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Troubleshooter 6
To the Travel Sector Account Manager, Mr Jones, Some excellent progress. My leak (sorry, tactical information release) to the IT management of Purchasing Director Ralph Cram’s plan to employ IT contractors has paid off handsomely. In fact, everyone has done well out of it, even Cram. I had been avoiding him, so when he button-holed me in the gents I was not at all happy. I expected to receive some of his legendary northern venom, but in fact Cram was remarkably pleasant. In order to placate him, the IT department has set up a special, below cost contract for all the purchasing department’s needs - his computing is being subsidised by the rest of BritBreak. Cram went so far as to suggest that this had been his intention all along. Surely he couldn’t be so devious? The grateful IT management has given way to my pressure to bring in the Slaughter McTone Regis image consultancy branch. After my discovery of mounting dissatisfaction amongst the staff and a lack of trust from the department’s internal customers, I felt that only a major re-launch would recover IT’s standing. Image consultancy came up with two strong alternatives. The first was to drop the “t” of IT into lower case. The resultant “It” would not only look more trendy than the blocky IT, it would allow for a myriad witty catch phrases like “Don’t do business without It” and “You know It makes sense”. Management rejected this one out of hand. They thought It looked silly, suggested that It was too reminiscent of the monster from a 50s B movie, and worst of all, It still contains the “T” word. IT management hates to be associated with technology. They are all frustrated businessmen (or token businesswoman) who want to be seen as business aware, not technically competent - just as well, considering that most of them wouldn’t know which way up to hold a diskette, let alone what a thunking layer was. Instead, they have plumped for IDS, Information Dissemination Services. Because this can be pronounced “ideas” it still lays itself open to snappy one liners - “Call the IDS people” or “Business needs IDS”, but it also embodies service, is non-technical and implies they are in control of the company’s information. What’s more, IDS appeals to the ex-IBMers on the staff as it is a TLA (three letter acronym). Having got the new name established, I now only have to work out how to launch the new-look department without seeming to waste money at a time when BritBreak is cutting back administrative jobs to focus on the operational parts of the organisation. Less success with talking to IT (sorry, IDS) Security on the web page problems. They went straight from the seminar in the Seychelles to mounting a simulated terrorist attack on the data centre that left three of them in hospital, so I am still waiting for an appointment. ... read next column Copyright © Creativity
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The Troubleshooter column relates the experiences of a fictional consultant. Although the context is made up, many of the experiences related in Troubleshooter have happened in real UK businesses. Take a break from the creative pressures with Troubleshooter and return to your creativity refreshed. Originally published in PC Week magazine.
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