Hal Pomeranz is dynamic and experienced technology authority with strong personal integrity and a playful sense of humor. He is the founder of Deer Run Associates, an Information Technology Consultancy, and a Faculty Fellow of the SANS Institute.

For the past 20+ years, I’ve done IT work for myself, friends and family, and organizations from the small to the enormous. But lately I’ve had the following epiphany: "This sh*t is too hard."

Robust and secure deployment of basic IT infrastructure currently requires expertise that is well beyond the capabilities of many professional enterprises, much less home users. It is not surprising that we live in a world of "lowest common denominator" kludge solutions that rarely meet any reasonable standards for manageability, reliability, security, or even basic functionality. And yet we blame the victim for not "doing a better job" when problems occur.

Well I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore! As a community of responsible IT professionals we need to start having a serious conversation about how we got here and how we can start unwinding this mess before it strangles us.