IT Managers: you might wanna block this article from your staff

[Zak33]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17930995

I've read some rubbish recently on the BBC's site but this one takes the biscuit... really.

[Zak33]

and I quote

Poke around online for ways to hack the one piece of hardware that pains you the most. Jailbreak your phone so you can put better software on it. Flash the firmware on your wi-fi router so you can ensure your team gets good bandwidth

oh genius...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

One Picard facepalm is not enough for this article!!

[g8ina]

Hmmmmm, I like the bit about asking your 10 yr old nephew about your latest ad campaign

[aidanjt]

I'm failing to see what's 'bad' about it? It's contesting top heavy bureaucratic structures which create massive inefficiencies in business.

[Moby-Dick]

oh dear - while there are some ideas which make sense , some of them are just plain stupid.

End users are much more empowered than they ever have been , but that empowerment needs to be done in a relativly controlled way , especially when it comes to data loss.

Take Dropbox as an example - its a great application & I use it myself very regularly , but I wouldn't put anything on there that I wouldn't put in public. Data protection laws exist for a very good reason and its also why a lot of time and money is going into building services like drop box but with a little more enterprise control over them.

All process , including IT require continuous improvement , but sometimes that improvement comes at a cost. If an enterprise views technology as a cost rather than an asset then that investment will be hard to come by.That change should be driven by business demand but not necessarily by subversion.

[AlexGTR]

and I quote



oh genius...

I lol'd when i read that part.

[TheAnimus]

I'm failing to see what's 'bad' about it? It's contesting top heavy bureaucratic structures which create massive inefficiencies in business.

I dare say its been written by someone who has never worked in a large organisation. The suggestion that Excel is slowing down the work process and that google docs be used instead. This alone could land you in a world of legal trouble. The risk reward should be considered.

Then to suggest that you do something your 10/15year old would give a hoot about, is again probably wrong.

Often the obsticals in the way are for good reason, thou it might not be appreciated. Often those that aren't are simply too complex to get past. A nameless client paid my company the better part of £10k when we were able to do no work for them, the hardware hadn't arrived when it was meant to, now this hardware wasn't special, but it was all we had security permission to use. What should we have done? Gone to PC World and just bought something as an interim? The cost of getting that tested and authorised would have exceeded the cost of the £10k.....

I guess what I'm saying is some little pecker who thinks its as simple as telling people to jailbreak their phone to get productivity increase (wtf!) has no clue how to be useful, and if anything should be employed by the BBC or a Paper or something equally useless and keep the gob****e out of technology

[Zak33]

I dare say its been written by someone who has never worked in a large organisation. The suggestion that Excel is slowing down the work process and that google docs be used instead. This alone could land you in a world of legal trouble.

precisely... exactly... I face palmed... big time

[BobF64]

I dare say its been written by someone who has never worked in a large organisation.

I'd be inclined to think it was someone who used to work in a lax organisation and was then eliminated from the payroll for trying some of these things rather than going through proper channels.

[aidanjt]

I dare say its been written by someone who has never worked in a large organisation. The suggestion that Excel is slowing down the work process and that google docs be used instead. This alone could land you in a world of legal trouble. The risk reward should be considered.

Then to suggest that you do something your 10/15year old would give a hoot about, is again probably wrong.

Often the obsticals in the way are for good reason, thou it might not be appreciated. Often those that aren't are simply too complex to get past. A nameless client paid my company the better part of £10k when we were able to do no work for them, the hardware hadn't arrived when it was meant to, now this hardware wasn't special, but it was all we had security permission to use. What should we have done? Gone to PC World and just bought something as an interim? The cost of getting that tested and authorised would have exceeded the cost of the £10k.....

I guess what I'm saying is some little pecker who thinks its as simple as telling people to jailbreak their phone to get productivity increase (wtf!) has no clue how to be useful, and if anything should be employed by the BBC or a Paper or something equally useless and keep the gob****e out of technology

You're missing the point of the article. It isn't suggesting that these specific things are *the* way to better productivity. It's suggesting that challenging conventional wisdom, thinking outside the box and experimenting with new methods may yield better efficiency. Yes, bureaucratic mechanisms exist because they may protect certain individuals or organisations manage risk, but that's nothing at all to do with efficiency, it's the exact opposite.

[Saracen]

Some of the poinjts made are entirely logical and reasonable,. For example ....

Write a list of the most obviously bad policies in your company and identify what easy, free, or cheap solutions exist that might address them. Put a monetary value on how much the company would save if you used one or more of those solutions. Pitch it to your boss.

But the last five words are critical. There may well be good reasons for not doing as you suggest, and your boss may know them, but is under no obligation to explain them to you.

I had a row with a guy I worked with many years ago. He wanted to speed up delivery of new systems to a client and told them everything was "ready". Well, it was .... if you consider a beta OS "ready" for a client.

He failed to consider that somebody from our firm would have to visit every branch of the client, and upgrade every machine manually, when the final OS arrived. That took about 20-25 minutes per machines, for between about 6 and 12 machines, per branch, for 100 branches.

And not only would it require someone from our firm (more than likely, me), but someone from the client's IT department too, as this was a secure environment. I reckon it would have kept me tied up for about 3 months.

And the client? Well, a building society, and the "machines" were the counter terminals running all the branch's customer transactions ..... on a beta OS? I don't think so.

While it's true that many companies are bureaucratic and a bit hide-bound, sometimes there's a damn good reason for that. Anyone "hacking" company systems to improve "efficiency" is absolutely begging to get fired if caught, regardless of whether it resulted in greater efficiency or not. It comes down the the above quote. If you've a good idea, pitch it to your boss. Don't just ignore rules, the reasons for which you may not know. Personally, I'd fire anyone that did that, and not hire anyone I knew had been fired for doing it.

[Saracen]

You're missing the point of the article. It isn't suggesting that these specific things are *the* way to better productivity. It's suggesting that challenging conventional wisdom, thinking outside the box and experimenting with new methods may yield better efficiency. Yes, bureaucratic mechanisms exist because they may protect certain individuals or organisations manage risk, but that's nothing at all to do with efficiency, it's the exact opposite.

Agreed, but efficiency is not the only objective. Sometimes, security (in all it's forms) is more important.

[Mblaster]

use Google Docs instead of Excel, Drop Box instead of Sharepoint

Great way to get yourself fired, if you're working at a company that cares about security anyway.

Most big companies have strict guidelines on what you can do, and lists of 'approved software' that is often very hard to get your software of choice on to, even if it is free and open source. Also, they're usually very clear about not moving any data offsite.

[aidanjt]

Agreed, but efficiency is not the only objective. Sometimes, security (in all it's forms) is more important.

Agreed, and being more careful with sensitive information is obviously a must.

[Saracen]

Agreed, and being more careful with sensitive information is obviously a must.

Exactly.

Which is why I think it's moronic of that article to advocate just hacking round rules in the search for efficiency. And why it's likely someone doing it will (and should) get fired.