Who put our oil under their sand?

No, this is not about a bumper sticker I once saw in Texas.

This is about Entitlement culture in the tech sector.

The E word came up during a conversation with a client this week as he talked about the attitude of his long term tech vendors

But not just vendors - I was reminded of E when I read on Thomas Otter's blog about the coffee spilling episode - how dare some one say IT does not matter?

Thomas talks about the alternative in Bulgaria. Unfortunately, around the world in Bangalore and Beijing, IT staff sit in air conditioned comfort and believe they deserve more than other white and blue collar staff. The E culture in our industry is not localized.

I am constantly reminded of it when I hear vendors say they need to increase their share of the customer's wallet. In some societies that is called picking pockets.

When I hear young punk entrepreneurs say "how dare the CIO block us? We will go direct to the business users and get our fair share of the wallet"

When I hear IT staff berate their internal customers with a steady stream of technology jargon, and proclaim how smart they are to be even able to pronounce some of the stuff.

Three words for our industry - zero base budgeting. What have you done recently for your customer - internal or external? Today, yesterday, tomorrow - every day. Till we do, folks like Nick Carr will be right to keep asking - does IT matter?