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The User’s Strike Back!
I’ve posted a few times about the importance of understanding the user, and ensuring that they are happy, productive and supported by IT. It all sounds very mom and apple pie, and yet, it continues to amaze me how many stories I hear about IT departments that simply don’t understand that they are in fact a service department.
A fantastic example is an article I just read on CIO.com entitled Stupid Users Are So Stupid. What a great example of the point. The writer points out that he simply wants to be a ‘happier worker’ but then laments that perhaps he is asking for too much.
IT has to come out of the black box and realize that times are changing, and service requirements are increasing. It is not enough to say ‘I can’t do it, and I can’t tell you why’. Time to share the secret handshake and open up the book of secret three letter acronyms. The fact is, many IT departments have become trapped in their own processes and history, and may in fact not be flexible enough to adjust to the future. While this may indeed be a boon to outsource firms (who don’t have the luxury of simply saying no, since we clearly know who are customers are), it is not good for the industry as a whole.
Businesses need to learn to trust IT and trust that IT not only understands business needs, but wants to understand business and user needs. A true service attitude that makes it clear that IT infrastructure is a tool, and tools are to be selected to fit the needs of the user, rather than the user being forced to use the tool given them (for some reason I picture a construction worker pounding a nail with a wrench at this point).
At the end of the day, job security will come from truly meeting business needs and creating flexible policy that enables individuals to truly be happy with their IT infrastructure, not from adhering to old policies that were created to make IT departments easier to run. If IT must be slightly less efficient to make business more productive and efficient, then so be it.
That is what service providers do, after all.
Rant over -
Happy Computing
Richard Brunke
The Hacker’s are Getting Smarter – And I Almost Got Caught Today!
We all like to think we are too smart to open the wrong files, the wrong emails… and yet, today, I was one click away from doom (well, if you define doom as having to take my computer in to the help desk to be wiped and cleaned). Actually, when you are the executive at an IT services company, that is about as close to doom as it gets if you define doom as total embarrassment.
Hacker’s are getting smart. Really smart. The email I received had claims that a lawsuit regarding a copyright infringement case was being filed against my business, and it was from the ‘Marcus Law Center’.
Now, this really did not make sense to me, and I could not think of any reason such a thing was happening, but the link to the documentation was there, and all good phishing emails are able to evoke that sense of panic, that need to check in. Well, in a moment of insanity, I started opening the attachment, and then saw it was an EXE file, not a PDF file, even though it made it look like I was clicking on a PDF document to open it. Smart really.
Well, Windows 7 did me a favor and asked me if I wanted to open the file, and, in a moment of clarity, I stopped and looked up the email online to find it was indeed a spoof with malware attached.
Always good to think twice before opening any attachments in email.
Happy (virus and malware free) Computing!
Richard Brunke
How Happy Are You With Your IT Support?
Like most business people, I spend time thinking about what motivates potential customers to do business with me, what are the key questions to ask, what are the key pains felt.
Marketing departments spend countless dollars on this type of research, the answer to these questions are the true Holy Grail of marketing.
Sometimes, after working almost too hard at finding the solution, you determine that the answer is far simpler than you ever imagined, and in this case, all I really had to do was be a computer user for a moment rather than a business manager.
What computing users (business owners, etc) want is to be happy with with their IT infrastructure and support. Yes, happy. But… ‘what do you mean when you say happy?’ you are surely asking. Well, ‘happy’ as in productive and supported. You just want to do you job and have your tools do what they were intended to do.
The biggest buzz-kill to a loving relationship with one’s computing environment is disruption. Wait, better yet, disruption followed by delay, topped with that feeling of desertion that goes with not knowing who to call, how to call them, or what to do at 7am when nothing is working and you are staring at a blue screen wondering what really would happen if you launched your computer out the window.
Where is this going? Well, partially I just want to let everyone know that we get it. While we may have a deep and abiding love for all things technical, you just want your computers and infrastructure to work. You want to be happy, productive and supported.
Simple enough.
What else? When bad things happen you don’t want to feel deserted. I’ve been there. I worked at a fortune 500 where the 24 hour helpdesk contact was an email address or a web form.
Truly impressive planning. I remember thinking, as I looked at my black screen and then to the piece of paper with the email contact and the web address to get at support that someone had epically failed to think things through.
I spend a bit of time writing about things I find interesting in the world of technology, things that may be of relevance. I try not to generate too much marketing noise here, but sometimes, when I look out at the broader world and think about how IT support is often offered, I recognize that computing users should have more voice, and should have the simple right to get great support. Not just great support when everything is working, but great support when something goes wrong. The job of IT is to enable productivity and ensure that computing users are indeed happy, productive and supported.
When evaluating if you are indeed happy with your IT support, or happy with your IT support costs, ask yourself a few questions:
- Do you understand how your support costs align with industry standards for a company of your type and size?
- Are your IT costs able to adjust to match variations in your business revenue?
- Do you feel confident that you have a pro-active IT plan to protect your data and extent the life of your IT infrastructure investment?
- Do you really know what you are getting for your IT investment (is there genuine transparency)?
- Do you feel that your IT provider actually works with you to understand your needs and adjusts your support to match them?
- When you have an issue do you get rapid response, and from a person with the right skills to solve your problems?
There are many more questions that could be asked, but these are great business level questions that are worthy of some thought.
At the end of the day, just remember that IT is not about hardware and software. IT is about enabling your business. When thought of that way, it makes perfect sense to think in terms of my original question – Are you happy with your IT infrastructure and support?
And that is why I say -
Happy Computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Uncategorized
Mac vs. PC – The Great Support Cost Debate
There has been a recent explosion of articles rekindling the Mac vs. PC wars, this time coming at it from the standpoint of the costs to support in the enterprise. The initial article I read pointed out some factors in favor of the Mac in the enterprise, noting that Mac’s were more stable, and easier to troubleshoot, therefore, in a nutshell, less expensive to support.
Round one: Mac.
A counter article then mentioned that you have to take into account the fact that Mac’s may cost over two times more for base models than PC’s and that cost should be included.
Round two: PC strikes back
Another article brought up that Mac’s are only less expensive if they are not forced to integrate into a PC centric network, noting that Sharepoint does not work seamlessly and Microsoft Office for Mac does not play well with PC Microsoft Office when it comes to file formats.
Round three: PC’s seem to have Mac on the ropes
Yet another article debunks statements form prior articles and I discover that an entry level Mac can indeed be had for only a small amount more than a comparable PC, and for more powerful computing options, the Mac may even be cheaper than the PC when fully loaded up with features.
Round four: Mac recovers and counters…
And then I stopped reading. Why? Well, it became obvious that a simple concept was in play here: personal preference.
Yes indeed, PC’s and Mac’s can play together, and can co-exist peacefully. At the end of the day, happy users are users who have the computing device that best suits their needs, and IT departments will need to grow beyond the single box mentality and embrace the concept of the heterogeneous network.
The days of setting a single device as the standard because that is ‘easier for IT’ really should be over. Ease of IT management is not a proper way to set computing policy. Don’t limit productivity because you are not comfortable with a certain tool! IT exists to support users and ensure that there needs are met, and having a computing device that best works for you is part of meeting your productivity needs.
It’s time to put an end to pointless Mac vs. PC battles and start talking about Mac AND PC as part of the tool kit we use to keep users happy and productive!
Happy computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Uncategorized
Microsoft Hits a Home Run with Windows 7
Trust me, the last thing I want to do is provide free advertising for anyone here, and rarely do I get wobbly legged over OS changes, but I have to admit, Windows 7 is the real deal, and Microsoft has regained my confidence. As a matter of fact, Microsoft has sold a staggering 90 million copies of Windows 7 to date, making it the fasted selling operating system in history.
What really makes this matter is that there are finally compelling reasons upgrade, and not just because you don’t like Vista. In fact, Windows 7 is giving all the XP hold-outs a great reason to upgrade also. With the prevalence of viruses (our experience is that virus activity has been up strongly, especially as measured by the tenacity of the viruses in terms of difficulty of detecting and removing), including those that seem to target XP specifically, there are certainly some compelling reasons to upgrade to a more secure OS, which Windows 7 appears to be, offering more ways to control your environment and limit exposure to many types of trojans and malware.
It sounds like the time to move on is here, and Windows 7 is giving us compelling reasons to do so. The functionality sells itself, and the interface has taken some real steps forward. Do some research and take some time thinking about how ready you may be to upgrade your OS from XP or Vista, and possibly even your hardware. Time is money, and a frustrating user experience due to slow hardware, outdated OS, or constant viruses may lead you to a decision to upgrade and make sure your users are happy with their computers again.
Happy computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Uncategorized
Do You Speak “IT”?
I was reading an article on CIO.com and watching the video clip that accompanied it entitled Enterprise IT’s Top Enemy: Its Own Arrogance this morning and after watching the video, I had a minor epiphany. Minor only because it is not a new concept. I hear it from our customers all the time, but the video really brings it home.
We all hate it when someone who knows something we don’t lords it over us.
Yes, and more-so, we hate the embarrassed feeling we get when someone speaks over our head and makes us feel dumb for not understanding.
It is a trap we all fall into, myself included. At the end of the day, what IT has to keep in mind is that you have needs, but they are not technical needs. Technology is the tool by which your need will be fulfilled, but you should not have to do the translating, nor should you have to sit and listen to all the translations, unless you want to. The job of IT is to interpret business needs and translate them into technology solutions, then communicate back, in plain English, how you will experience your new solution as a user. You really do have the right to not care about the technical terms.
This is something I talk about a lot with my teams – the concept of being an invisible provider, when that is what the customer desires. Our importance is defined by our success in keeping employees productive and supported, not in our ability to mystify and impress with techno jargon. I often think that IT, at its best, needs to behave like the electric company. Our users don’t thank us when things work (I know I did not call the electric company this morning to thank them for my lights turning on). Nor do our users usually want to understand all the difficult technical ’stuff’ we have to do to make it all work (yeah, I know something goes on beyond that little outlet in my house, I just don’t care what). And when something goes wrong, they just want it fixed quickly and efficiently without having to understand all the details. Fix it, and do what you can to assure me it will have as little downtime in the future as possible.
So take note – I get it. We get it. While the desire to explain the work we take such pride in can be overwhelming at times, we understand that you reserve the right to not hear all the details. Whomever you work with in IT, tell them how you want to be communicated with. Just be honest and let your IT know what you do and don’t want to know. After all, it is the job of IT to work to meet your needs; technical, business, and communications.
After all, you just want the stuff to work, right? If you wanted to understand it all, you’d likely be doing what we do!
Happy Computing!
Richard Brunke
In: Business, Technology
Windows Azure is here! Great – what the heck is it and should you care?
With little fanfare, Microsoft made its cloud computing service known as Azure generally available this week. When was the last time Microsoft released anything so quietly, and why don’t we know more about it?
I suppose the answer is fairly simple: Microsoft likely released Azure with little expectation of it being a revenue or technology game changer. Amazon Web Services, as well as many others, have been in the space successfully for some time, and Azure is not bringing anything new to the game, nor is the pricing anything game changing. So why is Microsoft playing the game? We’ll get to that in a minute. First, I would like to explore Azure and cloud computing a little more.
So, what is Azure (or more broadly, what are cloud computing services)? Cloud computing has many definitions, depending on who you ask and what their offering is. Personally, I like the following definition “Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional hosting. It is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic — a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and Internet access).” If I had to explain it to my dad, however, I’d just say “It’s sort of like renting computing power through the internet instead of owning it, with the idea being to not have to buy expensive machines so often”.
Microsoft is specifically focused on the Infrastructure as a Service part of the market at this point and their Platform is focused around storage and flow of data in and out, along with all the normal complexity in pricing we know and love from Microsoft, such as transaction pricing for:
- Each 10,000 storage transactions (that will be one cent please)
- Number of web databases
- Access control transactions
- Service bus connections
- Data transfers (differing by world region)
While I have no intent of going into that stuff, it does show that there is some complexity to deal with here, though in all fairness, there are some all inclusive bundles for fixed monthly amounts that solve for 90% of all basic needs.
So what does this all mean?
As to whether you should you care about this at all, the answer for most small businesses is “Not today, but someday.” The concept of moving all of your infrastructure offsite and ‘renting’ capacity is compelling in a strange futuristic way, but there are many things to be worked out for this to make sense from a daily computing standpoint. Security, access, application integration, compliance, and other issues lead this list. Today, these services are most heavily used by those who need short term excess space for project or transactional work, or for those who chose to move a certain aspect of their infrastructure to the cloud. In small business, cloud computing needs are most often seen as offerings to host email or another simple application, but of course, that is not what Azure is doing just yet.
At some point in the relatively near future, this base of storage and capacity will start to be the underlying infrastructure for a robust offering that will include the full breadth of Microsoft’s software offerings, and likely will even include tools for management, integration, etc. At this point IT infrastructure looks much the same as it does today, it just lives somewhere else. As things stand today, the simplistic view of this offering is really just a server replacement, when what we really care about is what the server is running. Very few people really want to think about hardware and technology, and outsourcing this. What we want is a solution, fully fleshed out, simple, and cost effective. When that is offered, we’ll start paying attention.
So back to the last of the unanswered original questions: Why did Microsoft roll this out, and why with so little fanfare? No one has told me the answers, but I suspect they fall into the following groups:
- Because cloud computing is the future and waiting to ‘get it right’ before launching is too risky
- Because Microsoft can’t afford to let Amazon and other players gain a reputation as being the big players in the hardware game if it eventually has a big impact on the software game
- Because Microsoft doesn’t like to risk being left out of any potential game changers
I expect that much will change in cloud computing over the next few years, and while the big guys quietly evolve, it will be an innovative smaller guy that will provide the leap frog advancement that charts the path to the future (and then will be bought by one of the big guys). Such is the way of the world.
Each vendor builds their version of the cloud from what they know: Microsoft has an operating systems view, Amazon has a storage and transactions view, etc. What is missing is working backwards from what consumers want! We don’t care about operating systems, or transactions. We care about delivery of applications in a compelling, usable, and cheap fashion. Once cloud computing begins to embrace that there is a reason we want all of that hardware hidden somewhere else, the innovators in that space may begin to figure out what we have been saying to them all along – make it usable, make it cost effective, and make it work the way I want to, not the way the technology dictates.
Well, let’s give it some time and just see who gets it right first!
Happy Computing,
Richard Brunke
In: Uncategorized
Office 2010: Pros and Cons
Every time Microsoft develops a new release of Windows and/or Office, the questions begin around upgrading. CIO Online recently put out a great high level summary of the Pros and Cons of Office 2010 for Business. Follow the link and take a read. In a nutshell, if you are an office users, you are likely going to want these upgrades. The increased integration with Sharepoint and simplified ability to share and edit Sharepoint content coupled with a slew of new features, including many that integrate social media sites such as LinkedIn via the Outlook Social Connector make this a really innovative and valuable release.
But don’t forget the challenges! As more and more users switch to 64 bit from 32 there may be real compatibility and integration issues, and you should speak to your IT professional about these issues and how they will impact your business. While integration and upgrade issues will drive complexity, the upgrade to 64 bit enables many things such as much larger Exel workbooks for example.
As always, the choice to upgrade will be divided between the desire to have the newest and coolest, and the need to balance productivity gains with upgrade costs. I think this particular release brings some new innovations and ideas that will begin to change the way we look at productivity suites, and bears some careful thoughts when planning your IT budget for the next year!
Happy Computing
Richard Brunke
In: Business, Technology, Uncategorized
Things To Think About as IT Spend Comes Back
Although economies rarely behave in an orderly and predictable fashion, the industry experts are claiming that good times are returning for IT and that IT spending will be increasing in a ‘V’ shaped fashion in 2010. While it is always hard to really know what will happen with IT spend, it does indeed seem likely to me that IT spending will increase, and increase at a strong rate in 2010. This may not be driven by the economy, however, as much as by neglect and natural replacement/upgrade/maintenance cycles.
Let’s face it, 2009 was a scary year. Many companies pulled back on all spending to ensure they had the reserves to survive a downturn that at some points appeared to be an ever deepening pit. As preventative IT spend went down, coupled with holding off on many much needed infrastructure and computing equipment upgrades, a backlog of spend was being created. In IT, that backlog always has to clear at some point. Server upgrades become needed, user machines have begun to breakdown, software upgrades have been skipped – ultimately productivity is impacted.
Yet, despite the significant need, there is lingering fear of hiring in a world with a lot of uncertainty around the recovery, taxes, and health care reform impacts. For SMB’s, there are added questions around keeping IT costs variable to match business cycles.
This becomes a perfect storm for growth in the IT outsourcing world, as businesses scramble to play catch up without having to over commit to long term labor costs. There are countless articles and white papers on how to select IT providers. Many of these provide potentially valuable information on ensuring that your provider can support your business and technical vision.
All this is very educational and interesting. What always seems to be missing from these discussions is what the underlying motivations behind IT support really are. At the simplest level, business owners (and computing users) just want to be productive and feel supported. You want to be happy with your IT provider without having to get distracted from your businesses core mission. These things have less to do with the technical details of how work gets done and more to do with how that support is systemically delivered. In my experience, many computing users feel annoyed, frustrated and abandoned as they have disruptions, followed by a feeling of desertion as their vendor is delayed in providing the support they need.
Ask any potential vendor how they will help ensure your computing users will be happy, and wait for the blank stare. Ask about how they minimize delay and ensure you’re never deserted. Ask them how they limit disruptions in the first place! At the end of the day, those are the real key questions, and the key to finding a great IT service provider. Any smart IT consultant can explain the specifics on how they remediate an issue, but at the end of the day, that is a transactional approach. Take the conversation up a notch and ask a few key questions about their client support model:
- Do you have the breadth and depth of expertise to ensure you can manage all my needs now and as I grow?
- Do you have the size and scope to ensure you can always respond to my emergencies? What if a local issue causes multiple clients to go down at once, how can you handle that?
- How do you handle inbound client calls and emails? Do you count on a field technician to respond to those when they can, or do you have live dispatch that can triage, prioritize, and assign all issues to the best resource?
- Do you have live local remote staff that can immediately solve my user issues when needed?
- Will I have access to multiple resources, or just one?
These are basic business level questions that will help you gain confidence that your selected partner can fulfill the goal of ensuring your users don’t feel disrupted, delayed and deserted, but instead feel happy, productive and supported. At the end of the day, THAT is the real end goal of all IT support.
Happy Computing!
Richard Brunke
Smart Phones – Blurring the Distinction Between Work and Home
I was reading an article about smart phones and I had a few thoughts perhaps worthy of comment. The first is that consumers want smart phones. People want to be seen using the coolest gadget to update Facebook, check email, and tweet the details of your dinner. The second thought that came to mind was ‘is this making us more efficient, or just more available, and what is the impact of all that real time availability’?
There was a time, not so long ago, that we had to consolidate our thoughts and questions, organize them, and present them over a phone in a conference call, or face to face in a weekly meeting. ‘Oh the humanity, Oh the hard work’ people think. How did we ever crawl out from the primordial slime without our smart phones to keep us in touch with everything and everyone! Well, I for one wonder if we are always better off. There is a certain scattered pattern to communications today, as each thread of thought is tossed out to the world to be digested and replied to. The simple art of organizing ones thoughts and creating some cohesion is getting lost. Then there is the simple concept that your mind blowing revelation may not really need to interrupt me in real time. It is hard to find a half hour of truly uninterrupted work time these days without changing gears a dozen times to answer all sorts of emails, texts, etc.
So, am I against these ubiquitous devices? No, of course not. I do, however, think that we need to learn how to live with these devices in a smarter way. Clearly as an employer, you should buy one for every employee. It has been shown time and again that people will embrace being online all the time when it comes to having these smart devices! Email is no longer a chore, but something you do in line at the movies, during dinner, and at all sorts of other little pauses in life. It’s like getting 20% more time from your employees!
Maybe…
Smart phones are electronic crack to be sure. You just can’t say no to those little buggers. You bring them to the bathroom with you, you look at them while eating, and they even go on vacation with you. We are addicted to information. We crave it. We crave the sense of connectedness to the world that we get surfing the web while simultaneously checking email, tweeting, and letting our face book friends know that we just saw the greatest movie ever… For all the home time that we seem to spend on work with these devices, we also see more personal time spent at work. On the whole, I don’t know if they add to productivity or detract from it, but they do integrate work and home life more deeply than ever before, and perhaps, given time, the right functionality will continue to push the needle towards productivity enhancement.
There is no slowing momentum on these cool gadgets. They are here to stay. But, perhaps we can at least realize that not every time is the right time for online… and that sometimes always on is not such a good thing. Balance is a key we have not found with these devices. We need to discover the difference betwee ”can’ and ’should’ (texting or tweeting in a public bathroom stall for instance should be grounds for an immediate device time out). Employers will increasingly realize that these devices are as critical of enablers of productivity as desktop computers and will soon find themselves pushing them to all employees. Pagers and cell phones are obsolete methods of communication, and the incremental costs of a smart phone should be minimal compared to the potential return. It is the equivalent to the difference between getting an employee a calculator and a notepad instead of a computer.
A final thought is this: the adoption of smart phones broadly across business will drive new IT issues and challenges. Just like laptops, these devices will have critical data on them. Just like other technology, they will need to be supported and managed. The concept of complex and mission critical business applications being served by a handheld smart phone may not be new, but it is just now becoming a widely adopted reality.
Once again, time to rethink how we do business, how we do leisure, and where the distinctions are between the two.
Other key questions to be asking:
- Do you have a plan for the adoption of high end smart phones or are you sitting on the sidelines?
- Is your IT ready with a plan to support them, keep them secure, and integrate them into your technology plan?
- Do you understand the HR implications (what happens if hourly employees have them?)
Happy ‘handheld’ computing!
Richard Brunke
