An IT department that points and laughs is hardly encouraging learning and business alignment.

The piece highlights the fact that the help desk, despite the growing importance of IT/business alignment in the enterprise, remains in the “condescending gatekeeper role.”

As evidence, Wailgum includes a video that features Andy Bitterer, co-chair of Gartner Group’s BI Summit, doing Jay Leno-style “man-on-the-street” interviews in London. Among Bitterer’s questions to the masses: “Do you use a database?” “Do you know what Business Intelligence tools are?” “Do you know what OLAP is?”

Honestly, does this Gartner bloke really expect everyday people to know what these things are? As Wailgum asserts, Gartner conference attendees may find it amusing (ha, look at the stupid users!), but it really demonstrates how out of touch IT is with its customers.

This paragraph, in which Wailgum describes IT’s image problem, is particularly illustrative: “A technological arrogance that lurks behind and manifests itself in arcane techno mumbo-jumbo and smug conceit, that, for lack of a better word, really pisses off end-users and has turned them against IT departments.”

Nicely put, Wailgum.

What’s really troubling about the five-minute video, however, is the fact that a number of the interviewees seem to be lying when the say they do know what OLAP and BI are. Perhaps they feel compelled to pretend they know, even though they clearly have no idea.

Feigning knowledge to avoid appearing ignorant happens in the workplace all the time. And an IT department that points and laughs is hardly encouraging learning and business alignment. Such a help desk delivers only lost productivity, and a whole lot of errors.

I don’t find that funny at all, and neither should a CIO.

FOR THE RECORD: OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing (Wikipedia page here); and Business Intelligence, or BI, uses technologies, processes and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data and business processes (Wikipedia page here).

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Typewriters. In the year 2009.

In the NYPD’s defense, a commenter noted the department’s prudence for not wasting money on technology its cops didn’t know how to use.

In a subsequent article on CIO.com, writer Thomas Wailgum detailed the department’s efforts to update its technology, and noted that change, especially at the NYPD, is slow — hence the embarrassingly outdated purchase. In the NYPD’s defense, a commenter noted the department’s prudence for not wasting money on technology its cops didn’t know how to use.

While I agree that investing in technology and not teaching people how to use it is a gigantic waste of money, I don’t think the NYPD should continue to shell out money for crusty old technology that is useless for modern crimefighting.

Think about it this way: If a hospital decided to buy Windows 95 instead of a newer version, because training all of its staff would be too great an undertaking, what do you think the patients would say? And how do you think using such dated technology would affect the hospital’s ability to give patients the best care?

Simply put, it wouldn’t fly. So why does it at the NYPD, an institution that is responsible for the well-being of one of the world’s largest cities? I’m baffled.

I know the NYPD is trying, but buying $1 million worth of typewriters is a step back. Easing into new technology, and training your people to use it — now that’s feasible. Change hurts, but it’s necessary. (Jen Darr)

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | PC Helps eTraining | Contact PC Helps