The Bonsai Diaries episode 1 – Keeping the Bonsai alive!

The literal translation of Bonsai, from my rather limited research, means “planted in a container”.  It didn’t occur to me when I bought it, but this is very representative of life over the last year!  We are all in our containers, working from home, at the moment; we reach out, get pruned back, reach out again.  Unlike my little Bonsai, however, one hopes that shortly we will soon have the opportunity to reach out again more permanently. In many regards I think being likened to a Bonsai is better than the old “mushroom” metaphor (kept in the dark and fed… manure)!

The idea of the art of Bonsai is to create a miniature version of a true giant of nature in the form of a tree.  Bonsai are not miniature trees – they are the full-size version carefully managed to cultivate a small and perfectly aesthetic version, in your own living space.

When I left my role as IT Director to join Baskerville Drummond as a consultant, I redecorated the room that is now my office and was aiming for a calm atmosphere – a room of peace and contemplation!  I wanted some ‘nature’ around me but I am acutely aware of my propensity to kill plants quicker than one would imagine is possible.  My husband would no doubt blame it on my much practiced ‘withering look’!

So, I chose the Chinese Elm Bonsai on the basis that a) I thought they required little care and b) it cost more than your average plant and therefore my attention would be given when needed.  Very early on I realised that I was wrong on both counts.  Weeks one and two went well but week three saw several leaves go yellow and drop off.  Was I watering too much, too little, was it too near the radiator, should I give it some sort of feed?  ‘Yes’ to all basically, and worse still… I had not really done much in the way of research beforehand.

After a few weeks of intermittent yellowing, I figured out the watering and feeding, and then found that really it should be outside at this time of year so now I lovingly move it inside and outside depending on the weather and whether I want to see it in my office.

Eventually I took the time to read up on how to tend to my mini tree, which had turned from a beautiful shape into a wild and wayward bush.  Now I know which branches to prune and when, and it is really starting to look quite healthy.

What does any of this have to do with Legal IT?  There are so many metaphors here that I have decided that this is more than one article.  The first one is the ‘biggy’ – why, when we spend good money on a Bonsai (our infrastructure) does it seem to soak up  so much more effort to care for it?

There is a super-structure of IT ‘out there’ which we tap into along with an ecosystem of products and services.  The internet is the mother nature of IT.  We create our own intranet versions of this, and we shape it to our needs with hard work and patience.  Traditionally our infrastructure would grow only where we permitted it to but these days technology, in its own way, is becoming more organic – to a degree it grows and changes at its own rate.

Technology suppliers provide updates and changes at an ever-increasing rate with the expectation that these will be applied without question – certainly, this is a factor in cloud hosted environments.  Also, suppliers introduce new “point solutions” (a solution which addresses one particular problem or functional requirement – for example an “off the shelf” Residential Conveyancing system) that we want to be able to integrate and apply where needed without requiring huge investments of technical knowledge, time, money and associated change.

Environmental risks have increased at the same rate (if not faster) than the growth of our well-tended networks, with criminality and fraudulent activity attempting to infect and sap strength from the inside.

So, what does this mean for the future of managing our infrastructure?  It is becoming increasingly difficult for internal support teams and the more traditional Managed Service Providers to successfully keep pace with the exponential rate of technological change.  Choosing the right provider to grow, nurture and shape your environment is the key to success.  If you have an internal team, ensuring that they are regularly trained and have time in their day to keep up to date is essential.

As I found with my Bonsai, there is no forgiveness for complacency.  Watering a little too late, not pruning in the right way or trying to keep it in the wrong environment creates irreparable damage.