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Thank you Scott. Actually, becoming "more mature" is something that I have been aiming at since I left high school and, by all accounts, I still have a way to go ;-) I actually applaud what ACNS does and recognize that some things are best done centrally, but others are best done at the faculty desk. Support staff at every level have a valid role to play as we all strive to find a balance between efficiency and creativity. _____ From: Scott Smith [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 9:46 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] University-wide messaging and calendar system I'm not Laurence, but I've been here 18 years and the reason I was brought in was because the "Centralized Model" wasn't able to keep up with the innovations and the pace of change as they related to computing that were happening in those days (late 80's, early 90's). They couldn't or wouldn't support us, so we went out on our own, for applications development, office productivity, and networking. I remember transitioning people from the IBM 5520 word processing system (and what a beast that thing was!) to WordPerfect DOS, and how amazed they were at what they could do with WordPerfect. But the 5520 was the "Central" word processing option, or you could buy a fancy IBM Selectric typewriter with a correction ribbon. And they were installing PS/2 Model 30's with 4Mb Token Ring as their preferred PC networking system. At least they recommended Netware as their LAN server software back then! Many of the problems we had then are still going to be issues now, specifically (as Tony Cooke mentioned) man-hours. I don't see AIS or ACNS hiring gobs of new techies, nor do I see many of us "independent minded" folk from the hinterlands of campus wanting to go work for AIS or ACNS. (There would be no place to park!) Frankly (and I'm afraid this will offend some of the "Central" people) the level of support we see now from the Central folks indicates that if they got *more* responsibilities and *more* people to support, they would be crushed under the weight of it all. The wait for support would look like the wait for health care in Canada or England. "Herniated disk? We can get you in for an MRI in six months. If you need surgery, you'll have that four months after we get the MRI results back". "You have 100 users that can't log in? Well, there are 73 service requests in line ahead of you"...you get the picture. -Scott ----- Original Message ----- From: Troy Murray <mailto:[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 2:57 PM Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] University-wide messaging and calendar system Laurence, Not to make anyone feel "more mature" then they already are, but I wasn't around then. What was the reason for the break from that type of management (not to say it was or is right)? -- Troy Murray Informatics Specialist Michigan State University Biomedical Research & Informatics Center (BRIC) 100 Conrad Hall East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: 517-432-4248 Fax: 517-353-9420 E-mail: [log in to unmask] __________ NOD32 2594 (20071016) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com