A Culture of User Neglect

An old, but excellent bit from Jared Spool:

We asked a ton of people to send us their settings file for Microsoft Word. At the time, MS Word stored all the settings in a file named something like config.ini, so we asked people to locate that file on their hard disk and email it to us. We then wrote a program to analyze the files, counting up how many people had changed the 150+ settings. … Less than 5% of the users we surveyed had changed any settings at all. More than 95% had kept the settings in the exact configuration that the program installed in.

Then, it gets better, or perhaps worse …

We had friends in the Microsoft Office group, so we asked them about the choice of delivering the feature disabled. ... It turns out the reason the feature was disabled in that release was not because they had thought about the user’s needs. Instead, it was because a programmer had made a decision to initialize the config.ini file with all zeroes.

[The programmer’s assumption was that] at some point later, someone would tell him what the “real defaults” should be. Nobody ever got around to telling him. ... The users’ assumption that Microsoft had given this careful consideration turned out not to be the case.

I'm positive that Microsoft is not alone in doing this. I’d even go so far as to speculate that the programmer in question wasn’t as apathetic as the brief detail above makes him out to be, but likely raised the issue several times and was ignored, or even told to back off. This happens far more often than any firm would likely care to admit.

Good Technology Cannot Overcome Poor Culture

Brian Solis writes:

Businesses deploy new technology without designing goals, processes, and reward systems to promote new engagement. Additionally, decision makers miss the need to empower key stakeholders to drive adoption and address internal skeptics and detractors. ... Everything begins with investing in a culture ... Tools only take you so far. It’s the philosophy and eventually vision and leadership behind the implementation that serves as the foundation for internal engagement.

Solis was considering the need for leadership in implementing social networking "behind the firewall", but the remarks about what is needed identify the reason that this, and many other technologies, have failed to achieve results.

Whether it's a social network, a knowledge management system, or a new spreadsheet application, it doesn't catch on if it's installed and ignored. But even at that, you're pushing a rope uphill if the culture isn't right before the tool is purchased.

Dead from the Neck Up

Brian Solis Writes:

The reality is that most executives don’t use social networks. And, to be honest, most don’t read their own emails. Many won’t ever see this post. Trying to convince decision makers that this is a war fought on the battleground of social networks is in of itself fighting a losing battle. That’s because the future of business isn’t tied to the permeation of Facebook, Twitter, smartphones, tablets or real-time geo-location check-ins. The future of business comes down to relevance and the ability to understand how technology affects decision making and behavior to the point where the recognition of new opportunities and the ability to strategically adapt to them becomes a competitive advantage.

PDF May Be Creating More Paperwork Than It Saves

From ReadWrite Web:

In 2008, a UK-based Adobe Acrobat engineer remarked, "I believe in striving to minimize the use of paper, but I do believe that we will probably never reach a position where paper is eliminated from our workplaces." This morning, his predictions were clearly confirmed bya study published by the information professionals organization AIIM.

The study shows that while the exchange of PDF files as e-mail attachments has reduced the volume of paperwork traded between IT professionals, that reduction is not only minimal, but quite possibly made up for. Over three-quarters of IT professionals surveyed say one of the first things they do with a PDF-based invoice... is print it out.