Mutual Lack of Understanding Fails to Hinder Dynamic Collaboration
Real Business News Now #6
Tom Gillman, 27, marketing coordinator for Binco Architects, was appointed project leader for Binco’s CMS switchover in April this year, despite an ignorant apathy towards software design, coding, and database management. Gillman, who had to Google what CMS meant before the first meeting to discuss the CMS, was given the role (which came with no change in salary or title) after being described by a smiling 58-year-old woman as a ‘digital native,’ with actual air quotes.
After receiving a long list of impractical, unrealistic and borderline magical requests for the new CMS from a group of ageing, wealthy managers and executives, Gillman sprung into action and contacted the first name on a list of suggested IT firms. He had no intention of contacting a second.
Gillman’s proposal was taken up by Jack Stafford, 34, senior accounts manager for IT consultants Konkorde. Stafford who majored in French History and began his career as a communications assistant, listened politely as Gillman explained what their current CMS (a programme known as GoLD) did, knowing full well that regardless of functionality, he was going to suggest switching to ATHENA, a content management software that Konkorde recently signed a ten-year exclusivity deal with.
When Gillman finished speaking, knowing full well he’d described about 15% of GoLD’s current functions, he asked Staffords if he knew of a CMS that could get the job done. Staffords confidently answered: ‘Yes.’
According to observers, the succeeding months produced a masterclass in unsophisticated collaboration. Staffords, whose only connection to architecture was nine months in a high school graphics class where he discussed San Andreas with Mike, and did no work, seamlessly presumed many hundreds of things about the field of architecture, and what that might mean for a CMS. It has been suggested that, at times, Stafford even eschewed contacting Gillman at all, as he couldn’t even begin to explain the thing he didn’t understand.
Gillman, for his part, was perhaps even more proactive. When asked to ‘Confirm’ that the ‘Active Status’ of a particular ‘ID’ was contingent on a member’s ‘Account Validation,’ Gillman waited until 4:50 pm on a Friday, sent a single line response, then told his manager he had to leave early because he had a thing tonight.
“It really is amazing to see what they’ve accomplished,” Tracey Bates, 58, Chief Operating Officer for Binco said, “It’s all Greek to me, but that’s okay, I don’t need to know these sorts of things, leave it to the young, I say.”