Almost as a reflex, I refuse those extended service warranties the consumer electronics retailers push to boost their bottom line. Because of them, most people view warranties as scams rather than the insurance policies they were originally intended to be. Unfortunately, this thinking gets extended to the critical hardware in the server room. E-mail servers, file/print servers, domain controllers, and more sit in server rooms years past when the manufacturers warranty expires.  This is a bad situation.

What happens when an extended warranty is purchased?  A client of ours had a system board die in their warrantied file/print server. Within four hours, a technician arrived with a replacement system board and the server was back online, all covered under the warranty and free of charge.

Without the warranty, the alternative scenario plays out like this: a replacement system board has to be ordered via overnight mail, which may arrive in 2 business days depending on the ordering deadline for next day delivery. If you don't have IT in-house, you coordinate with your IT consultant to install the part, at their regular hourly rate.  Besides the costs of the part and service, figure in opportunity costs for lost productivity or billable hours for the day or more that the server is down.

What is worse than the scenario above?  Not knowing whether your servers and network equipment is under warranty or not. At the very least, you should perform an audit so you know the risks you are running.

Just a little note about how we conduct business here at SAGE. Actually, it is the fact that we are conducting business on this President's Day, just like we were on MLK Day. Granted, a lot of businesses that are not in retail are open on this federal holiday, especially our customers. In response to requests from our customers, especially our SAGE OnSight customers, we are open on "minor" holidays (MLK, President's Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve).

So since our customers are working, so are we because we support (or are) their IT. (And there is no intention to offend anyone if you feel your favorite holiday has been tagged as "minor").

For all of you not working today, enjoy your day off!

Submitted for your perusal is the sophistication of technology in a small to medium-sized businesses. Can one "tech guy" who comes in twice a month have the requisite knowledge and expertise to cover it all?

• Email and messaging (Exchange/Outlook, Blackberries and other mobile devices)
• Office software
• Printers/Scanners
• Remote access (Citrix, VPN, Terminal Services)
• Internet Access
• Firewall
• Storage
• Backup & Recovery (Tape, Disk, Online)
• Threat reduction (antivirus, spam filtering)
• Patch management
• Monitoring

Then throw in industry-specific and specialized applications like docketing, document management, accounting and finance, sales, CRM, and custom databases. Even more, on the horizon even small firms will have some form of server virtualization, online backup, and enhanced mobile communications.

Needless to say, this is too much for one person to handle. Best would be to have a medium-sized IT company managing your firm's IT. That company will assign an engineer representative for site visits and be the point of contact who intimately knows the client's system, but can call on specialists and experts whenever necessary.

By order of firm management, the IT department is engaged in a major project to overhaul the "backroom" systems to bring greater stability and performance. IT would love to immerse its small band of engineers and sysadmins to tackle the project, but one problem is persistently thwarting them: those pesky users.

An attorney's hard drive failed. Someone can't print their mail merge document. A marketing assistant has a question about Excel. Don't these people realize there are bigger problems to be tackled and IT can't coddle them right now?

This is a trap some IT departments fall into, and quite frankly, they need to get over it. If they don't, they fail. Service is a long series of interruptions. IT departments are in the business of reacting, so they better get good at it. The face of the IT department is the help desk/support center. So if users feel they are being neglected, the reputation of IT will be blemished. The better IT is reacting to the needs of their users, preventing failures, and quickly resolving incidents due to unforeseen circumstances, they will have more time for projects.

In an upcoming blog post we will discuss some ways IT departments can improve their "reaction" time.

Today brings black clouds for the IT department in the form of a new book by noted IT critic, Nicholas Carr.  Mr. Carr, who made his bones last year with an article contending that corporate IT departments don't provide any strategic advantage, has a new book where he predicts that future IT departments will be operated by one person sitting at a computer issuing commands to outsourced providers via the Internet. Alas, the lonely system administrator gets even less respect and will be the Maytag repairman for this century.

This seems to overlook the fact that software and systems have not evolved to be intuitive and easy to use for the end-user. So who will have the skills to help people with IT, freeing them do whatever it is they do best? As a managed service provider (in other words, outsourced IT provider) we know the value of having great technical staff directly aid our customers whether it is with a question about a word processing program or troubleshooting their messaging system. We provide site visits to facilitate interaction with our customers and build relationships of trust and mutual respect.

Now if that is the evolution of the IT department -- a greater focus on the end-user and better customer service -- we are all for it.

We bring you another obvious but instructive nugget from marketing guru Seth Godin and how it pertains to IT in organizations: make promises and keep them. His context is companies and marketing, but this is just as relevant for how IT should approach its customers within a law or professional services firm. Don't over-promise. When you make promises, follow through on them. If you need to "over"-anything, over-deliver.

IT often complains of a lack of respect from the professionals in the organizations they serve. Here is a sure fire way to get some. Everyone respects the person who delivers on what they promise. They are reliable, trustworthy. That goes for individuals, departments, and consultants. Making overblown claims about the benefits of a new software or equipment that you can't back up is the way to lose respect. Set realistic expectations and then exceed them. Doing so will garner tremendous respect.

Growth happens, sometimes in spite of all our actions! Many small firms rely on individual IT consultants or large IT companies specializing in small firms. So what are the signs you are outgrowing your current IT provider? We list the indicators below, focusing on moving from one person IT consultants to larger IT consulting firms with a broader array of services. In a future post we will discuss the decision to bring IT in-house.

One obvious indicator is that they can’t keep up with your demands for services and support. Your growth places increasing demands on them that they may not be able to meet. In the case of large IT companies catering to small firms, you may simply outgrow their targeted services. A growing firm’s technology also becomes more sophisticated, broader, and more specialized all at the same time. A wider array of services in litigation support, message, VOIP, DMS, web sites, and enterprise level applications are required. At the same time, law firms have very focused software applications that require careful setup and support. Larger IT firms with engineers, application specialists, and programmers can provide the breadth and depth of expertise to meet these demands.

Finally, a surefire giveaway that it is time to move on is if you as a firm manager or administrator are leading your IT firm or bringing trends to their attention. If so, time to start looking for a partner knowledgeable in the latest trends in IT like mobile computing, virtualization, online services and others.

This Tuesday, we spoke to the Small Firm Management section of the ALA Capital Chapter on IT trends for small firms. What we encounter is that small firms have many of the same IT challenges of large law firms, just not on the same scale.

Both small and large firms alike are paying close attention to these IT trends:

Getting more for your money – Everyone is looking to stretch their IT dollars, so small firms are looking to managed IT services and large firms look to outsource basic tasks like daily server checks and monitoring. Firms are also looking at application services providers (Internet providers) for critical systems like time & billing, backup, e-mail and spam filtering.

Virtualization of desktops and servers – flexibility and ability to recover from disasters quickly makes this one of the hottest trends to watch.

Data vaulting – whether the firm administrator is tired of bringing back-up tapes home every night or an integral part of a disaster recovery plan, data vaulting—online backups—are the way to go.

Mobility – Including remote access, laptop and handheld computing, staying in the office is so last century.

Security – While constant struggle against malware rages on, now everyone should also pay attention to stopping data breaches that can cost your firm both money and its reputation.

What are the IT trends where small firms are sitting on the sidelines? WANs; desktop management and software deployment; and Storage Area Networks (SANs).

A common question our clients ask about IT in law firms is how much they should be spending and on what? While the specific answer varies greatly by firm, at the very least you should be spending 3-6% of gross revenue on your IT needs. Then we talk about getting maximum value for that money based on their business goals. For many companies, managed IT services can be a way to get more in the way of service, support, and productivity while spending the same amount.

We put together our thoughts in a white paper called "Getting More from Your IT Budget." It discusses where IT provides the most value to the firm and whether managed services are the right fit for your organization. In it, we cover the many different ways managed services are provided, and what it means to manage your IT provider. Throughout are tips and ideas on how to maximize your IT dollar.

Download the sample, or get your complimentary copy of the complete white paper, a 25 page, full-color PDF.

Your document management, accounting and finance, and CRM applications are probably using SQL Server for their internal database, making it one of the most common enterprise applications that you completely forget about. Until something goes wrong, and you are painfully aware of its presence.

SQL Server is a very stable and robust program, but that is no excuse to let it go neglected. Pop quiz: how many licenses/copies of SQL Server exist in your firm? Be sure to count those licenses for enterprise applications that use it to store their data. And while you are at it, where are the databases located? Are there maintenance plans in place and are the databases being backed up? What is their current size and rate of change?

These are just a few items you should know about your SQL databases. Becoming reacquainted with your SQL Server installations is the first step. Scheduled check-ups and a full audit will ensure that the rest of the firm can remain blissfully ignorant that one application plays such a large role.

(At least not about your network.)

SAGE OnSight monitors your firm servers and vital systems 24/7/365, alerting SAGE’s crack team of engineers and support certain staff in the event of critical failure. Should something happen, SAGE will know about it within minutes and often can have the issue corrected remotely within an hour. In not, we will dispatch an engineer to your site to get you up and running as soon as possible, hopefully before the managing partner notices anything is amiss.

Check out our demo on this page (Click on "Time is Money Saved..."). In most cases, we will be alerting you that there is a problem with your network, rather than the other way around.  And once it is fixed, you can report to the managing partner that everything has been resolved.

This translates into very real cost savings for your organization. Under the old “break-fix” model, most problems were discovered when people arrived in the morning.  By time an engineer arrived on site and resolved the issue, it was early afternoon.  All the while, your people are idling and billable hours are being lost. With OnSight’s 24/7/365 remote monitoring, level 1 alerts can be resolved in 1-2 hours, meaning your people are back to work and billing much quicker.

Here are a few tidbits worthy of your attention on the Web today:

Security Honcho "Wants People at Microsoft to Think Like Criminals." Wow, can you have fun with a line like that.  Anticompetitive practices aside, this article over at CNet talks about the mindset needed to defend against cyber evil-doers. The trick, evidently, is to think like a hacker, rather than a developer or user that view security vulnerabilities as yet another bug to squash.  The  article is part of a series on web security that is worth a read.

Preview of Top EDD Providers. So if you are into Top "N" lists (that's geek shorthand for any number like 10), The Common Scold has a preview of the top 10 EDD service providers and software vendors, with details to come in the August issue of LTN. Again, if you are into that sort of thing...

...So About That iPhone Post Yesterday.The first reviews coming in suggest the hype may well be warranted, increasing the chances of a partner purchasing an iPhone and wanting to get firm e-mail on it. So if that happens to you, we have an article about security and the iPhone, and a post trying to clear up some misconceptions floating around on the "Internets." The big problem may be the inability to remotely wipe the iPhone.

You could accuse us of trying to make bank on the iPhone hype, but don’t say this scenario is implausible: In a couple of weeks, the superstar partner walks into IT with her brand new iPhone. And after surfing a few web pages on the firm wi-fi and watching a clip from The Office, she then says, “I want to get my work email on it.”

So what do you do? Can you really suggest the bare bones Outlook Mobile Access (OMA) after she demonstrates flicking through her GMail? Are you forced to enable IMAP after all these years?

Now, the iPhone won’t be replacing Blackberries in the law firm any time soon, but the point is personal technology encroaching on “work” tech. Like instant messaging and wi-fi, these days new tech is being introduced in the law firm from attorneys and staff bringing it from home rather than from the IT department. You probably went with Blackberry back in the day because a hot shot partner saw a colleague's device and wanted one for himself.

To quote a Zen saying: “the only constant in life is change.” In IT and administration, your job is to maintain a consistent, high-quality level of service. Sometimes that means saying no. But the other mandate is to provide tools that make the firm and its employees more productive and effective. That means saying yes and using a little ingenuity. The iPhone promises a very easy user experience for calling, voice mail and others beyond e-mail, which is Blackberries forte. Should it deliver (a very big if), then it is time to reevaluate the firm’s policy—and embracing change.

If not the iPhone, it will be something else.

As you may know, yesterday we did a couple of short presentations on the many flavors of managed IT services at the ALA Capital Chapter’s Spring Expo. Well, before we could talk about the variations, we made the case for how managed IT services like SAGE OnSight provide more value for your IT budget dollar. In fact, we have a chart that illustrates the case.

The chart compares the functions typically performed in a small to medium sized firm against what a managed IT solution like OnSight provides. The chart depicts a real world scenario, where preventive measures like daily server checks, patch testing and monthly maintenance aren’t performed, usually because of special projects that eat into time that should be devoted to operations. With a managed IT service, you also get the preventative measures, strategic direction and access to expert resources.

Now keep in mind that we are talking about working with the same IT budget. And it’s not a situation where you have to fire your current IT staff. Often managed services complement existing staff. Taking all of the above into account, managed IT services provide tremendous value. We just needed to make the chart to really drive home the point to ourselves as well!

A good rule of thumb is that IT spending in law firms should be 3-6 percent of gross revenue. IT budgets in that range should provide a reasonable level of service and stability for the firm and its staff. To make the budget go farther, consider going with a managed IT service provider that can provide additional resources and high quality service. Managed IT solutions typically exceed the level of service that in-house resources alone can provide on a regular basis.

There are many different flavors to managed IT Services, however. This will be the topic of discussion during SAGE’s Learning Pavilion Sessions at Thursday’s ALA Capital Chapter Spring Educational Forum and Expo. It is important for each organization to find the service that best fits its needs. Subtle variations in service and support can mean the difference between having the service be the right fit or a disastrous and expensive foray. SAGE consultants with experience on both sides--provider and client---will discuss various factors beyond the "spec" sheet that firms often overlook, but should really be at the forefront of their decision making.

Please join SAGE for either the 11:30 a.m. or 3:00 p.m. session in the Learning Pavilion at the ALA Capital Chapter Educational Forum and Expo, and stop by the SAGE booth to learn even more.

Sure, we like to think some relationships will last forever, but they are really the exception to the rule. People change. Companies change. Industries change. Things, umm, change. When SAGE got into the managed IT services arena with OnSight, we recognized change as a given. That is why we built in quarterly technology reviews, for instance, but we also made it easy for clients to quit if circumstances changed and the relationship no longer worked.

OnSight doesn’t lock in clients the way other managed IT services do. Clients own their own equipment and infrastructure, so if they decide to go in another direction they don’t face sticker shock of “rebuilding” the network from the E-mail server to the Citrix box. And while we work with lawyers, we didn’t get a team of our own to write draconian contracts that lock in clients for long periods of time. If OnSight isn’t providing the right service for a client, than a document should not be the only glue binding us together.

We like to pride ourselves on our integrity here at SAGE, but we can't blame you for thinking that touting the advantages of managed IT services seems a little self-serving. (SAGE OnSight is our take on managed IT, one that seems to work great for our clients).

So don't take our word for it.  PC Magazine has a complete rundown on what constitutes Managed IT Services and what small and medium business can expect.  Points the article covers are:

• What to expect in terms of service and capabilities;
  
• The advantages in terms of improved operations, technical expertise, and allowing the company to focus on their business;
• Whether your small and medium sized company is a candidate for managed IT services; and
• Tips on implementing managed services

Well worth a read if you are considering testing the waters or just learning about it.

There are many different flavors to managed IT Services. SAGE OnSight falls into the category, but managed IT services come in many flavors and it is important for each organization to find the service that best fits its needs. Following are some more subtle points to consider when looking at managed IT service providers.

Personal Factor. Trust and confidence in your IT provider is vital in managed environments. You want someone on the other end of the line who is not only knowledgeable, but also responsive and trustworthy. It’s also nice to see them in person too.

Lock In—or Barriers to Exit. These can be contractual or monetary. Contracts can range from a few months to three years or more, and according to many lawyers we know, some are rather ironclad. Good service providers will require only a one month termination notice if the relationship is not working out after the initial contract period. Also consider the cost of creating a network if you decide to separate from a provider that completely outsources your IT. The infrastructure you once had now has to be rebuilt, from the E-mail server to the Citrix box, and it all comes with a price tag.

Speed and Responsiveness. While the Internet is great for working over great distances, network latency can affect the speed and responsiveness of your systems. Slow systems mean frustrated users.

Turnaround Times. How quickly will the service provider turn around new user accounts or have workstations set up for new employees? Good service providers know your time is valuable and people need to be productive as quickly as possible.

Control Issues. Many administrators who once lorded over the domain are sometimes locked out when the outsourced IT provider takes over. Instead of rolling up the sleeves and figuring out the problem, you are sending a service request. Many service providers monitor your systems and often know of a problem before you do, but you want prompt service if you are no longer in the driver’s seat. Also, having eyes into the system only increases your confidence if you can verify what the service provider is telling you.

Posting a title like that invites the cynical among us to insert terms like “cost” and “expense.” But let’s look beyond the budget line to the business value of IT. This post at ZDNet’s Between The Lines gives a few measures and ideas for defining, calculating, and getting the maximum value of IT. We couldn’t agree with the post more when they state that there is “no such thing as an IT project. They are all business projects.”

IT Projects should not be defined by whether something was simply installed, or deployed, but whether the installed application or system creates leverage that creates efficiencies or opportunities. Value comes from impact: are processes faster and smoother because of the IT project, saving time and money; or does it generate value for the customers which translates into sales or fees?

How do you know? Use metrics such as cost reductions and increased revenue. Time savings is often a gold standard in law and professional services since it invariably directly equates to billable hours or overhead. You will have to be creative in finding metrics for returns because the generated value aren’t easily quantified, unlike the upfront investments that are measured in cold, hard cash.

They also echoed something we have mentioned many times before, the value of marketing your successes. So while every project may be a “business project,” blame for poor projects becomes easily assignable. “Every time it’s wrong it’s and IT project.”

We're happy to announce that EMP Global/EMP Africa have choosen our SAGE OnSight service to manage their IT needs here in Washington, DC and their offices throughout the world. We welcome them into the fold and look forward to providing them world calss service along with our other OnSight clients.

More information can be found on the SAGE web site.

Just a quick plug for our SAGE Wisdom Webinars that we conduct every Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 pm Eastern time.  This week we are discussing managed IT solutions using our SAGE OnSight service.  In particular, we will be emphasizing how you don't have to give up control of your IT infrastructure and assets will getting the benefit of managed services, like remote monitoring, support center, and site visits.

If you are interested,  sign-up online here.

Upcoming SAGE Wisdom Webinars will cover Sentinel, our tool to perform daily server checks and some monitoring; managing tech migrations for minimal disruption to the firm, and using extranets like SAGE MindPort for internal projects as well as external ones. Future webinars will cover topics like virtualization, Windows Vista and Office 2007, Exchange 12, and managing newsfeeds.

The Wisdom Webinar schedule can always be found at this link and is updated monthly.

If you are like us and are fanatical about customer service, then almost all of your energy and resources is focused on clients and customers. When focusing on others, you tend to let yourself go. We all figure our coworkers and employees will understand because the firm is focused on the clients. We always hurt the ones we love.

We suggest stopping the pain, or at least mitigating it, because ultimately the pain your employees and coworkers feel will affect their interactions with clients and customers. Employees frustrated with an unstable network or feel neglected because their software questions go unanswered will not and cannot focus on the client and work most productively.

This is our mea culpa. The SAGE Web site is—in a sense—busted. We are in the middle of a redesign and it was important to update the home page quickly, but client commitments have delayed completing the site. We are just now getting around to completing it, but what was supposed to be a couple of weeks has stretched to a few months. Not only are customers and prospects probably wondering what is going on, but a few employees have been waited for their pages to go live.

Try to find a balance between superior customer service and a little “me” time, because ultimately they are all connected.

We describe our OnSight service as “Managed IT Services,” but this means different things to different people. So we figured we would be clear on our vision of managed IT service, especially because we think it is a bit unique.

SAGE approaches OnSight from a value perspective first and foremost, not just a cost perspective. You will still save money compared to managing your IT assets yourself, but you really get maximum value when you factor in our site visits and proactive approach like daily server checks, monthly maintenance, and quarterly technology reviews. We feel that the personal touch is essential. That’s why SAGE application specialists and engineers make periodic visits; interacting first-hand with users and management and seeing any problems and opportunities at the ground level.

We also insist on client independence. Our clients own their servers, workstations, and other equipment, we just keep it running in top shape and help them plan to meet business needs. While you may want to give up some responsibility when it comes to IT, you don’t want to feel like you are giving up control. We don’t live up to your expectations, the cost to switch is minimal. We like it that way. It pushes us to keep providing outstanding service; that means outstanding value for clients.

So when we talk about OnSight managed IT services, we mean you manage us. We don’t manage you.

Here are a few gems from the World Wide Mind that should interest you on a Wednesday morning.

Businesses Could Thank YouTube One Day. Nowadays we enjoy our T1s in the office and broadband connections at home, and perhaps pine for some more bandwidth when you can't get your e-mail because your co-worker is watching a video on YouTube. Don't rat out your mate just yet, because YouTube just may be making it worthwhile for telecoms invest in bandwidth and up your connection speed. It seems you have Napster to thank for what you have now, but the real payoff comes when the online document review with co-counsel in three different states moves at light speed.

Don't Go Changing, To Your Clients, Customers...In another great example of pushing a metaphor to the limits without jumping the shark, here is great post on not letting your client-firm relationships become like a bad marriage by changing. Everyone one is so attentive and considerate while dating (selling), but then don't listen or send flowers once the deal is sealed. Avoid this by paying attention to detail, really listen to what they are saying, and behave like you want to marry them all over again. (Where was this post on Valentines's Day?)

You Told Me to Do It, So It's Not Going To Happen? Ever wonder why clients and customers don't take the advice for which they paid us hard money? The psychological terms is called the Principle of Reactance: reactance: a person's tendency to resist social influences that they perceive as threats to their autonomy. This explains why many people act contrary to good advice, even if they commissioned it, and can occur unconsciously. The anecdote is to couch the advice in terms that doesn' appear to encroach on their freedom, but expands it.

Don't Practice Law, Be A Manager. This post discusses the pros and cons of using non-practicing lawyers in management positions like CMOs and CIOs. While they bring business and management experience and skills practicing lawyers often lack, often it is hard for them to fit into the culture and be accepted in it.

A couple of posts we came across today in the blogosphere made us think about the type of people we hire at SAGE.

Since its inception over ten years ago, SAGE has always hired engineers and staff that are not only experts in their field, but excellent communicators, take the initiative, and place a premium on customer service. We feel that this has been instrumental in SAGE’s success, and why our OnSight service is taking off. You would expect communication and customer service skills in the great folks who man our OnSight Support Center, but it is just as important for an engineer to explain the business and operational implications of complex technical issues and understand the customer’s needs, usually expressed in completely non-technical ways.

This is the culture SAGE has fostered over the years. It doesn’t matter whether one works in IT, law, final services, or the restaurant business. Check out restaurateur Danny Meyer’s hospitality quotient for new hires (via Signal vs. Noise). Meyer sees the hospitality quotient as 51 percent of the job, the other 49 percent being technical ability. For the most part, this is what SAGE looks for in its employees.

• optimism and kindness,
• curiosity about learning,
• an exceptional work ethic,
• a high degree of empathy, and
• self-awareness and integrity.

We also look to our people to take the initiative, because many times they are on-sight at the client and must react quickly but intelligently. We don’t hire sheep. Seth Godin explained the perils of hiring sheep in this screed against what he has termed: “Sheepwalking.” It is a great read for any organization.

Mark Chandler, the General Counsel of Cisco Systems, Inc. threw down the gauntlet to big law firms and rising rates in a recent speech. He asserts that law firms have not changed their practices while the technology has changed the ease of access, acquisition and use of information. As a result, law firms have become roadblocks because they restrict access through the inefficient “billable hour.”

“The legal industry has spent millions on IT to up speed access to information. But the only way I can get that information is through an individual billing me by the hour. My in-house team often has more sophistication than the associates who mine the knowledge management system to generate a memo. We’re just not allowed to access the information without paying for someone’s time.”

In his eyes, this failure to make information more accessible to clients, will be the downfall of big law firms unless the remedy the situation. Chandler warns that standardized legal information systems like Google Patent Search will spring up to challenge the current model of “one-to-one consultative advice.”

The driver is cost. Chandler says that when law firm’s raise rates, they are oblivious to the cost pressures corporate America face every day, and misperceive the value of their services.

“From the law firm think perspective, “sales” too often means a one to one relationship with a lawyer who bills by the hour. As a client, I can tell you what I want to buy is access to information, strategy, and negotiation, and, in the case of litigation, to courtroom skill as well.”

Think he is crazy? Cisco does almost all of its legal work on a fixed fee basis, and has been paying less each year rather than more. He works with law firms in a number of ways to reduce costs, create efficiency, and improve service. Now how are you going to respond to his model before someone else does?

We are garnering a few interesting insights into the miscommunication that often happens between IT and users from reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. The thrust of the book is that behind people’s locked unconscious is a whole range of pattern recognition and cognitive abilities that allows people to make snap judgments and decisions. More often than not, according to Gladwell, these snap, unconscious decisions are correct. How this applies to the interaction between IT and users can be demonstrated through the common refrain “It just doesn’t work right!” and “I can’t explain it, but it’s not right.”

So what does this mean to unlocking the secret code of user feedback to IT:

• Don’t discount a user’s "gut reaction". Just because they cannot describe their reaction doesn’t mean they are wrong.
• Be able to interpret their reaction: People react to new and different as “bad,” so those first gut reactions may need interpretation. Is the user being presented with something different from the norm, causing some discomfort? Or is there something intrinsically wrong that really needs to be addressed?
• Find a common language. IT has a specialized language to describe their world, something users do not. They do not have the words to describe their “feelings,” and when we try to give them IT’s jargon, it has no meaning for them. Try to find a middle ground you can both understand.
• People are ignorant of the things that affect their actions, but they rarely feel ignorant. When confronted with a feeling but no clear rationale, they will create one. This plausible explanation takes the place of the real pattern their unconscious saw or took exception.
• Try and Try Again. It just may come down to trial and error. Go back, change a setting, rework the interface, or explain the concept in a new way. Then see how the user reacts. Not terribly efficient, but could mean the difference between satisfied and disgruntled users.

We found some validation in ILTA’s 2006 Salary Survey today. SAGE has always focused on finding experienced people with great communication skills and an attitude to learn, investigate, and dig deep. Education and certifications have always been less important as they are no substitute for experience in the field and real world problem solving. This has run counter to many who have placed a premium on certifications and education levels.

No longer are we the lone wolves, according to ILTA’s 2006 Survey. According to law firms surveyed, this is how their ranked the criteria in hiring IT staff:

1. Personality and attitude
2. Technology experience
3. Experience in the legal world
4. Training and certification
5. College degree and formal education.

We would probably substitute “excellent communication skills” for “personality” as a criteria. For SAGE, excellent communication skills mean excellent client service, and the rest should naturally fall into place.

There it is. A blatant plug for one of our services. You knew it had to happen eventually. But we also want to boast about our great people here at SAGE.

Tech salaries came up the other day when talking with a client. Just so happens, E-Week ran a story yesterday on the shortage of specialized IT skills is pushing up salaries. That reminded us that an advantage of SAGE OnSight is that we provide the expert IT staff or augment your current staff. Our clients don’t have to fight for scarce tech talent and their consummate high salaries, because we already do that.

Our OnSight clients rave about the service because of the staff. Our Application Specialists manning the OnSight Support Center have the unique combination of extensive knowledge, great communication skills, and happen to be some of the most considerate people you will ever meet. Then our crack engineers are some of the most intelligent thorough and creative around. Frankly, there isn’t much they haven’t seen in network design and support. Not only are they terrific at troubleshooting issues, but they can explain it in laymen’s terms. We have already done the hard work to identify great IT talent, so you don’t have to.

We have to stick up for our own kind today and take exception to the article “Five IT Blind Spots That Shut Lawyers Out.” It regurgitates all the worst stereotypes of IT workers to give the impression that IT departments have gone rogue and care nothing for the lawyers and staff they serve. Even worse, the article suggests that IT is off in its own sandbox, using the partners’ well earned money to play with its shiny toys.

No one, in whatever profession, is the sum of their stereotypes. The “assumption” here is that this is the modus operandi of your average IT worker. Sure, we have seen instances of parochial thinking, poor service, and insensitivity, but this is more often the exception rather than the rule. The article makes a number of good points, but by compiling a laundry list of IT faults, it makes an incorrect impression that stigmatizes the industry and law firm’s own employees.

We work with IT staff in many law firms and know their commitment to the firm and their users. Everyday we see the IT staff that work hard to explain difficult technical concepts to laymen; who know the business goals and work hard to align IT to them; who make the added effort to create simple interfaces to complex systems; and who refuse to buy non-essential software or upgrade to non-compelling versions. Maybe the default assumption lawyers and staff should have is that IT is here to help, not to make your life miserable.

Here are a series of posts over at The Wired GC about law firm rate increases that ends with a harrowing set of conclusions for law firms:

• Profit motive appears to be the primary factor; and
• Customers are getting the same thing as before, only it costs more. That means the customer is getting less value.

Click on the blog post to comment on the merits of the author's argument, but we will point out that perceptions quickly become reality. Are your firms offering extranets, easier access to files, or other services to offset the negative value of rate increases?