You were the joint recipient, along with co-author Christina J. Hogan, of USENIX/SAGE's 2005 Outstanding Achievement Award for The Practice of System and Network Administration. Why do you think the book gained this level of attention?

You'll have to ask the committee! I like to think that in part SAGE was awarding our efforts in emphasising the "soft skills" of system administration, such as time management, interpersonal communication, and teamwork. When I was first involved in SAGE there was much more focus on technical matters (bits and bytes) and we were the oddballs for wanting to emphasise soft skills. I like to think that we were a small part of making that change in attitude.

SAGE AU says on its Website that "in a very short period of time, computers have become fundamental to the organisation of societies world-wide; entrenched at every level of human communication from government to the most personal. Computer systems are not simply constructions of hardware - rather, they are generated from an intricate interrelationship between administrators, users, employers, other network sites, and the providers of software, hardware, and national and international communication networks." If we go with this definition of a computer system, being a systems administrator must be one hell of a task. Is it?

It is! Y2K was a watershed event for IT because it woke up the world to how pervasive computers had become. CEOs suddenly realised that all aspects of their operations were being driven by IT systems. Previously IT was a "cost" to be "minimised" and/or ignored overhead. Now they realise that IT is an enabler and the source of innovation that needs investment, care and priority. People that thought e-commerce might augment their normal sales operations now understand that e-commerce is their sales operations (their human sales force is just a special user). Previously, when invoices were processed daily or weekly, the system could be down for a day and nobody would notice. Nowadays people submit an order and think something is wrong if they don't get confirmation email a few seconds later. Plus, they want to know the shipper's tracking number before the box has even shipped!

On the other hand, personal technology is getting smaller and more pervasive, and more connected. All the major video games now have some kind of networked component. That means you can't even blow up aliens or care for your Webkinz if there aren't system administrators designing and operating the networks and servers that make it all work.