.com instead, they still wind up at Boston.com, but via HyperUrl.com which removes the frame before sending them on their merry way.

It's not perfect & granted, it's a little dorky, but it does work.  I'm all ears for improvement suggestions.  (The one that I already know is that for long links, it can cause problems.  To address that case, I'm building some pages where you can get an “ID” number instead of pasting in the whole URL.  For example, http://hyperurl.com?id=911 is just a mask for http://www2.cityofseattle.net/fire/realTime911/getRecsForDatePub.asp?action=Today&incDate=&rad1=des.

With this whole gay marriage, civil unions, Constitutional Amendment stuff in the Senate, etc, it started me thinking again.  (Yeah, I know, a scary thought.)  Many - dare I say most - of the Fortune 500 companies, including Microsoft, give employees pretty equal treatment whether you're gay or straight.  Employees can add on their same-sex partners to healthcare almost as easily as employees can add on their spouses.  It's just a non-issue in most cases.  I starting thinking more of why this makes good business sense.  Certainly there's an attitude of fairness that I always had assumed.  Basically that companies thought in the interest of fairness, they'd offer domestic partner benefits.

But then it struck me the other night - there are compelling business reasons to offer domestic partner benefits.  As everyone knows who has ever struggled with just being themselves - the fat kid at the playground, the last chosen for the sports game, etc - tremendous energy is spent trying to just fit in.  If you take this example to a work environment, someone who has to expend tremendous energy worrying about staying closeted at work - lying about what you did this weekend, pretending your significant other is “a friend”, downplaying an important part of your life - that energy is wasted.  How much more productive you could be if you were accepted at work for who you are.  How much more effective you could be if your energy and passion is thrown into your work and not into worrying if you'll be “outed” or worrying about how your significant other is going to pay for his dentist visit.

Anyway, it suddenly clicked for me.  Corporations who are being fair and equal aren't doing so purely out of their since of equality - they're doing so because it is good for the bottom line.

And lastly.. here's my favorite link of the week: Seattle Fire Dept live dispatch calls.  Very cool.

Tee