End Users: Should We Put Them In Padded Cells?

If you’re an I&O professional, what comes to mind when you say “end user”? If you’re like most of us, your mind has a conjured-up impression of a cosmically clueless person who actually gave you a hard time once, and the picture is now your mind’s own avatar for everyone you support. It’s not usually a positive image, is it? I used to picture a middle-aged, BMW-driving executive with his hair parted on one side wearing an LL Bean sweater, probably an Ivy-league grad, who couldn’t be bothered to actually take responsibility for his own personal computing destiny…he always had servants to take care of trivialities…and hence he was ruining my day with his incompetence. Let’s call him Ascot Rothschild III.

An image like that is a powerful thing, and the painful memory of this individual’s willful, arrogant ignorance then pervades our future thinking about what we’re up against when we set IT policy like BYOC. Ascot becomes the poster child - in our minds anyway - for every garden-variety corporate doofus that we’ll have to deal with if we give people any more rope than we already do. They also give us plenty of reasons to take more rope away. In my case, I used to sit on a helpdesk for Remedy customers, and my team had a collection of “special” customers we wondered how they managed to get dressed and find their car keys in the morning. As I later designed Remedy and Peregrine applications, I did so with these “edge cases” in mind.

In other words, we tend to calibrate our thinking and design infrastructures for the worst case scenarios. We gear our decisions and prioritize our spending toward those who are least likely to truly benefit from the investment, in the hope that they won’t run into trouble and bother us. It’s a peculiar thing really, because it causes us to spend most of our time thinking about problem avoidance and not enough on opportunity creation. Worse…our understanding of these people and their true needs is usually dead wrong.

The interactions with the people we support paint a skewed picture. We hear from people when things aren’t going well, and they’re probably at their worst. We don’t get to see the real Ascot Rothschild III, father of 2 beautiful kids, and loving husband who paid his own way through college, and discovered oil reserves for your company last year worth $500M. These details are lost, along with our willingness to think about what he needs to find the next $500M opportunity. It may be better to dispense with the term “end user” altogether and use the term “internal customer” instead.

So I would like to lay down a challenge to you: As you execute your plans for your BYOC and client virtualization initiatives in 2012, and make critical decisions, such as whether to lock down desktops or not - which Ascot Rothschild III do you really know? Which potential are you designing your infrastructure for: the potential for problems or the potential for innovation and out-sized business results? Can you achieve both? I’d love to hear from those of you who have.

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Superman is Dead : Punk rock with an attitude

Superman is Dead : Punk rock with an attitude

Felix Dass, Contributor, Jakarta | Sun, 04/08/2012 11:01 AM

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After nearly 20 years on the road, for them, punk rock is still about saying no and being true to themselves.

Have you ever dug the life of Indonesia’s biggest punk rock outfit? What is it like on a daily basis? Are they still true to what they believe in? Do they really have a good understanding about what punk rock is?

Ask whatever you want, at the end of the day you will still get a positive image of Superman is Dead.

This 100 percent Bali-resident band have been around since the 1990s with their debut album Case 15, a milestone in our local punk rock scene’s history, recorded back in 1997. The members are still the same old dudes who swung around the happy-go-lucky life back in the day — charismatic drummer JRX, flamboyant bassist EkaRock and super good frontman Bobby Kool.

Let us take you back to 2001, 11 years ago. Sometime that year, all of a sudden, Sony Music Indonesia announced they were going to release their first punk rock album produced by a local act.

Jan D. Djuhana — the legendary Sony Music Indonesia icon who discovered Dewa 19, Padi, Glenn Fredly and many other top-notch artists here in Indonesia — thought that this band had the X factor that would shake up the industry.

It was controversial — industry insiders rolled their eyes, thinking that Sony Music Indonesia was making a big mistake by investing money in a punk rock band, while the punk rock scene criticized Superman is Dead for selling out, signing a deal with the capitalist music industry for six albums. But both parties went ahead.

Over the years, this collaboration has managed to silence their critics and provided positive evidence to those who believe that change could be made possible through punk rock.

Look at them now — five albums, hundreds of gigs, thousands of good times along the road and, this is the most important thing, millions of fans from cities all across Indonesia and a significant amount of international acclaim that has kept their connection with the world’s punk rock scene alive.

“The relationship level is still at the green stage,” chuckles EkaRock. “If we meet, Pak Jan still takes us out for a meal. He knows us well, we still need his love,” adds JRX, also in the same humorous tone.

Well, don’t believe it all until you see how big they are on the Internet. Google anything about them and you will be overwhelmed by the facts you will find.

“We’re still the old Superman is Dead, still playing punk rock. Only our ages have moved forward,” says Bobby Kool. “And we now have a bigger responsibility,” continues EkaRock. The band carries a heavy mission to make the world a better place.

 “We want to spread positivity and bring changes, well, big or small we all need to do that. That’s always the motivation behind Superman is Dead,” tells EkaRock.

 “In every smart band’s dream there is always a smart gang of fans. We want to have that and we want them to realize they’re smart. That’s what we want to deliver through our music,” JRX adds.

So far, Superman is Dead has been a massive agent of change where they have made small-but-beautiful gestures on a daily basis. For example, in almost every city they visit, they encourage people to have an afternoon stroll with them to clean the environment by picking up any trash they see.

Their contribution to the community can be considered real. What they stand for is a true representation of how people are willing to opt for a better life under the big roof called punk rock.

Of course, they have been supported by their legions of fanatic fans that have fallen in love with the free spirit the band have been expressing for years. They are a good example of how warm the relationship between a punk rock act and their followers can be.

“We’re trying hard not to project ourselves as a perfect idol figure for those kids; we just show them what we are. You can have so many followers if you’re natural and honest with people,” says full-of-wisdom-punk rocker JRX.

At the moment, their flags are flying high, literally.

“My point of view now has changed. I used to have a short term point of view, two or three years only. Now I have a bigger picture, not focusing on minor details. Clarity,” JRX says.

Looking back, they admit that what they have now on their hands was not even in their minds in day one.

“I never thought of this. I was so busy thinking about the good things in life; how to have wild nights out and a never ending alcohol adventure,” jokes JRX.

As would be expected of happy-go-lucky young punk rockers, life in the early stages of their career was always about having some fun and going wild 24/7. The old saying “everything big starts small” is really appropriate in their case. Don’t think big at the very start.

Small gigs were the best while big stadium or arena gigs were not even on their horizon back then. Well, nowadays, small gigs are still on their agenda but it needs to be discreetly done.

“Police will monitor your behavior while you’re doing big stadium gigs, while a sweet girl will wait for you in the corner in a small gig,” again, jokes JRX. “Raw and devilish energy plus the audience’s sweat are the basic ingredients of chaos.”

“We love the wild energy which actually is the fuel that drives our engine. We want to explode it all without a single fake emotion. That’s how a small gig feels to us,” adds EkaRock.

From any of the anecdotes you read, it’s easy to sense how they have kept their feet on the ground, living their enjoyable life to the fullest. The band still call Bali home despite the major effort to go on tour or promote their work.

“We want to say go on forever by writing as many songs as we can, we want to see places we’ve never been to before and do many things in the future,” says Bobby Kool.

The band is now promoting their newly released vinyl record consisting of eight of their best tracks. The vinyl is the first product from Sony Music Indonesia in this old fashioned but sexy format. The band managed to push yet another boundary by getting their label to fulfill their dream of having a release in vinyl format.

“You cannot call yourself a musician if you don’t have vinyl in your catalogue. We’re fortunate that at this time our label is on crazy mode,” says JRX. This, of course, is a joke, maybe.

Keep watching, because Superman is Dead will probably make another big break while surfing the mainstream industry with their bold punk rock attitude.

*) More info about Superman is Dead can be found at supermanisdead.net.

— Photos Courtesy of Superman is Dead

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Hope fading for missing teachers

Hope fading for missing teachers

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 04/11/2012 1:58 PM

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Evy Maya Stefany, 21, is waiting for news of her brother, Heru Fendi Angga Akhmadi, 22, who went missing along with another teacher, Rizki Susdiasto, 25, during a school holiday at Tanjung Mas Beach in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, last Wednesday.

“Isn’t there anything else anyone can do to find my brother?” Evy said on Tuesday.

Heru, Rizki and a student named Mundus Mutaebenu, 17, were reportedly carried away by currents while swimming. Mundus’ body was found by a fisherman on Monday, 30 kilometers away from the beach.

Reports said that on the day of the incident, Heru, Rizki and 20 students from state senior high school SMAN 1 in Amfoang Barat Daya were enjoying their Easter holidays. Heru went to cool himself off in the water after playing soccer and was swept away.

Hearing Heru’s cry for help, Mundus and Rizki quickly went to rescue him, but were carried away as well.

The Kupang administration is ending its search today, seven days after the incident, even though Heru and Rizki are still missing,

“The search and rescue team has had difficulties with the bad weather, high waves and strong tides,” Wayan Sukrawarpala from the Ganesha Education University in Singaraja, Bali, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Wayan is Ganesha’s coordinator for the Sarjana Mendidik (Graduates Teaching) program, of which Heru and Rizki were members.

The program was launched by the Education Ministry in 2011 to give an opportunity to people with Bachelor degrees in education to teach in remote and underdeveloped regions for one year.

Heru, along with 67 other teachers, were sent by Ganesha Education University to Kupang, while Rizki was sent by the Jakarta State University to the same regency with 123 other teachers.

So far, the ministry has assigned 2,479 Bachelor-degree holders to 21 regencies and cities throughout Indonesia, including Kupang, Raja Ampat in West Papua and Aceh Besar in Aceh.

The ministry’s spokesman, Sukemi, said that before leaving for their assignments, the teachers underwent training so that they would be able to adapt to the local way of life.

“We invited locals to share their knowledge. We also organized two weeks' physical training for the teachers. They did not go unprepared,” Sukemi added.

According to Heru’s sister, Evy, her parents were reluctant to let her only sibling join the program.

“My parents wanted him to stay at home, mostly because at that time, my father had just undergone cancer treatment. He suffers from pancreatic cancer,” she told the Post via telephone from her home in Jembrana, Bali.

However, seeing how excited Heru was after being admitted to the program, their parents finally gave him their blessing. “My brother has always been passionate about teaching,” she added.

Heru left for Kupang on Jan. 4.

Evy said that her brother was ecstatic when he arrived in Amfoang Barat Daya the area to which he was assigned. She added that he loved it there and continuously sent pictures to his family.

They received news about his disappearance from a friend of his last Thursday. His mother didn’t believe it at first and tried to call him on his cell phone but a Kupang Police officer answered the call.

Evy told the Post that her family had been devastated by the news. Her mother is so incapacitated by grief that she cannot leave her bed.

Evy turned down Ganesha Education University’s offer to send her to Kupang to oversee the search process because she felt obliged to take care of her parents.

“My parents and I can only wait. I hope the Kupang administration will extend the search because my brother is still out there somewhere,” she said. (tas)

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Kemenangan Barca untuk Abidal

Beritabola.com Barcelona - Barcelona
mengalahkan Getafe pada hari yang sama dengan jadwal operasi Eric
Abidal. Los Cules pun mempersembahkan kemenangan mereka kepada salah
satu pemainnya tersebut.

Abidal dijadwalkan naik ke meja
operasi pada Selasa (10/4/2012) waktu setempat. Bek asal Prancis itu
akan menjalani transplantasi hati untuk mengatasi efek samping pasca
operasi pengangkatan tumor pada tahun lalu.

Tepat di hari
operasi Abidal, Barca bertemu Getafe dalam lanjutan Liga Spanyol. The
Catalans menang telak 4-0 dan kini memepet Real Madrid di klasemen
sementara.

"Kami sangat senang untuk mendedikasikan kemenangan
ini untuk Abidal dan sepupunya Gerard (yang mendonorkan hatinya),"
ungkap pelatih Barca, Pep Guardiola, di situs resmi klub.

"Ini
adalah hari yang spesial karena kami tahu dia sedang dioperasi,"
katanya.

Dua pemain Barca, Andres Iniesta dan Pedro Rodriguez,
juga mengungkapkan hal serupa.

"Saya senang untuk
mendedikasikan kemenangan ini untuk Abi. Ini untukmu," seru
Iniesta.

"Ini untuk teman kami, Abidal," ujar
Pedro.
(dtc/mfi) Sumber: detiksport

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Grab your Nokia N8, Microsoft rolls out native Office applications

Last September I wrote about the announcement that Microsoft apps were coming to Symbian Belle devices and today Nokia announced a software update for several devices that provides Microsoft Office in a native application.

It looks like it is time to pull out my orange Nokia N8 and give it a test run. I am especially interested in trying out Excel with my N8 connected via HDMI to a larger display. I mentioned several innovations still present in Symbian devices and there is still a place for such powerful devices.

Over the years, I have used various 3rd party Office clients and they do a good job for mobile use. Over on the Nokia Conversations site Dinesh Subramaniam mentions a bit about two modules of Office for Symbian Belle:

If you’re a Word user, you’ll appreciate the fact that with Word mobile, you can save or send documents while preserving tables, SmartArt and charts, or the pinch/zoom functionality to easily view and edit documents.

In PowerPoint mobile, you can edit presentation texts and speaker notes, or use the Outline view to quickly browse through slides. With Excel mobile, you can create charts, or insert formulae and view rich data and charts from anywhere.

With the upcoming Nokia PureView device with 41 megapixel camera, it is nice to see Symbian still being supported on some level by Nokia.

Related ZDNet coverage

• Full Microsoft Office Mobile now available on select Nokia Symbian phones
• Some of us care that Nokia is taking Symbian away
• Microsoft Apps coming to Nokia Symbian Belle devices
• MWC 2012: Nokia announces 808 PureView with 41 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera

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Lescott: City Tak Akan Biarkan MU Menang di Etihad

Beritabola.com Manchester - Derby
Manchester diprediksi akan jadi penentu gelar juara Liga Inggris musim
ini. Tak ingin malu di depan pendukungnya, Joleon Lescott menegaskan
Manchester City tak akan membiarkan Manchester United menang di
Etihad.

Tiga pekan tak meraih hasil maksimal membuat The
Citizens harus tertinggal delapan poin dari 'Setan Merah' yang ada di
puncak klasemen. Dengan liga yang masih menyisakan enam pekan lagi,
secara matematis peluang City belum sepenuhnya
tertutup.

Sebelum saling berhadapan di laga derby yang akan
digelar pada Senin (30/4/2012) malam waktu setempat, kedua tim akan
menjalani tiga laga. Jika City tak mampu memaksimalkan tiap
pertandingan sebelum derby, bisa jadi tim arahan Sir Alex Ferguson
yang akan mengunci gelar di Etihad.

"Kami tidak ingin
membiarkan mereka memenanginya di Etihad Stadium. Kami akan melakukan
apapun dalam kekuatan kami untuk tidak membiarkannya terjadi," ujar
Lescott seperti dilansir oleh Sky Sports.

Laga ini bisa jadi
akan menjadi laga terpenting untuk Sergio Aguero dkk. Meski demikian,
Lescott menilai memenangi pertandingan ini tak akan berarti banyak
jika City gagal menjadi juara liga.

"Ini tidak akan berarti
banyak jika kami memenangi dua laga atas United dan tidak memenangi
liga," sambung bek berusia 29 tahun itu.

"Tapi saya yakin bahwa
ketika laga itu datang setiap orang akan senang menyambutnya,"
tutupnya.
(dtc/roz) Sumber: detiksport

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TNI-AU could rival China, US by 2045, expert says

TNI-AU could rival China, US by 2045, expert says

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 04/10/2012 8:26 PM

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Indonesia is expected to have an Air Force that is on par with China and the United States in dominating Southeast Asia by 2045, University of Indonesia defense expert from Andi Widjajanto said Tuesday.

Speaking at the International Air Power Seminar 2012, Andi said that the Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU) capacity for air force dominance in 2012 was slightly below that of Malaysia, with the strongest being the US, quoting Jane’s Southeast Asia Air Force Inventory 2012.

If Indonesia goes to war with the US, the TNI-AU would be put in a state of paralysis against the superpower, being air subordinate relative to the super power.

Air subordination refers to the weakness of a country's air force relative to other countries. As of 2012, Indonesia is considered subordinate to countries like China, but is considered air superior to countries such as East Timor.

If Indonesia fights against Malaysia, the two countries would be on equal grounds in terms of air force dominance capabilities, or what in military terminology is referred to as air parity.

“We already have strategic plans [for the air force] for at least until 2024. The government has already planned that and we will reach the country’s minimum essential force requirement by that year,” Andi said. “By that year, we will reach air parity with Singapore and Malaysia.”

“We will have air dominance throughout Southeast Asia by 2045.”

Andi said Indonesia would have air parity with countries such as China, the Five Power Defense Arrangements (FPDA) and the US.

“But we still don’t know how we will be in the position of air dominance with those countries,” he said.

China, for example, has bombers which can reach Australia, he said. (png)

 

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