A mission again

Well I'm finally going to have a mission again. I have been selected to be the Section Chief for Site Support in the FEMA IT Services Division. Basically I'm responsible for providing all the IT support (network, computers, telecom) for FEMA Hqs. Man am I looking forward to getting on the job.

You might wonder why I would take a pay cut and take a job where most of the time you get hollered at? Because I need a mission - I need to do something that counts for something. Keeping the comms running at FEMA fits that bill for me.

I picked up a phrase years ago - don't know who I got it from but it had to be a fellow comm-weenie: "Doing a good job in comm is like wetting your pants in a dark suit. It gives you a nice, warm feeling and nobody notices." Someone recently added a second part: "After the nice, warm feeling goes away you're simply left cold and wet."

Data mining

I find it fascinating that the next generation is into posting stuff on myspace and facebook and then is surprised that people use it to keep up with their adventures. They call it stalking and "creepy" when all you are doing is simply taking the public information they have posted and use it to discover what is going on. Question is: why post the stuff if you think people aren't going to use the information? Do they just think its like something in a museum that you just look at and go on to the next piece? Maybe some folks just "window shop" in museums and rush on to the next but there are others who look at a display; read the accompanying text - ask themselves questions; etc.

But to express surprise that people are actually using the information posted on social sites really is unexpected and incongruous. Maybe they aren't as wired in to the "information age" as they really think they are..