Fifa 2009 gaming tournament

I recently saw a flier in the college campus about a FIFA2009 tournament being organized by the undergraduates as a fundraiser event to install taps in some of the regions in Nepal. A project for a good cause and a game I loved playing...



I was introduced to the EA Sports Fifa games well back in 1999, around the same time I started following soccer. Being an intense and a fast-paced game, I was quickly addicted to it and played for 5-6hours at a stretch. I started with FIFA 97, then moved on to 99, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2008. I had mastered each and every level in all the versions and was looking forward to take part in the event. But I had not played their new version, 2009!!

I registered for the event and paid $10 and was excited to take part in such a tournament here. I had entered a similar tournament back in my undergrad days, which I won..:) The same day, I borrowed the CD from a friend and installed it on my laptop, I wanted to WIN this tournament too!! I practiced whenever I could get some time off assignments and projects. 3 days to go, and I was counting down.

The day came, I was confident of playing well even against a seasoned opponent. As I entered the venue, I was literally shocked. I could see TVs and Big screens, NO computers. Yes, the gaming tournament was on XBOX !!!! I had never seen a XBOX before, let alone play. All the confidence I had of playing well, went down the drains... I played 2 games and lost 3-0 and 2-0. I was happy not to concede 10 goals...:D

I had FUN and what the heck, it was for a good cause!

The Halo Effect

I recently came across the phrase "the halo effect" and did not know what it meant. So, I googled it and found this wiki page - Halo Effect which was quite informative.

The theory really struck me as so very true and I had never thought about it before. This happens in our everyday life, don't you think? Perception of one trait influenced by perception of other trait i.e the normal human tendency to make specific inferences on the basis of a general impression about something/somebody. Attractive people are often judged as having a more desirable personality and more skills than someone of average appearance. Thus, we see that celebrities are used to endorse products that they have no actual expertise in evaluating, and with which they may not even have any prior affiliation - Harold Kelley. When I come to think of it, YES, I have seen this happen and in fact I have also done this subconciously when I meet someone.

Why do we do this?
May be because some of the questions like how good/lovable is the person?, is he/she helpful? etc are not tangible or concrete. We cannot associate a number with such things.

On further research, I came across a group performance experiment done by Prof. Barry Staw (UC Berkeley) . The experiment showed that members attribute one set of characteristics to groups they believe are high performers, and a very different characteristics to groups they believe are low performers. When told their group had performed well, members described it as having been more cohesive, with better communication, and more open to change. When the same group was told that it had performed poorly, they remembered the opposite. In fact, their performance was just about the same but the only difference was what the professor told them.

This is true even in the business world. when a company is doing well with high sales, profits and stock price, analysts describe the company as having a smart strategy, the CEO as a visionary, the employees as motivated. However, when the sales are low and the stock prices fall, they quickly conclude that the company's strategy went wrong. In fact, nothing much has changed!!!!!!!!!!! Our perceptions of them are based on other things that are concrete and un-ambiguous, like their financial performance. We cannot measure how smart the company strategy is or how visionary their CEO is or how motivated their employees are.

Now I understand why my professor asks for "hard numbers" when I give my opinion in class discussions to support my point of view.

Please share if you have some similar experiences or any examples you have come across.

SOA dead??? I don't think so !!!

I was going through ZDNet the other day and was startled to see this article by Joe McKendrick which read - 'SOA' dead as of January 1st, analyst says and it made me think: (You might want to read this post first before reading further).

1. 1. How can it be DEAD?? It is an architecture !!
   
3. 2. What happened to all those companies who were moving away from the traditional method of development to SOA?

3. What happened to the vendor companies who were building their products based on SOA?

4. What happened to all the hype surrounding SOA?

DEAD !!!...... How can it be????

Argument 1: The analyst(Anne Thomas Manes) says that SOA hasn't been delivering ROI and the current economic downturn made the matters worse.

I agree that the current economic condition did not help and organizations had to cut short their IT budget and stall some of the projects (SOA projects being one). However, the Enterprise Architects/Tech gurus of organizations should have known that the initial cost of migration from traditional monolitic methods to SOA was huge (a Gartner report suggests that the initial cost of developing an SOA based application costs 80% of the total cost of the project. 80% !!!!). Once the project is past this stage, it will deliver the expected ROI. The ROI being that the company is flexible enough to change their business processes quickly and easily as required, thus making them more agile and competitive.

Argument 2: "Anne says companies have been fiddling with SOA for some time now, and to little or no avail. SOA “turned into a great failed experiment—at least for most organizations. SOA was supposed to reduce costs and increase agility on a massive scale,” she explains. “Except in rare situations, SOA has failed to deliver its promised benefits. After investing millions, IT systems are no better than before. In many organizations, things are worse: costs are higher, projects take longer, and systems are more fragile than ever." (from the article)

The basic principle and the motto of an IT shop should be to help the business/organization. Some technology, however easy or great it may be, should not be used unless there is a valid business case behind it. There is no point using a technology only because it is easy to implement or the IT manager promotes it, and if it does not improve the way the company does business.
For most of the failed projects, I bet they were not very well planned and designed and the organizations were not ready for such change.

Although the current economic condition might drive the maagement to stop SOA initiatives, I believe it is the right way to go forward. Management can always excercise the option of 'Abandon' and 'Differ' and start the initiative when the economy is back to normal.

Towards the end, I agree with what Joe McKendrick has to say about SOA being a philosophy, methodology, and set of best practices or patterns that shapes the way enterprises address problems through IT and hence, it cannot be dead!!!