IT Is Not What IT Seems

I like watching professional magicians. I recently had the opportunity to see David Copperfield live at the MGM Grand and, I must admit, I found him absolutely amazing. When you watch him up close, it’s impossible to tell exactly what he does to create his extraordinary illusions.

Information Technology (IT) is certainly not magic and the various types of engineers that provide IT services are not magicians. (Although, my guys have been called that over the years!) Pull back the curtain to view the inner workings of an IT environment and you’ll find a complex operation that most people don’t see, let alone think about.

If they could get a glimpse at how everything in IT is connected and works together, they would certainly discover that IT is not what IT seems.

Case in point: I was visiting with a group of business people in Los Angeles talking about supporting their company with IT help. We were casually chatting and one of the partners mentioned how simple of an organization they were. He went on to mention that they really didn’t need much help but was wondering if I could suggest a program or process for them to “handle IT.” Their biggest hot buttons were Help Desk and Security. 

I asked how they were taking care of IT now and all four of the people in the room began talking about what little part he or she handled. Then they mentioned a few more parts that a couple of other employees took care of.

I then got a list of the “IT stuff” they were using day-to-day and a list of the offices they had, along with the individuals who were working out of each office.

After it was all said and done, this is the list of IT pieces we came up with:

• 55 employees
• 10 Internet Service Providers
• 15 sites in 4 states
• 45 desktop computers
• 17 laptop computers
• 15 scanners
• 24 printers
• 50 mobile phones
• Hosted email
• And 5 Cloud applications

Needless to say, I see this as the exact opposite of simple!

Worrying about Security alone would be like a magician worrying about perfecting just one illusion in his show. That piece might go over great but if the rest of the show flops, what does it matter?

But of course, Security was just one of the areas that they were hoping to get help with.  The discussion went on to include Help Desk, After Hours Support, 24/7 On-site Support, Backup and Disaster Recovery, Projects, ISP Management, and Technology Consulting and Strategy.

I think by the end of our conversation, I was able to give them a new perspective on IT, which in the long run is going to help them make better decisions because now they know that “IT is not what IT seems”.