When the IT Department is not your friend…

I’ve been reading a really interesting post by Che Tibby, about the need for guerilla tactics when trying to introduce web 2.0 projects into a government department or private enterprise: http://objectdart.wordpress.com/2007/11/07/sourcing-public-participation/

Che cites the example of New Zealand’s National Road Safety Committee and how staff went about setting up its Road Safety Forum. They found they had a lot of resistance from their IT department.

This is really typical of a lot of IT departments. I first encountered it at a Government agency I once worked for. We needed to get RSS up in order for our new podcasts to be a real podcast, as opposed to a downloadable audio file.

The IT department told us it had many other priorities and it could take more than a year to get RSS up and running.

In the end, one of the fabulous negotiators from the agency’s website spoke to a contact in the IT department, and RSS was enabled in less than a day.

But I remember being so shocked. I thought that IT departments would be really encouraging of social media, but as Che says in his post: ‘ICT support in many agencies usually centres exclusively on the provision of certain core services. Anything slightly innovative is viewed with skepticism, distrust, and passive aggression’.

One Government client I worked for virtually had to sign his life away to guarantee to his IT department that one little podcast wouldn’t bring down the entire website.

Having spoken to IT staff, I think part of the problem is security. The other thing is that they’re understaffed and have many competing priorities.

One thing I find really interesting is the number of IT Departments who try to hose down Web 2.0 projects by saying “we don’t have the bandwidth”. And everyone just nods their heads and goes back to their desks. IT departments have done really well out of this, but now I’m seeing a trend where people are finally firing back with “OK, how do we get more bandwidth?”. When they’re told it will be expensive, they say “OK, well give me the figures”.

One Government Department I know had such a difficult time getting Web 2.0 material up on its website that it’s outsourced it to a private company. They were quoted more than a million dollars by the IT Department for a service that’s costing them much, much less.

And other departments are going around in circles, trying to convince a reluctant Executive to approve web 2.0 projects. They just keep hitting brick walls.

So, what’s the answer? I think Che is right. Guerilla tactics are needed. Sometimes it’s much better to seek forgiveness than ask permission. I know of one Government agency that has been debating setting up a Facebook page for at least a year. In the meantime, a staffer from Queensland set up his own page, which appears to be an official site.

The Government agency and its IT Department had legitimate reasons to be concerned. It’s not allowed to put its IP on a foreign server without special permission. However, as one Gen Y PR graduate said to me “But all the interesting stuff is on foreign servers”…

So, how do we work with (and not against) reluctant IT departments? Do we feel their pain and give up quietly, do we fight them, or can we find a middle ground? Plenty of public servants are dealing with this issue right now, and its driving many of them demented.

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~ by shimmmergirl on January 11, 2010.