Web2.0 is a long way from people at work

I had an important lesson yesterday. I went to do some one-to-one f2f coaching. It was with some women I'm working with on a project.

First I couldn't get Firefox to work. And second I couldn't download the new Google groups. These things can only be done by someone from the IT department I was told. So we phoned the IT department who agreed to send someone in two days to do it.  He spoke of difficulties and permissions and copyright - but agreed to do it as a special case for these people as they were involved in this particular project.

I had had a similar conversation with him about installing Skype a few days earlier (not in the office, but on a computer we were going to use in a hotel at a meeting) but had let the conversation ride ...

So it was only yesterday that it really started to sink in about just how difficult it can be to use new tools, if you work in an office. Especially a government office. It's not just that you can't download new tools or applications, it's also that the people you've always relied on for technology are telling you how complicated it all is. How could you know anything about Web2.0 in that context?

From thinking that these people were being slow, I flipped to realising how determined they must have been to use some of the tools I have invited them to use in the past.

Comments

[lucy BLOGZIRA]

i think we who work at home live in a dreamland sometimes... workplaces are at the command of the it dept and bill gates' ridiculously overbearing licensing rules.
YOU can keep kicking IT butts though, bev.
;)

[Nancy White]

Wow, this is an excellent technology stewardship reflection. (tagging it now!) I find the same problem in international NGOs with the 'permission to download and install" stuff problem. That's why fully web based apps are nice. What do you have to download for Google groups?

In one org that does not allow Skype, the traditional trick is to download it, use it till you think you are going to be caught, uninstall it and then wait a while and do it all over again. The phone cost savings are extraordinary, but the IT department is not happy about how Skype uses end users bandwidth in the operation. So their concerns have root in some legitimacy.

The question is, how to move the whole paradigm. It is about moving to more openness, which is such a difficult thing for many organizations. This is a CHANGE issue masquerading as a tech issue.