This week we talk with Whitney Carnes about how IT departments can connect with their users and about running a managed service provider that works with small business. Whitney is the president of Serenity Computer Consulting, an MSP in Dallas and Atlanta. Recorded live at SpiceWorld in Austin.
- Thinking about your users - overcoming us vs them mentality
- “IT really needs to remember that their whole reason for being there is to make sure that the users can do their jobs.”
- Does the IT architecture group remember this? John later wrote about tri-modal IT in his TechReckoning newsletter
- What can IT do to improve their image
- Communication: Chuck Hollis on why IT needs a marketing function This ties in with education: for example, eliminating jargon and explaining what’s going on underneath
- (We didn’t talk about this, but as I’m typing up these show notes, I’m reminded of Jeff Sussna saying that DevOps is basically about empathy. Maybe IT is too.)
- The black arts of IT troubleshooting
- The 2014 MSP market: ranges from strategic advisor to help desk provider.
- “The neat thing about IT is that you can go in so many directions.”
- IT can’t solve everything, but it can fix your email signature - IT therapy
- IT requires a lot more than just technical skills. IT training covers the technical skills, but doesn’t cover how to run an IT function or help people.
- Bad IT is a corporate hygiene issue - doing it doesn’t count as a plus, but if you don’t do it (corporate body odor), it can turn people away. Investment as a productivity tool
- Free and cheap tools - often the “enterprise” tool is useless and expensive
- Speaking both the language of technology and of people
- Know what you don’t know - know when to bring in a specialist
- Sales teams often mistarget the smaller business market with enterprise solutions
- http://www.serenityco.com
- @whitneycarnes
- http://community.spiceworks.com/people/whitneycarnes
Thanks again to ServerMonkey.com for letting us use their space for this session!
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