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The great universal truths of IT

The great universal truths of IT

Our panel of Australian CIOs weigh-in with some fundamental realities about IT that have stood the test of time.

Angus McDonald, Technical Director, Elcom

6. GIGO: Garbage in, garbage out
For the historians, this term comes from a time when computers were as big as cars. It was coined as a teaching mantra in the mid-1950s by George Fuechsel, a computer programmer and instructor at IBM in New York.

“It astounds me that people still think they can put garbage into a computer and get roses out of it,” McDonald says.

“If you don’t put hard work and good thinking into your solutions they won’t be good enough to solve your business problems.”

Stuart Inskip, CIO of Cognitive Development

7. Quality in, quality out
Inskip agrees with McDonald, albeit with a more positive spin.

“Planning, scoping and market analysis are the most important factors influencing IT,” he says. “If you know everything about what you’re trying to achieve then you can exceed customer expectations.”

8. Making the intangible tangible is one of the great benefits of IT
“Whether it is business information, relationships, reputation or countless other intangible items, IT brings the potential to make these things tangible and provide ways for us to work with, relate to, and understand them in ways we never had before.”

9. IT is creative
“I love the fact that the bulk of what we do in IT is create solutions to business problems using technology. That creativity is fundamental to the industry and is embedded in any IT role to some degree.

Brett McDowall, CTO of Object Consulting

10. Users have no idea what they want -- but they will expound on the issue at length

11. Any technology advance is quickly taken for granted -- and somehow seems a little disappointing

12. IT is critical to nearly every business -- but the budgets keep getting cut

13. IT people know they are at the centre of everything and the business can’t live without them

14. Business people wonder who these strange people are in IT and what they do

Marc Cohen, CIO of Dealsdirect.com.au

15. If you release on a Friday you WILL be working on the weekend

16. If you take on changes or allow ad-hoc requests mid-project for someone, they will still be surprised when you ask for more time

17. Open source is not free

18. If you treat IT as a necessary evil it will never be an enabler

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