A museum piece in a small world

While I was sat on the left hand side of the chairman at Monday's epic steak and kidney pie extravaganza, I noticed that each of the members present wore a little pin in the lapel of the obligatory jacket, with a little blue name tag close by. Glancing to his right, I was surprised to see a name long forgotten beneath a face astonishingly unchanged - and I'm talking decades here rather than years. In those days I was a student, between school and university earning a bit of cash as an agency temp working for a local computer manufacturer, and Geoff was the manager of the operations department - the first person ever to interview me for a job, and unbeknown to me then, the first manager I ever had in a company that more by accident than design became a life sentence. He had no recollection of me, a mere temporary student, hardly surprising given the number of employees he'd seen prior to his retirement. He, however, was instantly recognisable to me once the name index in my brain clicked in. He hadn't changed, it was as if it were yesterday. By a bizarre twist, I'd resigned from his employment to undertake the very sailing adventure that I was there to talk about. Now if that isn't a small world, I'm not sure what is.

Recently, I visited the splendid new Information Technology offices of a public sector customer in Plymouth. There, in the reception area, protected from the masses by glass screens was a lovely selection of equipment that I had grown to love and hate during those days as an underling in Geoff's department. Wonderful technology like the 0029 card punch, the 2260 display , the 1403 printer, the 1041 terminal and more.. I'll stop before I give myself away as a complete geek. However, this brings me round to a theme which comes around often enough in the IT industry. What real advance has been enabled by the dramatic evolution of technology since that time? I've seen processor power multiply according to Moores Law, hardware prices fall through the floor, operating software footprint go through the roof, the advent of the PC, object technology, the web, broadband, wireless and more.

With all this, are we any more productive? Of course not! The saddest part of all is that we're just as unproductive now, working 60-70 hours a week against a reported 37 hours as we were back then when we actually did the 37 and still had time for fairly regular pub lunches! There's a variant of Moores Law at play here, though I'm not sure it has a name as yet.

Fortunately, the answer to all our woes lies on the Indian sub-continent.

.... or does it.

(Watch this space)