Surveys tell us that business and IT folks talk past one another all the time, with the resultant blown budgets, failed projects, late projects, ill-fitting solutions, and other bad outcomes.

A neighbor of mine is a graphics artist/layout specialist for 3 newspapers and various magazines, both online and print.  He works in a consolidated graphics company that these publications utilize.

It’s a 24×7 operation.  It’s a sophisticated company, with the latest equipment and computers.  The people working there are no slouches, in terms of their abilities to get pubs ready for press.  But there is one slight remiss.

They didn’t have an IT Department at their disposal.  Oh, they had IT support:  An IT Director.  One… IT Director.  One who was on call 24×7.  Yeah.

The business skimped on IT support in terms of personnel, and thus other ramifications came to bear.  Many readers can probably guess what ultimately came to be.

But first:  The Director made reasonable requests for help over the course of time.  A case was made for an assistant, who would have been a one-person HelpDesk, essentially – but also backup to the Director and vice-versa:  coverage for cases of illness, travel, meetings, periods of high volumes of work, etc.  But the request was denied.  Affordability was an issue.  “Later” was a nice deferment:  “We recognize you’re stretched and we’re going to take this up with ________  [the CEO / the Board / the Steering Committee / the Magic 8-Ball] soon.

The IT Director was too busy providing day-to-day support, and handling various exigencies, and many, many standard and best practices either went out the window, or were never really mounted in the first place.  One of the critical issues became lack of documentation.

What you likely saw coming was total burn-out for this person.  Aside from the midnight, 3 a.m., and other random phone calls, the “typical” day was one of straddling dozens of bases and trying to provide adequate coverage:  Vendors, budget, upgrades, new installations, migrations, desktop support, backoffice support, reports, justifications…

He left. 

And now my neighbor has difficulty doing his job.  A support vendor is onsite, but is struggling with systems and procedures absent documentation and real understanding.  While the vendor figures things out, support is virtually non-existent still.

Perhaps the IT Director didn’t make the case for help strongly enough; perhaps he didn’t articulate things in match to the risks that were accruing.  For their part, the business side of things didn’t take seriously the need to, at the very least, have a backup person in a large facility (there are over 100 personnel at this company) that requires steady, daily, support – to say nothing of the requirement for an IT leader who is able to break free for proper strategic planning, and for meeting with business associates for assessment of requirements and expectations.

In addition to specific meetings between business and IT, for specific projects and issues, they should plan on a quarterly meeting for assessing just where things are, and where business intends (and needs) to go.  That agenda is easily crafted by both over the course of the quarter.

I call this meeting, and its participants, the BIT team (the Business-Implementation Team).  Its structure and culture helps to influence everything the business does in an IT sense between quarterly meetings too.

It’s kind of a handy thing… and business and IT do a lot less talking past one another.

On this day (Oct. 29^th):  In 1682, William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, landed at what is now Chester, PA.

Back in the days of my misspent youth, as CIO in a Fortune100 environment, one of my more favored positions was leading IT for a “perception management” company.

Perception Management was this firm’s rebranding and widening of the established Public Relations schema.  I rather enjoyed it and found it quite interesting.

Perception Management is extraordinarily important in this age of social networking:  Both in terms of personal SN and business:  Many businesses, particularly small and medium business (SMB) are utilizing SN because it is efficient, inexpensive, and readily available – easy access; easy setup.

We discussed a particular case of personal peril a couple posts ago, and – if you scroll through the history of this blog – a fair number of other SN perils and outcomes… essentially involving people saying embarrassing things about themselves or others, and being outed for it.

But now there are perils involving livelihoods and professional standing.                         

Courts personnel, lawyers, and other associates are now perusing jury pools’ members for biases or relationships that may taint and jeopardize the outcome of trials.  In some cases, attorneys have found actual relationships between seated jurors and defendants on trial!  This is solid grounds for dismissal and retrial – and that has happened.

Further, reviews of SN pages by folks with legal standing have uncovered information about illegal activities – sometimes resulting in arrest and prison. 

But of perhaps a more mundane concern to the professional readership here:  Hiring authorities are now perusing SN sites, simply taking names from resumes and Googling, Facebooking, and YouTubing around, and seeing what comes up.  And often, what comes up is… well, interesting.

You can certainly glean an assessment for someone’s maturity, their gravitas, and likely their overall suitability for any specific job from their SN postings, their friendships, their hobbies, and whatever else occupies their time and fancy.  And do you know what?  There ain’t a thing you can do about it.  Should you be screened from a job for something a potential employer saw online – you’d never know.

You could even be competing for a promotion at a present place of employment; it will become increasingly likely that HR and the manager up the line will review your online standing and presence along with internal performance reviews and documentation.

For the aforementioned SMB:  If you are using the ready-network of SN – with its undeniable enablement of business – ensure your folks are not blending “friending” with “businessing.”   That is, bleeding the jocularity and questionable taste of interactions between friends, and bringing that informality to the realm of business.  It’s easy enough to do when switching back and forth.

Perception Management:  Manage how you want to be perceived.  More importantly, be the person you want to be understood as being. 

Make certain your business adheres to proper protocols and styles of communication too.  Survey what is being done in the name of your domain.

Have that accurately reflected in all that you do online – in controlling perceptions.

March 31^st:  On this day in 1963, Los Angeles ended streetcar service after 90 years.

Communication has suffered in the electronic age.  How can this be so?  After all, we’ve expanded our options for, and the immediacy of, access and communication.  Through e-mail; instant messaging; voice-over-IP (VoIP); access to web content; near-instantaneous transmission of large documentation sets; transmission of graphical and motion content; online meetings; online demonstrations, wireless communication, etc.  We’re communicating more than ever – aren’t we? 

Perhaps – but maybe we’re just communicating more often – and transmitting more content – not necessarily communicating more information (that which truly informs… and benefits).  For Business, we may merely be increasing the raw amount of content – not necessarily enhancing the quality and necessary informing aspect of what we’re trying to communicate.  It is useful communication that counts in the business sense.  The irony is that as we’ve expanded the width and immediacy of access and communication, we have found that we can no longer control discretion.  To some degree too we’ve obliterated a natural, “built-in,” time for reflection and careful crafting of communication that existed with letter writing and hardcopy document preparation.  We’ve enabled the “firing-off” of hasty, poorly constructed e-mails, and other text-enabled messages, which may not accurately convey what we’re trying to express.  We open the door for misinterpretation.

In years past we had more face-to-face meetings – we could readily assess an expectation for discretion based on who was in the room.  We also had non-verbal cues, and the real-time of collaborative assent, and dissent.  Even when we communicated in remote methods, we often had a reasonable control to those whom we imparted information.  For example, we phoned discreet parties.  In cases of documents and letters, we understood that physical recipients could control physical copies.  There were no guarantees, of course, but there were many circumstances where we could make reasonable requests and assumptions.  These former methods had built-in time to care and reflect as we crafted those communications.

We now have little or no control on discretion when we communicate electronically.    If you send an e-mail to someone, you cannot know to whom he or she will forward that mail – it’s just so easy and convenient.  Even if they are the soul of discretion, you cannot know for certain that no one will take advantage of unauthorized access to that e-mail.  Instant messages can be intercepted too.  Whereas the interception of physical mail or documents often left evidence of such interception, the interception of electronic communication often leaves no real trail – or a trail that ties to temporary, abandoned, “one off” accounts and measures.

Another liability of electronic communication is the sheer volume of it.  Ever more sensitive communications are conducted remotely via text.  You cannot be certain how a recipient will interpret, or misinterpret, your communication, yet you may not have the luxury of waiting for a face-to-face in today’s high-speed world.  Recipients may become angry at something they perceive, but which isn’t actually there according to intention.  Perhaps in your haste you’ve sent an inelegant or poorly thought-out communication.  Perhaps you even deliberately sent a missive that you immediately regretted sending.  Misunderstandings can become, simply, a “text-enabled” miscommunication due to the lack of time for reflection.  For this reason, prudent people and organizations are very circumspect in their communications these days, and for good reason.  Taking things to extreme, however, can contribute to the “silo-ing” of departments, organizations, and activities.

The effective management and use of ready communications and associated tools is an absolute must within the realm of electronic communication.  Have solid policies in place, such as an Electronic Communications Policy, Corporate Communications Policy, etc.  The reality and perception must be that all communication is being made on a “business forward” basis; this lessens the opportunity for misunderstandings and misapplication of suspicion. 

July 12^th:  The first televised tennis match was transmitted on this day in 1928.