A fresh pair of eyes is what we are supposed to bring with us every day to our clients. At least until the first three coffees are in us.

The client's perspective is interesting. I have long wanted to actually "work" a day in my client(s) offices to DO WHAT THEY DO so I can understand their business. A medical staff uses EYECOM2, a patient management system for optical houses, and it is easy to SUPPORT but in terms of USING the software, filling out insurance, making appropriate patient records, etc ... they do that on an intimate basis and I do not. Therein is a huge business knowledge gap of profound importance. Everytime I do pick up something of the way they do their jobs, I am most thankful.

I would also love to dictate more rules in my clients offices, but there are rules and then there are people. I have to strike a balance between the two. I favor my rules more but bends have to be made and it is our job, then, to protect those bends.

I had to accomodate Optos Retina Scanner one evening and that meant opening up the portals so the Optos people in California could enter their computer in-house and check image count. They were amazed I was HELPING THEM TO COME INTO OUR NETWORK??? Most administrators don't want that. Ever. But my job is to GET this fellow into the Optos server and so that goes with being on the client's side of the street too.