Written by Jeff Ello
September 8, 2009

Opinion: The unspoken truth about managing geeks

September 8, 2009 (Computerworld) I can sum up every article, book and column written by notable management experts about managing IT in two sentences: “Geeks are smart and creative, but they are also egocentric, antisocial, managerially and business-challenged, victim-prone, bullheaded and credit-whoring. To overcome these intractable behavioral deficits you must do X, Y and Z.”

X, Y and Z are variable and usually contradictory between one expert and the next, but the patronizing stereotypes remain constant. I’m not entirely sure that is helpful. So, using the familiar brush, allow me to paint a different picture of those IT pros buried somewhere in your organization.

My career has been stippled with a good bit of disaster recovery consulting, which has led me to deal with dozens of organizations on their worst day, when opinions were pretty raw. I’ve heard all of the above-mentioned stereotypes and far worse, as well as good bit of rage. The worse shape an organization is in, the more you hear the stereotypes thrown around. But my personal experiences working within IT groups have always been quite good, working with IT pros for whom the negative stereotypes just don’t seem to apply. I tended to chalk up IT group failures to some bad luck in hiring and the delicate balance of those geek stereotypes.

Recently, though, I have come to realize that perfectly healthy groups with solid, well-adjusted IT pros can and will devolve, slowly and quietly, into the behaviors that give rise to the stereotypes, given the right set of conditions. It turns out that it is the conditions that are stereotypical, and the IT pros tend to react to those conditions in logical ways. To say it a different way, organizations actively elicit these stereotypical negative behaviors.

Understanding why IT pros appear to act the way they do makes working with, among and as one of them the easiest job in the world.

It’s all about respect

The author goes on to discuss the nature of respect from the perspective of an IT professional and the various character traits that come out of that mind set. How the stereotypes of the nerdy anti social and rude IT person actually are reflections of legitimate frustration among IT workers in an environment that doesn’t support their LOGIC FIRST attitude about getting things done, and being productive.

If you’ve ever even been the guy who helped fix your granmoms computer… let alone work in a “serious” IT environment. This is a great read.

I read it twice in fact when I was linked to it via Twitter, in fact…

I just need to figure out a way of tactfully making my bosses read it… all 3 of them *headache*.

Read on… Opinion: The unspoken truth about managing geeks

When in reality, you’re buying it from EXELON.

EXELON is one of those wonderful things that happened after Utility Deregulation in the 90’s.
You can read more about it here… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exelon

Anyway, its a big corporate whore. Much like all the other large corporate whores out there.

But I digress.
As I was saying, if you live in South Eastern PA, you use PECO.
So paying your bill is just one of those things you do every month.
99% of my bill paying is done via the web, and I know I’m not alone in this, so I have to ask my self… “Why is it so hard to build a decent bill payment process on your website?”

Paying your bill online with PECO involves using one of the most jumbled interfaces I’ve seen in a while. First it takes you like 3 clicks to find it. Its not easily found off of the home page, and its hosted and run by a 3rd party. So you’re actually leaving the EXELON/PECO website to do it.

The form fields are badly organized, labeled poorly, and over all just a pain to use.

Being overly helpful, I wrote PECO via their suggestion form.
Just a simple… “Hey, It would be nice if you guys had a nice system with which I could pay my bill online, k thx, here’s some suggestions….” (to paraphrase).

Here in, I will republish the ENTIRETY of the response I received. (4 days after I sent it).

Dear Mr Goodyear

If you are have difficulties getting access to the online services. We may suggest, selecting the Need Help option online.

*blink*
*blink*

Allow me to parse this, from my eyes.
1. they read my email, and maybe that person understood what I was talking about, but they OBVIOUSLY don’t have a way of sending that on to a level of operations that can process it.

Fail.

2. They don’t have a way to respond to it, from their web team….

Fail

3. They suggest I go to a part of their website, but not only fail to provide a direct link, they also fail to explain step by step how to reach it… So that *IF* I was having a problem using their website, I am now extra lost cause I may not even know how to get to that part of the website.

Fail.

I have no illusions that the CEO of PECO/EXELON is reading this. and its hardly the end of the road. But come on.

Hire a real web team that understands customer needs and satisfaction. Who has done more then just built a website in their basement cause they’re uncle paid them $50 bucks to do it.

Hire a team that understands that the ease of use means an increase in customer satisfaction and that you’ll probably end up making money by reducing customer service calls…

I don’t know. That whole internet thing must be a fad anyway, so who cares what I have to say…