[Discuss] Justify your existence
Edward Ned Harvey
some CFO or otherwise interesting financial person about work, and Dilbert
cartoons, and the wastefulness and inefficiencies of typical corporations or
typical organizations, etc. Somebody uses a term like "overhead" or
"secondary" referring to support roles. But you're an IT person - You're a
support role, and depending on what is your core business, most likely
you're overhead.
With only a moment's thought, and only a few words, how do you describe the
value that your role adds to the organization? How do you justify your own
existence, casually, when talking to a CFO or somebody in a social
situation?
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Greg Rundlett (freephile)
First of all, I don't see how IT can even remotely be considered overhead -
when it's done right. It's like saying eating breakfast is overhead.
It's the fuel that gets you started and allows you to perform at a higher
level than you would without it.
Somebody could have crap for breakfast and that /is/ a problem, but it
doesn't mean that breakfast is the problem. The modern world is infused
with technology. It's a catalyst, an essential element and the oxygen that
pumps life into ideas, energy and output created by top-performing
businesses.
*Work* needs to be performed to provide a service or product of value.
Errors cost time and money. What I do is create automated processes and
tools that perform work 24x7x365 and help people do the same all while
eliminating or reducing errors.
*Decisions* need to be made constantly in order to compete. I create
reports and tools that allow people across the organization to access the
information they need to make decisions.
*Performance* and systems need to be monitored in order to assess the
health, revenue, output and productivity of the organization, specific
segments or individuals. I provide the monitoring, reporting and data
collection inputs that make this possible.
*Knowlege, collaboration* and *experience* is often the key to making
better judgements and increasing productivity. Coupled with smooth *
operations* of *communications*, plant, equipment, vendor, customer and
marketplace *relationships*; knowledge can be put to work to the greatest
effect. I provide the collaboration systems, documentation, training,
operations and multiple levels of support to ensure that this happens.
I don't think I'd come up with that off the cuff, after having a couple
drinks at a cocktail party. But now that you've asked, I should commit it
to memory so that I can.
Greg CTO Rundlett
Jack Coats
A long time ago, I found that you are 'overhead' if you are not in the
'Business of the Business'.
If you are in healthcare doctor or a nurse, you are in the business,
if you are mopping the floors in a hospital, doing IT, doing
accounting, you are overhead.
If you a banker or teller you are in the banking business, if you are
in IT, or marketing, or greeters, you are 'overhead'.
If you are a 'boss' and not the highest on the food chain, you are overhead.
If you are at Walmart (or generic big box store of any flavor) and
aren't checking folks out (like stockers, cleaners, truck drivers,
etc) you are overhead.
If you are working for a IT service provider (consultant, computer
operator) you are in the business of the business, if you check badges
or are security, or make sure the backup generators work, you are
overhead.
If you are in sales, and don't get enough sold so the bosses see you
as 'profitable' and an 'income earner', you are overhead. A friend is
a sales guy, and his company just let go of many sales droids because
they 'didn't make the numbers', even though the market is down
especially in the low performing areas (regions, states, districts, or
other geographical organization). (His business sells chemicals to
put in concrete to make concrete act differently ... contact me
directly if you want to discuss this.)
Whatever you do that isn't directly in line of causing cash income, is
overhead.
Even if you are and you don't cause 'enough income' you can be
considered 'overhead'.
(Enough isn't just enough to pay for your and expenses, it is enough
to pay the entire boatload of expenses, costs, fixed overhead, etc,
even before 'profit' is in the picture.)
This is a life observation, not theoretical, also it isn't right or
wrong, it just is.
To me, it seems like whatever internal infrastructure it takes to keep
a business working is critical to the business existence should be
important, but if you are not a direct cause of cash coming in the
door (this quarter) you are considered overhead.
Once I realized this truism, it has made several 'changes' in life
more palatable and enabled me to get on with life. Before that, I
stewed on it, grumped, whined, complained, and couldn't let go.
Yes, I have been caught on both sides of layoffs, downsizing,
'reallocation of assets', whatever it is called, if a paycheck stops
you feel like you are fired.
I have also had 'survivors syndrome'. Wondering why someone else and
not me. It happens in war, in business, basically everywhere. It is
real and must be delt with in some way. It is easier for some than
others to go through this 'grief' period. Just like a death or being
fired, having those around you 'gone' carries it's own psychological
weight.
Ohhh. ... sorry, this is getting into a lot of my baggage and what I
have carried. Hopefully this will give someone some insight and help
them.
All this 'advice' is personal and anecdotal, so isn't worth a hill of
beans to pull any 'facts' or 'statistics' from.
... Jack
Bill Horne
> You're in a social situation - at a party or something - You're talking with
> some CFO or otherwise interesting financial person about work, and Dilbert
> cartoons, and the wastefulness and inefficiencies of typical corporations or
> typical organizations, etc. Somebody uses a term like "overhead" or
> "secondary" referring to support roles. But you're an IT person - You're a
> support role, and depending on what is your core business, most likely
> you're overhead.
>
>
>
> With only a moment's thought, and only a few words, how do you describe the
> value that your role adds to the organization? How do you justify your own
> existence, casually, when talking to a CFO or somebody in a social
> situation?
>
I suggest something like this:
"I'm one of the team that makes sure the computers, networks,
telephones, power, fire alarms, printers, and cell phones are always
working. In short, I'm the guy who keeps the magic smoke from leaking
out of the wires, because computers run on magic smoke, and if it leaks
out, things stop working. I like to think I do my job well, and the
measure of my team's success is that you've probably never heard of us."
HTH.
Bill Horne
http://www.billhorne.com/
--
Bill Horne
339-364-8487
Daniel Feenberg
On Thu, 15 Dec 2011, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
> You're in a social situation - at a party or something - You're talking with
> some CFO or otherwise interesting financial person about work, and Dilbert
> cartoons, and the wastefulness and inefficiencies of typical corporations or
> typical organizations, etc. Somebody uses a term like "overhead" or
> "secondary" referring to support roles. But you're an IT person - You're a
> support role, and depending on what is your core business, most likely
> you're overhead.
>
>
>
> With only a moment's thought, and only a few words, how do you describe the
> value that your role adds to the organization? How do you justify your own
> existence, casually, when talking to a CFO or somebody in a social
> situation?
The CFO is overhead too. Overhead means that an expense isn't directly
allocatable to a particular item sold. It isn't a accounting-speak for
"non-productive". Is system administration helping the firm reduce costs
and/or raise output, or is it part of the "Department of Information
Prevention"? Whether its support or empire-building, it is overhead either
way.
Daniel Feenberg
Jerry Feldman
> some CFO or otherwise interesting financial person about work, and Dilbert
> cartoons, and the wastefulness and inefficiencies of typical corporations or
> typical organizations, etc. Somebody uses a term like "overhead" or
> "secondary" referring to support roles. But you're an IT person - You're a
> support role, and depending on what is your core business, most likely
> you're overhead.
>
>
>
> With only a moment's thought, and only a few words, how do you describe the
> value that your role adds to the organization? How do you justify your own
> existence, casually, when talking to a CFO or somebody in a social
> situation?
businesses there are cost centers and revenue centers. IT is usually a
cost center providing essential services. But, IT is a cost that in many
cases cannot be tied directly to revenue. This is one reason why many
companies moved their customer service groups to India. At Digital,
years ago, we moved the entire Unix commands group the Bangalore, and my
group (compilers, development environment) moved the assembler support
to India. (We ended up writing a new assembler in the long run).
Basically up the hierarchy, senior managers look at things quite
differently than we do. For instance, in a Windows shop with a few Linux
servers, management might look at the LInux support team as overhead,
and decide to train some of the Windows people. especially in tough
times, managers are under severe pressure to reduce costs. A good
manager will look at both the savings and risks.
Years ago, we were told in a meeting that we were supposed to arrive by
9 and not leave before 5. Why did our manager tell us that. He used to
get complaints from other departments that they would see us come in
late and leave early. But, what they did not see was programmers coming
in late at night for fire calls. They didn't see programmers finishing
up projects late at night so that accounting could have "cost of goods
sold - french fries". It is the responsibility of the department manager
effectively manage his/her department, but also communicate to upper
management.
But, to more specifically answer the question, you look at your role and
possibly say that we are the people who keep the infrastructure up and
running 24X7.
--
Jerry Feldman <g...@blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id:3BC1EB90
PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90
Jerry Feldman
>
> The CFO is overhead too. Overhead means that an expense isn't directly
> allocatable to a particular item sold. It isn't a accounting-speak for
> "non-productive". Is system administration helping the firm reduce
> costs and/or raise output, or is it part of the "Department of
> Information Prevention"? Whether its support or empire-building, it is
> overhead either way.
ma...@mohawksoft.com
> with
> some CFO or otherwise interesting financial person about work, and Dilbert
> cartoons, and the wastefulness and inefficiencies of typical corporations
> or
> typical organizations, etc. Somebody uses a term like "overhead" or
> "secondary" referring to support roles. But you're an IT person - You're
> a
> support role, and depending on what is your core business, most likely
> you're overhead.
>
>
>
> With only a moment's thought, and only a few words, how do you describe
> the
> value that your role adds to the organization? How do you justify your
> own
> existence, casually, when talking to a CFO or somebody in a social
> situation?
There are a few ways to answer this question.
(1)Compared to a CEO, the value proposition is much better for "support."
A CEO typically makes over 100x an average worker. So, you are one 100th
of a CEO. Yet you help others be more productive. Your value multiplies
the value of others.
(2)Quite frankly, as maligned as IT is, a modern company can not run
without IT. The modern company needs data and data infrastructure for
decision making and (depending on the nature of the business) creation of
the "product."
(3)Being almost 50, I remember a professional world where people did not
use computers. Watch the tv show "Mad Men." There were secretarial pools
of women who merely typed. Invisible as IT is, it is necessary, and has
allowed the workforce to change in such a a way that menial jobs once
relegated to a "lower class" of worker is now expected from everyone, and
that "lower class" of worker no longer exists. Employees now present a
more and richer value proposition for the employer because they do more
than menial tasks.
(4)The modern executive in a company must be able to evaluate several more
orders of magnitude more data than his counterpart did a generation or two
ago. The spreadsheet, originally seen as a tool for for accounting, has
become the defacto tool for managing business and creating strategies. The
IT and support staff make this possible on the scale required for modern
business.
aldo albanese
I'm looking into an email encryption for both my company and for personal use. For personal use I would like to be able to encrypt Gmail accounts using Droid, Outlook and possible via the web portal. I noticed that some of you have already some kind of encryption like PGP. Looking at some products, it seems that now Symantec owns PGP, any other product that you would suggest that just do what I'm looking for?
Thanks for your help,
Aldo
Matthew Gillen
> On 12/15/2011 10:56 PM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
>> You're in a social situation - at a party or something - You're talking with
>> some CFO or otherwise interesting financial person about work, and Dilbert
>> cartoons, and the wastefulness and inefficiencies of typical corporations or
>> typical organizations, etc. Somebody uses a term like "overhead" or
>> "secondary" referring to support roles. But you're an IT person - You're a
>> support role, and depending on what is your core business, most likely
>> you're overhead.
>>
>>
>>
>> With only a moment's thought, and only a few words, how do you describe the
>> value that your role adds to the organization? How do you justify your own
>> existence, casually, when talking to a CFO or somebody in a social
>> situation?
> Having been both in management and in overhead positions. In many
> businesses there are cost centers and revenue centers. IT is usually a
> cost center providing essential services. But, IT is a cost that in many
> cases cannot be tied directly to revenue.
Perhaps. Even when IT isn't the "business of the business" as another
poster described, IT in my opinion has the most potential for impacting
things directly related to revenue: employee efficiency, marketing,
research, etc. IT pervades everything a company does. IT in many cases
is what sets good/great companies apart from their competitors.
So the biggest thing you need to do IMHO is not let people conflate
"overhead" with "non-essential". All senior management is overhead.
That doesn't mean they are non-essential. Great IT, just like great
senior management, give the company a competitive edge. I think you
could make a strong argument that great IT gives /more/ of an edge than
pretty much anything else (where "great" IT means being cost-efficient
as well as capability-rich).
> At Digital, years ago, we moved the entire Unix commands group the
> Bangalore, and my group (compilers, development environment) moved
> the assembler support to India.
Ouch. You can't be successful in business by outsourcing your core
technical competency. Unfortunately, many businesses didn't figure this
out until after they'd tried and failed.
Matt
Matthew Gillen
> So the biggest thing you need to do IMHO is not let people conflate
> "overhead" with "non-essential".
Just to beat this horse a little more: "overhead" is a technical term
for accountants; "non-essential" is a judgment call about value to the
company and the core business. There is no implicit linkage between the
two terms, unless the person you're talking to is an idiot.
In which case you should have a few more cocktails before continuing the
conversation ;-)
Richard Pieri
> value that your role adds to the organization? How do you justify your own
> existence, casually, when talking to a CFO or somebody in a social
> situation?
I'm the guy who fixes the mail server and recovers your mail after the
disk fails on Christmas Eve.
--Rich P.
Richard Pieri
> First of all, I don't see how IT can even remotely be considered overhead -
> when it's done right. It's like saying eating breakfast is overhead.
> It's the fuel that gets you started and allows you to perform at a higher
> level than you would without it.
Simple: we don't generate revenue but we are necessary so that those who
*do* generate revenue can be about generating that revenue. That's
overhead.
--
Rich P.
Rich Braun
> Justify your existence
Over the years, I've learned that the answer to this question is: you can't.
If someone asks it in those words or similar, then if they had their druthers
they'd call Amazon EC2 or some place in Bangalore and say, "I'll have two of
those, how much do they cost?" just before shutting you and everyone you care
about down.
Even if the answer from India is "more than you thought you'd have to pay",
they'd still rather send the money outside the firm. Because that way they
have someone else to blame when things go awry.
I've tried but never succeeded with principled arguments about how a 3-fold
reduction in costs, plus a 10-fold improvement in reliability, and/or all the
other cerebral ways of demonstrating that a cost center succeeds in its
mission by making the company more successful and more competitive versus
those who rely on third parties. In the end, they'll keep you if they trust
you, and they ditch you if they don't.
So rather than coming up with a fancy spreadsheet about your department's
cost-saving and performance-boosting successes, strive to make yourself the
one they trust to fix whatever ails them: usually it'll boil down to some
silly office desktop app on a 4-year-old Mac, or the like, and not some
million-dollar initiative that kept the company out of insolvency.
-rich
David Rosenstrauch
> Here are a few personal truisms about 'overhead'.
>
> A long time ago, I found that you are 'overhead' if you are not in the
> 'Business of the Business'.
> If you a banker or teller you are in the banking business, if you are
> in IT, or marketing, or greeters, you are 'overhead'.
+1. This was an important realization I came to during my years working
on Wall St. (And is one of the main reasons why I no longer work there.)
DR
Matthew Gillen
> You wrote:
>> Justify your existence
>
> Over the years, I've learned that the answer to this question is: you can't.
>
> If someone asks it in those words or similar, then if they had their druthers
> they'd call Amazon EC2 or some place in Bangalore and say, "I'll have two of
> those, how much do they cost?" just before shutting you and everyone you care
> about down.
>
> Even if the answer from India is "more than you thought you'd have to pay",
> they'd still rather send the money outside the firm. Because that way they
> have someone else to blame when things go awry.
I pity the corporate culture where this happens. Because at the end of
the day, customers and investors alike don't give a crap if you have a
good excuse, they want results. A company that tolerates managers with
the attitude you describe is one that is broken and likely headed down
hill...
Someone whose primary goal is blame avoidance is someone I would run
away from as fast as I could. They aren't going to go anywhere, and if
they somehow do manage to climb the corporate ladder in spite of their
pile of failures, it won't be in a way that will be in any way
beneficial to you (i.e., you're likely the one he threw under the bus to
get himself a promotion).
Matt
john saylor
On 12/16/2011 11:13 AM, Matthew Gillen wrote:
> Someone whose primary goal is blame avoidance is someone I would run
> away from as fast as I could. They aren't going to go anywhere, and if
> they somehow do manage to climb the corporate ladder in spite of their
> pile of failures, it won't be in a way that will be in any way
> beneficial to you (i.e., you're likely the one he threw under the bus to
> get himself a promotion).
sadly though, i think this is the exact formula used by many to find
'success' in the corporate world. and you are right, that if it comes
down to them or you getting thrown under the bus, you can guess how it
will come out. [regardless of what actually happened or who made what
decision]
while i am sometimes delighted by someone taking unexpected altruistic
action [even just 'telling the truth'], i am rarely disappointed when i
expect people to act in the most selfishly destructive manner possible.
especially among the 'powerful' in industry or politics.
--
http://or8.net/~johns "yeah yeah yeah" -beatles
Matthew Gillen
> while i am sometimes delighted by someone taking unexpected altruistic
> action [even just 'telling the truth'], i am rarely disappointed when i
> expect people to act in the most selfishly destructive manner possible.
> especially among the 'powerful' in industry or politics.
http://onefte.com/2011/10/09/are-you-ready-for-a-corporate-life/
(a co-worker turned me on to this comic, and while it's got a harder
edge than dilbert, there are quite a few gems)
Also, somewhat related:
http://onefte.com/2011/11/21/youre-not-the-boss-of-me/
Daniel C.
> In which case you should have a few more cocktails before continuing the
> conversation ;-)
In my case this usually leads to me telling them exactly what I think of them.
Oh hell, who am I kidding? I do that sober.
-Dan
Jerry Feldman
> Hi,
> I'm looking into an email encryption for both my company and for personal use. For personal use I would like to be able to encrypt Gmail accounts using Droid, Outlook and possible via the web portal. I noticed that some of you have already some kind of encryption like PGP. Looking at some products, it seems that now Symantec owns PGP, any other product that you would suggest that just do what I'm looking for?
many email clients either directly or via plugin. PGP is a company that
sells and licenses their technology. There are both OpenSource ad well
as commercial products that add PGP encryption to Outlook. However, I am
not aware of an encryption product for any web-based email. I certainly
can sign or encrypt Gmail using Thunderbird. There is a product called
OpenPGP Manager for Android (http://pgpmanager.blogspot.com/). I have
not used this, although it is now a project for this weekend. Maybe
someone could add to this.
Matthew Gillen
> On 12/16/2011 09:03 AM, aldo albanese wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I'm looking into an email encryption for both my company and for personal use. For personal use I would like to be able to encrypt Gmail accounts using Droid, Outlook and possible via the web portal. I noticed that some of you have already some kind of encryption like PGP. Looking at some products, it seems that now Symantec owns PGP, any other product that you would suggest that just do what I'm looking for?
> We generally use OpenPGP (or GnuPG) for our email. This is supported by
> many email clients either directly or via plugin. PGP is a company that
> sells and licenses their technology. There are both OpenSource ad well
> as commercial products that add PGP encryption to Outlook. However, I am
> not aware of an encryption product for any web-based email. I certainly
> can sign or encrypt Gmail using Thunderbird. There is a product called
> OpenPGP Manager for Android (http://pgpmanager.blogspot.com/). I have
> not used this, although it is now a project for this weekend. Maybe
> someone could add to this.
Maybe someone could resurrect FireGPG:
http://getfiregpg.org/s/home
Was such a good idea...
Matt
Jerry Feldman
> On 12/16/2011 09:44 AM, Matthew Gillen wrote:
>> So the biggest thing you need to do IMHO is not let people conflate
>> "overhead" with "non-essential".
>
> Just to beat this horse a little more: "overhead" is a technical term
> for accountants; "non-essential" is a judgment call about value to the
> company and the core business. There is no implicit linkage between
> the two terms, unless the person you're talking to is an idiot.
>
> In which case you should have a few more cocktails before continuing
> the conversation ;-)
>
also compare their numbers with the Industry. When HP acquired Compaq,
HP had a very high IT expense in comparison to the industry. Part of
this was a result of acquisitions. When Mark Hurd took over from Carly
Fiorina, he hired a new IT VP who was charged with placing this expense
in line with the industry. (I was engineering). Just about every little
group had their own data center. There was also a large amount of
duplication, a number of different business systems accomplishing the
same task. The solution was to build 4 new modern data centers in the US
to replace the many local and regional centers. Last year, for instance,
they moved the Marlborough data center that was used for porting and
testing of client applications to Houston. The employees (my former
coworkers) were told they had to work from home. There was also a
restriction on some products some departments could buy. One senior
engineer was very pissed because he was not allowed to buy something
like Adobe Acrobat. The bottom line is just that. A company like HP
looks at percentages. How many people do you need to support Windows
desktop systems, and do they have to be local. Can a support person in
Dallas support a user in Boston? With respect to servers,, nearly all
new servers are now installed with some form of remote console where
there is rarely a need for anyone to enter the physical data center.
Jerry Feldman
moved it offshore. While my few times when I called Dell support before
they moved it, I was never impressed. But a lot of people did not like
the foreign accent, and this actually caused Michael Dell to take the
reigns of the company again. But, their reputation took a serious hit.
MBR
the foreign accent". And, based on my own experiences with Dell's
support, I think that for most people who disliked Dell's offshoring of
their support function, that characterization is wholly inaccurate.
I've been a software engineer since my first job writing BASIC
interpreters and OS internals at DEC in the 1970s. But by the late
1990s I was a Unix expert, not an MS-DOS or Windows expert. So,
although I've never expected Dell's support people to have the same
level of understanding of OS concepts that I do, I did expect them to
have specific knowledge about Windows that I didn't. And before Dell
made their disastrous decision to move support out of the U.S., the
level of support met my expectations. When I called them for help, I
was able to have an intelligent conversation with the support person
handling my call. There was an interactive back-and-forth in the
conversation, the result of which was that their knowledge plus my
knowledge allowed us to solve my problem.
After Dell fired their U.S. support people and outsourced the function
to India, I found it impossible to have an intelligent conversation with
their support people. During my calls to them over the first few years
after they did that, I naively assumed the support people were
technically knowledgeable, and I continued trying to engage them in
technical conversation to solve my problem, but that was always
impossible. I'd say something and they'd respond with a complete
non-sequitur. It took me years to figure out that: 1) they didn't have
a clue what I was talking about, and 2) unlike the technical people I
know who, when they don't understand what you're saying, will ask you
questions until they do understand, Dell's outsourced support people
would simply pretend to understand - which behavior inevitably resulted
in absurd non-sequiturs, as well as them wasting huge amounts of my time.
After a few years of this, I figured out that Dell must have replaced
the technically-knowledgeable U.S. support staff that they laid off,
with un-knowledgeable but cheap staff, and then tried to make up for
that abysmal decision by training them to read pre-written scripts. It
was also clear that the outsourced support staff was being incentivized
to close calls rather than to solve problems. So they were more than
happy to give you a totally unworkable or irrelevant solution as long as
they could get you off the line. If you had to call back again 10
times. that was somebody else's problem, not theirs.
Since customer objections to the extreme degradation of Dell's service
were too often mischaracterized in the same way you just
mischaracterized them, as people not liking the foreign accent,
management in Round Rock, TX came up with the idiotic solution to simply
look for other countries with cheap workers whose English sounded less
accented to American ears. So a few years later, I found I was talking
to clueless people in the Philippines or in Panama instead of clueless
people in India.
At some point during a call to Dell's outsourced support, I remembered a
Dilbert strip I'd seen years before, in which the support rep tells him
to do something ridiculous like reinstall the OS, the next panel shows
him twiddling his thumbs, and in the next panel he tells the support
rep, "OK, I've done that." When I first saw that strip, I thought it
was a funny joke. But after years of frustration with Dell's atrocious
time-wasting "service", I stopped thinking of it as a joke and started
thinking of it as a strategy. I tried it, and it worked far better than
trying to hold an intelligent technical conversation with them.
Eventually I started trying to predict the contents of their pre-written
script, and figure out which answers would help me navigate them through
the shortest path in their script to get to the point where they were
willing to send me the particular replacement part I needed. And, given
their history of having wasted so much of my time, I no longer felt I
needed to zero in on the right replacement part. If I could narrow it
down to one of 2 or 3 parts, I was happy to have them ship one part and
send a tech out to swap it, and if that didn't work I'd call back and
manipulate their script-readers through their script to the next
replacement part I wanted to try. With a company that didn't make a
business out of wasting my time, it would never have occurred to me to
do that. I can't be the only one who figured this out. Over the years,
I'm sure Dell must have spent far more money on supporting customers'
systems than they could possibly have saved by firing their technically
knowledgeable U.S. support staff. And they've also generated a great
deal of ill will in the bargain.
This is what happens when management manages by the numbers and is
totally out of touch with their customers.
Mark Rosenthal
m...@arlsoft.com <mailto:m...@arlsoft.com>
On 12/17/2011 9:40 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> Just look at Dell. After years of pushing their great support, they
> moved it offshore. While my few times when I called Dell support before
> they moved it, I was never impressed. But a lot of people did not like
> the foreign accent, and this actually caused Michael Dell to take the
> reigns of the company again. But, their reputation took a serious hit.
>
Jerry Feldman
> After Dell fired their U.S. support people and outsourced the function
> to India, I found it impossible to have an intelligent conversation
> with their support people. During my calls to them over the first few
> years after they did that, I naively assumed the support people were
> technically knowledgeable, and I continued trying to engage them in
> technical conversation to solve my problem, but that was always
> impossible.
it was only for a friend or client.
"I found it impossible to have an intelligent conversation with their
support people"
with a support person and to be able to understand. I had a few times to
contact Compaq support (before HP). I found back then that the Indians
were much more technically competent that the non-Indians. On a single
issue, I had a couple of US people who gave me the wrong answers, where
when I spoke to an Indian, he gave me exactly what fixed the problem.
First, many people have trouble with some foreign accents, and I believe
that this was one of the major Dell user complaints. Whoever you speak
to should be reasonably articulate and easily understandable.
Second, the person should be knowledgeable enough to either identify and
solve your problem or escalate it to someone who does.
My recent conversation with the RCN customer service person was that he
told me:
1. While I paid for a "static IP", since you had only a single static IP
it was only a sticky and he refused to budge.
2. We were paying for an 8-IP subnet not a single static.
The issue comes under that category of intelligent conversation. I had
the bill in my hand. What they failed to do was to move the subnet over
from the 20/2 DOCSIS 1 modem to the DOCSIS 3 modem as was required by
the contract. My problem is I had a SonicWall that could only be
programmed by our IT department. The only thing I could have done was to
do a factory reset, get it on some working network, and then let IT
reprogram it. I told him that, but I didn't tell him that I had 2 other
networks in the same computer room. In any case they finally fixed the
problem after I yelled and screamed.
The bottom line is it does not matter where the support people are. It
is a matter of training.
Dave Gavin
My experience with the DELL off-shore support was that they seemed to
have a script and could not diverge from it. The folks I talked to always
seemed to be non-technical and refused to escalate until we got through
their entire script. I eventually adopted the tactic of agreeing and
"Yup, did that - didn't work" as someone else suggested to get to someone
who could hopefully help. I quickly gave up on DELL support and have
found online forums and mailing lists (particularly this one) MUCH more
helpful in solving problems.
I was shocked when calling one of our service providers about an outage
when I got a very knowledgeable person who spoke quite clearly - it
turned out that he was in Nova Scotia !
Dave
--
"This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever."
- Sigmund Freud (speaking about the Irish)
Kyle Leslie
It was always extremely frustrating to answer various useless questions to "fix" something that I knew needed to be replaced anyways.
I hated having to call Dells support but I will say this once you get through the garbage they are good about replacing your equipment.
Sent from my iPhone
Jay Kramer
over the phone with Apple. I was amazed that I was talking to what
sounded to me to be an educated American at Apple. I have much more respect
for apple and understand why people buy their products.
Jay
Jerry Feldman
> At my last job it was an all Dell shop. It was extremely frustrating dealing with the script. We eventually got to the point if we knew the issue and needed a part replaced (mostly hard drives) we figured out what codes or errors to tell them that was wrong to speed the process of getting a part.
>
> It was always extremely frustrating to answer various useless questions to "fix" something that I knew needed to be replaced anyways.
>
> I hated having to call Dells support but I will say this once you get through the garbage they are good about replacing your equipment.
>
BLU). I had lobbied for something else, but they got a pretty good deal.
However both BUG and the BLU had similar failures. The BUG machine had
its RAID5 controller fail. The BLU had a dual simultaneous disk failure.
IMHO, Dell is an experienced seller of desktop and laptop computers, but
I don't think their servers are the same quality as some other
companies. Dan Stolts, who owns Bay State Integrated Technology has a
number of Dell servers that perform well for them.
Ben Eisenbraun
> I am not a big fan of Apple. However, I purchased an Ipod for my daughter
> over the phone with Apple. I was amazed that I was talking to what
> sounded to me to be an educated American at Apple.
The couple of times I have called Apple have been fine, but I think Apple's
real advantage is the retail stores. The Genius Bar is one of the main
reasons I recommend Apple products to non-technical people. If they have a
problem, they can make an appointment on Apple's website and drop by the
store to sit down with someone to work through the issue.
Being able to watch a user interact with the product as they are
demonstrating their problem must be invaluable for product design and
testing.
-b
--
if you bring off adequate preservation of your personal myth, nothing
much else in life matters. it is not what happens to people that is
significant, but what they think happens to them. <anthony powell>
Edward Ned Harvey
> bounces+blu=nedhar...@blu.org] On Behalf Of aldo albanese
>
> I'm looking into an email encryption for both my company and for personal
> use. For personal use I would like to be able to encrypt Gmail accounts
using
> Droid, Outlook and possible via the web portal. I noticed that some of
you
> have already some kind of encryption like PGP. Looking at some products,
it
> seems that now Symantec owns PGP, any other product that you would
> suggest that just do what I'm looking for?
You can still use PGP for free.
You should also consider S/MIME. Just go to someplace like startssl.com to
generate your keys for free.
S/MIME is generally easier for a larger number of people to adopt quickly -
because they don't need to think or understand so much about authentication
and trust and key distribution and management, and it provides a pretty
decent level of trust. But if you just want to secure email between you and
two of your buddies, or you can't risk the possibility of a "trusted" root
CA getting compromised by bad guys or foreign governments... Then PGP might
be better for you. But if you're in that situation, probably PGP isn't good
enough either.
Edward Ned Harvey
> bounces+blu=nedhar...@blu.org] On Behalf Of Edward Ned Harvey
>
> With only a moment's thought, and only a few words, how do you describe
> the
> value that your role adds to the organization? How do you justify your
own
> existence, casually, when talking to a CFO or somebody in a social
> situation?
There is a level of support (IT and otherwise) that is necessary just to
keep the doors open for business. Many businesses cut their support down to
this level, thinking of us as "overhead." But beyond that point - IT is a
force multiplier, we provide competitive advantage (neutralizing
competitors' advantage, or gaining our own competitive advantage). Both in
terms of our organization's ability to produce more and meet more targets,
and in terms of our ability to attract & retain talented workforce.
When you think about it, most of the "coolness" factors of an organization
are support related, IT and otherwise. Coolness factors represent a real,
but often intangible or unmeasurable, advantage to attracting & retaining
talent. It's company image, it's marketing for your brand.
So. We are justified for two reasons: (a) Keep the lights on, and (b)
Competitive Advantage.
Jerry Feldman
Whether IT, customer service, administrative support, all of these
overhead areas are costs. An organization must look at these and assign
a value, and that is the hard part. Taking IT out of it for a moment.
Let's take a business that maintains a full time receptionist to handle
the general phone calls and the clients that walk in the door. They
could replace the receptionist with a sign and a phone/intercom. Or,
what is the cost of the high priced employees writing their own
documents in contrast to an admin assistant. My son-in-law was the only
IT guy at his company, and he hated the company. He finally got a good
IT job in Buffalo and when he gave notice they didn't even believe him.
A lot of time a company does not realize what they have until they don't.