Log-in | Register Username:   Password:   forgot password? Logged in as | Log-out

blog home blog structured search InfoWorld power search InfoWorld metadata explorer The Screening Room all screencasts popular / general-interest screencasts Friday podcasts Friday podcasts with transcripts Friday podcasts: RSS feed all podcasts all blog items LibraryLookup subscribe with rss: send Jon an email: reading list as opml reading list as html

<<  Thursday, April 28, 2005  >> Those clueless users Sitting in a coffee shop this morning I overheard a story that sounded familiar. Guy #1: How's it going? Guy #2: Not so good. They upgraded my computer, and I lost all my files. The reason this sounded familiar is that I'd heard the same thing last month from a friend. What's more, I had a hunch that Guy #2 works for the same local business as my friend. So I asked, and sure enough, he does. Here's what happened to both my friend and to Guy #2. Their Windows 2000 systems were upgraded to Windows XP. Unbeknownst to them, the only files subject to automatic backup were those under My Documents. Stuff on the desktop wasn't backed up, they'd put a lot of stuff there, and it all evaporated during the upgrade. For a week afterward, my friend was walking around in a state of amnesiac shock. Guy #2 is going to have that kind of week starting today. I'm sure there was a policy memo explaining how nothing outside of My Documents was guaranteed to be safe. Probably it was sent more than once. In response to complaints from my friend and Guy #2, I imagine a dialog something like this: IT person #1: Can you believe it? How many times have we told those users about the policy? IT person #2: It's hopeless. Users just don't have a clue. We can draw various conclusions from this little parable. Here's the one I want to stress today. Calling people "users" is pernicious. It distances and dehumanizes. We should probably remove that word from the IT vocabulary.

Recent Entries Why can't Johnny download? Because he's stuck in a semantic muddle. Justifying the feel-good labels Screen-sharing's long tail Why can't Johnny download? A conversation with Rajiv Gupta about fine-grained access control XBRL use cases: better late than never Tantalizing hints of the Knowledge Navigator Denise Getts wires the web Beyond the election news cycle A conversation with Jim Russell about the Pittsburgh diaspora The SALT talks All roads lead to VNC Mobile speech recognition The Screening Room #10: Dabble DB Scaling the Tufte effect A conversation with John Schneider about Efficient XML What's the video threshold for face-reading? So many social networks, so little time Conversational dynamics in the blogosphere Intense, simple, active demonstrations A conversation with Cricket Liu about the Domain Name System Drowning in a rising tide DRM by asking nicely In search of non-gratuitous 3D A conversation with Mark Ericson about communications-enabled business processes Levelator! Talk to the avatar WordPress for loosely-coupled comments, part 2 Compound documents for the web A conversation with Ellen Ullman about living close to the machine At the Paris SOA Forum ID card anthropology Second Life, MTurk, and on-demand education The Screening Room #9: Windows Live Writer A conversation with Tim Fahlberg about mathcasts, clickers, and the future of education A conversation with Jeff Bezos about Amazon web services Kim Cameron on why business protocols aren't user-centric yet Show me my account activity! WordPress as a loosely-coupled comment engine How translucency could defuse the Turnitin/McLean High controversy A conversation with Cyril Houri about annotating the planet using a GPS/WiFi/cellular hybrid Turk work Screencasting of tacit knowledge Ongoing discussion of translucency and selective disclosure Half-baked ideas Google Earth live and in realtime The politics of data control Audio editing on the move A conversation with Phil Windley about identity in the real and virtual worlds

Sponsored Technology Links
Sybase iAnywhere - IT Guide: Mobile Device Management for Dummies?? CA - Efficient - Flexible - Compliant PGP - Is Your Data Safe? Novell, IBM, and Intel - Solution for Open Virtualization Provides Server Consolidation Curl - IT Guide: Rich Internet Application (RIA) Security HP/Intel - If you don't have enough I/O, your VMs aren't going to go. Symantec - Whitepaper: Secure, recover, and archive critical information Microsoft - {Open Source} Heroes Happen Here Symantec - Whitepaper: Protecting Microsoft(R) Applications Riverbed - Five Ugly Truths about WAFS and Caching InterSystems - Use Ensemble - quickly create composite applications. AT&T - Factors to consider when comparing DSL or Cable Cirba - Advanced Workload Analysis Techniques Rackspace - Go Green Without Sacrificing Server Performance CA - Manage your IT more effectively. AT&T - Measuring mobile productivity AT&T - Thinking about IMS CA - Plan IT better, Manage IT better. AT&T - Refine your company's plan for a Business Disruption Event AT&T - Going mobile with today's technology Cirba - Consolidating Workloads onto Mainframes AT&T - What to expect from a Technology Assessment.		AT&T - Class of Service: Myths and Misconceptions AT&T - Enhancing security through Quantum Cryptography Riverbed - Wide Area Data Services Microsoft - Microsoft Forefront makes defending your systems easier. Learn how. HP - Explore the interactive whitepaper: Rightsizing Blades for the mid-market. Symantec - Webcast: Beyond AntiVirus AMD - Renowned Engineering Institution Chooses AMD Processor-Based Servers AMD - Watch this flash demo of the Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processor EMC - EMC and VMware help you build your virtualized infrastructure. AMD - HP and Oracle deploy unbreakable computing infrastructure Qwest - Learn how Qwest voice and data solutions can save you time. MKS - The Power of UNIX/Linux on Windows with MKS Toolkit Vision Solutions - Is your smaller organization ready for High Availability? Vision Solutions - Is system maintenance doing more harm than good? HP - NEW HP LaserJet P4014n printer Starting at $699 after $100 IS. HP - HP LaserJet M3035 MFP series Starting at $1,599. SHOP NOW HP - Speed, agility, flexibility - The HP BladeSystem c-Class. Vkernel - Resolve Capacity Bottlenecks and Enhance Your Virtual Environment Nokia - Restore Your Mobile Devices With One Click Oracle - The Power of Two with SOA and BPM

	HOME  NEWS  BLOGS  PODCASTS  VIDEOS  TECHNOLOGIES  TEST CENTER  EVENTS  CAREERS	About | Advertise | Awards | RSS | Contact Us
Copyright © 2008, Reprints, Permissions, Licensing, IDG Network, Privacy Policy, Terms of Service. All Rights reserved. InfoWorld is a leading publisher of technology information and product reviews on topics including viruses, phishing, worms, firewalls, security, servers, storage, networking, wireless, databases, and web services. CIO :: ComputerWorld :: CSO :: Demo :: GamePro :: Games.net :: IDG Connect :: IDG World Expo Industry Standard :: IT World :: JavaWorld :: LinuxWorld :: MacUser :: Macworld :: Network World :: PC World :: Playlist