An End to the IT ‘End User’
This has bothered me for quite a while, and I thought it about time to mention it. Hang on though, this may be a bit of a rant, but it bears bringing up. Why do corporate IT departments continue to call their customers “end users”? Of course, it’s part of the language of IT, part of the culture as well. You know the jokes, “if only we could get rid of the users, our support costs would go down”. Good for a laugh on a stressful day, but what’s really being said there? Are we that far off the path of providing quality, usable,...
Read MorePondering A Motorola Nexus Droid
I’ve been on the fence for some time regarding whether Google should use Motorola to produce a pure Google Android phone. There are lots of reasons why this would impact the Android marketplace in many predictable ways, but could also bring a number of unknown effects. However, I’ve been thinking lately of all the so-called fragmentation, and of all the varying user interfaces (skins) that every OEM ships with their phones. Some are great, most aren’t. They all add unnecessary overhead to the Android experience, no matter how good they may seem on the surface. Maybe...
Read MoreTechnology Redux
So I find myself a year into another technology consulting gig for “the big client”. It’s an interesting thing after spending a couple of years working both the corporate IT world and growing a community for social media professionals. While I’ve grown a little tired of social media for its ability to enable too much interaction, I do find I miss the action. Sometimes. As you may have noticed, I’ve backed away from the social media space in the past six months or so. It’s a conscious decision on my part to get back to basics, and focus on life directions. Sometimes...
Read MoreGetting Back to Where We Came From
It wasn’t so long ago, not quite a decade yet, when I first discovered what a blog was. The idea of sharing ideas and publishing them to the world was new to me. That was what journalists did, and story tellers. Not some computer guy from Minnesota. Yet I was wrong. I read blogs from all sorts of folks, from all walks of life. The blogs with topics furthest from my own experiences were the most interesting, of course. Through the months and years, the people I knew grew from a couple dozen to hundreds, then a few years later, thousands. The impact personally, was tremendous, allowing me...
Read MoreRandom Tidbits – Catching Up
So it seems that I’m constantly talking about blogging rather than actually doing it. A lot has been done since my last post where I talked briefly about changing hosting providers and getting that work done. Along with this site, I had three others to move over. That’s been done for a while, and I’m pretty pleased with the service so far. The challenging thing is making time to get back to writing, sharing thoughts and ideas through this blog. That, of course, is where I’ve let work and life pull me in multiple directions. As usual, one of the first things...
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About Me
Rick Mahn is the Founder of SMBMSP, and Principal of Rick Mahn & Associates. With two decades in Information Technologies and Social Media Architect, Rick connects people & organizations by helping them embrace open interaction and renewed commitment to each other.Learn more about Rick.
