Time was spent on other things.
I was going to apologize to my two or three readers for not posting regularly. I was. But then I'd be taking responsibility for my own actions (or inaction.) Instead, I'm going to model my post after President Bush's thoughtful words:
Where mistakes were made, the responsibility rests with me.
Man, you gotta love the power of that passive voice. Let me try it:
I have been settling into a new job and this here blog has been neglected.
Did you feel it too? It's as though something was about to land on my shoulders but, at the very last second, it dissipated into the ether. It's like a magical incantation, that passive voice.
In the civilian world, what I'm doing is called enterprise content management. In my department, Utilities & Plant Engineering, we call it "record integration" because some of the content I'm managing will be linked to the geographic information system (GIS) that my supervisor is building. I scan, I edit metadata, I write webpages, and I document the process. When we finish working on the records at the Central Power Plant, we'll roll out the process to other groups in Plant Engineering. I like it very much. It feels great to be working for a living organization that expects to grow. I even got to design the Utilities Record Integration logo, such as it is. The manager suggested I do something with the block-M utilities logo; I gave him several designs; he chose this one. Joy was felt.
Tomorrow, my supervisor will be giving a presentation on URI to a group of senior engineers and administrators. And (as soon as I finish it) he'll be able to to present a proof-of-concept project of mine -- a package of engineering drawings in TIFF that is searchable by metadata and linked with html. It's hardly revolutionary, but it's a demonstration of the kind of product we can deliver.
He also has to present our progress -- his progress, actually -- on GIS. I don't envy him because developing GIS takes a lot of time & effort, and upper echelons rarely like to hear why. But he's learning some pretty arcane shit that is in high demand in state & local government and utility companies. Those places have GIS departments, not just a GIS guy doing ojt.
We joke about building an information infrastructure one brick at a time. Sometimes it seems like one handful of mud and another of straw at a time, but we'll get there.
Now, if I can only convince them to hire me permanently. Or rather, when hiring occurs I would like to be the object of that sentence.
Labels: Eric's life
posted by Eric 3.0 @ 10:01 PM
7 Comments:
I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I have no clue what you are describing in this post . . .
;)
Trusty, here's what about.com says about the passive voice:
The passive voice is used when focusing on the person or thing affected by an action.
* The Passive is formed: Passive Subject To Be Past Particple
* It is often used in business and in other areas where the object of the action is more important than those who perform the action. For Example: We have produced over 20 different models in the past two years. Changes to: Over 20 different models have been produced in the past two years.
* If the agent (the performer of the action) is important, use "by" For Example: Tim Wilson wrote "The Flight to Brunnswick" in 1987. Changes to:"The Flight to Brunnswick" was written in 1987 by Tim Wilson.
* Only verbs that take an object can be used in the passive.
Does that clear it up for you? ;-)
Yea, yea, I realize I'm dense, but what is Utilities Record Integration, GIS, etc? In addition to being dense, I'm also clueless . . .
Passive voice, I understand. URI and GIS and all that is in the foreign language Technese. I don't speak, write or read Technese very well. So, I'm with Trusty about all that. I do, however, understand wanting to be the sought-after object of their hiring desire. Good luck!
hmmm...sees like so very long ago...but before I retired from that very part of that Great U, I was a rather lone voice, and info worker, on gathering together all that old paper stuff - you know, the paper they all had to keep and use for maintenance and repair and all that.
I made some inroads in one section of the info, supported by the least amount of support MGT could manage to keep me quiet, and over my 15 years there got a lot of very basic stuff done.
I am not only understanding of what you describe, but extremely happy to hear that it is being considered as a "new" way to work.
For those of you who don't, remember that promise of computers: what you need where and when you need it? That's this stuff. And the conversion from old to new is costly and lengthy - even before MGTvlack of understanding and interest take over and swamp the boat.
Good Luck!!!
Now that i read what i wrote, it didn't really answer the questions.
My project worked with construction drawings and related materials that would be used by maintenance staff in their work. Rather than getting books of stuff, and never having them where you need them, you get electronic materials and make them available on the web (or similar distribution method). I know, that's the easy part. The hard part is that you also need to convert the books to electronic, a huge and costly job, trying to scan only those documents you really need. Then the maintenance and operations folks can get their information in that "when and where' way I described.
Pham, that's exactly what we're up to. Then, link some documents to GIS and it's even more powerful. For example, an electrician can click on a lamp post on a map(which has been tied into the system using GPS, so he or she knows the location +/- 3 feet) and see all the previous maintenance that has been done, the part number of the lightbulb, as well as any other documentation we have on it.
Mostly I'm scanning large-format drawings at the moment, but there are literally tons of paper that need to be converted to digital format.
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