"Getting IT"
Welcome to Big I little t. My name is Bruce Talbert and I will be one of the regular bloggers on this site. Before I begin, let me give you some background on myself which will hopefully help bring any future dissertations into context. Since I have not yet cracked the nut on becoming independently wealthy, I still have to drag myself out of bed everyday and into the office where I work on technologies for embedded systems that go into multifunction products. My real passion lies outside the office where I’m a volunteer firefighter/EMT with my local fire department. Running into a burning building when everyone else is running out, or working a major trauma call sure beats answering email and attending meetings. If only it paid as well…Anyway I have a degree in investment finance (perhaps I’ll tell that story some other time) and spent time as an IT VAR, as well as the past several years in various capacities with Xerox as an SA in test and development labs, systems engineer, and technical program manager. I’ve specialized over the years in protocols and network administration. I have a wife and 3 kids which round out the story and keep me busy.
A recent article on Computerworld.com discusses the concept that successful companies use by combining the IT/technology function with business processes. These processes are not the typical ones you think of such as HR, or finance, but they align the IT function with business strategies and goals. For instance, a company making widgets might utilize IT for only PC support, file storage, printing, and email. However, a sustainable differentiator for that company might be the utilization of IT to support a business objective of cutting cost out of the widget development cycle. This would entail bringing the IT personnel up to speed in what the business actually does! How many IT people have you come across that know very little about what the company they work for actually does? The IT people who “get it” have the unique ability to look at their field of expertise and merge technology opportunities into the business at hand.
For instance: one thing MFP vendors face is how to get customers to utilize the features they enable in their products. Obviously we are in business to make money too, just as you are, but we try to do it by helping customers realize the benefits the technology can provide and facilitating the adoption of that technology. I think that is actually more fun than developing the technology itself. For instance, a few years ago I worked on the ability to scan a paper document and have it transmitted via email. Xerox was the first to manufacturer to incorporate this feature directly on the box itself without other software or PCs. Although that was a cool feature to work on, it’s been more fun helping customers realize the benefit to their business a feature like that can afford. A major nationwide retailer had process whereby each retail store would FedEx their daily reports to the home office, resulting in a $10-$12 charge per day per store. Once we helped them realize the power of scan to email, they automated this process and are now saving real cash.
Bruce Talbert
Architecture & Systems Engineer
Xerox