Sometimes you find that you’ve got too many ideas. Ever have that problem? I do this week, and I swear I’m going to do something about it. I’ve got blog post ideas going back several years covering things from social media to technology to life topics and so on. It’s time I liberate these post ideas. I’m giving them to you to take and run with, just in case you’ve run out of ideas and need some inspiration. What better way to end the week, right? Alrightly, here we go:
Social Networking & The Impact On Your Personal Brand
Moleskine Notebooks – Going Analog For The Fun of Writing
How To Balance Social Network Participation In The Workplace
101 Uses for Twitter
Why I Believe The “Smartphone” Isn’t So Smart
Your Blog IS Your Social Network
Online Communities – You Get Out Of Them Only What You Put Into Them
The New Social Economy
Social Media Is About Sociology Not Technology
Never Stop Experimenting To Grow Yourself Or Your Brand
If Words Mean Things
Old Media Using Social Media
Building A Better Branded Blog
Decline Of Technology In America?
Social Media And The IT Professional
Anonymity – Pros & Cons
Can You Connect Up To 6 people?
Linux: Ubuntu Or Fedora Or ?
The Most Powerful Social Media Tool: YOU
Decisions: iOS Or Android
Personal Branding And The IT Professional
10 Reasons For A Windows Hack To Love The iPhone
Disengage From The Collective That Is Your Corporate Mindset
“Who Am I?”
How Can I Help People?
Linux Software Installers – Why Do They Suck?
Essential Software For The Blogger
The New Intellectual
Is the Theme/Style Of Your Blog Important To Readers?
Social Realities Of A New Generation
What Do I Do?
What Can I Accomplish?
Powerful Writing…
Do I Realize How Lucky I Am?
Social Media In The Enterprise
Negativity In The Workplace
Don’t Talk, Just Do
Social Media Is An Evolutionary Step
Tear Down This Wall (Cubicles That Is)
What Is A “Social Entrepreneur”?
Enterprise/Corporate Culture Clashes
Good Enough
Social Media Shoehorn
Blogging Is A Commitment, Social Networks Are A Fling
Making It Happen
Why My Blogging “Rock Stars” Are From the Z-List
SharePoint Can Be An Internal Enterprise Social Media Tool
Labeling Things And Why It’s Ok
Why Paper Publications Will Never Go Away
A Culture Without Culture
To Meme Or Not
Step Away From The Ledge – It’s Going To Be Ok
Help People
Want To Be A High-Buck Consultant?
Positive Growth Through Negative Feedback
Virtualization: For Technology Only?
Build Your Own Brand Armies
Networking For Fun And Profit
Fostering New Communication In The Enterprise
What Social Media Has Taught A Techie Geek
Afraid To Succeed?
Stodgy Or Stale Brand? 10 Sure-Fire Ways To Freshen It Up
Social Media Does Not Equal Marketing Or PR
Fearing Free (Free Rage Fears?)
The Problem With Technically Excellent Solutions
Be Your Own Editor
Thinkers – The Ones To Watch
Getting Back To Where We Came From
Go Where Your Forefathers Couldn’t
Unsung Heros: Headhunters
The Line In The Sand & When You Step Over It
Landing Pages – Why Bother?
Put It On paper
Gen Y & Why They’re different
Engage HR For Change
Friend Counts Do Mean Something
Anatomy Of Twitter
Lack Of New Examples
The More You Share
The Android Dilemma
Is Your Day Job Your Only Gig?
When Self Promotion Goes Too Far
The Joys Of Building Community
Is Social Media Respected In Corporate Environments?
Lets Not Screw Around
Why The Old Tools Don’t Work
Why The Old Tools STILL Work
Corporate Obsolesce
The changing Face Of Social Media
What’s The Big Deal About 4G?
What’s Next For Social Media
The Dark Side Of Social Media, And Why It Sucks
You Will Live Online
Why Tablet-Haters Loose In The End
10 Billion Apps
Do What Comes Naturally
The Decline Of Social Media
Social Media Posers
Ongoing Standards Wars
Shortsightedness Of Newspaper Publishers
Well, there’s a handful of the post ideas I’ve got in my notes. That was just from one page of a OneNote notebook of post ideas! Sometimes, you just run out of time or simply never get back to the ideas you had when you thought of the topic. Whatever the case, I figure somebody might make use of one or two, or ten of these. Better to set them free than keep ’em in a dusty digital notebook right?
Some call it the latest ‘fad’, others point to a long history of people bringing their own technology solutions to the workplace, it’s currently referred to as BYOD.
It’s all the rage right? After all, the ability to set your own course, control your own computing destiny, and pick the phone of your choice is our right as modern humans. Besides, IT departments are too overbearing and controlling – they don’t understand our need to get our work done in a timely fashion.
At least, that’s what it may seem like to those hip ‘movers & shakers’ types, and may be those Millennials too. Ok, maybe I’m stereotyping with the Millennials… but experience tells me otherwise.
Costs Of Technology
Therein lies the point of the BYOD movement, too many people think it’s a great cost-saving idea. The problem with that is the costs are simply shifted from client-side hardware procurement, to the data center. Actually, it’s likely to increase IT costs rather than cut them.
Like most great ideas, BYOD cuts both ways. It’s a triumph of corporate workers to have choice! Bringing flexibility to the main tool most productivity workers use every day.
Why can’t we pick a Mac over a PC? Why wouldn’t IT let me provide my own – I’m willing to pay for the privilege! Many more would start talking about the flexibility of different solutions, like tablets and even their phones. After all, are not all these devices computers of one type or another? I know a great number of people who argue the PC hasn’t been more personal than the devices we carry in our pockets every day!
Back to the costs question though. It’s not a simple answer once you start thinking about it. Yes, the company isn’t buying a computer, the support contract for it, the license for the operating system, the software licenses for your apps… um, if they don’t who does?
You see, there is the beginning of the complexity of simply bringing your computer to work and trying to use it in place of a company provided one. It’s not to say it can’t or shouldn’t be done, but there’s more to it than we might think. Sure, the hardware, support and client OS licensing might be eliminated. However companies need to protect their data, which means server storage for everything, which means increased storage costs, which bring increased electrical costs for the data center, and environmental systems which add more cost.
What About Software
What about software? That too needs to be maintained in a reliable, secure, and usable form. Sure, we can move lots of apps to the cloud, but lets face it – hard core spreadsheet users over in Accounting or those documentation wizards writing all sorts of material need real tools, not a web-based version of Notepad! So IT needs to host those applications and stream them to your personal device. This adds flexibility for us as individuals, but it also means the savings on the laptop you would have gotten now goes towards server capacity to host that application. Oh, and we need to think of floor space, and the power/environmental systems again… and more costs.
As an IT Architect, I have this kind of conversation with my peers quite often, and we continue to uncover more pros and cons. Somehow they mostly seem to balance each other out. But the real impact of BYOD, in my opinion, is the third dramatic shift in computing in my IT career. This one bringing a renaissance of choice to IT’s End Users, and expanding the idea of what the IT industry is capable of providing.
Behind The Firewall is an ongoing series where I talk about topics of interest inside corporate cultures. The experiences, ideas, movements, challenges, successes and more that we all experience in corporate environments. From an techy-geek’s point of view – behind the corporate firewall.
Photo credit: Toshiba Libretto 50CT by Jon Callow. A kind thank you to Jon for a great picture of one of the best early, highly-mobile laptops.
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, enjoyable technology solutions for our businesses that all we focus on is the difficulty in doing so?
I think we’re missing an opportunity to re-connect with our co-workers, our customers within the business. They should not be minimized in the we that they are by IT. They’re our co-workers and cube neighbors. They deserve our respect. They’re out selling, or balancing the company budget, or dreaming up a new product to sell. They’re not trying to be challenging, they’re simply using the tools we provide to get their job done.
New Perspectives
The issue I see is that most IT staff are too busy trying to solve problems rather than provide solutions. What it really boils down to is a change in attitude, and revising perspectives. We’re missing the point if all we’re trying to do is reduce call volume.
Just like the larger goal of the businesses we work for – our focus in IT needs to be on satisfying our customers. In order for the business to grow and prosper, it needs to focus on the customer. So too does IT.
New Priorities
No longer is IT about providing a standard computing platform. Or stressing everyone out about security. Of course these are important things, but they are but one aspect of the technology landscape within an organization.
The consumerization of IT is greater than supporting the iPhone or Android devices. It’s an opportunity for IT to join the revolution in our industry. Corporate standards are great, but as more people make the move to provide their own computing platform, we need to rise to the challenge of providing great user experiences and outstanding support.
Raise the Bar
What we need to do as IT professionals, is to look outside our environment for inspiration. Look at how other companies are solving the challenges facing them. Accept the fact that people expect more of IT than we provided just a year ago… heck, more than we’re providing today.
While I’m not an Apple fan, I do admire the user experience all their customers enjoy. Sure, the phrase “it just works” is over-used, the reality is that it’s true. This is the new standard that our business customers expect. This is the new standard we need to meet. This is the new opportunity we have as an industry.
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Yup, taxes are criminal and we need serious reforms. I've always said that if you want to see a tax revolt, make withholdings illegal and have Americans write a tax check every payday. They'll revolt for sure. You don't miss what you never had.
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