One of the reasons I have been so quiet lately is that I have been simultaneously writing two papers and causing trouble. In the first case, my single paper on service mesh technology and its market turned into two papers: a technical guide and a market guide. The original paper was much too long. Let’s be honest, none of us have the attention span to read through 16 pages of dense technical and market insights. We’d rather have two papers. The first paper, a primer on service mesh, will be released at the beginning of April and the market guide at the beginning of May.

Now, to the “causing trouble” part. I recently wrote an article for CMSWire about bias in IT. Sorry but we all know that sexism, racism, and ageism are running rampant in the IT field. I decided to look up some stats on anti-diversity bias from Data.com, which packages and publishes government data (in other words data you can trust as not made up) and found myself pretty angry about it.

Seriously, it’s embarrassing for an industry that prides itself as a meritocracy. If you are you are a young, white, male, you are not just advantaged, you are hugely advantaged. You can read the article at CMSWire.  It’s easy to blame the victim and look for reasons different groups are underrepresented and underpaid. It’s equally easy to look for exceptions to the rule as proof that the main effect doesn’t exist. That doesn’t stand up when the trend plays out across all demographics. The best explanation is a culture that either drives away or outright discriminates against anyone not young, male, and white.

So, watch for those papers and go do something about the problems of bias. Two good ways to become awesome.