A relate-able way to look at Information Technology & Business Systems – by Ian Tang

I saw this ad on gizmodo last week & I giggle … And it’s from 1977s … I giggle more. It’s because I was imagining if I was in that era & I heard the term ‘Electronic Mail’, that’s probably would imagine the same thing. (Since most people could only dream of having a computer on their desk)

As a person who use e-mail everyday, I was thinking how could anyone thought was like that … But for a second I did imagine that. When thought more about it, I was looking at this as a expert & a novice. 

When you, the ‘expert‘, are talking about your passion to someone new, the audience sometimes seems clueless. The image above can probably represent is what your audience is imaging about what your ideas/goods/services looks like.

When you think: ‘It’s so simple … why don’t they get it?’; IT might be because they all ready know how it works …. while everyone else have no clue.

In a smaller scale, this happens a lot day to day in many jobs. When an e-mail out goes solving a issue at work…it ends up getting worse and people got confused.

This is happening because the knowledge we take for grants is actually news to others. Next time, when something similar happens, try to mediate & make sure everyone is on the same page before it gets more confusing.

Anita Bruzzese tag me on this meme a few days ago. It was fun to play along, until I was thinking too much about it, which was still fun.

Here are the 7 facts left after 20 that I have thought of:

- Started Learning english from the 80s Transformers when I was 8 years old.

- I have been in a on & off Hamburger Hunt since 2001 when My college burger joint got close down. The closest I got to in Toronto is hero burger, but it’s not even close

- I love listening to podcasts (including interviews,speeches & keynotes), I just learn a lot from them. I started just about the time the term podcast got coin. By now, I have listened over 2000 of them.  For example, I learned Texas hold’em from listening to 2 dozen podcasts in 3 days.

- Unless it’s for work, I don’t IM, I always think too much before I response, then 15 minutes has passed by.

- I tend to accidentially drop electronics alot. It’s cause of death of all my dented cellphones. (one of them involved with soup)

- In the last few years, I have got involved in too many functions just in 2 companies.  Here is the list:
Systems analysis, Business analysis, Quality assurance, Business systems analysis, Software development, Procurement, Training, Purchasing, Receiving, Reporting, Project coordination, Customer services.

- I always wanted to travel for work.

Here is a insight talk from David Pogue:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_pogue_says_simplicity_sells.html

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Why the soft side matters?
David Pogue describes the issues pretty well with talk at the TED conference. It’s funny & a few 2 minute techie show tunes.

In systems I have used, there is usually a plethora of functionalities; but most of the them takes forever to find & several tries to make it work.

David takes this issue on the user side & describes day to day frustrations of everyone.

Adding function vs making it simpler to use

Your solution can be the best in the world, but if your design is not good, no one will use it. Easy is hard, and the hardest part is not deciding what to add, but what to leave out.

So What? … because Simplicity Sells.

 
Last post, I brought up the a basic problem with confusions that come up for anyone that has dealt with IT.

So what can we do to make sure IT understand what we want?

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Here are 3 essentials to do to cope with this:

Meetings
Yes, I said it … Meetings has some value. IT people think differently than operations & they think differently than finance … Actually they all have different languages with millions of acronyms.

The meetings can visualize the problem or at least picturing the solutions. Just make sure the details, confusions & decisions are writen down, so it can apply to …

Requirements & Specifications
Here is why we split out requirements & specification.

• Requirements is to describe what users needs, wants & limitations.
• Specifications are the list of to dos & the details of the design (It’s similar assignment sheet that we got in college for project, just longer & more details.)

Many times we forget about this & annoyed that we have to write 2 documents … Then we setup to be upset on a result.

Change Request
When application can be seen, tons of suggestions start flowing in. This is where IT would put all the suggestion into one bucket & put into a change request, while ask for more $$$ & approval for the unexpected work.

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NOTE: These are not best practices, these are just case where a freelancer or small business development shop would face to make sure their customer get what they want. Larger companies will have more complex & detail processes. 

If anyone has use other ways to handle of the issue.
Please reply through e-mail or comments.