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Text below provided to compliment general content throughout InherentQuality.Com and other sites such as those operated by TechTarget.Com.

Installment One

Greetings, welcome to the first installment devoted to your quality foundation and decisions. As the Inherent Quality website makes several references to popular work by Robert Pirsig, I will herein include reference to a few related items. I hope that which follows further helps you lay a foundation for your quality decisions, and I encourage you to read Pirsig’s work in order to identify with the embedded quotes from ZAMM.

Breakthroughs that evolve our personal or overall world typically require out of the box type thinking. In fact to borrow on words from a song, we are never going to survive unless we get a little crazy at times. Naturally I mean this figuratively, and in relation to thinking outside the box, triangle and so on. Such as when at times we must get a little crazy in order to work like crazy and in order to find unorthodox ways of raising the bar and achieving quality despite constraints which appear initially as unreasonable. To enable creativity and innovation and paradigm shifts we therefore will have to at times free the rational mind. Doing so, new and better forms of rational thinking will become the new norms and/or new mythos ( “What keeps the world from reverting to the Neanderthal with each generation is the continuing, ongoing mythos, transformed into logos but still mythos, the huge body of common knowledge that unites our minds as cells are united in the body of man.” … “But the mythos goes on, and that which destroys the old mythos becomes the new mythos, and the new mythos under the first Ionian philosophers became transmuted into philosophy, which enshrined permanence in a new way” Pirsig, ZAMM ). Quality Decisions therefore at times will seem radical. However true this may be felt of the related writings and thinking, it is the act of carrying out the thinking that is or will be perhaps most evolutionary. Who first claimed the world was round (Socrates)? Who first set out to prove it (Columbus)? What other great pioneers of one type or another might have looked crazy at times but of course were far from such (Einstein)? While great thinkers may not always generate the greatest inventions, great thoughts shared do generate catalysts for breakthroughs that evolve worlds.

As you build upon your foundation for quality decisions, you will have tremendous breakthroughs and draw particular conclusions. As an example of the latter you may decide there is a need to expand global thinking relative to increasingly merging science (or perhaps raising science) to other disciplines or to other non-disciplines depending on your perspective. Imagine increasingly merging science with values, morals, art, philosophy, universal faiths and so on. Imagine increasingly merging science and spiritually, or imagine increasingly raising science to levels of spiritually. Imagine inspired contributions from academia and industry that expand inherent quality concepts, products and implementations. Now imagine how quality decisions help to generate tremendous breakthroughs.

As we together explore Quality and “Mu” with your foundation, breakthroughs and quality decisions in mind, your mind must be opened to enable positive change. Beyond this webpage and site, you are therefore encouraged to venture to other sites and to return. I also encourage you to purchase Pirsig’s ZAMM. Some quotes that are suitable at his juncture include the following.

“Quality decisions change him too. And not only the job and him, but others too because the Quality tends to fan out like waves. The Quality job he didn’t think anyone was going to see is seen, and the person who sees it feels a little better because of it, and is likely to pass that feeling on to others, and in that way the Quality tends to keep on going. My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and that’s all. God, I don’t want to have any more enthusiasm for big programs full of social planning for big masses of people that leave individual Quality out. These can be left alone for a while. There’s a place for them but they’ve got to be built on a foundation of Quality within the individuals involved. We’ve had that individual Quality in the past, exploited it as a natural resource without knowing it, and now it’s just about depleted. Everyone’s just about out of gumption. And I think it’s about time to return to the rebuilding of this American resource – individual worth.”

Note, feel free to replace American with Global. Let’s continue with the quotes now.

“There are political reactionaries who’ve been saying something close to this for years. I’m not one of them, but to the extent they’re talking about real individual worth and not just an excuse for giving more money to the rich, they’re right. We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance and old-fashion gumption. We really do. I hope that in this Chautauqua some directions have been pointed to. Phaedrus went a different path from the idea of individual, personal Quality decisions. I think it was a wrong one, but perhaps if I were in his circumstances I would go his way too. He felt that the solution started with a new philosophy, or he saw it as even broader than that – a new spiritual rationality – in which the ugliness and the loneliness and the spiritual blankness of dualistic technology reason would become illogical. Reason was no longer to be “value free”. Reason was to be subordinate, logically, to Quality, and he was sure he would find the cause of its not being so back among the ancient Greeks, whose mythos had endowed our culture”

Within the image below the dollar sign represents inherent quality evolving binary and other aspects of quality progressively from cost into increasing positive returns and savings. The ‘$’ also represents “Mu” or the positive discoveries and benefits generated by “Mu” explorations and answers. Below the image are additional quotes from ZAMM that are suitable at this juncture.

“I want to talk now about truth traps and muscle traps and then stop this Chautauqua for today. Truth traps are concerned with data that are apprehended and are within the boxcars of the train. For the most part these data are properly handled by conventional dualistic logic and the scientific method talked about earlier, back just after Miles City. But there’s one trap that isn’t – the truth trap of yes-no logic. Yes and no … this or that … one or zero. On the basis of this elementary two-term discrimination, all human knowledge is built up. The demonstration of this is the computer memory which stores all its knowledge in the form of binary information. It contains ones and zeros, that’s all. Because we’re unaccustomed to it, we don’t usually see that there’s a third possible logical term equal to yes and no which is capable of expanding our understanding in an unrecognized direction. We don’t even have a term for it, so I’ll have to use the Japanese mu. Mu means “no thing.” Like “Quality” it points outside the process of dualistic discrimination. Mu simply says, “No class; not one, not zero, not yes, not no.” It states that the context of the question is such that a yes or no answer is in error and should not be given. “Unask the question” is what it says. Mu becomes appropriate when the context of the question becomes too small for the truth of the answer. When the Zen monk Joshu was asked whether a dog had a Buddha nature he said, “Mu,” meaning that if he answered either way he was answering incorrectly. The Buddha nature cannot be captured by yes-or-no questions.”

“That mu exists in the natural world investigated by science is evident. It’s just that, as usual, we’re trained not to see it by our heritage. For example, it’s stated over and over again that computer circuits exhibit only two states, a voltage for “one” and a voltage for “zero.” That’s silly! Any computer-electronics technician knows otherwise. Try to find a voltage representing one or zero when the power is off! The circuits are in a mu state. They aren’t at one, they aren’t at zero, they’re in an indeterminate state that has no meaning in terms of ones and zeros. Readings of the voltmeter will show, in many cases, “floating ground” characteristics, in which the technician isn’t reading characteristics of the computer circuits at all but characteristics of the voltmeter itself. What’s happened is that the power-off condition is part of a context larger than the context in which the one-zero states are considered universal. The question of one or zero has been “unasked.” And there are plenty of other computer conditions besides a power-off condition in which mu answers are found because of larger contexts than the one-zero universality.”

“The dualistic mind tends to think of mu occurrences in nature as a kind of contextual cheating, or irrelevance, but mu is found throughout all scientific investigation, and nature doesn’t cheat, and nature’s answers are never irrelevant. It’s a great mistake, a kind of dishonesty, to sweep nature’s mu answers under the carpet. Recognition and valuation of these answers would do a lot to bring logical theory closer to experimental practice. Every laboratory scientist knows that very often his experimental results provide mu answers to the yes-no questions the experiments were designed for. In these cases he considers the experiment poorly designed, chides himself for stupidity and at best considers the “wasted” experiment which has provided the mu answer to be a kind of wheel-spinning which might help prevent mistakes in the design of future yes-no experiments. This low evaluation of the experiment which has provided the mu answer isn’t justified. The mu answer is an important one. It’s told the scientist that the context of his question is too small for nature’s answer and that he must enlarge the context of the question. That is a very important answer! His understanding of nature is tremendously improved by it, which was the purpose of the experiment in the first place. A very strong case can be made for the statement that science grows by its mu answers more than by its yes or no answers. Yes or no confirms or denies a hypothesis. Mu says the answer is beyond the hypothesis. Mu is the “phenomenon” that inspires scientific inquiry in the first place! There is nothing mysterious or esoteric about it. It’s just that our culture has warped us to make a low value judgment of it. “

“In motorcycle maintenance the mu answer given by the machine to many of the diagnostic questions put to it is a major cause of gumption loss. It shouldn’t be! When your answer to a test is indeterminate it means one of two things: that your test procedures aren’t doing what you think they are or that your understanding of the context of the question needs to be enlarged. Check your test and restudy the question. Don’t throw away those mu answers! They’re every bit as vital as the yes or no answers. They’re more vital. They’re the ones you grow on!”

Future installments to the Quality Decisions section of our site will inherently each have a specific quality focus, with such segments may relate to a specific path, pattern, trend, product, framework, issue and so on. Particular segments may offer suggestions and/or also be comparative in nature.

Like ‘string theory’ can change what we think about time and space, it is entirely possible that Inherent Quality can change what we think in many other respects. As such you can help ensure Inherent Quality is communicated to a vast audience, so that it can be understood and applied, and expanded upon in subsequent editions with collaboration from contributors. The manuscript in its present form shows the existence of Inherent Quality, as well as the potential for it to develop, and the tremendous benefits that are associated today and in the future. The manuscript is ready for final editing and such is in progress. In this regard, punctuation, brevity or other Strunk and White type elements of style changes may be made, and other content from InherentQuality.Com may be incorporated, this includes perhaps working in a few new lines. For example: (i) a statement relative to Inherent Quality’s importance being perhaps as great as ‘string theory’ (as introduced in a recent broadcast on Book Television, http://www.booktelevision.com, ‘The Elegant Universe, Welcome to the 11th Dimension’ - In 1995, varying versions of the string theory were unified into a single, revolutionary theory that proposes the existence of numerous dimensions and a parallel universe. This theory is so advanced that scientists can’t begin to test it until later this decade as they anxiously wonder: Is string theory a crazy idea, or a crazy reality?); (ii) synergistic lines from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which has sold millions in many languages and was re-released May 2006 by HarperTorch); (iii) particular details from the InherentQuality.Com website, including synergistic items noted on our News page; (iv) synergistic lines from ‘In Search of Business Value’ and/or from related interviews. With respect to the latter, one such interview is http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2004/dec04/12-28mcdowell.mspx; the related lines I draw attention to at this juncture are...

“I believe that, today, the value proposition for IT is greater than ever. At the same time, we've already picked most of the low-hanging fruit.

PressPass: If the low-hanging fruit has been picked, where do the opportunities lie?

McDowell: The real value of technology is in its potential to be a catalyst for change. There are incredible opportunities for organizations that are willing to rethink processes from the beginning. Organizations often limit the potential for benefit by only focusing on the idea of business-process reengineering. But that assumes that what you have in place is worth re-engineering. Maybe you should blow the process up and start over.

The core issue now is that companies have to do a better job of linking IT with business priorities.”

“ PressPass: How can companies mitigate the risk that is inherent in using IT as a catalyst for fundamentally rethinking processes?

McDowell: The kind of transformation I'm talking about can be threatening both personally and institutionally. So you have to be smart about helping people through the process. You have to provide the tools and the training employees need in a way that's sensitive to their concerns. If you can make everyone part of the solution rather than part of the problem, the benefit will be much greater.”

Mickey Spillane once said the difference between an Author and a Writer is that a Writer makes money. I have nothing against making money, and hope you can help turn this new Author into an established one. However make no mistake; my goal is to provide you with value, therefore it is not about making money for me, but rather making it for you. Please note that I am very passionate about writing, and about quality, and about my inherent quality work. Therefore I will be working diligently to bring a book to you ideally in 2007. In the meantime, I will be communicating to you through InherentQuality.Com and you are welcome to use the related Contact form to get in touch with me. Inherent Quality among other recognizes the many programs and products that exist in the name of quality; and a corresponding need for progressive unification while making quality more inherent from many perspectives. It is the key to inherently managing risks, and to turning binary and other aspects, layers and patterns of quality (i.e. the related Mu elements) into increasing value, ROI and many other benefits. The vast global audience for Inherent Quality is CIO types and more; it is software and information technology professionals of all types, at all levels, in organizations of any size, nature or location… further the audience is related educators and students, as well as all who contract, employ, use the products/services of, and/or interface with software and information technology professionals.

I look forward to writing to you through Quality Decisions and the other sections of this site, and I look forward to providing you with a book that incorporates collaborative feedback sent to info@inherentquality.com.

Installment Two

Today (in 2006), Quality is at the forefront. Whether all believe this or not, it is a true fact. Our News webpage could easily be a long list reporting related examples or work in this direction. For September we have made mention of a few Microsoft items that many individuals should already have awareness of, as the items have been common public knowledge for sometime. The noted pieces of news are representative of a progressive trend within the software and information technology industry. A trend which continues to place Quality at the forefront and which continues to make quality more inherent from product and other perspectives. The trend which is evident today will be even more evident in 2007, and in the years which follow. Products will increasingly operate with improved integration, performance, value and feature richness. Services will increasingly be shaped to incorporate improvements founded on feedback from individuals at all levels. The power of teams and of the single individual will continue to increase regardless of traditional views. For example, traditionally many individuals have perceived themselves as unable to influence change within the large organizations they work within or purchase products and services from. As a further example traditionally many small business owners and frontline technical professionals, have perceived themselves similarly as unable to significantly be a catalyst for positive change. Today and progressively more so in 2007 and the years to follow, value will be less tied to such traditional views, instead quality decisions will innately benefit even more so than they do today from input associated with various perspectives and levels. Technology is an enabler, and progressively more so will be used as such. People are enablers too, and progressively more so will benefit from Technology while helping to re-shape and continuously improve the software and information technology landscape. Quality is at the forefront, and rightfully so, it will continue to be at the forefront while becoming increasingly more inherent. When making your quality decisions, do so with this insight and with an open mind.

Installment Three

This installment expands upon page 185 of our Manuscript; specifically it expands upon Chapter 9 Exceptional Results, '2. Promote Inherent Quality Culture'. Click the following link to read Quality Decisions Installment Three .

Installment Four

To assure highly cost-effective quality, you do and will need it to be inherent... and you do need all to understand and to contribute to maturing what that means. Fortunately now more than ever software and information technology professionals in all roles (and at any level) are genuinely and progressively embedding quality throughout while placing it (IT quality) at the forefront and as part of the core. More than ever organizations recognize IT as an inherent quality. More than ever organizations are starting to properly value the importance of enabling IT excellence. More than ever organizations are exploring opportunities for better balance in and external to the quality organization to inherently unlock true continuous improvement potential so as to enable better, safer and faster means for increasing collaborative achievement and progressively higher levels of to be discovered excellence. More than ever further improvement of the world is and will be done by individual and team quality, and by individuals making Quality decisions . These decisions may inherently improve services, reduce risks and provide a range of additional benefits. These individuals may be your neighbor, or live in a neighboring country. They may be associated with ITIL or organizations like Pink Elephant . They may even be an unsuspecting person that humbly slaves away at the office next to you, and then after work in their private study at any hour or day of the year. Trust yourself. Trust each other. Grow Trust. Enable positive changes. For example: improve the inherent quality of the information that management seeks and of the method used to gather and deliver the information. You can enable IT (for example to enhance the service oriented architecture or to deliver value-added automation)... IT then can help to improve your job and thereby enable you to deliver more value with greater speed. That's an inherent win-win, that's you and IT working together to assure highly cost-effective simple, intrinsic and pervasive quality. That is what is materializing and is far greater, more inherent and global than the waves of quality experienced over the past decade. The binary and other aspects of quality are evolving. Improved ROI and value are among the many related aims and gains.

To wrap this installment, and to continue 'Polling' IQ10125-Area4:SI006, we ask the following question and encourage responses sent to info@inherentquality.com

An inquiry into quality (Part 3): What will 2020 software look like by the year 2020? BTW in January 2007 from 2020software.com (and from its links to sites such as SAP) you would encounter words such as: better informed decisions with faster corrective actions; credible, comprehensive, timely and useful information for better business insights; seamless integration; insights across the extended value network; ready to use analytics application that encapsulates best business practices; business performance as a result of strategy-guided actions; faster innovation; faster response to changing business conditions; helps your business survive and thrive in a changing world; flexible and extensible; gain relevant insights and take action to gain competitive advantage; provides the collaborative environment; enable actionable insight; designed for information workers; in concert with; optimizing your business processes for greater efficiency and profitability; facts-based understanding; crucial to addressing today's challenges and to capitalizing on tomorrow's opportunities; comprehensive, credible and actionable business insights delivered in context of business operations; platform to unify and integrate disparate data and processes; accelerate business operations and enhance competitive advantage; accelerating innovation and energizing growth; increase adaptability, flexibility and cost efficiency; rapidly achieve innovative business solutions; blueprint; open IT architecture; moves IT architectures to higher levels; moves companies closer to the vision of real-time; elevating; provides a more meaningful foundation for the task of automating; create a more agile IT environment. You would also encounter these words, 'Enterprise SOA: Designing IT for Business Innovation'. To ensure your awareness of the latter, it is an April 2006 First Edition consisting of 452 pages. Here is a brief taken from http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/enterprisesa/... 'Based on extensive research with experts from the German software company SAP, this definitive book is ideal for architects, developers and other IT professionals who want to understand the technology and business relevance of enterprise SOA in a detailed way - especially those who want to move on the technology now, rather than in the next year or two.'

Our site and manuscript are available to help you understand and move forward with inherent quality. Rather than in the next year or two, move forward with this value based insight now. Doing so will immediately start to result in benefits for you and others. Furthermore collectively our related efforts by the year 2020 we bring the world closer to that which inherent quality refers to as the Next Generation. Along our journey we will progressively and increasingly integrate and/or fuse people, process and products into one to the point the latter become true enablers and partners within the Next Generation of the quality evolution .

Installment Five

Progress (16 January 2007)

Mid-way through 2006, in ‘An inquiry into quality (Part 1)’, we said we would be interested to hear from readers relative to five items . One of the items was “(b) Whether they believe Blogging is an important present day means of professional development and collaboration, and therefore an essential internet speed means of engaging the community at large”. In this installment we share an update on progress. Three updates to start us along the way are...

In 2007 there are many examples of progress. For one, vendors are in fact helping to make quality more intrinsic and pervasive. This is very positive. From an ITIL perspective, a quick internet search can help you find many who have created products and services to help with your related initiatives. Some of these companies may even be on a formal list (for further awareness see Compliant or Compatible). In any event it is certainly not difficult via the internet to find press releases showing vendor support for ITIL, and various related benefits that have been achieved by companies that have purchased associated vendor products/services. While vendor solutions each may have their particular selling features to appeal to particular markets or aspects of ITIL, it is positive that vendors are coming together more so as one to reach common grounds for higher purposes. ITIL is one positive representation of that common ground. The reality is that process documentation is being elevated by a form of industry unity, in fact enriched by unity that contains diversity from multiple vendors and a large number of IT pro contributors. This is producing a powerful result that can be of tremendous benefit for all, for every. For example the resulting documentation and products/services provide more applicability to organizations of all sizes and natures. Furthermore thanks to the ingenious on-going work to create products based on such things as ITIL, quality has a greater opportunity to become more intrinsic and pervasive. Training programs too are being elevated in the process. Overall this creates greater value for the employees, customers and stakeholders associated with your organization. This also has resulted in huge amounts of evidence readily available to you via the internet. Now more than ever you can quickly find examples of the benefits companies have received by moving forward with industry efforts such as ITIL, and by using a particular vendor solution that is based on or certified relative to industry efforts such as ITIL. Thanks to the contributions of many it is now easier for you to read related articles and find related details and offerings. You are therefore better informed, and able to make better quality decisions. You not only have foundation documentation, you have options to help you capitalize on your efforts to continue to improve service quality. This is improving your judgment capability. This will improve your bottom-line. Thanks to progress to simplify and enhance such things as ITIL, and to embed the concepts within available products/services, you are able to proceed with your initiatives with greater chance of success and quick-wins. This progress enables you to confidently move forward to inspire and generate joy from your improvement initiatives. Things such as ITIL v3 reflect the sea and sky of enrichment that now exists thanks to (i) vendor value-add products/services, (ii) participation of multiple vendors and IT pros in the creation process (this is helping to simplify and elevate such things as ITIL, while maintaining vendor neutrality). Things such as ITIL do not promote a particular vendor product, but they do promote what undeniably does exist, an on-going powerful quality movement. The related efforts are enabling continual improvements and progressively higher to be discovered levels of excellence in many regards, including to service. Today’s world is providing objective process guidance. Separately turnkey solutions are also more so progressively becoming available. Before you get behind the wheel of a car and drive, you have done related reading and testing. In today’s world you can apply the same approach before driving ahead with a turnkey solution. Vendor enrichment combined with vendor neutrality is making this possible; on-going changes with such things as ITIL further help to ensure industry efforts maintain objectivity and professionalism. For your general awareness here are a couple of links for insight into the players and changing players within the ITIL world: http://www.apmgroup.co.uk/web/site/home/home.asp ; http://www.itpreneurs.com/Content/Resources/Trends/itil/itil-3_and_accreditation.htm .

Showcasing the progress of so many contributors who have managed to create such things as ITIL (and all the related programs, products and services that now exist with it) we believe is important, and in fact is a cause for celebration and saying sincere thanks. Congratulations to all! Quality is truly becoming more inherent and occurring more inherently! It truly is increasingly becoming progressively more so intrinsic and pervasive. Well done, Keep up the great work, sincerely!

Our weblog and site contains examples that would agree with the humble views in this installment; in fact that agree with things expressed in ‘ An inquiry into quality (Part 2) ’ which we posted subsequent to this installment. BTW if you are curious about ‘An inquiry into quality (Part 3)’, scroll back to the fourth installment of Quality Decisions.

Installment Six

Fun (22 January 2007)

The software and IT field consists of many exciting career paths; industry and internal corporate initiatives are at work to improve associated factors in many regards. Making quality more inherent, occur more inherently, increasing productivity and embedding fun are just a few. For the latter there are numerous opportunities; and creativity and innovation are at work to help realize them. In fact a fun and valuable activity known as brainstorming is often a vehicle to engage related thinking. We realize ‘fun’ is an important inherent quality and have included it within a partial industry DNA list on our Deliverables page. Clicking on the FUN link in fact provides a further list that may be of assistance in related brainstorming. Certainly there are many potential areas in which fun can be inserted. In some cases pre-requisite activity may help. For example continued work to map and harmonize various standards and frameworks will make it easier for students and experts alike to have a common foundation. This could then permit fun opportunities to shape common processes into innovative tools that automate related tasks; thereby making related tasks more fun while elevating related human activity and outputs. Fun is important enough and small enough that it can make all the difference and yet be often easily overlooked and undervalued. We prior mentioned this on January 20, 2007 in a weblog post entitled “Embedding Fun”. We placed the post in category “Tools”, though the opportunity to embed fun is not limited to tools. The software and information technology industry is complex. Various content and links on our site help to show this. To enable higher levels of excellence and more value-add, it may be appropriate to start by thinking of fun itself as a tool (e.g. for creativity, motivation or productivity). From a quick-wins perspective it may also be appropriate to simplify and elevate a process (including with some related automation) wherever you see an opportunity. ‘Embedding fun’ then can bring more value, as well as more joy to those involved in a process or receiving outputs from a process. The inherent quality simplicity book we are working on will among other bring more visibility and clarity to such things which are embedded and perhaps overlooked within this site and our original manuscript. When the book is available we will share related details within Quality Decisions. In the meantime please note and think about these five words in the initial DNA list on our Deliverables page: simplicity, awareness, balance, fun, joy. Also in the meantime keep this in mind… Quality is not a fad; it is a way of life, and it works! Making the industry progressively more fun is part of this way of life, and it works as well. It helps today and will in the future. It will help to attract the next generations, and will provide them with a progressively more enjoyable and rewarding career in which they pass on value and joy to others. No better reason for our existence exists, than to spread ‘joy’ throughout the world. Joy then is the pursuit; experience it, enhance it, share it and thereby – enlarge it. Joy to all! (begin with this end in mind).

7. Save 

 Save (16 February 2007)

8. Give

If we give energy to someone who is giving it back then we build energy; it amplifies among and within us. If we all do this the software and IT community, and perhaps even humanity, will take inherent steps forward in evolution. We would further be one. We would more easily achieve challenges. Please share awareness of this site in a positive way. Please pursue a future for improved worldview. We hope a related positive chain of energy will start today (March 17, 2007) giving birth to many related milestones prior to and following the year 2020. Thank you for all you do with quality in mind, heart and soul.

9. Rise

To produce or improve great inventions, would it help to have a demystification of the history of great innovations where history is used to explain the truth and provide lessons based on how innovations in business, technology and science really happen? For example see inside scoop. Within the category of inventions known as software and in order to produce or improve great software, would it help to have a further demystification to uncover truths and create lessons which enhance the anatomy of future generations?

In 2007 the technology and associated software you use everyday can have many embedded commands enabled concurrently with possible combinations of execution paths easily exceeding hundreds of millions. This reality adds significantly to challenges associated with empowering consumers and workforces, or with enabling IT and other resources to converge. To address the many challenges, does the industry lack means or do existing means need to be more widespread? For example perhaps such things as: agile and test-driven development, aspect-oriented programming, open source, blogging and so on. The number of developers, professionals and everyday consumers that read web postings for fun and meaning is significant in 2007; however what further would help with the industry challenges? For example what is beyond blogging that will help? In two weeks of writing this post, a year will have passed since the release of a 600+ page paperback on code quality. It was preceded by a book on code reading. Is the answer to evolving the code within the code, or is it within us and the art of evolving the profession?

We hope you agree that global summits are needed, that participants can enlighten and learn from each other, that collective wisdom can be elevated to global perspectives by communities of thinkers which come together at events for common higher purposes. Ideally those with the means will rise and organize so there will be many such serious (yet fun) events during the years leading to 2020.

At this time for general awareness we share the following few links and hope you find something within of value and fun: Artima (seminar, weblog, forum), something from the msdn archives, code quality, straightdope classic.

Progress has and is being made. Now is the time for you to Rise, to have fun and to help make quality more so - inherent. Thank you for doing so.

10. Link

In today's world there is a large increasing amount of vendors, products, associations and methods. The consortiums and summits seen in today's world must more so build upon the concept of global unification and the movement which embeds means to elevate and simplify quality, value and excellence. There are many revolutions going on now. Each has inherent potential to contribute to quality and value of life improvements for all, for every in the present and the future. Pros and the general public must increasingly come together to ensure this. Consortiums must form or expand and link to drive progress beyond what has been achieved thus far. The resulting consortium should consist of large and prominent: professional associations, academic and research institutions, vendor organizations, publicly traded companies, government bodies, open source communities, and other country and global online communities. The resulting consortium should ensure means exist for gathering public input and for sharing awareness of progress with the general public. No one company should take credit for the resulting progress but all should encourage it so that quality inherently applies to software, technology, information, individuals and teams even more so in the future from such perspectives as: research initiatives, educational initiatives, government initiatives, organizational initiatives, global improvement initiatives, industry association initiatives, general public and consumer awareness initiatives. Such initiatives should pertain to frameworks, standards, products, services, resources, certifications, bodies of knowledge and so on. Given the technology that already exists in 2007 it should be possible to involve individuals from around the world within regular virtual collaborative gatherings albeit using university, corporate and home based internet facilities. Where does innovation and inspiration come from? The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application and perseverance - Samuel Langhorne Clemens aka Mark Twain. 2005-2006 marked a substantial global increase in online sales representing billions. The quality improvements inherent to software and technology helped enable this; so too did the quality improvements inherent to information. Meaningful value-based information is now more easily and more immediately accessible in increased volumes to increased volumes. This is increasing awareness, educating, removing fear and facilitating cultural paradigm shifts. In 2007 IT can be found just about anywhere and just about in everything (e.g. from a GPS in a rent-a-car to help the customer avoid travel delays, to voyages on and under water, and even into the sky, and even out of this world). CobiT 4.1 and ITILv3 released in 2007 mark tremendous progress. Both will help ensure quality is embedded or inherent. Both represent industry coming together and contributions coming from around the globe. Companies should adopt both. When you look beyond these two examples of progress, and when you look beyond the many other wonderful examples of progress, it is not hard to still see that more must be done. Consider the few realities from the CIPS IT Today special feature in the Halifax Chronicle Herald 15 May 2007, and ask yourself what more is needed to more so embed and elevate quality, value, excellence and simplicity.

 This page was last updated June 10, 2007