I received the e-mail mid-day on Saturday. It was sent to one of our VP's, a pair of Sr. directors along with the mailing lists for all the individual-contributor architects - the intro was simply "Interesting..." The e-mail was an Information Week news article about Google's open IT policy whereby which it's being established that employees can buy whatever hardware and software they wish to be more productive.
Why did this make my blood boil ? - Several reasons ranging from general irritation to down-right personal offense. Why did something as simple as an e-mail forward ruin much of my holiday weekend ? - Well, here are a couple reasons for you to think about before sending something similar..
- The forward without any specific context leaves me to need to interperet the intent of the forward.
Am I to be amazed by the incredible internet savvy of the user whom has managed to data-mine such a golden gem out of the bowels of the Internet ?
Does the forwarder think that we're doing something wrong today and wants to prove that the all knowing, all powerful force that is the Google should show us how to right our wrong direction ?
Was this benign and merely a fun article that amused the forwarder because of how absurd they found such a reference and wanted us all to laugh along with him ? - The fact that it was sent to the VP and cc-ing the rest of us mere mortals made this appear to be a desperate cry for attention.
"Hey VP - Promote me,, I have more experience and know more about how to run our IT Client Platform space than that idiot Dave over there"
"Mr. VP Sir -- I'm a much more progressive thinker than the rest of this lot and would like to demonstrate this by showing you that I read news articles which buck the status-quo"
Whatever the reason, I want to encourage my readers to add a little bit more than "Interesting..." when you forward something.
If I was to have found this and forwarded it to you - let me give you an example of how it would have led off.
"Hi everyone, appologies for the e-mail spam, but this really caught my attention.
As you know here at CompanyX, we've been trying to find the appropriate balance between user choice and IT standards. Seeing as how this type of policy aligns primarily within my technology domain, I thought I'd solicit input from a wider audience.
While we continue to permit an incredibly open envioronment - as you can see below, Google IT has taken it a bit farther. No doubt many of you would find this attrractive - but I'm very curious of how they handle some specific situations.
- How do they address the area of software compliance ? - In the event of a software audit, the auditors come pounding on the door of IT, not the individual end-users to establish that they hold appropriate licenses.
- How do they meet established SOX guidelines ? - Google is public the last I checked, we have controls that we need to monitor to keep within SOX compliance.
- What level of support is provided for those that simply 'don't care' about what Hardware, OS or Application set they use ? - My wife is a great example, she wants a fast laptop, a stable OS and all the familiar MS Office applications that she's used for years. - Sony/Tohsiba/HP/Lenovo - it doesn't matter to her. Windows XP/Vista ? - Couldn't care less.
So keep these realities in mind while you ponder the world that is Google - thanks and happy reading..."
So - that's the context I would have provided. I established why this was important to me, what is prompting me to broaden it's distribution and what types of things I'd like you to think about while you read further.
I'll get over it - heck, it's been over 24 hours already.
For those that want to read more - here's the Information Week article.
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