My Understanding of Information Technology Industry
What is Information Technology?
The simple questions are always profound.
- Why do we talk?
- Why we have developed languages for communication?
- Why do we work?
- What is the purpose of out existence?
The answer to these questions may lead many to spiritual or philosophical journey. Here I am with you going to the same kind of journey for finding the purpose of our being in information age.
As I have posted in my previous posts that "We all owe a great deal to the inventors or the risk takers due to which we are seeing a developed society around us". I am again repeating the line from my previous post that "In order to sustain life, every living species has to follow a certain course of action required by its nature. The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort. Production is the application of the reason to the problem of survival".
There are three types of people around us 1) Prime movers 2) Secondary Movers 3) Parasites
There are only a few prime movers in every company, society who runs the society or company without them the system may run for sometime but after some time it will collapse. The work of the prime movers is to use his mind utmost effectively and to create a process (invention) which will be handled to secondary handlers. These processes make communication, exchange, and livelihood of the society or company easier than before.
Secondary movers are not harmful to society but they are advantageous to any society or company as they produce the process or following the process produce the product.
The only type of peoples due to which a system collapse are parasites. These are the peoples who depend up on the others for their work. They take up the work of prime movers or secondary movers by force or some other way & show the society that they are the producer of the work.
In our society we see a quite few prime movers. But in information technology we can see lot prime movers. Because unlike other industry in information technology an individual or a few individual can change the way system works. Information Technology is highly decentralized. One can invent anything from anywhere which can make process easier for everyone if he publishes his invention using internet.
Our job is to make systems which will in turn make the work process around us simpler than one has ever imagine upon the efforts of thousands of individuals and become the one thousand one Th individual to provide the platform which can further be generalized by the others.
The other work of a system developer is to understand society & work process. Because making system is like philosophy. We must ask basic questions "Why". And development is like maths. We have to define algorithm from answering the questions asked by a philosopher.
The work of a programmer is challenging as one has to play a key role of the both. One has to understand that "If we want to cook something we will not use two stones to lit the fire, we will use lighter" but also "if we know how to make a fire using stone, match sticks and lighter we can invent a new device that can operate more flexibly that lighter" .In short in information technology an individual's (programmer) responsibility is to
- Understand the process(Become a secondary movers)
- Find the process
- Integrate the process in system
- Find the process
- Develop a process
- Analyze the process(Implementation)
- Make a process generalized(So the secondary movers can use them)
- Analyze the process(Implementation)
Who is employer?
Employers are risk takers who invest their efforts in individuals & generate a system (company) which will be benefitting employee, employer and society. As ultimate goal of any company is to server the society.
Employer can be classified into following types.
- Successful Employers
In Information technology, employer has to understand the human nature, psychology because he is not dealing with the resource in his company he is dealing with the human. And also in information technology we are producing something that will be produced by the effort of the mind. It is not a mechanical process, isn't it? (Though once we were discussing up on the topic that "Logic is nothing but the permutations of all combinations" but we will discuss upon it some later time).So employer's work is to understand human behavior as such.
- Unsuccessful Employers
Warren Buffet earned a lot from the stock market. He is in the list
Of world's 10 richest person. But he never invested a single dim in information technology because he never understood "how information technology works?". Mostly all unsuccessful employers do not know about this question.
Both kinds of employers can be prime movers, secondary movers or parasites.
Who is employee?
In some of the industries skill is contained by the boss. He uses his skill to give the work to employee. Like if a doctor owns a hospital he will give the work to the nurses and other people who maintain the hospital. But what if doctor disappears suddenly. It will be quite difficult to replace him quickly. But in information technology the skills are distributed. One programmer might be skilled at using a particular technology or tool while the other is veteran in using the other tools. And system needs to be integrated by both of the technologies.
Systems (like internet, blog, google, skype, chat tools) make society de-centralize day by day. In near time a day comes when information technology will be totally decentralized. (There will be no companies only individuals).
The biggest problems with employee in information technology are that they are not risk takers. Though they are taking big risks in their jobs.
2 comments:
I am assuming that the writing in this article has been influenced a little by the writings of Ayn Rand.
And if that has been the case, you have not captured the essence of what Ayn Rand's theory stands for.
Even if that is not the case, I personally disagree with most of your points here. I will list them down as clearly as I can.
Our job is to make systems which will in turn make the work process around us simpler
Word 'job' gives a connotation that you believe individuals as such have an obligation towards the society. Which is what systems, religions and politics will have you believe because the one who believes s/he is in some kind of obligation is easier to influence.
The truth is "Man is born free." Society co-exists with man and man does not owe anything to the society by default. You may choose to work towards the betterment of the society but you may as well work towards whatever makes you happy. So please never make a virtue out of obligation towards society.
Ultimate goal of any company is to serve the society
Unfounded assumption. I am a student of businesses and I am yet to see a 'company' that has “service to society” as its ultimate goals. Companies exist for whatever purpose the owners feel as the one close to their hearts (in most cases it is money). Period. Anything else you hear is hogwash.
Again at the base of this is your assumption that companies owe something to the society.
Two types of employers - Successful and Unsuccessful
How did you define success? People who achieved betterment of societies? Or who managed to earn money? Think deeper on this and you will probably understand my two previous arguments better.
Doctor - Employer analogy
Basic flaw in the analogy is assuming that doctors always own hospitals. And even if that is the case, the absence of doctor will be more painful as an employee or a doctor than as an employer or risk taker.
Also importance you give to risk takers I believe is unfounded. If you truly understand your 'successful' risk-takers, you will realize that they never took too much of a risk.
A businessman might perceive snake charming as risky, but a snake charmer will find an investment based on some idea being risky. Similarly Bill Gates, Larry Page or Sergey Brin leaving their colleges to pursue their dreams is actually not as risky as it sounds. They all knew they had in them to make it happen.
hi jiju thanx for commenting on my article.
I disagree with most of ur arguments.
Our job is to make systems which will in turn make the work process around us simpler
Here the word 'Job' is not used as connotation but it has it's actual meaning "the principal activity in your life that you do to earn money".
I have told that "We all owe a great deal to the inventors or the risk takers due to which we are seeing a developed society around us".It does not mean that i owe something to society but i owe more
than something to the inventors & leaders.We can pay that debt only by becoming one of them.
Ultimate goal of any company is to serve the society
Here the word serve is not used to mean that "to work for free"
The biggest IT company TCS(Tata Consultant Serv ices)
He is getting the comlonsation from society by providing sevice to society
Post a Comment