As I was preparing for the ITS all-staff meeting yesterday, several others and I spent considerable time dealing with the technology necessary to make all of the pieces work: Powerpoint, Keynote, QuickTime, iTunes, a dash of VPN, remote control software, and others. All of this amounted to the generation of much stress for everyone involved.
This got me to thinking. If those of us in ITS, who supposedly have a great deal more understanding of technology, encounter difficulty in pulling off a complicated series of presentations, what must our customers experience when they try to use technology in the classroom or for presentations?
Do we in ITS fully recognize the implications of our technology suggestions to faculty and staff who may not have the same skill set, the patience, or the support resources to implement a technology tool? Do we appreciate the stress of using technology in front of a group of students? The "What if it doesn't work?" "My students will think I'm really dumb." apprehension.
I think we in ITS sometimes get caught up in the "technology will solve everything" or the "this is so cool" viewpoint. Technology is not "cool stuff" to most people.
Faculty and staff just want to get their work done; that's their primary goal. Technology is merely a tool to accomplish that end, as long as it works easily and seamlessly. (emphasis on "easily")
We need to continue to remind ourselves that technology is a means to an end for our customers.
Comments (3)
Excellent insight. Sometimes the very thing that's supposed to make life simple is the cause of its complexity. If we could solve this paradox, we would be trillionaires...
Or we could get iPhones from Apple. I'm sure they're easy to use.
Posted by Troy Anderson | January 9, 2007 11:00 PM
Posted on January 9, 2007 23:00
I think it is why we work so hard in places like ETS to understand our users ... faculty have a much different appreciation and tolerance to technology then do students. Clearly that is an obvious statement, but a faculty member is almost always likely to give something a try until it makes her look bad in front of students. I have to say we spend a ton of time trying to figure out how to protect faculty from looking bad. When we do that and a success occurs they are part of our team for the long haul.
Students are interesting b/c we all assume they are so technically advanced -- and many of them are. But its important to remember that although use technology in amazing ways very few of them recognize what it is they are using. As an example, if you ask 100 of them if they use RSS about 15-20 of them will raise their hands. But if you connect the dot for them and ask if they get to the FaceBook Update feed I would imagine 100 of them would raise their hands. They use the stuff, but they don't know exactly what it is they are using.
As with faculty, students need the information to be contextualized ... making sure we work to explain the benefits in context when we talk to our customers is always critical. I think to your point about technology is or is not cool, I'd have to say that solutions to big challenges are cool ... and these days much of what people want to do can be solved in part by technology. when we get better at talking about solving challenges and guiding our audiences doing it we'll be better at what we do. Just my thoughts ... good post!
Posted by Cole | January 13, 2007 4:46 PM
Posted on January 13, 2007 16:46
Robin, your viewpoint gives me a bit of hope; I'm sure it isn't easy for you to maintain this perspective in this environment.
I'm older, and employed in a technology group not because of a passion for technology but because of a passion for something those in the group can use. I'm an outsider, and I struggle with what I think is an obvious over-hyping of technology. We clamour to open up new channels of communication while bemoaning the added noise in our lives.
The answer to your question, "Do we in ITS fully recognize the implications of our technology suggestions to faculty and staff who may not have the same skill set, the patience, or the support resources to implement a technology tool?" appears to me to be, "we think we do."
Posted by david stong | February 14, 2007 9:20 AM
Posted on February 14, 2007 09:20