This post is for the executives of the financial world. Please feel free to forward on to the appropriate people.
It’s no surprise to hear that many banking executives still do not understand the value of the IT department. They still see it as only a cost center and generally don’t try to not get involved in understanding the potential or advantages the IT department could provide to the business. Status quo, status quo.
I sat down last week with a group of banking technology people and we discussed some of the main problem areas on why these problems exist. Here’s are some of the themes that came out of the discussions:
1) Execs hire to fill a space, not to build the business. Somebody asked during the session, “How many of us are IT ppl that got into banking or bankers that got into IT?” I was surprised to see that it was about half & half. Many of these IT positions are being filled by the closest person to the IT door & not with experienced folks. Now I’m not saying that some non-IT types out there can’t make this work but time isn’t on their side. Having someone that is experienced not only in IT helps understand the day-to-day but can help set strategy to leverage the technology for business advantage.
2) It’s the executives goal to set the strategy for IT. The majority of our clients are in the small, community banks/CUs space and we often see the same story of the small institution that has limited people wearing 100 hats of responsibilities and they just don’t have time to do anything else but deal with the day-to-day operation. It’s not their fault, right? I think this is crap. The issue isn’t lack of time, the issue is lack of focus, the issue is lack of proper organizational duties, the issue is executives don’t delegate properly. Some people aren’t built for management, I understand that but if they can’t do it and you can’t afford to hire someone that can then banking exec, YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT! Become apart of the process and set measurable goals to validate the IT departments existence.
3) Both parties need to be bilingual As we sat and discussed these issues these IT people would say things like, “My boss just doesn’t get that we don’t have proper bandwidth capacity in our T1’s pipe….zZzzzZZZZzzz.” You aren’t going to listen or validate that type of language. Executives and IT have and always will struggle with understanding each others ‘languages’ but the gap is getting smaller as more executives get comfortable with technology and learn to ask the right questions. Your challenge? Find an IT person that can translate things into business terms and how it will help grow the institution. People like that are worth their weight in gold.
4) Listen to your people! They know stuff. You hired these people. You trust them with your systems and really, your businesses reputation. So why do you listen to a consultant over your own folks? Consultants only get a very short time to understand your organization but you often listen to 3rd parties instead of your people more. Now, I think it is always a good idea to get ‘a fresh set of eyes’ on a problem but try to not go with it solely, balance the consultants with the people that understand it better than anyone.
Would love to see comments below to continue this conversation. Can this gap be bridged or are we doomed for failure?
I’ve been thinking about this topic for a few days now and wanted to talk about how people need to properly use their whitespace (time) each and everyday and how it needs to be cherished to do things like are most important to you. Would love to here your thoughts, comment below OR @bradgarland me on Twitter!
So I’ve dealt with a couple of experiences recently on people losing data and thought it might be worth while to explain how we are handling all of our data and how it has worked out for our family. This has gone through years of trial and error but I think we have a pretty good system that I finally feel comfortable with.
So, first off, let’s discuss our priorities on data. Our biggest concerns of lost ’stuff’ would go something like this:
Docs - Financials, wills, important scanned stuff
All Photos
All Videos
Software
Miscellaneous
These are all pretty obvious but it helped us organize how we wanted our structure to be on the server so we can find stuff fairly easily. Could always be better though!
Alright, so basically we don’t store anything that we don’t want to lose on our laptops. We store everything on our server and for a while that is where it ended. I was thinking, “Alright, that’s cool we have it off our laptops and centralized but what if something happens to any or all of those drives? Hell, what if a fire comes through? We’d lose it all!”
So thanks to Mozy it continously runs on our server and sends additions/changes up to Mozy’s servers, on the Web, to ensure that we have an offsite backup as well. We just set it, and forget it! I looked at it just now and we have over 60GB of information backed up now. Man, lots alot o’ data, eh? We paid for two years worth of service up front so it was like $100 bucks for us to get it but I’m glad we did.
If there was ONE thing I would probably change it is the fact that the server is on XP. I know Mozy has Mac clients too so I’d prefer it to be a Mac server and then we’d be a full out Mac home. That’s probably just the Apple fanboy coming out in me though.
Backup your stuff & I highly recommend an offsite backup service if you do.
Been spending time thinking about the generational differences that we have not only with older folks but there are also significant differences already being assumed by the younger generations. This is a bit of rant on an idea I have been watching with my daughter and how her generation is already taking a lot of the conveniences we have recently gotten for granted.
Comment below if you have another thought…would love to hear from you.
Hey all, yesterday Gary Vaynerchuk did a video post about having today (4.3.08) be the day that we take a little time and say thanks to all the good people around us. So I took a few minutes and put together a little video to thank all the people that are closet to me. Wish I had time to thank everyone and to those I missed, thank you and I appreciate you just as much! Hope everyone has a great GPD08 and be sure to write your own to those that are most important to you.
Be sure if you do a GPD08 that you tag your post as such, cya everyone!
Today, Banktastic made a big announcement. We are going into the hardware business. The water cooler hardware business! We feel strongly that this is going to revolutionize the way way and news are consumed. Prepare to be amazed!
Hehe, in all honesty we did release a complete redesign and added many new features to Banktastic. We are super stoked about it and if you’re interested in joining our banking-related community, come join the conversation!
Brad Garland, host of The Burst on Banktastic TV, is CEO at The Garland Group in Dallas, TX. Brad's goal is to break down
the barriers of traditional banking and explore new, innovative ways of engaging with the next generation of customer. He...more
May 3, 2008 
Posted in Banking, Business, Day in the Life, Thoughts 
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