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What 'Consumerization of IT' Really Means For IT
snydeq writes "Nathan Clevenger examines the impact that the 'consumerization' of information technology will have on IT organizations, a trend fueled in large part by employee interest in the latest mobile devices, notably the iPhone and iPad. The growing practice of introducing new technologies into consumer markets before industrial markets stands to cause a sea change in the IT/user relationship, Clevenger writes, adding that this will likely involve 'painful changes in the status quo of corporate IT,' including the need to 'shed our arrogance' to give the underlying technology a chance to succeed. 'Although the debate around the impact of consumerization will no doubt continue for some time, the adoption of mobile technologies and enterprise applications is moving forward, whether or not IT departments are on board,' Clevenger writes, in large part because the trend provides companies with a strong opportunity to improve efficiency, productivity, and profit."
'Nuff Said.
"As perceptive CIOs seek to transform their rigid, legacy ridden infrastructures into agile, efficient, service-driven delivery mechanisms, they must adopt a pragmatic approach to managing the risks of consumer IT while embracing the benefits.
I stopped reading right there.
I don't think you understand what "underlying technology" means.
This isn't about the wireless standards that the phones adhere too.
Or any of the other REAL technologies.
This is about security and accountability.
Who is responsible for the data on your iPad when it is stolen?
What is the process AFTER it is stolen?
Your computer is going to be a MID that docks when you get to your desk and then syncs to the cloud storage (intra/inter-net). When it docks up it will be much like a traditional desktop you see now.
Right. So you're going to take your corporate desktop home with you in your pocket, and when you accidentally leave it on a train...
No corporation in their right mind wants people walking out the door with documents and software that they don't have to take out of the building with them.
From TFA:
There is a HUGE difference between ordering a pizza and keeping confidential documents on your iPhone.
The best part is that the Best Buy CTO cannot identify his own advances. He has to reference a PIZZA VENDOR.
And that is a WEBSITE. What does that have to do with an iPhone? You could do the same thing with a desktop or a laptop.
Right. So you're going to take your corporate desktop home with you in your pocket, and when you accidentally leave it on a train...
No corporation in their right mind wants people walking out the door with documents and software that they don't have to take out of the building with them.
Are they hiring? That would free up a good 15GB of code checkouts from my laptop and there'd be no chance of getting work done on the plane trip to the next on-site meeting.
Didn't you get the memo? IT is "legacy" now. It's all about empowering the end-users to develop their end-user creativity without the restrictions of the IT way.
If keeping un-encrypted documents on an un-managed device without a password helps that end-user be more "productive" then who are YOU to say no?
IT didn't forget to remind anyone. This is about taking IT out of the loop. Because IT is holding back the end-users and their iPads.
who has accidentally occupied a desk at the offices of Infoworld for some time now. It all started 2 years ago when Nathan was formally accepted to 'synergy leverage monthly,' a publication of no real relevance to anyone but managers who have reached a point in management where they no longer speak in real sentences. That isnt to say the sentences are poorly structured or in an indeterminate language, its just to conclude rightly that these sentences are devoid of any logical meaning.
Anyhow, Nathans expertise (synergistic strategization of pinged leverage potentials and service driven design paradigms in the web 2.0 echelon of modern business dynamics) while perfectly natural in the publication of SL monthly, serves poorly for infoworld. Infoworld staffers understand this, and try to cope with Nathan as best they can through the common medium of corporate lunch at the local diner or the occasional holiday party. Their hope is that at some point, SL monthly may realize, although highly unlikely, they are in fact missing a staff member during the morning hyper-power-concept core lunch strategy event and begin combing the halls before or after this tumultuous event for Nathan.
Good people go to bed earlier.
This puts IT departments into a difficult and often untenable position. On the one hand, their users are clamoring for the latest gadgets to be integrated into the company's business tech. On the other hand, new devices may represent major security holes, or best practices for their use and integration may not yet be established.
If some new device results in a system crash or a security breach, it'll be the IT people whose jobs are on the line, not the user who insisted on using the new device.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
If not, it sounds like IT forgot to remind people of how to secure data
I remind them *how* all the time. That doesn't mean they understand me, or that if they do understand me, that they are willing to actually do it.
Right or wrong, I can tell you from where that originates.
Most people would never fault a paraplegic, who is in a wheelchair, for being unable to do jumping jacks. He would probably love to do them. He really cannot. It is "cannot", not "will not". Likewise, most people would not fault a diagnosed mentally retarded person for being unable to understand simple things. Chances are, no one has a harder time not hating that than he. There is no point and no profit in blaming either of those, and doing so would indicate extreme heartlessness and lack of understanding.
The problem is, there are large masses of people who have no disabilities of any kind. They are capable of abstract thought, of following simple instructions, of performing at least a minimal search for something and only asking for help if that doesn't find what they are looking for. They can do all of these things. Yet, a great many of them refuse to think. They don't want to use whatever thinking they can perform. By that I don't mean anything extreme or over-the-top or unreasonable. By that I mean an unnaturally high degree of helplessness, a freakishly strong desire for handholding even when this would take much more time than a two-minute Google search they are more than capable of performing.
Thinking is for "the help". That's grunt work for the computer janitors to do for them. It would not even occur to them to try. Thus, for most tech support lines, the one person who truly has a real problem that really does require the attention of a technician gets to wait on hold for 10-45 minutes because the lines are tied up by people who failed to read page 1 of the manual, the help file, the README file, the FAQ, the Web site, and the last e-mail they received.
This is the mentality with which you are dealing. You can gloss over it and cover it up with your grand notions of service, but you're patting yourself on the back to forget how much youre tempted to apply a cat-o-nine-tails to theirs. In a way, it truly is a trophy to be able to deal with that without getting a severe headache. After a while you can start to believe that you're just that eager to serve. I consider it a coping mechanism. The truth is, that mentality invites failure, asks for failure, begs for preventable problems, and tries very hard to defeat itself with problems of its own creation. It just so happens that they hired you to stand between themselves and any such consequences.
So you end up having to defend a network from both outside threats and the self-defeating, shortsighted actions of insiders who meant well. This isn't a fun position in which to find oneself. Oh, and if you lock it down too much, you will be swamped with complaints about functionality. It's like trying to simultaneously satisfy multiple contradictory conditions.
Most of those conditions wouldn't be contradictory if only users would attain the slightest clue pertaining to the tools they use every day. I am not talking about the knowledge of a skilled mechanic. I am talking about knowing how to drive. Lots of highway accidents didn't require an auto mechanic to prevent; they required a driver who understood how to drive. IT is like this. I do not refer to the skill needed to smelt iron ore, forge pig iron, and craft a hammer. I refer to the fact that a carpenter knows how to use his tools, even though they are not the goal of his job. So it is with workers who use computers but should not need to become experts. They only need to know basics. They refuse to learn them in a way that a driver could never refuse to learn to drive and expect to get away with.
Just as there's no point in being well-adjusted to a sick society, there's no point in seeing all of this and telling yourself that it is normal and should not change. The crux of the matter is whether you can know how fucked up it is and still deal with it patiently, educating those who will be educated and assisting the rest as much as you can. Making excuses for it and debasing yourself is just weak.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
... No.
Firstly, note the unnecessary and repetitive use of derogatory terms for customers and general profanity. Hardly professional.
If you think auto mechanics don't tell stories about the twit stepford wife who drives a $100,000 sports car for a year and a half without having the oil changed?
If you think that electricians don't tell stories about the moron who tries to splice cable themselves and gets a good jolt or goes to the hospital for their trouble?
I could go on, but every profession has a word (or several) for the kind of idiot who goes around, say, Practicing IT Without A License.
Second, complaints that the users are undermining IT perfect systems by buying devices or installing software. Basic economics tells us that users are investing money and time in these thing because they deliver value. Value that It is not delivering to a demand from their user base.
No, complaints that users are bringing outside devices into the network that don't meet security requirements, that were not purchased by the company, that have not been approved to be brought in by the company.
If there is value in the devices, the appropriate thing to do is to work WITH the IT department prior to purchase to see what can be done for integrating them - so that IT can do the research and be prepared to support it, not buy them first and then demand that IT "just make it work" as a surprise.
Thirdly, complaints about having to troubleshoot problems. Isn't that what the business pays you for?
Business pays you to troubleshoot the business systems and keep them secure.
In the case of a downed DSL service, a competent network engineer could diagnose that in minutes. I'm sorry it took you three weeks, but transferring your aggression to others is not productive.
When IT is testing the device onsite and it works, and the user's home connection is the problem but the user won't do their part and contact the provider?
Fourthly, assuming that when users ask for something new that they must be dumb. Why should my phone and PC use the same email password?
I'm willing to bet GP is set up on an Active Directory system, where the computers and the Exchange environment both authenticate to the same domain.
Fifth, the wireless access point anecdote highlights appalling sysadmin practices. One point of access into the network and the bad guy was able to destroy critical infrastructure. Way to put all your eggs in one basket. The sysadmin of that network was incompetent, negligent, or both. Yes, the user did something stupid. But the real fool was the the person who did not design for defense in depth.
I'm not sure what you claim you'd do here. The "Clueless User" was someone high up in the business ecosystem. They were given a point of access for their machine to connect to. They, not following the business's own procedures, plugged a contraband item into the jack intended for their machine.
Short of locking down the network to a list of MAC addresses - which would require getting the MAC address of every single device in the company's possession - what would you do?
It seems that many IT departments see themselves as a law unto themselves, dictating to users what they can and can't do. We've seen this cycle before. It was last at its peak during the mainframe/mini era, and those IT cathedrals were obsoleted by the PC. My advice? Pay attention to your customers and give them what they want. That way, you'll always have great job prospects.
No, it seems that IT is once again caught between the contradictory, schizophrenic "Number One Priorities List" that people like you come up with where IT should be doing everything for you, should make the entire network completely open with every user able to install whatever piece of crap they picked up from Best Buy this weekend or any little widget from the internet and all the accompanying crapware that tagged along with it, but at the same time maintain a "secure" network that runs well.
Well?
Wish I had modpoints to mod this up.
This is precisely the problem. In an ideal world, users would stick within usage policies and requirements. When there was a policy for equipment requests, for support of personal devices, they'd follow it.
That's fantasyland. In the real world, IT is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Between "supporting the users" and defending the network from the users. Damned if they do, damned if they don't, and taken through the wringer the moment some bad-apple employee makes off with company property or leaks trade secrets that have been copied to a USB memory stick. Or lets loose something on the network because they just can't resist clicking on "OMG FREE PUPPY SCREENSAVER."
The problem is that IT has to deal with five categories of user. They're easy to categorize.
1. Knows nothing. KNOWS they know nothing. Ask questions often, but ask questions before they cause trouble. Not a major source of trouble, just use up a certain amount of time.
2. Technically savvy, follows procedures. When these guys call, it's going to be a doozy, but they've got a ton of troubleshooting steps ready and a list of things they have done for you to look at. When they come in with a new gadget, they're willing to give IT the time to research how best to support it.
These two categories are not the problem, because they approach IT as coworkers to work with.
3. Knows just enough to cause trouble. Believes themselves technically savvy. Will lie out their asses rather than admit to flailing around and making the problem worse.
4. Knows nothing, but wants the Latest Shiny Thing and wants it to Just Work Like It Does In The Commercials.
These are the problem. These types of users are the ones who get into large amounts of trouble and take up the majority of troubleshooting time, mostly because they are not treating IT as co-workers to be collaborated with, but someone to be bossed around. These are the sort of user who treats passwords as a hindrance, rather than keys to important locks. They wouldn't leave the combination to the company safe in the open, but they think nothing of leaving their username and password on a sticky-note under the keyboard.
The final type of user, the one every IT person dreads and prays never to encounter but has to protect against anyways, is the user who is actively trying to sabotage the network or do something outright illegal on it. And yes, sometimes protecting against these users inconveniences the other users.
Name a profession where "customers" hold a dual position of know-nothing and know-it-all, and you'll name a profession where the true masters have derisive stories to tell behind "customers'" backs.
One of the arguments is about a person who is berating her IT department for the fact that her laptop won't work at home. Apparently, they told her repeatedly to call her ISP, and she refused to do so. The very picture of the uncooperative user who refuses to work with IT to solve the problem.
And yet, Mr. DeathSquid accuses the GPP of being incompetent, saying "a competent network engineer could diagnose that in minutes". Well, I reread GPP's post, and it appears that they did in fact have it correctly diagnosed, but that the problem was an intractable, uncooperative user who simply shouted "you fix it" at the IT department rather than holding up her end of the bargain to call her home ISP.
I'm willing to bet that this is the kind of stuff Mr. DeathSquid does to people in IT all the time. When you're dealing with coworkers, you have to be willing to look at things from their perspective. When IT says the problem appears to be with your home connection, and that you're the one who will need to call your ISP to have it checked, the proper response is to call your ISP, not shout at IT and yell at them for "not fixing it."
I will quote from the GPPPPP:
"but she wouldn't admit the possibility or even call AT&T until we made her try it when she was visiting her brother in another state and her laptop worked fine in his house (with his open wireless connection). Instead, we were treated to 3 weeks of "why can't you fucking people make my laptop work at home" from her."
It sure as hell looks to me like they knew for a hell of a long time that her DSL was down, but she was refusing to call them. In other words... the user was being a bitch.
Now, as for "The incorrect response is to run around doing your own name calling. If you act professionally, people will treat you that way."... may I suggest that maybe, just perhaps, letting off steam in an anonymous forum while not using the user's name or company details, is probably far different from acting unprofessionally to the user? Even when the user was demonstrably, herself, acting completely unprofessional?
The "P" in "PC" stands for "personal computer"
What does the "C" stand for?
sic transit gloria mundi
Oh please.
You are the exact sort of fuckwit Denethor was. He ruined his country by insisting on using an illicit Palantir behind the firewall.
Maybe you were forgetting that little part in your haste to misquote Tolkien?