CIO Magazine has a great article on Users Who Know Too Much (And the CIOS Who Fear Them). The tone of the article suggests that IT organizations need to embrace new web based technologies from IM and GMail to BaseCamp and WordPress. They’re making your business a better more productive place even if your sysadmins are screaming about those ‘idiotic users.’
Rob Israel, CIO of John C. Lincoln Health Network, has seized on this and come up with a novel solution:
“I’m the only person in IT allowed to say no,” he says. Conversely, his IT employees have only three options: approve a request, research it or pass it up to him. According to Gold and Israel getting a reputation for saying yes will encourage users to come to you with ideas. That gives you the chance to learn what it is that the user is really trying to do and come up with a way to do it that won’t compromise security.
Assume that your internal customers are using a new tool for a good reason and support their attempts to improve productivity. Rob sounds like the sort of progressive CIO we need to see more of.