Throughought my development career, I always thought of IT as self-serving. The idea of software actually servicing a business didn’t escape me, but it was never as pertinent as the pursuit of software for the art of it instead of its usefulness. I guess I’m old enough now to realize that this is a key issue with software altogether – that we often like it for the wrong reasons.

So what am I going to do about it? A couple of things.

First, I will stop writing technology articles of the self-serving variety. I think I’ll write more on how IT helps business, rather than on how IT does something fantastic internally. Don’t get me wrong, technical articles will be there too.

Also, I will focus more on domain-specific issues, rather than abstract examples. Specifically, I want to write more about business intelligence (BI), which should be useful not just to programmers, but also to people who are interested in technology applications in business.

I will also start thinking more about ways in which all our technical wizardry can be used to improve our own business. This ‘eating our dogfood’ approach is precisely what technology companies should be doing more of. I’m pretty sure one can get economical benefits by applying your own technical expertise in running a business.

Wish me luck.