We have 500 employees. There are four of us in my department. We cannot possibly know all of their unique, individual needs. None of us has ever been a principal, or a teacher, or a lunchroom lady, or a janitor, or a secretary, or any of the other countless positions that exist. The only way to know what they all need-at a low level-is to work in those positions, or to spend quite a bit of time working very closely with the people who do. More time than we could ever hope to spend.
End-users generally can't speak the language of technology, but that doesn't mean they can't voice their needs. If they express those needs (e.g., "I wish there were a way to..."), we can then research ways that technology can meet them. There's generally a flow of information from the bottom up... A lunchroom manager might report a need to the Food Services Coordinator, who might then come to us. Or a teacher might report a need to a principal, and the principal comes to us. But can we communicate directly with all of the end users at a level requisite for having a deep understand of their needs? No. John From: William Robbins [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 2:43 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Apple newbie - iPad remote access to server shares "And the best people to determine the needs of users are the users themselves. We don't have a crystal ball, nor do we--or could we--understand the minutiae of their jobs" I doubt I'm the only one here who will disagree with this, but the reason for our positions is precisely because the users can't equate their technology needs. The last thing I need is to come in one day to 250K different pieces of technology to support...some users like Lotus Notes for example and would want me to dump Exchange. YMMV - WJR On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 13:32, John Hornbuckle <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: We provide high-level leadership, and make recommendations at a broad level. With limited resources, we focus on what gets us the most bang for the buck. We can only investigate a technology if it will impact enough users to justify the time/money spent doing it. . John -----Original Message----- From: Michael White [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 2:00 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Apple newbie - iPad remote access to server shares > At this point, I'd settle for ANY reason other than "but all the cool > people have an iPad!" :-) Why wait for others to tell you what reasons they could use the devices. As IT Pros, I believe it is part of our job to have the foresight and leadership to be able to introduce new technology within our organizations and how it can be used by our users. As far as the concern that there are not the apps or tools to be able to support them; how about building them? Sounds to me that there is a great opportunity for some developer on this list to create a set of tools and, potentially make some money. Michael. -- -- Michael S. White [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
