Every now and then the politics at the office get too much for me and I
start to despair. This post that I wrote I while ago for another blog
expresses some of the resultant thoughts 
Go on, someone tell me to stop talking crap, suck it
up and get on with my job 
Something I've been pondering for a whiile.
We (I) work in the IT industry, but what exactly is this IT?
Information Technology. Technology revolving around information.
Developers, techies and other more developed it workers are usually
interested
in getting the latest, greatest tech toys to paly with, and
pushing them out for
our users, whether they want them or not.
Yeah, the new tech sometimes lets them do their tasks better, but at what
cost? Should our first priority not be to let the users do their current
tasks
more efficiently.
In my mind I see and old style banker (ala Jeffrey Archer - Kane and
Abel). He sits behind his desk, gets information on investments, maybe
looks at graphs about current portfoilios and moves money around.
The non tech way to do this would be as follows:
- Get someone to fetch post from the post box.
- Make/receive phone calls for info.
- Have someone manually draw up graphs.
- Get up, go to the filing cabinet, pull out a portfolio, scrutinise it,
take action, get up, return to the filing cabinet, replace this portfolio,
get
another one out, rinse, repeat.
How does tech help Kane get his job done more efficiently...?
- Email : No more post box, just inbox.
- Phonecalls can be replaced with IM and email.
- Information can be more efficiently communicated via
image attachments.
- Crystal Reports. Who manually draws graphs these
days *grin*
- Electronic collaboration portals (ala Sharepoint,
Novell
Director, etc). Now more than one person can look at
the
portfolio at the same time, the participants can discuss it and decide on
action points immediately - all from anywhere in the world.
There is unfortunantly overhead. Hardware costs money. Software
and software licences cost money. Having trained staff to design,
implement and maintain your technical infrastructure costs money and
takes
time.
Another fortunant side effect of this example is of course, The
Internet. "Mr Kane, here is your new, techified office, allowing you
to do
everything you used to do, just better and quicker. Its costing
you more
money to run your bank than it used to, but your decision making
process is
quicker, allowing you to make money quicker, and to save on more
bad
investements than you used to. As a side effect you
also
have access to <drum roll>The Internet</drum roll> which can
provide you with even more information than you had previously
(and even
access to smutty pictures of Paris Hilton)."
Technology enabling Information. New toys should only come second.
This doesn't quite describe as much detail as the
scenario in my mind,
but I think it gets my point across semi-coherently.
Ciao, CB