When beginning a project, consultant Greg Seo makes an appointment with
the manager or owner of the company to find out what needs to be changed in
the office.
"It's very important to understand how my client's business is operated,"
he says.
Seo checks out how the office is currently running, and talks
to the workers to find out what tasks they think waste their time. "I have
seen many business owners not utilizing the system they have in their offices,"
he says.
Sometimes all Seo has to do is show workers how to use their computers.
Sometimes the work is much more complicated. For example, he might have to
design and implement an entire computer system for an accounting firm. If
the company needs a whole new computing system, Seo goes home to research
what might work best.
"It's so important, because I have to find out everything about a product
I am about to suggest," says Seo.
By taking extra time to do research, Seo makes sure he knows what he's
talking about when he returns to the office.
"Because I'm an independent, I can't have the access to all the new technology
and software," he says. "It makes me look very stupid when a customer asks
me about a product that just came out on the market and I don't know about
it."
After making sure he does know the system, Seo ventures back to see the
company manager with his plans. He presents the material, discusses details
and makes notes of extras that managers may want added. Back at his own office,
Seo writes up the proposal.
All this work is done before a contract is signed. If the managers don't
like Seo's design, they can just shake hands and ask him to leave the office.
"After the contract is signed the rest is pretty easy," he says. It can
take anywhere from one week to six months to complete the plans that were
laid out in the proposal.
Richard Cole, an automation consultant in Texas, doesn't have to worry
about working without a contract. He works for an automation consulting company
and spends all of his time writing computer software.
"I burn up my brain calories designing user programs for the Internet,"
he says.
He isn't involved with company directors who request the software changes.
They tell Cole the problem they are having with a computer system and ask
him to design software to fix it.
"I'll design a program that records information if you click on a particular
website," he says. "Or I'll design customer surveys for websites. These programs
are designed to synthesize the numbers you get from the survey."
Cole isn't involved in the actual restructuring or reorganizing of an office,
but that doesn't mean he doesn't have the same impact on the people using
his programs. He designs programs that often replace a worker.
"Yes," he admits, "my work gets rid of jobs. There's no question about
that." However, Cole doesn't necessarily see job loss as a bad thing. His
programs free people from doing tiresome, repetitive tasks, he explains. That
frees them up to do other more meaningful and creative work.
"Computers are great for doing boring, menial tasks," he says. "People
aren't."
Consultant Mark Fleeson finds eliminating jobs a difficult part of his
work. He says companies frequently want to become automated so they can get
rid of employees. Management often asks him to get rid of entire departments
of people.
Fleeson has a problem with this. He tells management that people are needed
to run the computers and that workers are needed for their ideas and creativity.
"It's difficult to overcome the mistrust of people who think that by automating
a task, you are going to make them redundant," says Fleeson. Automation is
supposed to help workers do their jobs better, not replace them, he says.
Vickie Phillips is an automation consultant for a library system in Houston.
She says automation has not cost jobs. The opposite may actually be the case.
"I need two, three more [consultants] with me," she says.
Indeed, it is hard to imagine today's libraries without automated scanners
and a long row of computerized search terminals. And libraries must automate
if they want to be accessible via the Internet, says Phillips.
"If your library is not automated, you can't even start to give [users]
what they want on the web because you don't have your collection on machine-readable
format," she says. "Once you get it automated, then you are in a position
to put it on the web. And once you put [it] on the web, then the door is open
for your community."