..but I'm not so keen on/.'s article description here. "...the use of incidents resolved per analyst per week as a metric for assessing help-desk performance..." Having worked in this area for decades, I can tell you that I can't think of a single IT support org that uses this as a metric. It's a straw horse, of which there are many when it comes to metrics.
The three most common metrics are:
Cost per incident
Customer Satisfaction
Resolution on First Contact (sometimes FC is defined as 'resolved at/within tier 1, even if it means')
There are usually two more, but those tend to vary on your business and priorities, if you have SLAs/OLAs, and what service channels you offer.
Average speed of answer/Time to Respond to Client is usually next.
Average Time to Resolution sometimes.
People sometimes care about Abandon Rate, but only within the context of the customer satisfaction metric. A nice place may poll for employee satisfaction. A nicer place does it more than 1-2/year. I've never even seen 'resolved/analyst/week' come up in discussions, forums or books going back to the early 90s.
And seriously - NOBODY running anything but a penny ante 100 call/week call center would ever try to regularly cook the stats by having friends and family calling in to boost the customer contacts. It's too much work for too little bang, and it's too easily caught. Any place with a real ACD system, eventually, will notice that a not-insignificant number of calls/emails are coming from the same 10 addresses/numbers. It's just not worth it. The description implies the exact opposite. If you don't have a real ACD system and a real incident-management/ticket-tracking software, you're not really measuring anything anyway and you're probably working at a place that's not complicated enough to care about metrics in the first place.
I guarantee you that this 'obsession' with remote desktop software has to do with a management initiative to drive down desk-side support costs. This translates to making it a measurable goal of the Help Desk staff to initiate remote support. They're tracking remote support connection utilization/connection volumes, and reporting against it. The help desk staff are probably not allowed to tell you why, they probably secretly believe it's wasting their time and it's slowly making them bitter.
The main problem is that the US -does- sell much of our food overseas, but that price point is based on the subsidized price. The price gap isn't recaptured in the form of tariffs. Many countries don't invest in agricultural and associated legal infrastructure at home because there's no way for anyone to grow crops cheaper than the US can sell them.
Federal guarantees have enabled private businesses like banks to make a killing on socialized risks. The Feds have now taken it back and will now service loans directly. This can only result in less-bad service.
The historical context of a college education was that only the upper class could attend them, and the better schools - by merely attending them - open up the path to social mobility. The lack of social mobility was deemed a really big problem. Attending no-name small colleges are useful if you are learning something directly practical, but generally do not offer much social mobility. You may earn a living, and may make more money than comparable careers open to someone who didn't attend. It however does not get you windows into a higher class. (At the same time, the top 5% ambitious, clever and smart will find ways regardless.)
But that's the point. Society isn't about providing for only the best and brightest and most ambitious. Everyone can improve with a little more ambition. This is not in question when people talk about equity. What is not often discussed is the idea that you can't squeeze the upper 40% into the social mobility channels of the top 5%. The sheer volume, even if everyone took it up a notch, does not allow for 'the ones that sneak in the back door'. And it should be clear, that's just the back door. Prior wealth is the greatest determinant of future wealth, hands down. We've built up this awful dynamic where if you can't effectively operate as the 5%, you're a loser. Some may indeed be losers, but most are not. Treating them as such as a means of motivation has limited applications. It ignores the scale and capacity inputs that went into several generations of assumptions about how education 'works'. This very important, semi-monolithic institution of our society have changed very rapidly, and I don't think it appropriate when some lambast people over gender studies degrees. Some people are short-sighted, but most are not. What were seeing is the consequence of the game completely changing, and nowhere near enough conversation at the national level to reflect the magnitude of the changes in assumptions and expectations.
That makes zero sense. This attempt to define 'scientization' is exactly the same as the definition of 'politicizing' science. The scientization of politics would mean limiting political language and maneuvering within the confines of the implied logic of scientific findings.
So long as people have local content they want to access via their TV/ginormous monitor, there's going to be a market for streaming players. So long as TV manufacturers and content distributors discourage this functionality, there's going to be a market. Show me an open-source TV, open-source standalone programmable monitor or some really stupid draconian law, and I'll revisit this opinion.
I think that you're mistaken. As long as people have libraries of local content they want to stream, so long as those formats evolve over time, and so long as TV/media delivery manufacturers don't much care to allow you to do that, standalone media players will be around. Come up with an open-source TV/ >32" programmable monitor, and then I might change my tune.
Cut President O'bama some slack. If you were Leader of the Free World and (apparently) a HUGE Fallout fan, you're saying you wouldn't hedge America's post-apocalyptic energy bets in style? After all, 'War...war never changes.'
This device doesn't scream innovation to me. It's not like it hasn't been thought of before. It also sounds like it uses off-the-shelf components, with a bit of minor design thrown in. No, the real value-added here is that a Chinese company (especially with some political backing) carries an implied resistance against the litigious patent culture. They're just less afraid of being sued by Apple, and made a play. That's cool and the gang with me, more or less, but it's not really innovation (reverse or otherwise).
Yeah...they don't want a lampoon. They don't want Colbert to lampoon Beck's past rally. They want Colbert to incisively and viciously make obvious the the layer cake of falsehoods and manipulations used in Beck's rally and message. They want a 4-hour Colbert Report special, live, at the Lincoln Memorial, roasting Beck's lie-repetition methodology using the premise of a rally lampoon.
That's not the same thing as lampooning a rally. Lampooning's usually pretty low-brow, good for a few laughs, but then done. If that were the case, if lampooning is all that Colbert really did, he would never have lasted as long as he has.
Isn't it more likely, whatever are the specifics, that this kind of announcement, coming from the Feds, is an attempt at creating competitive pressure on the current ISPs to expand their network and/or keep prices stable or lower?
I always thought the Antares trilogy would make a great miniseries or tv series.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Antares
Alas, Babylon and Farnham's Freehold would be great too.
Last but not least...
ARMOR. ARMOR. *sniff* Armor. *sob*
Damn you, NPH.
Works at night. (Ground heat release.) Low maintenance, few moving parts, durable, doesn't require uncommon, imported elements or the same kind of energy inputted into its construction, doesn't make the ground under it useless. Politically this is easier to sell than relying on China for the arrays. Scaling photovolatics to the level needed to get to an all-day average of 200MW requires a lot more ongoing maintenance. This is easier for voters to understand, and looks 'cool' from the highway.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
What, are you getting paid by the post? :-)
..but I'm not so keen on /.'s article description here. "...the use of incidents resolved per analyst per week as a metric for assessing help-desk performance..." Having worked in this area for decades, I can tell you that I can't think of a single IT support org that uses this as a metric. It's a straw horse, of which there are many when it comes to metrics.
The three most common metrics are:
Cost per incident
Customer Satisfaction
Resolution on First Contact (sometimes FC is defined as 'resolved at/within tier 1, even if it means')
There are usually two more, but those tend to vary on your business and priorities, if you have SLAs/OLAs, and what service channels you offer.
Average speed of answer/Time to Respond to Client is usually next.
Average Time to Resolution sometimes.
People sometimes care about Abandon Rate, but only within the context of the customer satisfaction metric. A nice place may poll for employee satisfaction. A nicer place does it more than 1-2/year. I've never even seen 'resolved/analyst/week' come up in discussions, forums or books going back to the early 90s.
And seriously - NOBODY running anything but a penny ante 100 call/week call center would ever try to regularly cook the stats by having friends and family calling in to boost the customer contacts. It's too much work for too little bang, and it's too easily caught. Any place with a real ACD system, eventually, will notice that a not-insignificant number of calls/emails are coming from the same 10 addresses/numbers. It's just not worth it. The description implies the exact opposite. If you don't have a real ACD system and a real incident-management/ticket-tracking software, you're not really measuring anything anyway and you're probably working at a place that's not complicated enough to care about metrics in the first place.
Are you having trouble with the premise of internal customers, or is it just manners that you find difficult?
I guarantee you that this 'obsession' with remote desktop software has to do with a management initiative to drive down desk-side support costs. This translates to making it a measurable goal of the Help Desk staff to initiate remote support. They're tracking remote support connection utilization/connection volumes, and reporting against it. The help desk staff are probably not allowed to tell you why, they probably secretly believe it's wasting their time and it's slowly making them bitter.
The main problem is that the US -does- sell much of our food overseas, but that price point is based on the subsidized price. The price gap isn't recaptured in the form of tariffs. Many countries don't invest in agricultural and associated legal infrastructure at home because there's no way for anyone to grow crops cheaper than the US can sell them.
Federal guarantees have enabled private businesses like banks to make a killing on socialized risks. The Feds have now taken it back and will now service loans directly. This can only result in less-bad service. The historical context of a college education was that only the upper class could attend them, and the better schools - by merely attending them - open up the path to social mobility. The lack of social mobility was deemed a really big problem. Attending no-name small colleges are useful if you are learning something directly practical, but generally do not offer much social mobility. You may earn a living, and may make more money than comparable careers open to someone who didn't attend. It however does not get you windows into a higher class. (At the same time, the top 5% ambitious, clever and smart will find ways regardless.) But that's the point. Society isn't about providing for only the best and brightest and most ambitious. Everyone can improve with a little more ambition. This is not in question when people talk about equity. What is not often discussed is the idea that you can't squeeze the upper 40% into the social mobility channels of the top 5%. The sheer volume, even if everyone took it up a notch, does not allow for 'the ones that sneak in the back door'. And it should be clear, that's just the back door. Prior wealth is the greatest determinant of future wealth, hands down. We've built up this awful dynamic where if you can't effectively operate as the 5%, you're a loser. Some may indeed be losers, but most are not. Treating them as such as a means of motivation has limited applications. It ignores the scale and capacity inputs that went into several generations of assumptions about how education 'works'. This very important, semi-monolithic institution of our society have changed very rapidly, and I don't think it appropriate when some lambast people over gender studies degrees. Some people are short-sighted, but most are not. What were seeing is the consequence of the game completely changing, and nowhere near enough conversation at the national level to reflect the magnitude of the changes in assumptions and expectations.
That makes zero sense. This attempt to define 'scientization' is exactly the same as the definition of 'politicizing' science. The scientization of politics would mean limiting political language and maneuvering within the confines of the implied logic of scientific findings.
...sometimes, it -does- take a rocket scientist.
Perhaps they should touch base with these guys - http://techtransfer.universityofcalifornia.edu/NCD/19914.html
So long as people have local content they want to access via their TV/ginormous monitor, there's going to be a market for streaming players. So long as TV manufacturers and content distributors discourage this functionality, there's going to be a market. Show me an open-source TV, open-source standalone programmable monitor or some really stupid draconian law, and I'll revisit this opinion.
I think that you're mistaken. As long as people have libraries of local content they want to stream, so long as those formats evolve over time, and so long as TV/media delivery manufacturers don't much care to allow you to do that, standalone media players will be around. Come up with an open-source TV/ >32" programmable monitor, and then I might change my tune.
Cut President O'bama some slack. If you were Leader of the Free World and (apparently) a HUGE Fallout fan, you're saying you wouldn't hedge America's post-apocalyptic energy bets in style? After all, 'War...war never changes.'
Oops, missed that I wasn't logged in.
50 ICBMs do not come close to pretending to be 1/9th of the US nuclear missile stockpile, much less the US warhead stock.
This device doesn't scream innovation to me. It's not like it hasn't been thought of before. It also sounds like it uses off-the-shelf components, with a bit of minor design thrown in. No, the real value-added here is that a Chinese company (especially with some political backing) carries an implied resistance against the litigious patent culture. They're just less afraid of being sued by Apple, and made a play. That's cool and the gang with me, more or less, but it's not really innovation (reverse or otherwise).
Yeah...they don't want a lampoon. They don't want Colbert to lampoon Beck's past rally. They want Colbert to incisively and viciously make obvious the the layer cake of falsehoods and manipulations used in Beck's rally and message. They want a 4-hour Colbert Report special, live, at the Lincoln Memorial, roasting Beck's lie-repetition methodology using the premise of a rally lampoon. That's not the same thing as lampooning a rally. Lampooning's usually pretty low-brow, good for a few laughs, but then done. If that were the case, if lampooning is all that Colbert really did, he would never have lasted as long as he has.
In Space...Everyone can Hear you Whoooosh.
That depends on what your definition of 'is' is.
Isn't it more likely, whatever are the specifics, that this kind of announcement, coming from the Feds, is an attempt at creating competitive pressure on the current ISPs to expand their network and/or keep prices stable or lower?
I always thought the Antares trilogy would make a great miniseries or tv series. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Antares Alas, Babylon and Farnham's Freehold would be great too. Last but not least... ARMOR. ARMOR. *sniff* Armor. *sob* Damn you, NPH.
A Thundarr/Zelazny's Lord of Light crossover! Thundarr meets his god.
I recently watched the entire series in 2 sittings. Such a good idea. Such bad video camera technology. Loved it.
There's a show called 'Misfits' on UK tv right now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misfits_(TV_series) It's good. Not exactly Misfits of Science, but in the same area.
Works at night. (Ground heat release.) Low maintenance, few moving parts, durable, doesn't require uncommon, imported elements or the same kind of energy inputted into its construction, doesn't make the ground under it useless. Politically this is easier to sell than relying on China for the arrays. Scaling photovolatics to the level needed to get to an all-day average of 200MW requires a lot more ongoing maintenance. This is easier for voters to understand, and looks 'cool' from the highway. :-)
It actually does work at night. The land releases heat at night that it accumulated during the day. The turbine spins on.