[TriLUG] [OT] What's the value of IT?

[Jim Ray]

Small business owners don't care about IT. Small business owners care
about saving money. If we IT people don't save small business owners
money, we are an expense that will go away. The small businesses that
don't get it probably will not get it and must feel pain before they
have a gain from what we IT people do.

Correlating IT to saving money is the only avenue to reach small
business owners.


-----Original Message-----
From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On
Behalf Of Phillip Rhodes
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 4:40 PM
To: Triangle Linux Users Group General Discussion
Cc: Triangle Java User's Group
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] [OT] What's the value of IT?

Matt Frye wrote:

> The question of the value of IT is really pretty elastic.  It's 
> connected, at the very least, to the mission of the parent 
> organization and how well (or badly) IT is integrated into that 
> mission, and more directly, to the way the IT organization is 
> "designed" around the needs of the organization (the focus of my 
> book).
> 

So the core thing I'm trying to sort out - which I don't think I've
articulated well so far - is this:

How to explain to a small business owner, who isn't particularly tech
savvy, and who's business isn't inherently technology oriented at all,
how IT / high-tech can assist them in making their business more
successful (eg, growth, productivity, profit, whatever metric you like).

I'm thinking about things like a flower shop, construction company /
general contractor, bakery, etc.

I'd like to think it would be possible to distil out a core set of basic
principles regarding how IT is used to improve the performance of
companies, and turn that into something understandable by anybody even
if they don't have a lot of existing "tech savvy."

> The tricky thing about value, especially in IT, is that it's relative.
>  What the IT Director sees as a valuable pursuit may be seen as a 
> waste of time by a CEO.  Does the CEO know what he's talking about?
> Maybe not.  Ok, probably not, but of course he's the boss, so no 
> matter how much of a wacko he is, his opinion matters.


Good point!

> I look forward to seeing more discussion on these matters in a wiki,
etc.
> 

The wiki I have setup is at http://itbook.wikidot.com/  feel free to
check it out.  There's not much there yet, but I have high hopes...  :-)



-- 
Phillip Rhodes