Investments in Human Capital, or Do You Have a Maintenance Contract on Your Programmer? Copyright 1992 CAUSE FROM _CAUSE/EFFECT_ VOLUME 15, NUMBER 4, WINTER 1992. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear,and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission.For further information, contact CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301, 303-449-4430, e-mail info@CAUSE.colorado.edu INVESTMENTS IN HUMAN CAPITAL, OR DO YOU HAVE A MAINTENANCE CONTRACT ON YOUR PROGRAMMER? by Pat Molholt This viewpoint is based on a talk given by the author at the Coalition for Networked Information meeting on March 24, 1992, in Washington, D.C. ABSTRACT: Pat Molholt is Assistant Vice President and Associate Dean for Scholarly Resources at Columbia University Health Sciences, where she is responsible for the Long Health Sciences Library, educational computing, and the Center for Curriculum and Faculty Development. Throughout her career she has focused on the application of technology to information handling. I am confident that you, as readers of _CAUSE/EFFECT_, are, as they say, technology-literate. You may even form the vanguard of a new group described by William Safire in the _New York Times_ as the "computer digerati"--the counterpart or complement to the intellectual literati or the celebrity glitterati. Actually the "official" definition of digerati is "people skilled in the processing and manipulation of digital information; wealthy or scholarly techno-nerds."[1] (Sorry about that last part!) The notion, while a bit flip, does capture some of the "ain't it grand" aspect of technology. We who have learned to effectively work with the amalgam of computing and telecommunications may well deserve a new label. Our combined professions draw together information resources without regard to geography and deliver those resources to the desktops of users, along with the capability to manipulate, modify, and manage the ever- increasing wealth of such resources. We have, for the most part, gotten rid of the tedious information organization tasks and now look to computing to check our spelling, calculate our income taxes, and tell us what's wrong with our cars. Information technology is strikingly self-referential--that is, one works with it and gains expertise in a way that reflects one's personal use of the technology. Because of its highly individuated nature, understanding the user and her needs is critical to meeting those needs. Along with this goes the rapid evolution of information technology; use and development constantly interact over time. Today one needs to be a near expert to effectively use much of the information technology that is currently available. Unfortunately, that is a good indication of how primitive the technology is today. As designers we need to face this fact and pay attention to the old advertising adage that says you have to get down on all fours and take a look at the product from the customer's point of view. We're responsible for providing the building blocks, the pieces that can be fit together and made to serve the needs of individuals. Successfully meeting those needs requires the powerful combination of computing expertise and information expertise. Together we know that user interfaces are more than getting wires to spark, making some sort of a connection. Together we know we need sophisticated, user-responsive front ends, and we have the capability to build them. We're not, however, designing machines for robots. We're designing tools for people, and there's a vast difference! I want to suggest that as we go about our jobs designing and using technology-based systems to process and move information, we must keep in mind not only our responsibility toward the users, but also our responsibility toward those with whom we work in the design and deployment of those systems. Our employees are our capital, our major resource in moving our organizations forward. Yet, do we pay them as much attention as we do the technology? I'm afraid not. The ever bigger promise of technology Bill Joy of SUN Microsystems spoke at the 1991 EDUCOM conference about new directions in computer technology and networking. His description was exciting, but I also think the images he shared give us cause to think about how enamoring and lulling new technology can become. Joy talked of three successive, seductive expansions of technology. The first is _nomadic_ systems--compact, portable systems that are personalized to take your input by pen or voice and move with you from office to grocery store to home. Augmenting the nomadic system are the _vehicle systems_ that are an integral part of your movement from place to place--maps with recommended routes, noting services such as hospitals, battery recharging stations, and discount outlets (including hours of operation and perhaps even sale notices). Our measure of quality and price in new cars will soon go beyond questions of steering radius and fuel efficiency to include the quality, ease of use, and accuracy of the information systems such vehicles will contain or access. The total experience of driving a car and commanding its information systems will be a determinant of price. The third expansion of technology will be into designed _electronic rooms and spaces_, spaces alive with environmentally aware systems where, for example, mere proximity to nomadic systems establishes a connection to them. The systems Joy described are new, but they are entirely consonant with history. Technology of all ages and vintages has functioned to extend human capabilities and human capacities. It has provided mechanical strength to extend and surpass our physical abilities and it has in more recent times provided electronic memory and reasoning capabilities to extend and, soon, to surpass our mental abilities. We all know the usual examples of the steam engine and the telephone, and I think we all feel the cognitive whiplash resulting from the speed of change computer technology has engendered. As long as we continue to conceive of and define the functions of machines as extending the mental and physical capabilities of humans, we must pay attention to the humans in the equation. Technology can be seductive, but we are, and must remain, the masters. We have at our disposal in the networked environment an awesome collection of devices and resources--information processing hosts, switches, LANs, and gateways; bridges, routers, and modems; multiplexers and transmission equipment. Below that are processor boards and I/O boards; power supplies; CPU, memory, and software. All of this is tied together by standards to make the work of computers, and that of networks, feasible--within systems, between systems, and with humans. The people part of the systems As we go about using these pieces to build and create we, of course, have more than the electronics to work with, and more than our electronic information resources. We work with people: * those who tweak the networks, * those who understand copyright and licensing, * those who design and program systems, and * those who acquire and organize information. These are the people on whom we depend to design, develop, build, maintain, operate, revamp, and tune the systems, whether those systems are networks, a course registration system, or an online catalog. Our professional colleagues, our associates, our staff--those to whom we turn and say, "I trust you with this job" or "help me with this"-- deserve attention. Those upon whom the success of what we're building (and, more importantly, dreaming of building) depends, require as much of our concern as the system side of our operations. A former president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, George Low, said that each tenure decision was a million-dollar decision. Accounting for inflation, that figure has undoubtedly gone up three or four times! The point, however, is that people are a long-term investment, an investment at least equal to, if not more valuable than, those we make every year in disc drives and cable plants. We're operating within a fairly simple equation: systems--be they acquisitions, accounting, networking, public service, or whatever--plus people to develop and operate the systems equal success. You can't operate successfully with only one half of the equation--neither is sufficient; both are necessary. But today we find disparities between the halves, a lack of balance, perhaps even an alarming imbalance and lack of foresight. To describe the problem is not difficult; bear with me while I cite some stark, perhaps unfair contrasts. Imagine two columns, one headed technology and the other headed people. Under technology we have excitement--new glitzy stuff; under people we have mundane concerns, the same faces and worries about where to get quality replacements. Under technology we have new and best and top of the line; under people we have the old crew whom we push harder. The contrast goes on--excellence is a goal in technology, but "make do" seems too often to be the attitude about people. At the end of the list we have two particularly striking differences--investment versus cost containment, and maintenance contracts versus perhaps some half-hearted attempts at continuing education. The only maintenance contracts we have on people are in the form of health insurance, and we know the problems with that system! Even the electronic typewriter my secretary used occasionally until a few months ago had a $200 annual maintenance contract on it--and that equipment hardly qualifies as technology anymore. Yet how many of us make a $200 annual investment in our "lowest level" staff? Why am I concerned about this? I stand an accused technocrat; a heretic librarian who is said (wrongly) to hate books and love technology. I will admit to one strange book-related behavior in that I consider paperbacks disposable and I throw away the pages as I read them, so I end up leaving a trail of book pages in airports, airplanes, subways, hotel rooms, etc. And I will admit Mr. Data of Star Trek--The Next Generation is my hero when I think of user interfaces. But why am I concerned about the people side of our operations? It's because I see us running behind in human resources research and development. We invest in system and network R & D. We're comfortable with that--we have benchmarks for performance, we know when it's broken, and we generally know how to fix it. It's not so easy with people--it's much more difficult to define performance standards, improvements to their operation, what to look for in the new "models" coming out of our schools. As a result, we're approaching human systems "failure" characterized by: * an inadequacy of skills to get existing work done, * an increasing risk of losing human skill and knowledge as people leave, and * an inability to meet the challenges that you as leaders are creating. The challenge of change The problem is by no means intractable. I am suggesting that the same set of issues applies to people as those we routinely face with systems- -we just haven't given enough thought and effort to the human counterpart. We need to revise the old adage and adopt a new one: if it's not broken, break it! Get rid of the homeostatic behavior, challenge the norm. Whereas machines don't resist change--how can they when they're on the scrap heap?--people do resist change, including you and I. Consider this sequence from Peggy Johnson's ideas on change:[2] * It is easier to master a new task than a new technology. * Adopting a new technology is easier than altering an organization's structure. * Accepting a new organizational structure is easier than making changes in the cultural fabric of an organization, or a profession. But this is where we are. We've changed the tasks; we've put in new technologies; we've altered the organizational structures. We're now facing the most exciting challenge of all--changing the cultural fabric, the norms, the expectations, the definition of our information profession. And it is now a single profession; it has to be. "It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, more doubtful of success, than to initiate a new order of things." Machiavelli of all people said it. We're talking about fundamental changes of the most difficult sort. Computing in general, and networking in particular, are about empowerment and about the redistribution of access to power through information; about the breakup of monopolies that librarians, in particular, have held. But so have registrars and bursars and others who controlled paper-based information. Now comes the reshaping of the roles of everyone involved. Focusing on the people part of the success equation is a challenge, but no greater a one than we are accustomed to dealing with in harnessing the technology portion of the equation. The human capital requires no less effort and no less dedication of resources, no less investment and no less attention to detail, than the technological capital we've become accustomed to investing in, upgrading, and holding to standards. We have, with reasonable success, recognized the importance of investment in technology, but we have been slower to acknowledge the human side. Yet, our human capital, including the quality of our work life, is critical. Work life is not about working 9 to 5 or 8 to 8. Work is about constant learning, because learning is what moves us ahead. At a minimum we need maintenance contracts for our people, and I use the term "contract" in the sense of a commitment to their continuing education, their training and development, and their effective deployment. In addition, we need an investment in our profession to better define how to upgrade and replace our human capital. Contracts, investments, and capital may seem crude terms to apply to people, and I apologize if they make you uncomfortable. My purpose is to make clear that for us to succeed as builders and creators in whatever aspect of this profession we toil, we need both the technology and the people. We've become very adept with the former and now need to turn to the latter with equal excitement and zeal. I am confident we will be greatly rewarded for the effort. ======================================================================== Footnotes: 1 William Safire, "On Language," New York Times Magazine, 1 March 1992, p. 12. 2 Peggy Johnson, "Implementing Technological Change," College and Research Libraries, January 1988, pp. 38-46. ========================================================================