Rough applications or useful tools ?

Most corporate IT departments are trying to ensure only a small approved set of application is used. I have even see a company that runs a big internet site, trying to ban 500+ engineers from downloading free stuff from the internet, was pretty funny and show how out of touch some IT departments are with the need of the users.

An alternative approach would be to understand the reasons behind the popularity of these “rogue” applications. Needs drive demand. Organisation work hard on understanding the needs of their customers, why not try to understand the IT needs of the internal users.

Imagine a day you start a new job and you get a laptop loaded with useful tools and bookmarks to on-line serviced used, it would be a big step from the common practice of a standard set of Microsoft Office suite programmes.

Use of collaboration and social networking tools in business

I just came across an article in Computing about how businesses begin to use collaboration and social networking tools. This is an area where many companies in my view don’t use available tools just because they are see as consumer graded, despite the can benefit an organisation by improving how they work across organisation boundaries. Policies are often one of the barriers followed by the fact not everybody understanding the benefit of using more modern tools than emails for collaboration.

Computing: A Social Change

Instant messaging do not leads to more interruptions

A common reason for not using instant messaging tool in the workplace is a perception that this kind of tools leads to more interruption. I feel instant message tools can be very useful, not just internally in an organisation but also as a way of working with suppliers. However the perception of more interruptions has made it difficult to get people and organisation to take up these tools.

I don’t agree with the view that instant messaging leads to more interruptions, but see it as a great tool to clarify something that only requires a few sentences. So it was great to read about a recent study by researchers at Ohio State University and University of California that concluded workers who used instant messaging on the job reported less interruption than colleagues who did not.