Friggin’ IT Department
As each day passes by I continue to see more and more things/services that our corporate network is “blocking”. Some websites that contain nudity and other abrasive material I understand and support the decision to block access. They don’t have any place in the work place. One service that the network seems to have issue with is accessing some IM client services. Most departments choose to use IM clients to communicate within their department and outside their department. Yes, the risk for making small-talk is high, but doesn’t the corporation want their employees to communicate with each other as long as it is being used professionally and properly? Christ, I know they are monitoring what is being sent via IM. We see the security messages appearing. I understand why they would block sending files via IM (they are leaving the corporate firewall and could contain sensitive material). Why flood the email servers with conversations being sent via email? After all, we can’t keep messages for very long on the servers and our storage permissions are limited.
One common use for IM clients that I witness is discussing topics being covered on conference calls. Confirming statements made, confirming numbers, etc. Obviously, the biggest use for IM is chatting with friends that are stored within a contact list. I would have to be really naive to believe that never takes place.
The IT department likes to prevent users from changing their wallpaper, deny access to websites that can be could potentially be used for educational purposes (websites used for helping in programming languages), etc. When it comes to removing viruses loaded on machines and preventing viruses from spreading, IT seems to ignore and brush the issues under the rug. I even know of some users that have informed IT of specific viruses loaded on corporate workstations. Is anything done about it? Nope! If you happen to have a visitor come into the office from another company and they want to give you a demo of a product that you will/might be selling, that visitor will not be able to use our network to establish a VPN session with that visitors network. We have a hard enough time allow these visitors from accessing their corporate email via the Outlook Web Access that is built into modern MS Exchange Servers. Forget demoing products online or forget about collaboration with your vendors.
As you can tell, I am still pretty discouraged after reading some comments made by a member of the management team within the department I work for. Welcome to corporate America…
Score for the end user 1, IT is 0. I had Gregor send me some public SOCKS proxy servers to try and use while I am in the office. The moment I added the proxy server IP to MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger, all users that I setup suddenly had connectivity.
Mess with the bull, get the horns!
After reading this post, I felt compeled as an IT professional to make a comment. There is a delecate balancing act that IT has to play that invoves the “paper, scissors, rock”-like combination of security/control, effeciency, and innovation. It is necessary to have as much security as it takes to keep the bad people out, but one must look at how security measures effect effeciency and innovation. Not to mention the fact that not all IT pros are created (or educated) equally. IM may be considered a threat to one person and a great tool to another. Just going on what you have said I would say your company may have a classic example of a Desktop Nazi. These are network or desktop admins that are drunk with their power over you as an end user. What harm is there in allowing people to change their desktop background? Policies are a great tool to help IT pros customize the environment based on the needs of the users, but they shouldn’t go overboard. Sure you can lock down the ability to change the desktop background, but why? What does that accomplish other than making the EUs think that they cannot bring a part of themselves to work with them.
As for IM, I go back to security/control, effeciency, and innovation. The security isn’t a big deal. The firewall is going to catch most of the bad stuff, and more than likely, the ports that IM progs are using are already open. As for sending confidential files, that is a concern for all companies, but do you lock down the USB ports? What keeps a user from using a thumb drive? If they want to get the files to someone else, they will do it. On to the effeciency side, there is a big problem with users talking to their friends instead of doing their work. I don’t know about you, but have you ever sent a friend an e-mail, just to have them send you one back and then you respond, etc? Guess what? Your Exchange server is a big ‘ol IM prog. As for innovation… have you seen how realtime collaboration progs are the big thing now? Technology often harbors new thinking. People say, “If I could just use Prog A to do Process B I could cut my time doing this in half.” These such innovations can lead to competetive advantage, which your boss likes.
My suggestion to you, is get your ducks in a row, sit down and define how using such technology will make your job easier, more effecient, and ultimately better for the company. If you feel strongly that that technology will do those things, then push for it. Take it up with the IT manager or CIO. If they happen to be open minded, they might tell you a few things you can do with it that you didn’t think of.