[Computerbank] Support and a marketing opportunity

[Don Cameron]

On IRC supportHi Computerbankers,

First a bit of good news - CB NSW will be doing the install for the Mudgee Youth Cafe' in a few weeks time, and through kicking our community committees into gear it looks like the Deputy Prime Minister will drop-in for a chat and a cuppa while the install is taking place (subject to final confirmation of his agenda, however he was involved with the Cafe' from the outset and is keen to support the project - of course his attendance is also conditional on there being no new political crisis!). We also have tentative attendance guarantees form Win and Prime television as well as the local press.

Might I politely suggest that if CB have any specific requests for funding or other assistance from the Minister, that you forward them to us prior to his visit so we can prepare a "Briefing Document" for prior submission - John Anderson is quite a nice bloke and will usually help-out wherever he can, however like most politico's he does like to be able to walk in with an understanding of any problems and pre-warned of any requests likely to be made on Government - just hitting him with cold requests on the day probably won't do any good (he might think you are trying to put him on the spot in front of the TV cameras... and believe me, that strategy won't work - far better for everyone involved for him to be handing you a cheque in front of the cameras ;-)

On the matter of Help-Desk support, I must confess that I have no particular allegiance to Linux, even though I regularly use it (along with Citrix and Unix) in the workplace - I generally use whatever it is that works within the constraints of suitability (highest priority), reliability (second priority), and budget (third priority) - however I did manage an ISP for a number of years, and anyone who has ever had anything to do with ISP's will understand the volume of support requests received on a daily basis - you rarely get to hang-up the phone at all (what's your modem number again?... my modem won't dial.... why can't I get into that web-site everyone's talking about?... mum was using the vacuum cleaner and now my Internet connection won't work... Telstra just disconnected my phone and I can't get onto the Internet to pay my phone bill (I think you get the drift).

Coordinated IT Help-Desk Support in a volunteer group almost always means establishing a roster and common telephone number diverted to people's homes while they are 'on-duty' - This is the only way you will avoid comments like "cause i am sick of endless calls on my mobile at any hour" - the benefit of a single number means you can also have an answering service to tell people your hours of operation (i.e. calls are not diverted after 6.00 pm etc.) - Maybe this is the sort of overhead you could approach the Government to financially support?  - Also, in my experience less than 20% of support calls require a high level of technical expertise - most are common garden variety questions that can be answered by anyone with a modicum of computer literacy.

Rgds, Don       


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