SysAdmin in the U.S. gets privatized and professionalized

■"Firms ponder bird flu scenarios: Plans evolve to cope with sick workers, travel restrictions," by Stephanie Armour, USA Today, 7 November 2005, p. 1B.

■"Number of volunteer firefighters is declining: People are too busy to serve, especially if unpaid," by Rick Hampson, USA Today, 7 November 2005, p. 1A.

The private sector is planning aggressively on avian flu, wargaming it from stem to stern and putting ducks in order. Estimates of as much as a quarter-trillion in economic losses in America alone get the attention of business leaders.

This is not distrust of the government. It's just the private sector rising to the challenge as it should. Most of our nation's natural resiliency lies with the private sector.

So the SysAdmin gets increasingly privatized and professionalized in America, even among some of the most seemingly public venues, like volunteer firefighting, where the percentage of volunteer firemen and stations around the country are in a long, slow, steady decline (still, roughly 3/4ths are non-professionals, meaning they do it on the side for no salary).

SysAdmin work is complex, requiring lots of skills and training (a burden that gets harder for volunteers). People need to be incentivized or else they'll stop volunteering. They need to know they'll get the right training, have the right skills and equipment, and be put to use in the right ways.

Individuals want instinctively to connect to larger, collective purposes (to serve and protect), but you have to treat them with more respect if you expect them to consistently up their efforts to match the world's growing complexity.