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Gil Yehuda thinks we should question the value of having a company phone. He cites a story in Wired about a university that has scrapped its dorms’ computer labs in favor of giving each student an iPhone. They realized most students already had laptops. The computer labs had become redundant.
Hello, operator? Could you connect me with the 21st century?
When I was an IT consultant, I spent 50% of my time on the road. I barely used my desk phone. My laptop’s wifi was flaky. The VPN to the home office barely worked. Our clients couldn’t get in touch with me. The home office couldn’t keep up with me.
Out of frustration, I finally bought myself a Blackberry. Everyone was happier and I was more productive.
When phone networks were expensive to install and maintain, and computing power a scarce resource, it made sense for companies to provide these tools. Organizations can pool money and enforce standards.
But now that many knowledge workers have better tools available to them outside of the office than in it, it may be time to give up central planning and just let folks use the right tool for the job.
What tools does your organization provide? Why do they provide them? Are they business necessities, or another example of legacy thinking?
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2 Comments
Gil Yehuda
Dean,
Thanks for noticing my blog post and for tuning in to the challenge. Let me clarify that my main point is not to assault the value of the phone per se , but to encourage us to challenge assumptions about what we need and don’t need. When we become mindful of these assumptions then we can make better decisions. And I thank you for reinforcing this message with your poignant story and concluding questions. You are spot on target — let’s let people use the right tools for the jobs they do instead of assuming what they need.
10 Dec 2009 10:12 pm
Dean
Thanks for the clarification, Gil -- I was hoping folks would click through and read your full post, because it raises several important points.
Your examples of phones and business cards also touched a nerve with me. These are both things that we bought soon after starting Infovark because they're things "that real companies have."
In hindsight, we should have waited until we had a product in the market and paying customers. We could have put that money to much better use during the two years of R&D work leading up to launch.
11 Dec 2009 09:12 am
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