Friday, June 08, 2007

It Doesn't Matter If I Can Use It

My blogs over the last year have been mostly technical, and *my* thoughts and usage of technology. But in a way, it doesn't matter if I can use it. Without users, there is no need to have System Administrators. It's my job to act as a buffer for the users, and try and monitor changes in technology that are fits for a business environment.

We have about 10 people using our new thin clients on a 3D desktop, and they are having success and enjoy the experience. So I wanted allocate one blog to talking about *real* people. These are users that do not care about technical issues, and just want to get their work done on a modern computer network.

The picture below is of Linda. The Executive Secretary for Management Services. When I walked up she was testing the new Chart2 module in OpenOffice and learning how it works. She is a heavy Evolution and OpenOffice user.



The picture below is Sandy, the Executive Secretary for the Fire Department. She heavily uses Evolution and OpenOffice. She is in the process of merging multiple documents into a massive Master Document so that an automatic table of contents can be generated. She also gains access to a few Microsoft Windows applications via Citrix.



The picture below is Jo-Ann, the Executive Secretary from Human Resources. She uses Evolution and OpenOffice very heavily as well.



These 3 people, along with the other testers have provided me with invaluable information and suggestions about little things that can be done to improve the desktop experience. So today, my hat is off to them.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

As a fellow sysadmin may I tip my hat to you for acknowledging your users/clients. Few of our fellows seems to feel the same way.

*tip*

Cliff said...

When I was doing internal support, our #1 rule was to take care of the Secretaries of the big cheese first. Sounds like you're following the same rule. :-)

Anonymous said...

And you caught each one just as they were flipping their cube. What a coincidence! :P

Ryan Graham said...

I've been following your project from almost the beginning. It's nice to see it in action, and not just in a screen shot.