Web 2.0, not just for techies anymore

I'm currently working on a marketing plan for a construction industry professional organization. The group is well known and respected, but they want to expand a bit, and freshen up their value proposition. All pretty standard stuff.

Going into this, I have to say, I had some preconceived notions. I thought these construction company owners were going to be "good 'ol boys" who barely used computers and made comments like "Oh the Internet, yah, my son showed it to me one time on his computer."

Boy was I wrong. The construction industry is very online, and very technically sophisticated. It's international 24x7 business with a Blackberry and a laptop on all the time.

The managers I'm working with live their lives online, as much as any technology workers I know. In fact, one of the members just said to me, "We need to do a survey of the blogs and forums on this topic... really get some insight on current perceptions and what’s valued. You know, that's the best way to find out what people really think, just see what they are blogging about...the language in these is more first hand and unfiltered compared with other published information."

I'm delighted to say, I stand corrected. This should be a very interesting project.

Are you ready for DST?

DST, in case you didn't know, is Daylight Savings Time. It's coming early this year, and it's bigger than you think. I wonder, when they were touting the savings, did the calculate the cost?

I've been hollering (politely, of course) about this at my own university since late last week after dozens of messages from separate sys-admins trickled and then poured in over the last few days, and we set up a web page to gather all our information. I asked for someone to coordinate on the technical side of the house. As I said to my boss on Friday,

This is one of those, "I've been doing this for ten years and something isn't hitting the right note," things. It's a big impact, there are a lot of patches that will have to happen, and it doesn't feel like anyone has their arms around the whole situation.

Sometimes we see things happening where all we can do is raise a flag and make sure that everyone knows what's going on. If no other actions on their part are required, them I'm fine with it, but I want them to say it. At the very least, I would like us to check in with them and make sure there's some common dialog happening.

I'm sorry I can't explain it in more objective terms. It's a gut thing based on how the whole thing has evolved.

Later on, I explained again more succinctly:

Basically, I see the potential for trouble, and I want someone technical to make sure there isn't any trouble or to say that it's all under control. Trouble could be anything from it doesn't go well to it's extremely uncoordinated and a lot more work that it has to be.

She trusts my gut and we have someone on the technical side. It's validating to read this post in CIO.com titled Y2K Redux from February 12. I used this same example with the work folks on Friday. (Yes, I'm feeling smart today.)

CIO.com is, by the way, a valuable bit of reading for non-CIOs. If you want to become knowledgeable about the business of IT, read it. TWs have constant angst about staying valuable: understand the business you're in and what issues your bosses are dealing with.