Sometimes you *do* need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

This week, I am mostly ranting. To be more specific, I have been ranting about the fact that some skills and experience are more valued than others by those who make big management decisions. For example, you wouldn't let someone do a heart transplant who'd only read a book about it, would you? It would be doomed to failure.

And you wouldn't have someone project managing the building of a skyscraper who had never project managed the building of at least a fairly tall building, would you? It would be doomed to failure.

So why then have people managing large internet projects who have no technical knowledge or in-depth understanding of the internet? The immediate answer is because the people who appoint them have no technical knowledge or in-depth understanding of the internet, and that is because those who *do* have technical knowledge and in-depth understanding of the internet don't have those skills valued appropriately. Somehow, people think that marketing people can manage internet strategy. I think this is mental.

I have ten years' internet experience, I realised the other day. At the end of 1994 I wrote an article about the internet which said (among other things) "The Web seems -- so far anyway -- to be more a hip way of advertising than a source of information with real commercial value.".

That has of course changed -- those were the days when you could only use the internet in the morning, before the Americans got up and ate up all the bandwidth -- but you still find people thinking that usability is detail that can be left to developer types, and content is detail that can be left to editorial types. And that's bollocks. All right?

Just needed to get that off my chest.

joella