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There has always been an air of coolness between IT support and users of IT. Administrators have great fun recounting their 'stupid users' stories. You know the sort. Faced with the message, 'Press any key to continue', the user who rings up support asking where the 'Any' key is. The user who thinks the CD tray is a coffee cup holder and then wonders why the coffee gets spilled as the tray automatically retracts after a little while. How we laugh!
However, on the reverse side, the user can be seriously hampered in doing their work by the actions of IT. They create systems that are not user-friendly. They lock down computers so you cannot personalise them in any way, despite the fact that the company logo desktop may not be the most suitable choice of colours on the screen for reading.
I previously wrote about 'Disabling the Registry Editor' and how to get it back again. The Registry Editor is usually disabled by IT to stop users messing up their PCs. However, it can also be disabled by viruses, to stop you removing them easily.
When I get an e-mail on the topic it is, usually, to thank me for the article for helping someone solve their problem. This week I got an e-mail from Dan Drake. I thought it would be useful to reproduce the thread between us - to show how the coolness between IT and users manifests itself.
Dan started with a simple e-mail:
Hack,
There's a reason Administrator's attempt to keep users out.
It's to protect them from themselves and eliminate some WORK.
I responded as follows:
Thanks for reading my stuff.
I guess you belong to the 'all users are idiots' school. I expect you also believe that running computers would be fine if it wasn't for the users.
Please ponder on the following thoughts.
In any group of people it is inevitable that capability will vary from the low to the high. Why do you assume all users are less capable than you?
In my working life I have been an Administrator for part and user for part. What does that make me in relation to you?
In most businesses the whole purpose of computers is to enable the users to perform their job and make the company profits. Without users there would be no need for computers and Administrators.
There is too much friction between IT and users in a lot of companies - including the one I work for. The reason is they don't understand each other and neither side makes any attempt to alter this. IT likes to hide itself and lock down the computers so that they will never have to be involved with users. Because of this IT never understand how eliminating some of their work leads users to have to perform extra work to compensate for the stupid systems they are given. In my ideal company the IT function should step out into the user world, talk to users, involve them, understand their frustrations and improve the computer systems to remove these frustrations. At the same time IT could help explain to the user why sometimes IT cannot do what users expect. When there is two way dialogue respect can be gained.
Whatever your views on users and mine of IT there is a need for a tool to re-enable regedit and allow access to the Registry. Apart from Admins, there are viruses out there which disable Regedit so the viruses cannot easily be removed. It was kind of fitting that in the same batch of e-mails that yours arrived in came another from a user thanking me for my artcle for just this reason. What is quite amusing is that the user admitted he was the Admin!
You're not all infallible you see.
Dan was quick to respond as follows:
Anticipated your reply and I couldn't disagree you more.
There's a reason they are called users. They use. There's a reason we're support, we support.
There are other "business" related security policies to protect the companies asset's from the user's lack of knowledge regarding what's now happened after they've attempted to hack the system. They always reply with the same statement, "I didn't know"..... People like you get them in trouble.
Currently the State of Georgia has a Security Policy that will prosecute and fine a user up to $50,000 and/or 15 years for modifying the "standard" configuration of a computer. It's not their tool. Access to a companies computer is a privilege for the employee not a right.
I responded to this as follows:
I guess I anticipated you would not listen either!
See my comments amongst your text. There is a common thread to them. I don't demand that you let me do what I want. I just want IT to listen to users. When users are wrong explain to them why and they will be better users for it. When they are right - recognise it and do something about it. Users are not always wrong. The people I admire most in IT, there are some, are the ones that converse with me. The ones I have no respect for are the ones that shut me out.
I'd like to finish this chat with giving a practical example of how user power can be beneficial. My company tells us not to store any information on our local PCs but on the network. This way the information gets backed up automatically and is less of a security risk. That makes sense.
However one day a few years ago we lost access to our network drives! We did not get access back for a week and when we did some of us, not me fortunately, had permanently lost any data created within the previous 4 weeks. What were we supposed to do in the week without access? How much time was wasted recreating the data lost?
Now, this humble user was noticing that network drives were temporarily dropping out occasionally for a couple of days before total access was lost. This got me worried so I ignored the company policy and made a backup of my home drive to my local PC. That show of defiance meant that I was not inconvenienced one bit by the problem and I saved the company money because I could work normally for the next week and lost no time recreating data that was lost.
I am not saying everybody could do what I did - you have to be methodical to do backups quickly and some people aren't. On the other hand don't criticise me because I ignored the company procedures. The fact that I did helped me and the company.
comments interspersed with your text below.
> I anticipated your reply and I couldn't disagree you more.
>
> There's a reason they are called users. They use. There's a reason we're
> support, we support.
Someone who does not listen to what I say and just tells me I must do it this way is not supporting. They are just playing God. Of course, if they can justify why I am not right then fair enough, but they have to listen in the first place.
>
> There are other "business" related security policies to protect the
> companies asset's from the user's lack of knowledge
there you go. Making assumptions about a users capability again. We are not all totally without knowledge. Talk to us and you might find some of us are quite clever and can help you to help us.
> regarding what's now
> happened after they've attempted to hack the system. They always reply with
> the same statement, "I didn't know".....
That's because you don't tell them anything. Just demand we do it your way, without any explanation of the benefit of doing so.
> People like you get them in
> trouble.
If a car salesman sells a car to someone who has lots of accidents because they cannot drive properly - is it the car salesman's fault?
I don't sell my info. I give it away. But it is not my fault if you cannot drive a computer properly.
> Currently the State of Georgia has a Security Policy that will
> prosecute and fine a user up to $50,000 and/or 15 years for modifying the
> "standard" configuration of a computer.
I don't plan to work in Georgia then !! Has anyone been prosecuted?
> It's not their tool. Access to a
> companies computer is a privilege for the employee not a right.
Funny that - The company demands I use their computer and their systems to do my job. Sometimes it is like telling me to do my job with one hand tied behind my back. It is certainly not always a privilege to use their computer system. If only they would listen to the users angst they might find ways to improve the computer systems to the benefit of all.
I think it is a privilege for the company to have me as an employee! I guess you think the same way about yourself and your company. Maybe we can agree on this one thing!
Since that thread was written I have read that last week Nicholas Carr, author of the book 'Does IT Matter', was in London expounding his thoughts on the future of IT. He says that, contrary to what the suits like to tell you, IT does not give you competitive edge. Except in certain cases, your competitors soon start to use the same tools and you have lost the lead. He says that IT is like a business utility, such as the telephone, the heating and lighting. You don't invest in lots of IT for competitive edge. You get the cheapest cost for your solution. Computing will move away from the Client-Server approach with customised solutions to a utility model where, with virtualisation techniques and on-demand IT, you will just choose the IT you want. This is the path that Google are starting down. The search engine is a utility you use when you want it. Now, Google are adding word processor and spreadsheet tools to their portfolio.
Whether you believe Nicholas Carr is right, it reminded me how the dichotomy between IT and users of IT has always been there and gives an indication of how the future might be.
In the beginning was the mainframe - the totally locked down computer that was controlled by IT and charged to users by the second. When the IBM PC came in the 1980s user power took hold. Despite every attempt by IT to keep the PC out of the workplace they eventually were accepted, because users kept bringing them in by the back door. Since that time IT, with the help of the software companies, have been trying to wrest back control. When IT realised that the mainframe was not coming back in its previous form they have taken back the high ground by promoting the client server approach. They have always controlled the server. Locking down the client is their way of stopping users have ANY control. I guess this is the situation I was thrashing against in the conversation with Dan.
If Nicholas Carr is right then the future may well be that users can revolt again. Stuff your demand that we must use Microsoft Office. We will use the simpler tool from Google! Expect IT to retaliate. How long before Google is one of the sites that is barred from use by the company firewall?
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