I had the conversation a few times on Friday. You know the one. The one techies always have when they are with techies. The one where you are wrong and they are ready to tell you why.
Yep. I had a few conversations. What is better, Hyper-V or VMware? Azure or Amazon? DerbyCon or GrrCon? Following Rafal Los or not? *
I answered in my typical measured fashion. Take GrrCon, for example. I like promoting local talent. I like Chris and Jaime Payne. I am speaking there, as are a number of my friends. GrrCon was good to me last year and I am looking forward to returning this year. That is my bias.
“Wow,” the guy who asked remarked, “I’ve never heard someone explicitly tell me they were biased and then only say why they are making a decision. Usually people just tell me what they think I should do.”
That is telling, isn’t it?
My approach to the conversation is simple. I will tell you why I made my decision. If you would like, I can enumerate my reasons behind it. And when my reasons change, my decision will change. I see no reason to get my ego wrapped up in a decision.
So let me tell you why you are right. You are right because you weighed the evidence. You are right because you took into account your strengths and weaknesses, and the strengths and weaknesses of your team. You are right because you compared features and benefits. You are right because you made a choice based on the culture of your organization and industry. You are right because you made a decision that was right for you.
You are right. Now you made a decision that was different from mine. Why not tell me a bit more about what you decided?
Wolfgang
* Footnote: None of these were as vicious as the Linux versus Windows conversations of old. But it struck me as an odd progression. We used to argue over operating systems and chips. Today we argue over virtualization and cloud. That is progress, I suppose. But why are we arguing over places and people? It seems like a strange turn of events.
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