[ale] Chinese government recommendation - Linux

Sean Kilpatrick kilpatms at gmail.com
Mon May 19 18:04:14 EDT 2014


I agree with Jim on this one; management is the key.  Many decades ago, 
when I was a working journalist, I was employed by a newspaper making the 
shift in the newsroom from manual typewriters (and three-carbon sets) to 
OCR using IBM Selectric typewriters. The Underwoods and Royals had to go.

I was part of the instructional team because I had significant experience 
with "cold type" as well as the hot lead then in use in the union print 
shop.  The newsroom staffs of both the morning and afternoon papers were
given about 10 hours of instruction spread out over several weeks ( with 
paid overtime.)  Senior editors had to take the training as well.

As a result of the training the moaning and groaning were kept to the 
absolute minimum -- even from Noah's grandsons working in the Sports Dept. 
:)

Newspapers are in some ways a special case because the daily deadlines are 
absolute.  Editors HAD to learn a whole new way of specifying type 
faces/sizes/ colm. widths, etc.  And they had to learn it well enough to 
do it without constantly looking at a crib sheet.  REporters had to learn 
new ways of doing somewhat trivial things -- like how to type a date.

Because senior management realized the necessity for extensive training, 
and provided it without overly stressing the employees, the changeover was 
nearly seamless.

As we all know, that level of skilled management is hard to find these 
days.

Sean

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On Monday, May 19, 2014 04:55:31 pm Jones, Donald wrote:
> In discussing how "easy" or "hard" learning a new desk top, OS,
> technology, etc. is, one element I think that has been overlooked is
> TIME.  Learning takes time and we all live very busy lives.  When we
> are busy in my organization, it is not unheard of to have 12 - 16
> hours of work to do in a 8 hour day.  Furthermore, when you get the
> assignment, it was actually needed a week earlier.  And if you think
> that just because new tools have been introduced into the work
> atmosphere (ei. new word processor, etc) means that you will get more
> time to complete the task or even training on the new tools - that
> usually isn't always the case.  To get caught-up on how to save a file
> or change the font for 15 minutes is a huge killer.  My point is that
> many people resist change because they often do not have the time
> (real or perceived) to learn new skills to accomplish a task they
> could already do with a previously learned skill set.
> 
> For us technical people, learning a new skill/technology is a double
> edge sword.  We get the task done while learning new skills that add to
> our skill set and marketability while having fun.  For end users, it is
> a single edge sword in that only a needed task has been completed.
> 
> Donald
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