By Keith Shaw
Network World, 07/23/01
To: Lynn Smarts, president of FBX network
From: Nicholas Card, director of programming
Re: Our new IT reality show
Lynn, we've got to jump on this "reality show" bandwagon
before we go down the tubes! I've been thinking and have an idea for the
biggest and hardest of any reality game show yet produced. Forget about surviving
boot camp or the Australian Outback. Our show will have contestants trying
to survive a few weeks as a corporate network executive.
The idea came to me a couple days ago while talking about
these reality shows with Frank, our top network guy. He says to me, "Nick,
the folks on those shows don't know the meaning of survival. They should
try figuring out how to prioritize bandwidth so corporate accountants get
quick database access, while fending off the sales vice president's pesky
requests for wireless access to sales applications. Oh yeah, all the while,
they'd be working to meet the CEO's mandate to broadcast the company meeting
over streaming video to all the desktops here and in the East Coast offices.
Now that's a survival game!"
He was right. So here's my pitch for our new reality show,
"Net Survivor." We gather a bunch of business managers and other corporate
honchos and challenge them to survive in today's IT environment.
Object: Contestants would use their people, technical and
management skills to complete several weeks of challenges inherent in running
a large corporate network. Their goal is to do this without being fired, succumbing
to competitive job offers or losing their spouses.
We do one round per show. Contestants who haven't failed that
week's challenge continue to the next episode. The winner gets
a year's supply of the latest Gigabit Ethernet backbone switches;
as many broadband routers as they need to connect their employees
at home; and 17 weeks without any phone calls from department
heads. I suppose we could give them $1 million, too; that seems
to be the rage.
To top
Round 1
The first week's challenges won't be too hard. We set up contestants
in an office and bombard them with pitches from ASPs, MSPs, QSPs, VSPs and ZSPs
(don't ask; I don't know what they mean either). If they fend off the pitches,
they move on to Round 2. If they get stuck with a Web hosting service contract
while collocating servers in an office complex 30 miles from corporate headquarters
— adíos.
Round 2
This week is a bit tougher. We've seen other survival contestants
eat things like mango worms, cow brains and other delicacies. Would that our
contestants be so lucky!
For our challenge, we lock participants in a room with 15
overzealous application developers and task them with convincing the programmers
to streamline their bandwidth-heavy apps to work on the corporate net. For
the next 48 hours, the contestants have nothing to eat or drink but day-old
pizza, week-old Chinese food and 17 cases of Mountain Dew.
Anyone who requests a bathroom break or reaches for the Tums
gets booted. Anyone who actually meets the challenge moves on to the next
level, plus wins a dozen Krispy Kreme glazed donuts.
To top
Round 3
With the weaker contestants gone, we bring on the tougher
challenges. This week, contestants have to secure the network from hackers,
spoofers, virus writers and renegade users.
For the latter, we ship in 50 users whose only job is installing
new programs and unauthorized devices, and sending around e-mail greeting
cards (you know, like the 12G-byte card of Santa mooning you). On the outside,
we get 50 hackers to try stealing corporate data.
Contestants who survive the attacks without fielding
complaints about IT's harsh, user policies or losing any data advance.
Round 4
This week, we test our contestants' ability to get along
with others, as making alliances and backstabbing are critical parts of any
reality show. We throw our contestants into a board meeting with 15 angry
department heads, all of whom are pointing fingers at IT for delays on a new
campus building. Contestants will need to choose alliances wisely. They'll
face a tough time staving off the board's attempts to blame the network
department and preventing it from reducing next year's IT budget.
Contestants who can survive this round get a perk: a week's
vacation without any cell phones or work-related alerts via pager or e-mail.
Round 5
Temptation comes in the form of lucrative job offers. We were
going to have dot-coms dangling stock options, but that won't prove much
of an enticement these days. Instead, we'll have brand-name companies throw
big-paying, hard-to-come-by CIO offers at them.
To top
Round 6: The final challenge
We save our toughest challenge for last. We give
each contestant the job of filling four of 10 vacant staff positions
in 20 days. The open positions require people who have skills
in Java, XML, C++, Linux, NetWare and Windows 2000. Oh, and Cisco
certification, too. The real trick will be luring new employees
while keeping the existing six from resigning.
We're hoping at least one contestant makes it through these
six challenges. If so, we give the prizes listed above, plus we try hiring
him. If he can survive these challenges, Frank says we definitely need him
in our IT department.
Let me know what you think of the idea. I've got scouts ready
to look for contestants when you give the word!
