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In article <1992Dec9.193626.3051@EE.Stanford.EDU>, quinn@EE-CF.Stanford.EDU (Christine A. Quinn) writes:
> 
> I have recently been given the task of surveying the computational
> and networking needs of a dept. at my University.
> [...]
> My initial 
> thought was to do a mass mailing, with a note at the end asking
> interested persons to contact me directly for personal interviews.
> That way I would find people who have a strong opinion about such
> things that I might otherwise not known about.  I do have some names
> of people I need to talk to, and I will be contacting them directly
> as well.
> 
> Does this seem like a reasonable approach?

This sounds like a good approach, but there are a few things to consider:

The folks who currently have strong opinions on computer needs may not
be representative of the population of computer users five years hence.
If you're trying to put together a long-term plan, you should make a
strong effort to contact folks who don't use computers much now.

If you do a mass mailing electronically, you will get responses only
from those who are comfortable with electronic communications.  Make
sure to poll folks in several ways (via email, paper mail, conversations
in the department lounge, and so on).

Find out what people need to do, not what they think you should buy.
Users, by and large, are not experts on current and future information
technology.  They are, however, experts on the kinds of work that they
do.  Take advantage of that!  A user who only does light word processing
doesn't want an RS/6000, no matter what Prof. Hornswoggle told them.  And
a user who does only FORTRAN number-crunching probably doesn't want a 
Mac.  Use your knowledge to match user needs to the right hardware and
software, and things will have a much happier ending.


Good luck with your survey!  And please keep us posted on it.


William

P.S.  I've directed followups to comp.admin.policy.  


-- 
William Pietri			| Email: William.Pietri@umich.edu
Stat. Dept. Sysadmin and	|    or: william@stat.lsa.umich.edu
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