Back in January 2007, I wrote about how ‘IT could lead the revolution‘, hypothesizing how the IT Support in a company could become valuable for more than just supporting locked down computers – and how they could lead change by allowing everyone to download, install and play with new internet technology, and that responding to the risks this inherently raises means they would be up-to-date and possibly even generating their own ideas and technology.
Since then, the rise of social media etc has seen even more demand for toolbar plugins and access to Adobe Air etc, yet i’m not aware of any firm with IT support that actively operates in this way.
So I’ll throw it back out there and see if anyone knows of a proactive IT dept which encourages users to experiment, and enjoys dealing with the challenges this creates – because there’s even more of a need for that support now than there was 22 months ago.
Particularly as it’s a great way to ensure that human on-site interaction is needed, safeguarding jobs and possibly driving new revenues, rather than increasing automation, documentation and distance encouraging outsourcing.