Category: Observations Page 88 of 89

Helpless Desk

On February 10, 2011

When was the last time you called the help desk and got someone who was just as clueless as you were?

That’s most likely because they can’t. They are a contractor brought on for a short-term project like a large rollout or a merger. They may be an outsourced technician sitting in another state or another country. It may even be a local person who is technically savvy. However, they can’t help you for a number of reasons.

This is the reality of the IT Support industry. Technicians are a dime a dozen and passed around like pawns in a game of tech chess. In this day and age, it is considered cheaper and easier for a company to hire a bunch of contractors to help support their employees or their customers. ((This should give you an idea of how the company views your employment or patronage.))

The skills required for these positions are pretty basic. Can you ping a PC? How do you look up and IP address? These things are poor indicators of how a person speaks to customers, their problem solving skills or how the prospect prioritizes issues. Help Desks in particular have their challenges. Your knowledge is expected to be a mile wide and an inch deep. A good technician knows how to Google the answer or consult documentation, if it exists.

Technicians who are hired to support you, the customer, often have no idea how to use the applications they are supporting. In some cases, the technician doesn’t even have access to the application you’re using.

I am in such a situation. I was plucked from the ranks of unemployment to help support a software rollout to a company who got bought out prior to the financial free-for-all.

My contract was to support a software application being pushed out to the company being merged into the behemoth. This is internal, proprietary software I have known about for a little over a month. Despite being trained on this software I still have nowhere near the ability or knowledge to properly support this application.

My knowledge within the Windows and Office realm is wide and deep. This knowledge of hardware and software allows me to diagnose with a high degree of certainty the problem and in most cases to determine a solution.

I can troubleshoot with the best of them. Even in most cases when I am not familiar with the software I am supporting, I can use my existing knowledge and resources to support it to the satisfaction of my customers. In this situation, the software is so complex and has so many components there is no amount of reasonable deduction which will allow me to resolve issues with any degree of certainty.

I was hired with 17 others who share a variety of technical backgrounds and competencies. So when calling our help desk, as in many places, there is a good chance you’re reaching someone who knows less than you do about the software in question. And where does that leave the caller?

This is not the exception, but the rule for the industry. It is the framework which most businesses are built on and IT Support is a security blanket.

Think about all the places where computers are found in business today. Do you have a website? Do you keep records electronically? Is your cash register a computer? Technology is everywhere. With this technology proliferation, comes an army of technicians supporting the software and hardware you depend on to keep your business running.

IT Support is necessary in today’s age. However, with this necessity has not come an investment in quality. Every IT job I’ve ever held has been a contract. Every time I am hired the “temp to perm” carrot is dangled in front of me. But it never happens, and I doubt it ever will. Why invest money and time in your support technician when you can go out and find another one just as easily?

Why not make the investment in your tech workers? We’re cheaper as contractors. We can be easily replaced. We have all the loyalty you’d expect from a contractor. ((Loyal until something better comes along.)) There is no long-term investment made in the development or retention of your technicians so there is no investment of time and attention made by the technician to your company. You see us as pawns, we see you as kings. Kings who sign our pay check but the moment a rival kingdom comes calling we’ll leave for more money or a shorter commute.

Full time jobs are secure. Employees have good benefits for themselves and their families. The job won’t disappear at the drop of a hat. None of these are the case for contractors. These are the realities of being an IT contractor. You may do an excellent job and still get laid off. I was laid off in October 2008 in a round of budget cuts. I was the last person hired so I was the first person let go.

I have been on both sides of this equation. Right out of college I worked for a government agency for a year. The contract and money ran out after the year so I was let go. The same situation exists where I worked previously. I was hired on a 6 month contract and when it ends, it ends. And afterwards, I would be unemployed again regardless of the quality of my work. I have also been on the flip side.

When I began work for a Honeywell manufacturing plant, it was for no other reason then Honeywell’s support contract was bought out by another corporation. As a result, the people who were on site, supporting Honeywell’s employees and applications everyday were suddenly without a job through no fault of their own.. Instead of keeping the current techs, they were kicked to the curb and replaced by myself and one other person who had no working knowledge of the site and its particular setup and challenges.

Instead of keeping the people who had been doing the job for many months, if not years before us, they were fired and I was hired. All the accumulated knowledge and familiarity was lost. The same thing happened nine months later when I caught wind of dissatisfaction between Honeywell and my company who had hired me I looked for a speedy exit before I was shown the door.

The high rate of turnover because companies won’t invest in their techs is one of the biggest problems in the industry. You can get someone else to support your customers or employees for less money. However, in doing so the quality of that support diminishes. There is nothing more frustrating when someone calls for help and the person they called to help cannot help.

The Start of Something Good

By Carl

On February 9, 2011

In Observations

Art Versus Industry. They made me excited about music again.

After being turned on to them by an online friend, and all around good person, Alex Morse who incidentally does their video and photo work, I’m hooked. They make me remember a time of Stabbing Westward and Nine Inch Nails, from The Fragile era. The darkness and melodic noise make me smile. They put me into that happy place where the warm synth washes around me and makes me happy all over. There’s something about the “darker” music that makes me happier than any bubble gum pop song.

I love the melodies and harmonies woven into the drum beats, guitar riffs and droning oceans of noise. It’s like Nine Inch Nails’ A Warm Place which is one of my favorite songs of all time. The safety and happiness in those notes are the security blanket for the 21st Century. The warm hum of sound and emotion cradles me and tell me everything will be all right. And most of all, it makes me feel just a little less alone and alien.

I remember listening to Nine Inch Nails growing up and really feeling like someone understood me and the pain I was feeling. I was going through the divorce of my parents. I was an artist in a world of farmers and hunters. I was a huge guy towering well over six feet tall which makes me stand out no matter where I went. I was a huge dude who had his own ideas about art and style and comfort and expression. I was a freak and I let that flag fly freely.

But I also hurt. I had a lot of nights of depression and anger and sadness and loneliness. I’d talk for hours to friends online or the phone. We’d talk about a lot of things. Sometimes it was my metaphorically talking them off a ledge sometimes the other way around. It was always two worlds growing up. The world of insiders, the Berryville natives. The families who had seemingly been there since the founding by Benjamin Berry centuries ago. Then there were us outsiders. Anyone who had moved to the area for one reason or another. To escape the poor school systems, violence, and congestion of Washington DC in the case of my parents.

I never felt like I fit in. I’ve always felt very alien wherever I was. I never felt like I saw the world like other people did. I never felt like what worked for others worked for me. How did they get through life so effortlessly? How did things seem to be so easy for them and work out so well? How did they show that cool exterior? Weren’t they a bubbling inferno just beneath the skin? I sure was.

I don’t know how “normal” people got through life. Did they have the same crippling, self-doubt and question their own intelligence and abilities? Was that a trait of an artist?

I’ve always been very empathetic. I feel what other people feel. I read people. I get inside their heads to the pain there. Growing up I had a lot of friends that shared a lot of the pain I did and in some cases had things must worse. I wanted to be there for them. I wanted to help them the best I could. I often wonder how things turned out for them…

I was always the guy my friends would turn to for help. I was a little older, a little wiser and had my head on pretty straight. I was also much to good to do anything truly wrong. Sure I bent a few rules growing up and I paid for it. But I’ve never done anything illegal or been arrested. I didn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, or attend the wild parties I knew went on in and around school on farms on the weekends. That just wasn’t me.

I was, and still am a devout introvert.

I keep to myself. I prefer the company of computers to people. I prefer the quiet, pre-dawn hours where the world sleeps to be awake and productive.

“It’s not Introversion. Just really good spam filtering.”

A Simple Afternoon Haircut

By Carl

On February 8, 2011

In Observations

Originally written this summer, in the days leading up to my marriage to a wonderful woman.

So today I got my haircut. A long overdue errand which rendered me looking more like my driver’s license (taken during a particularly lazy and long-hair growing effort in college) and less like the sleek, sexy, fiancé, to be married in less than a month man who I am.

And I had a thought as I was attempting to communicate to Donna, a nice but nearly impossible to understand Asian woman who was cutting my hair how much the hair cutting experience has changed since I was growing up. I grew up in a small town where there were two barbers. I went to one, Potter’s Barber Shop, religiously. The fellow who owned and ran the place was named Mark Brennan (I believe, his last name wasn’t Potter as everyone in town assumed who did not know him).

I went to his shop from an early age. I was taken there by my parents at first then starting going on my own not only because it was familiar to me. But I loved the atmosphere. Mark was a jovial man and loved to talk sports. I’d listen to the old timer’s talk about the Redskins and the Orioles (this was long after the Washington Senators and long before the Washington Nationals). As I grew I’d interject and we’d shoot the breeze about sports. Local, college, professional. It didn’t matter.

It was great fun and great banter. Later in life when I was middle school I did a little bit of work for Mark. You see, he also started running a sports card business out of the shop. And I helped kids with cards from the case, and rang up customers for cards as he cut hair. He paid me in cards since I was completely hooked on them at that point and clearly didn’t have a good understanding of money.

But I was happy and he was happy to have me since he could focus on hair while I sold cards and when we needed his advice, he would pause, provide it, and keep on cutting. I loved my first job there. I was always excited to come home with my new packs of cards and see what gems were hidden inside.

That was part of the fun of card collecting as a boy. You never knew who you were going to get in a pack of cards. What rookie card would one day become valuable. What special edition card you’d get a hold of. Who you could find, then trade to a friend for a card you wanted. I was a big Karl Malone fan. Partially because we shared a name but mostly because I just loved the way he played. He was a big man who had a soft touch. He could pound the boards just as easily as he could hit the 20′ jumper. I loved to watch him play with John Stockton, The two of them were magic on the court.

This all hit me today as I was sitting in the chair, surrounded by women in curlers, a cacophony of voices young and old, and the din of a hair salon. And I thought back to that simpler time and simpler place. Three chairs. One case of cards off to the side. A couple different boxes of cards lining the back wall, a tiny bathroom, small coat rack and about a half-dozen chairs and benches along with a generous selection of magazines to read or thumb through.

I miss those hair cuts with Mark. Shooting the breeze about the upcoming football season. Looking at the row of autographed pictures he had from the various Redskins and other professional athletes he had met. I feel like that was a simpler time in a simpler place not too far away from where I am now. A mere 60 miles to the west. Over a mountain and into a sleepy little country town.

Getting Started with Social Networking for your Business, Part II

By Carl

On February 7, 2011

In Observations

Author’s Note: This article is part of a Tech Topics column I write for a small print publication focused on helping small business owners become more comfortable with technical topics.

In this second part of our article on social networking, I answer several questions about how to establish your prescence on Facebook and Twitter.

I understand that you need a personal Facebook account before you can set up a business account. The business account is in some way linked to the personal. Is that correct?

If you have a personal Facebook account, you can use that account to create your business page. If you set up the business account from your personal account, you will be able to interact with friends and family through the personal account and still have the ability to maintain your business page. There is a procedure for creating an account for business use only, but you will not have the usual level of interaction with others that a Facebook account provides. It is probably best to create a personal account, and then set up your business account from there.

Keep in mind that your personal page and the business page are separate from each other. If you decide, after creating a business Facebook account, that you’d like to interact with people on Facebook, there is a “Create your profile” link on the top of the business account. After clicking, Facebook will ask you for additional information beyond the email address and birth date required for the business account creation. Facebook does not allow one person to maintain multiple accounts.

To create a business account, go to this page, which will walk you through the process. Facebook has created a Frequently Asked Questions page, to assist with initial setup and getting started questions. Scroll to the bottom of the page for Business Account specific information.

Someone mentioned that if a business has 25 or more friends/followers (or whatever the terminology is) they can get a shortened Facebook address (username) with the business name. Any ideas on this?

When a business account is first setup the URL will be http://facebook.com/pages/YourBusinessName. Once your page has 25 fans you can claim a username for your page. The username becomes your new URL. In Facebook terms, a fan is a person who goes to your page and clicks the “like” button. For instance, if you to go http://facebook.com/coke you will be redirected to Coca-Cola’s page. On the very top of the page it says Coca-Cola with a Like button. Click that button to become a fan of Coke. The same applies to your business page. Once 25 people have become fans, head over to http://facebook.com/username and select a name for your page. If you get an error saying you’re ineligible, it most likely means you do not have 25 fans yet. Be advised, it is possible to change your username but you can only do so once so choose wisely.

Once I have a page setup, how can I get people to visit my page? Mashable (a site offering news and information about social and digital media) offers a good, basic guide to getting people to visit your page here.

I’ve read that Twitter has put out a helpful guide for business users. Where can I find this guide?

Facebook is pretty straight forward for anyone who remembers their old high school or college face books. Twitter, on the other hand, can be a confusing and scary world of short messages and weird symbols. Thankfully, Twitter has put together a comprehensive guide for businesses that want to use Twitter. It is located at http://business.twitter.com/twitter101. This guide will walk you through everything from getting started and learning the lingo to best practices and case studies. This will help you determine if Twitter is right for you. While in most cases, Facebook is right for just about anyone, Twitter is a little trickier. This guide will help you decide if Twitter can help your business, and will help you decode the jargon on Twitter.

Getting Started with Social Networking for your Business, Part I

By Carl

On February 6, 2011

In Observations

Author’s Note: This article is part of a Tech Topics column I write for a small print publication focused on helping small business owners become more comfortable with technical topics.

You can’t walk down the street or visit a web page without seeing Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace or some other site calling for your attention. Like it or not, social networking is here to stay. The World Wide Web is evolving; it started out similar to traditional media with a broadcast style. Someone would post information on a website; others would read it with limited interaction.

Now, the web is evolving into a far greater social experience. The social web is a two-way street. When you talk to your customers, they can talk back, for better or for worse. The old broadcast style is losing out to conversations. This can be great for your business. Instead of talking at your customers and hoping they hear you, you can now talk to them and the feedback you’ll get will tell you whether your message is working.

Social Networking is not hard. In most cases, it requires an email address and five minutes of your day. The real difficulty is how you use your social networking presence. Just as everyone can put up a web page, everyone can set up a Facebook account or Twitter feed. Driving your customers to them is the challenge.

How do you get people there? You engage them. Remember, the web is a conversation. Have a friendly tone. Remember you’re talking to people, not at them. Run offers and specials for those who see your page. Give people a reason to keep coming back. You have an opportunity to capture their attention like never before. In the case of Twitter and Facebook, if a customer chooses to “Like” or “Follow” your page, every time you post they will see it in their stream of other updates.

The effectiveness of your social media marketing depends entirely on how well it’s planned. Creating a Facebook page or a Twitter account doesn’t guarantee results. You have to put a public face on your company. Make yourself likable. Provide value to your customers. For instance, if you’ve recently had a large job canceled with an odd color or size of paper, let your customers know. “50% off all prints on lime green paper. Supply limited, get it until it’s gone!” Demoing a new machine? Tell them about it! “See our new XYZ 1000 demo, save 20% on color prints using the new machine. One week only!”

Just as you would in traditional advertising, you should give people a call to action. Get them into the store and keep your current customers up to date with new savings or machinery announcements. Where you’d never run a print or radio ad about having 5,000 sheets of lime green stock from a canceled job, you can post to Facebook about it for free, and a bargain-hunting customer could take it off your hands quickly. Social networking gives you the freedom to reach out to your customers in ways they may not have previously expected, and the connections you build with it can benefit you both.