Category Archives: Complexity

DELL support

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My experience of DELL support on Bank Holiday Monday was generally good in that I got through to tech support (an outsourced solution) pretty quickly each time. That said there were a few interesting glitches for those who like reading about this kind of thing:

1. First tech support person said they’d get back to me in an hour after installing XP; they didn’t.

2. Second person got me to the drivers’ installation, but I couldn’t connect to the Internet. They suggested I contacted my ISP and after I said I was with NTL they put me through to Telewest.

3. After talking to NTL they reported the issue was simple, I had not been sent the correct Ethernet driver. So I contacted tech support at DELL once again (pointed out the Telewest error) and said I needed the correct driver. The new support guy sent me an email and said when I replied by email he would ring me back. He didn’t ring back.

4. A (second) helpful tech support guy sent me the correct driver and luckily as I had a IBM Thinkpad (old but just about functioning) with wireless connectivity I was able to download it and save it to my Sony PSP (no memory stick in sight!) and then installed on to the PC, which did the trick. Fantastic.

5. The last guy took over remote control of my PC and also set up the video display set up which was great. Finally he said he would send over a customer satisfaction email. He didn’t do that:-)

6. Finished the re-installation, successfully.

PS: Now fast forward to 2012 and I am working (Temp) for Sony and about to install a new wifi router from Sky. Finger’s crossed it won’t involve using my PSP as a jump station for data again!

 

Global Services: Moving to a Level Playing Field

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After eating three Sainsbury PLC flapjacks I went to the launch of a book titled ‘Global Services: Moving to a Level Playing Field’ written by Mark Kobayashi-Hillary and Dr Richard Sykes last night, including such luminaries as Sir Howard Davies, Director of the LSE, where the event was held. 



Pic of empty chair at LSE post-launch party

I was expecting a pretty dry presentation but was pleasantly surprised to see the author’s connecting up with the Web 2.0 trend in IT. I was also interested to hear from Arun Aggarwal from Tata Consultancy Services which has 190 offices worldwide describe one of his main issues, apart from the quality of skilled labour in India, as how to connect up all the various offices. A role for Enterprise 2.0 I thought? Then again how many organizations do you know which have a strategy to mine ‘tacit knowledge’ for example, even on paper?

PS: One audience member from the trade union Amicus got up and mentioned that the UK’s largest union was about to launch (1 May), with the merger with the TGWU. Wonder how unions are responding to globalisation?