(I really haven't been doing very well with my blog these past three months.
I aim to do better. My schedule has been totally messed around and time I spent blogging has gone. I do however have more time to read.)
So, with all that out of the way...those that know me know that I am total Linux Penguin Man so Bill Gates is not my favourite person in the world. However, he is a great man and has been, I believe by following this vision throughout his life from when he was Microsoft's CEO, Chairman and now with his charity work.
"To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps." - Bill Gates, 2007.
His point in context is that people want to donate to charity but find the complexity of donating too much and they just don't. Alternatively, if they do donate, the money gets used up by supporting complexity and not really for what it was intended.
But there is a bigger picture here. I was involved once in a project which developed a security tool. I saw the bigger picture of how this tool would fit into an organisation but was shot down by everyone in the company from the CEO down because they had a different view. They were too caught up with the technology and didn't see the problem they were trying to solve.
I then did some work for two other companies (not Information Security companies) and again they were too caught up in the technology and suffered from red tape. One closed down and the other struggled along.
Most recently I did work for a company that runs its Information Security department in such a way that it jumps from buzzword to buzzword without really getting more secure.
I think we should all learn from Bill Gates and see what the problems are, simplify them, rank them, and solve them.. then move on. After all, he is the richest man in the world and has become so not by giving people the most complicated software but by giving them simple software that solves their problems.
Thank you to Presentation Zen for the information.
