Baseline: Yet another nail in the coffin laying to rest the premise of Carr’s famous article in the Harvard Business Review asserting that IT is a commodity that doesn’t yield competitive advantage will be driven home Monday. That’s when a new research study from the Hackett Group will be released showing that companies that have mastered the use of information technology to provide maximum business value achieve significantly better financial results than their peers.

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"Given that tendency [IT business experience], you'd think that when I had the opportunity to create it all from scratch, I would remember the fundamentals. But at our first audit, I was informed that we needed to increase our focus on the fundamentals. Why had I neglected the very things I'd been preaching about for years? In hindsight, it's pretty easy to see the things I needed to be doing better:"

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"I guess I don't have to repeat that Drupalcon Boston 2008 attracted 800
drupalians. So eventhough the room for Dries [Buytaert's] keynote this morning was
huge, it was packed."

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"In early February 2008, the Plone Foundation organized a summit with
key decision makers and influencers to produce a plan for the strategic
future of Plone at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California."

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Analysis and Recommendations for Information Technology User Support Provided to a Government Field Office

Chapter 1 (continued)

Author's Role and Position in the Organization

The author has been employed by the Organization for nearly 15 years, with the first 10 years working in the Operations Unit of the Organization's field offices. During this tenure, the author was also given IT related responsibilities that include software configuration of a Doppler radar system and management of the office's Internet Homepage. During the last five years, the author has been employed as the Information Technology Officer at his current field office.

The position of Information Technology Officer (ITO) is a relatively new position for the Emergency Field Office with responsibilities encompassing the operations, management, and administrative computer systems of the field office. The Information Technology Officer has been given responsibility for five critical IT elements at the field office (see "Performance Plan" in the Appendixes). Those elements include: (a) user support, (b) software development, (c) information systems analysis, (d) information technology program management, and (e) quality assurance and professional development. When a previous Assistant Administrator for Emergency Services was asked to describe, from his perspective, the role the Information Technology Officer position should play in the field office, he responded by saying:

Analysis and Recommendations for Information Technology User Support Provided to a Government Field Office

Chapter 1

Introduction

Through the history of the Organization, improvements in emergency services to the public were, in part, accomplished by the implementation of advanced information technology (IT) at the Organization's field offices. In the forward of the Organization Strategic Plan for 2005 - 2010, the Assistant Administrator for Emergency Services reiterates that "from our beginnings in the 19th century, the Organization has depended on our employees, partnerships, advances in scientific understanding, and improvements in technology to carry out our core mission of protection of life and property and enhancing the economy." The Organization also expects that the advances in emergency services will continue, as the 21^st century "promises significant improvements to public safety and economic well being" through the utilization of "rapid science and technological advances" (Organization, 2005, p. 5).

"Standardization, centralization and simplification are the three guiding principles to help managers and employees accept new technologies, the retiring CIO and CTO of the U.S. Postal Service says."

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"Doubt about the direction the economy is taking could force corporate executives to reevaluate their cost management strategies. A practive approach can save companies dollars and their executives a lot of distress."

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