IT chiefs are now playground monitors

I feel sorry for you IT managers and directors. Not only do you have to keep up with a continually evolving technology landscape but you also have to contend with the fact that your staff have access to computers. Surely, in an ideal world, this would not be the case.

This week, a report from IDC found its way onto my desk. It claims IT directors are keen as mustard to embrace all that is new and wonderful in enterprise IT, such as converged communications systems, green IT practices and social networking tools.
But while some of you may prefer to take a careful, considered approach to adopting innovations, your staff could well have other ideas.

In my last column I wrote about Facebook, and whether staff should be allowed access to the site or not. But Facebook is just the tip of the iceberg.

Not only are your staff probably looking at the sort of sites that ideally should only be accessed in private, they are also no doubt downloading loads of non-work-related material. Is there a new game that involves a polar bear slapping a penguin? Well, it’s probably being played right now, at a desk near you. Did you miss Beyonce’s wardrobe malfunction? Ask around, someone probably happens to have a copy of it on their hard drive. Did you miss all the fun and games at the office summer party? I expect photos are being mailed about the office right now.

How on earth you cope with managing a workforce, as well as a playground as large as the internet, is beyond me.

I have to say that I’m probably as good an example of the kind of employee I’m talking about as you’re likely to find anywhere. I turn up to work in the morning (usually), plug my mp3 player into a USB slot, follow this up with the installation of a USB thumb key, and then move some stuff to and fro between them and my desktop. Then I might check Facebook, before looking at my email. During the day, I’ll download some software, listen to some music, scour some blogs, buy something, watch streaming web casts, and, usually, add at least two more RSS feeds.

However, I am lucky. The nature of my role at IT Week requires me to try out a lot of new web technologies. Google Earth spins around quite happily on my machine, as does Google’s desktop search tool. I probably have about four copies of OpenOffice lurking about and about eight different media players. If systems were to peer beneath my bonnet, they would probably be very shocked and rather disappointed.

This is my job. Yours is dealing with people just like me that don’t have the same excuse. Good luck.