A new breakout of the acronym “SAP” heard today:

SAP = Slow and Painful

International Conference on Global Software Engineering

If you have been a regular reader of my blog, you know that globalization is one of my favorite topics of discussion. Therefore, I would like to draw your attention to the International Conference on Global Software Engineering which will be held August 17-20, 2008 in Bangalore, India. (Recently renamed Bangaluru.) The event is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society.

Please note that if you have some thoughts to share, there is still time to submit a paper. The deadline for abstracts is Feb 21, 2008 and the deadline for papers is Feb 28, 2008.

Yours truly is a member of the Program Committee for the event. However, that doesn’t mean I automatically get to attend. I still have pay the registration fee and pay to get myself there… or convince my employer of the wisdom of spending their money to send me. I had the good fortune to visit my team in Bangalore and interview a few programmers for positions back in the fall of 2004 and I would certainly enjoy a return trip for the conference. I would be curious have any of you (my readers) had success at securing funding for travel to this kind of thing? If so, I’d love to hear how you justified the expense to your employer.

Copyright © 2008 by Philip Hartman - All Rights Reserved

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions.

Do You Use a Dash?

This may be a silly thing, but when you write your job title, do you write it as "I/T Architect" or "IT Architect" ?

I got used to using the slash several years ago. I think that is what I saw most often inside IBM where I work.

However, now it seems that I am seeing the title written without the slash. I noticed that the Open Group certification program uses no slash. (See the Master Certified IT Architect logo on the right side of my blog.)

I'm tempted to abandon the slash. What do you think? Which do you use? Which do you like better?

Copyright © 2008 by Philip Hartman - All Rights Reserved

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions.

Tennessee Rational User Group

I received an email a while back from Tin Dizdarevic of the Rational User Group looking for a volunteer to lead the Tennessee Rational User Group. After much soul searching and a little procrastination, I decided to raise my hand and take this on.

If any of my readers from Tennessee would like to joint the Tennessee Rational User Group, please go to the Global Rational User Group web site, use the "Find a User Group" feature to search for the chapter in Tennessee, and register for the group.

I am also soliciting suggestions on the best (or least bad) times for the User Group to meet, how often it should meet, where it should meet, and what topics you would like to see addressed.

I'm Back (At Least I Hope So)

I am a little embarrassed at how long it has been since my last post. My project in China was very demanding and when I rolled off that project the end of October I went immediately into the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. It was January before I started feeling normal again and by then I was out of the habit. I will try to do better now.