bjturk.commentary: what about the info-dictator?

bjturk.commentary
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this bjturk.commentary:
what about the info-dictator?

In 1996, the information systems manager at my now-former place of employment revoked my company-provided email privileges. He did this because I was attempting to get some information via gophermail. Unfortunately, I had taken off the usual message size restriction because I wanted to deal with a single message rather than several. My company used Lotus cc:Mail, and I am told that it has a message size limit of one meg. The incoming message exceeded this limit and brought down the email gateway serving all of the company's locations worldwide. Crashing the corporate email gateway is frowned upon, as one might expect, and I was taken to task for supposedly using email for personal reasons (which I wasn't). This was the conclusion of the IS honcho when he pulled my email privileges, and he communicated this accusation to his superior AND mine before giving me a chance to explain. (I noted in the ten months that I was without email that several others where I work receive personal email, including one who gets regular notes from Mom in Pennsylvania.)

The Chief Information Officer of any company is in a unique position. Within certain limits, he rules his domain absolutely (no pun intended). While he must answer to his superior, that person is rarely technically knowledgable enough to understand the intricacies of information systems management. This enables the CIO to abuse power. At a whim, he alone creates both the haves and have-nots. Typically, the haves are those in positions of authority which the CIO respects, and the have-nots are almost exclusively among those lacking such authority. When one of the have-nots is wrongly accused and punished, as I was, he has no recourse except to wait until the CIO has a change of heart. Sometimes they will wait until the wronged party apologizes and adequately sucks up to him before granting some kind of minor benefit.

An info-dictator impairs the resources of the company for whom he works. Why? Simply because he can be, and often is, a barrier between the employees who need access to information and the information itself. This was my case, where I have a need for real-time information on occupational safety and health issues and cannot get it. As noted previously, people in a circumstance similar to my own have no recourse, no way to appeal.

As long as the CIO is allowed to abuse power, it will continue. Their supervisors must keep tabs on his or her actions and why they were taken if info-dicatators will ever be stopped. When employees need information in real time, particularly by way of the Internet, nothing should ever stand between the employee and the information he needs to do a better job and provide his firm with another aspect of competitive advantage.

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