Jack SantosI spent a day attending an Information Quality conference at MIT this week. An interesting mix of IT folks and data folks – and these are HARD CORE data folks. The kind that lament the lack of organizational commitment to a data strategy, models, and consistency, and believe a good time is debating what is a betta meta.
I am sure I’ll write more on the conference later. But in my homage to data quality I did an ad-hoc survey in each of the sessions I attended.
All because Boston as of late has been blisteringly hot.
I would expect that in a roomful of people on such a day, if you gave them their prerogative they would dress comfortably and appropriately for the weather. WRONG. Corporate conformance is a powerful drug. 
OK, we’re not talking bathing suits, but I would expect short sleeve shirts, sans tie (for men), would be the dress of choice (it was mine). Yet my scientific survey over the course of 3 seminars was 93 to 8 – people wearing long sleeves over short sleeves.
Am I just out of the loop on the latest fashion? Or does the definition of business casual dictate long sleeves?
In the era of global warming, I (for one) vote for equality – shorts (sleeves and pants) for all. Live free or sweat. Bring your short sleeves to the Gartner Catalyst conference in San Diego come July 27th.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 George McQuilken July 15, 2010 at 11:11 am
When I started at IBM (1965) my manager had 7-piece suits custom made in navy blue and/or black. That included the jacket, vest, pants (2), overcoat, hat and one other (scarf perhaps). These were worn with a heavily starched white shirt, a rep tie (some red OK), and 13 pound wing-tip shoes. He did not remove his jacket during business meetings.
The only clear cut indicator that spring had arrived was when his boss, the Branch Manager, showed up for work wearing a straw rather than a cloth hat. The next day everyone wore a straw hat.
As one manager often said, “Everyone around here doesn’t have to have shined shoes, only the guys who want to get ahead.”
Thus was the IT industry built.
2 Rich Murnane July 19, 2010 at 7:06 am
Hi Jack, weird you should post this as I was in attendance and looked around and noticed that I was the only guy who had his long sleeves “rolled up”.
So for a short period I was sitting there wondering to myself – “What’s wrong with rolled up sleeves?”.
Sorry we didn’t meet…Rich Murnane