RodeWorks » Agile

Crowdsource your next application design

Feb 23.09 | Design

How can new networking technologies — social media/web 2.0/call it what you will — inform how big organizations design technologies to meet user needs? In my workplace we seem to have a split personality. Sometimes decisions are made by a small mysterious private group which shuns feedback, making guesses for users for their own good. Other times committees are formed that can takes months to collect feedback and synthesize results. Both methods can have their successes, but often prove to be inefficient and fail to deliver all that is possible.

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End running workplace technology

Nov 28.08 | Lifestyle

It is a tough time for the University IT department. Just at a time when we’d like to take more control — to prevent virus/worm infiltrations, loss of sensitive information (ss# or credit cards) or movement of company assets to off-site companies (google docs) — our users are moving in the opposite direction. And expecting us to follow along or get left behind. Our students would rather discuss class homework on Facebook, not in the course website, and faculty are following. Departments expect cutting edge web-based services with the same feature set as offerred by Google and many others — tough to compete with when offerred for free. If we ignore their requests, charge too much, or take too long, they’ll just do it anyway.

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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!