To most people the 1960s hosted a revolution in western
culture, music and fashion. Yet the decade also witnessed the first
intimations of the impact computers could have on the business
world as well as the lives and careers of a select
few.
I wanted to understand how the world of data processing was
different to the world of IT as we know it now. So who better to
ask than Des Lee, the oracle (the thesaurus defines it as a
prophet, soothsayer, visionary, rather than the company of the same
name)? If anyone knew about both the 1960s and the embryonic
computer industry, it would be him.
Lee started his working life as a musician just as rock and roll
got started in the UK. He was a backing guitarist for several
notable groups from the era. He also gave advice to the group that
later became the Beatles. But Lee did not want to work away from
home, so went to the JobCentre which sent him to the Coal Board for
an interview.
Logic was seen to be the primary skill necessary for a computer
job and only way to get a job in the field was to pass aptitude
tests. While these tests have disappeared over time, they have been
replaced by competency-based testing. Both methods seem to take the
gut feel out of recruitment and try to ensure a competent
workforce.
There were few computer jobs around in the 1960s and there was
certainly no training other than reading the books (programme
instruction texts) and taking the tests embedded in the books. Fail
and you were kicked out pass and you became a competent
programmer.
Experience usually meant a matter of months rather than years.
Subsequently progressing to a job on the business side was not an
option as programmers were viewed as techies who did not speak the
same language as the rest of the business. It was very different to
now, when career IT workers have successfully moved over into
business roles.
Everyone knew that all the code ever likely to be written or
needed would have been penned by 1975 - or thought they did. Data
processing was not seen as a long-term career. A lot of the people
who got into computing were of a rebellious nature many were failed
graduates. Lee and I both fit the description. Interestingly
enough, the same sort of people emerged and were successful when
e-business and the internet altered business models in the
mid-1990s.
While the software delivered what the business needed, the
quality of what was produced was suspect as there were no
methodologies or standards. It really was the blind leading the
blind as no-one had any experience and everyone had to try things
out.
Software companies did not really exist so there was heavy
reliance on the hardware suppliers. The bid process was fairly
simple as there were so few companies who could respond to your
request for price. Suppliers still have a lot to learn, given the
new way of buying.
Oh and yes, Y2K was not the first computing time bomb in the UK.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s software development was
overtaken by currency decimalisation, which required all systems to
be changed from pounds, shillings and pence to pounds and pennies.
The conversion process required a lot of new hires who were let go
after D-day in 1973.
In the 1960s and 1970s - and the 1980s for that matter -
hardware was king. The hardware suppliers were all-powerful and
networked with the board. Today, hardware is all but a commodity,
broadly self-correcting and not the huge investment that it used to
be.
Software has also lost its power, which now lies with staff.
Back then, huge rooms were needed to house the level of computing
power that can now be found in a wristwatch. Each computer required
a resident engineer to fix it when it went wrong - and it did,
frequently.
When Lee's company took delivery of an IBM 360/65, he remembers
saying that no company could possibly have a problem big enough to
test this machine. It had less than 1Mbyte of memory. It took 18
months from order to delivery, and test centres were needed to test
the new systems before the machine arrived.
Interestingly, service centres where you paid for computing
power on demand or where you paid for data preparation cards to be
punched became the norm. Lee agrees that since the mid-1960s the
use of service centres has remained constant - it is simply the
services offered that have changed over time. He is adamant that
call centres were invented by mail-order companies decades ago.
In the early to mid-1960s hard discs were not common and it was
necessary to manage massive tape libraries, and this was before the
automated tape silos common today. All input had to be performed
manually, whether via paper cards, paper tape, or reel-to-reel
tape. Some of these jobs were incredibly mundane and boring
fortunately, most of them are no longer required.
Computers were initially used to automate business processes
such as accounting and payroll. Because of this role, the head of
data processing often reported to the company's financial director,
while the data processing manager was a middle manager and not a
board director.
No one on the board of directors would have had a clue what data
processing was about - and they were not really interested
either.
The general board perception was that a company could run
without a computer, it would just be a bit more efficient if it had
one.
Nowadays, few companies, if any, could manage without computers.
It is an unusual company, large or small, where the board does not
regularly discuss IT investments, although scepticism about the
return on investment for all that technology still remains.
CV: MargaretSmith
Margaret Smith advises businesses and government on IT and
skills issues.
Formerly chief executive of CIO Connect, she was also CIO at
Legal & General. She has been a non-executive direcotr of
insurance standards body Origo Services and sat on the UK Cabinet
Office Portal Board.
CV: Des Lee
Des Lee is a director of the Executive Change Group, which
develops processes to enhance the performance of IT leaders.
He is a founding director of CIO Coinnect, and former CIO at
Lloyd's of London, the Kingfisher Group, Unilever and Nestle
Rowntree. He is life president of the IBM Computer Users
Association.