Where Do You Get Good IT Advice
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This is really a perfect example of what we are talking about. Cisco (and this is an example of what we see from pretty much every vendor) has a sale to make here and they make both the PBX and the networking gear. They lead with assumptions that are not stated (that you are a Fortune 500, that your LAN is insecure, that you have all Cisco gear, that you spend tons on networking but can't figure out network basics, that your equipment is on premises, that the one piece that is more important will be ignored or handled by someone else, etc.) and by pushing those as if they are just true, they use their vendor position to give marketing spiel disguised as network advice. Cisco is a vendor, not a network engineering firm - they sell network hardware, not IT services. Not once did they propose the most critical thing that IT does - consideration of the business needs and context. This alone should tell any IT person as well as any business person that this is not advice but marketing from the beginning. Unless that context exists, no advice has purpose in IT.
But this really shows how easily we can find white papers, which is an industry code word for marketing, are dangerous. The vendor has no interest in giving good advice nor is it in a position to do so.
We picked an excellent product category to use as an example.
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@scottalanmiller Yup, this is why you use Vendors for one thing, and one thing only: purchasing things. That's it. The furthest you should go is asking what features the product has, and how it works. Their goal isn't to make as little money as possible from you because they are taking the interests of your business first. You won't get the best solution if you leave it up to the vendor and let them do your job for you.
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Excellent post. It's not often one really thinks about things like this, and it's true.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
Doctors... would they get their medical guidance from pill makers?
I know I'm late to this thread, but from what I've known actually knowing an OBGYN, this is exactly what happens way to often.
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@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
Doctors... would they get their medical guidance from pill makers?
I know I'm late to this thread, but from what I've known actually knowing an OBGYN, this is exactly what happens way to often.
That's incredibly scary.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
Doctors... would they get their medical guidance from pill makers?
I know I'm late to this thread, but from what I've known actually knowing an OBGYN, this is exactly what happens way to often.
That's incredibly scary.
When was the last time you were to a Doctors office in the U.S. and didn't come out with a script for something?
That's not how it's supposed to be, it's just what most people end up actually doing. The big conglomerates actually get their sales pitches certified as continued training time for the docs.
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@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
Doctors... would they get their medical guidance from pill makers?
I know I'm late to this thread, but from what I've known actually knowing an OBGYN, this is exactly what happens way to often.
That's incredibly scary.
When was the last time you were to a Doctors office in the U.S. and didn't come out with a script for something?
That's not how it's supposed to be, it's just what most people end up actually doing. The big conglomerates actually get their sales pitches certified as continued training time for the docs.
It's true, but even I thought that doctors thought of themselves as something more than drug pushers. Maybe not a lot more, but something more.
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Leaders of the field will publish their work. That is what furthers the field. That is the entire purpose of a dissertation is to further your field even by a fraction of a millimeter. Then their peers will critique it in order to either solidify or debunk it.
This is essentially what we do here
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
Doctors... would they get their medical guidance from pill makers?
I know I'm late to this thread, but from what I've known actually knowing an OBGYN, this is exactly what happens way to often.
That's incredibly scary.
When was the last time you were to a Doctors office in the U.S. and didn't come out with a script for something?
That's not how it's supposed to be, it's just what most people end up actually doing. The big conglomerates actually get their sales pitches certified as continued training time for the docs.
It's true, but even I thought that doctors thought of themselves as something more than drug pushers. Maybe not a lot more, but something more.
Thing is, they do think themselves as something more than drug pushers. The entire system is so screwy now that they end up thinking pushing drugs is the best possible solution almost all the time.
It's really the same sort of issue we find in IT? How do you know when you're getting good advice?
In my case I have to admit to being bitten by a RAID 5 rebuild failure before figuring out to listen to @scottalanmiller. At least I finally found a good place to get advice.
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@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
Doctors... would they get their medical guidance from pill makers?
I know I'm late to this thread, but from what I've known actually knowing an OBGYN, this is exactly what happens way to often.
That's incredibly scary.
When was the last time you were to a Doctors office in the U.S. and didn't come out with a script for something?
That's not how it's supposed to be, it's just what most people end up actually doing. The big conglomerates actually get their sales pitches certified as continued training time for the docs.
It's true, but even I thought that doctors thought of themselves as something more than drug pushers. Maybe not a lot more, but something more.
Thing is, they do think themselves as something more than drug pushers. The entire system is so screwy now that they end up thinking pushing drugs is the best possible solution almost all the time.
That's what they tell you. I find it impossibly insulting of their intelligence to suggest that in private it's not what they think of themselves.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@travisdh1 said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Where Do You Get Good IT Advice:
Doctors... would they get their medical guidance from pill makers?
I know I'm late to this thread, but from what I've known actually knowing an OBGYN, this is exactly what happens way to often.
That's incredibly scary.
When was the last time you were to a Doctors office in the U.S. and didn't come out with a script for something?
That's not how it's supposed to be, it's just what most people end up actually doing. The big conglomerates actually get their sales pitches certified as continued training time for the docs.
It's true, but even I thought that doctors thought of themselves as something more than drug pushers. Maybe not a lot more, but something more.
Thing is, they do think themselves as something more than drug pushers. The entire system is so screwy now that they end up thinking pushing drugs is the best possible solution almost all the time.
That's what they tell you. I find it impossibly insulting of their intelligence to suggest that in private it's not what they think of themselves.
Could be. The OB I worked with was horrified by the entire system, so I probably picked up a very cynical view of things.
