Gulo Customized Internet Solutions

Love your IT team

I highly recommend Karen Schneider's latest post, IT and Sympathy, over at the ALA Techsource Blog. It's the best post I've read about working happily and effectively with your IT department in a while. This is golden advice:

...remember nothing is “free,” even if it didn't come with a price tag. Second Life isn't “free.” Instant messaging isn't “free.” Wordpress isn't “free.” (In fact, that sucking sound you hear may be your RSS feeds dragging down that server hosting your blogs.) Or, more correctly, all of these technologies are “free” as in “free kittens,” not free as in “free beer.” They come with maintenance and deployment issues, from opening ports on a secure network, to how much bandwidth they will use, to how much time IT personnel need to devote to deploying and maintaining the “free” software.

So is this:

...honor the requests you make by bringing them to fruition as best you can. This will mean some self-restraint and selectivity. But every technology deserves to be deployed to the best of its ability.

Communication and managed expectations are what good relationships with the IT department are about. Do you really need it "now"? Probably not. Plan with your IT team not around them...or you'll run the risk of creating your very own Nick Burns.