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A whole-product focus

The new "average" user

A primary result of ubiquitous information technology on our campuses is a change in the nature of the "average" user. Early adopters of information technology were interested in technology for its own sake and were willing to expend considerable effort to apply it to their academic work. These people still exist on campus, but today's mainstream users simply want to use technology to do meaningful work. For example, they are not fascinated with e-mail, but need it to communicate with colleagues; they think of word processing as a tool for writing papers and grants, not as something they want to spend hours learning to use.

Integrated service, not more technology

In our current support model, the response to increased demand is to supply more capability and capacity (cycles, bandwidth, sectors), offer some training on the use of specific technologies, and provide a source of answers to questions. It is left to the users to integrate these services. For instance, communicating requires more than word processing and e-mail. Users must compose a message, find the right e-mail address, transmit the message over the proper medium, and file the information away for later reference. In today's technology environment, these tasks can require four different applications. With the technology available on the desktops, networks, and servers of our institutions, we can do a much better job of providing fully integrated environments for basic information functions such as correspondence, classroom presentation, grant management, and so on. These are what we call "whole-product" environments.

Consistent and reliable whole-product environments

Early technology adopters were accustomed to inconsistencies. They knew that if the "quit" command did not close an application, "done," "bye," "exit," or "esc" likely would. Today's average users lack this knowledge and experience and are more likely to use the "reset" function of their computers than to try different solutions. If they lose their work by resetting, they may stop using the technology because "it doesn't work," or they will turn to support providers for help.

When technology merely supplements the way we do business, we can tolerate a lower level of reliability. If the computer display system fails at our conference presentation, we can generally use backup optical foils. If our presentation depends upon real-time Web access, however, the technology must work. We cannot tolerate problems with data format, projector resolution, noisy phone lines, or an off-line server. When customers find that they cannot depend upon the technology we have been promoting, they suspect us, our organization, and technology itself. We understand the complexity of the environment and may think our service is pretty good under the circumstances. Nonetheless, customers measure our success in terms of results, and if service is unreliable, we have failed to do our jobs.

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