First Roman on the Moon?

7 September, 2017 (1600 years after the Fall)

Rome, Italy

It seems Romans knew a thing or two about how to build a modern civilization and government over two thousand years ago. On the rare occasion my friends and I are having hi-brow Jeffersonian type conversation, I’ve been known to postulate the Romans would have made it to the moon before the year 1000 AD if not for a couple of circumstances:

1. They consolidated all knowledge of the Western World and most of Persia in the Library of Alexandria, Egypt. Science, medicine, literature, mathematics. Most of it was captured on papyrus. It burned to the ground in 48 BC, collateral damage of the Caesar’s siege of the city.
2. They underestimated their key adversaries – the loose confederation to the North primarily consisting of Goths, Visigoths, Vandals and other Germanic tribes – which played a key role in the fall of the empire.

Granted the Romans were some of the greatest engineers of their time and the aforementioned buildings still standing bear witness their genius and prowess. And apologies to my scholarly friends for my over simplification but what I’m suggesting is a couple of strategic mistakes put Neil Armstrong into the history books rather than someone named Claudius.

A couple of check boxes should have been part of the Caesar’s runbook:

#1 – Is our strategy sound? Do we have realistic business/government continuity plan? Have we done a proper risk assessment? What if the Library burns? Can we recover? Have we tested our plan?

#2 – Are our defenses enough to hold off adversaries? Do we understand them – is our intelligence up-to-date, accurate and actionable or do we need to think in a different way? Have we become complacent?

As I sat in the Colosseum and watched the sun set I pondered: What would Caesar think of our modern software design methodologies where mission critical programs are forced into service before they’re ready and then within a year or two they become obsolete?

My IT friends – what do you think?

Next up: A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum…

If you’re joining in progress and curious about my trip, start here.