In talking with some organizations, I’ve come to realize that they don’t have a handy list of things they should be asking of their network/desktop technology providers. (I think this might be applicable to all technology providers, but this is what is on the front of my brain at the moment.) Organizations without dedicated tech staff (and, I imagine, even some with) may feel at the mercy of providers, since they often don’t have the technical know how to determine whether or not a suggestion, advice, or a fix that a provider might do would be helpful. And, if the provider speaks only tech talk, the organization staff feel stymied in figuring out what to do. Real life example:
Outlook on a couple of Organization A’s computers is very slow to load, and slow to get email (others are fine). Very small network (<6 users), using simple POP email. Technology Provider X suggests, without actually looking at Organization A’s computers that they should “Move the POP mail from an external server to host on Exchange on the onsite windows server.” (This is not the actual words of they used, but this is the actual content and type of language used.)
To most staff, in most small nonprofit organizations without dedicated tech staff, this is completely greek. (And, for those of you that are geeks, also completely wrong.) What is Organization A to do? How are they to figure out 1) what this means 2) whether it’s right?
So off the cuff, here are some things I think a nonprofit should ask their network providers:
1) To document ongoing maintenance that will be done on the network and on desktops, and how often (including virus updates, defragmentation of hard drives, drive imaging, backups, etc.) (and the org should follow up, to make sure these happen.)
2) To explain, when changes are suggested, what the changes are in plain english, why they think it will help, what they went through to figure that out, and what the ongoing ramifications of the change will be (like a change to hosting email internally on exchange will increase maintenance costs.)
3) To document system changes.
If we really care about nonprofits being able to accomplish their missions, we should care about what they know about technology, and how they approach it. We should desire to increase the internal expertise of the organizations, so they are better empowered to make good technology choices. And nonprofits should demand this of their providers.
Really, it’s win-win. Nonprofits get better able to use technology to further their mission, and providers get clients that are active, engaged, and, likely, a lot less annoyed and less likely to find someone else.
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