Enterprise tech thrives where you least expect it

Technology has a way of making the miraculous seem commonplace. This is especially true in the workplace, where the latest technologies (in the hands of IT pros) get a full workout. We simply expect IT to build new business capabilities on creaky old apps, to do remarkable things with data, or to integrate with partners across vast distances and disparate systems.

Yep, we’ve become jaded. So this week, as a proposed antidote to our complacency, we take a step back to appreciate the wonders of modern enterprise-class technology. And what better way to do so than by examining those same technologies out of their usual context? Our story, “High tech in the weirdest places,” showcases 11 unexpected examples.

Associate Editor Jason Snyder got the ball rolling by soliciting examples from InfoWorld’s favorite writers. “It’s always amazing to see where these guys take the discussion,” Snyder says. “They are immersed all day long in enterprise IT, yet their idea of unwinding still involves technology, which is why they jumped at the chance to pitch offbeat tech tales.” How offbeat? We’re talking VoIP in a vegetable patch, RFID on a sushi plate, biometrics in a college cafeteria, and eight other delightful oddities.

Ultimately, four different writers ended up contributing testimonials of high tech in (sometimes) low places. Two of them are raising a ruckus elsewhere on InfoWorld.com this week as well. David L. Margulius, of Enterprise Insight fame, continues to stir the pot with his just-concluded his three-part series on immigration and the domestic IT job market. Predictably, the online dialog among readers generated considerable heat — especially after Dave led off with a proposal that the U.S. should grant citizenship to all sufficiently skilled foreign developers. (Three weeks in, the furor doesn’t seem to be dying down. Even so, the discourse has been largely civil and thoughtful — a great example of what online community and conversation should be … and too often is not.)

Meanwhile, Senior Contributing Editors Oliver Rist and Brian Chee — who described using PDAs to save endangered plant species in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park for “High tech in the weirdest places” — are trying to launch their own IT-centric reality series. “Pimp Your Data Center” (I had used the phrase “low places” earlier, hadn’t I?) will chronicle all the design decisions and installation details involved in renovating a lab at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics. Keep an eye on the Geeks in Paradise blog in the coming months for pictures and a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings. And while you’re at it, go to the blog comments section and tell us how you’ve “pimped out” your own datacenter. Why let Brian and Oliver have all the fun?

Speaking of fun … Occasionally, press releases cross my desk that are too good not to share with all of you. Here’s one I got this week: Get a whiff of this. A company called Microdia has just released a line of USB flash drives that come in four scents: orange, strawberry, grape, or green apple. I’m waiting for the edible 8G model to come out before I plunk down my cash.