As I sit on the AVE back to Valladolid (that's the high speed train for those not in the know) I look around and see iPads, Samsung devices, Blackberry's and of course the iPhone. There is one freak who is still using pen and paper, but we don't want to go there...
There are so many different devices, all connecting, some to corporate networks, some just to the internet, but the point is these devices are here, or better put, they are "everywhere". The nation is connected, Cisco recently stated 15 billion devices will be connecting to the internet by 2015. That's a big number!
What is more, today's users are so much more technologically aware (just go into the Apple Store on a weekend), they have so much more technology at their fingertips, they know where to get information from, and they take advantage of information delivery. A lot of the times, they can receive information quicker than companies can get it out onto the intranet. Important to mention here is that it "just works" as well, you don't here many people asking for Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn manuals or moaning that it's not available. Neither have I heard anyone complaining about being on an old version.
But here is a worrying point for IT Managers: in last month's ServiceNow user conference, Fred Luddy, (CP30, ServiceNow) spoke about the results from a survey which they carried out with a group of users. The question put to them was "would you use the IT department for a problem resolution"; staggeringly more than half said "no"! An unbelievably high amount stated that they wouldn't contact their IT department because either "they didn't want to bother them", or "they thought the IT department was too slow".
Something is not right with this situation. We have clever users, and we have smart devices, but it seems a large majority of these don't go near the IT department. Why? It can only be that the users themselves think that the IT department will hinder them instead of helping them.
So what is the answer? It is my opinion, and that of many others far more intelligent than me, that IT departments need to embrace, adopt and deliver Social IT functionality fast. Here's a quick breakdown of the possibilities.
Live Feed and Chat:
IT services need to be feeding live information to the workplace, they need to engage users through chat, bring them into the conversation, instead of alienating them. A large percentage of the users mentioned above who don't use in-house IT services will change their minds very quickly if there is a friendly live feed and chat service available.
Enterprise Knowledge:
Bringing together enterprise knowledge and company knowledge through a Google-like browser with Google-like search technologies will encourage the user to look at and use the IT departments services, rather than calling upon these "Shadow IT departments" that seem to exist.
Twitter Feeds:
Building Twitter feeds into the service will let IT departments pick up on complaints and general negativity; this in turn gives them the option to do something about the complaint. Turn the negative experience around into a positive one. Just ask the man tweeting in a salad bar about how terrible the salad that he was eating was. The food chain who owned the salad bar picked the tweet up and through geolocation detected who the customer was, fixing the salad issue and paying for his lunch! People, that is a great reactive service. Customer satisfaction is guaranteed to increase if these functionalities are in place.
Recommendations:
Getting feedback on IT departments performance and getting it out into the wild is essential if we are to boost those satisfaction levels. Your users know so much more about you now than ever before. If users start to recommend their IT departments, then the relationship will grow and less people will feel inclined to look elsewhere for help; this will in turn justify the investment in the IT department. It is a clear measurement of success when someone recommends a service.
Appification:
Sounds crazy, but it works. Thanks to Apple there is an app out there for just about everything. An IT department would probably increase the use of their services by simply changing the IT Service Catalogue name to AppStore; think about it.
There are many more important functions that an IT department can adopt, but the AVE is arriving to Valladolid, so I need to sign-off. I'm happy to say that here in SilverStorm, we can deliver all this with ServiceNow, but the real issue is the culture change that the IT department needs to adopt.
All I say is that if it isn't working, then change is required. However, be innovative and empower your users, don't hinder them. Lets face it, the alternative isn't too desirable.
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