SubscribeAbout 18 months ago I set up a database to track help track the work flow for an Employment Specialist consumer list. As time passes other functions are being added, such as AJAX searching of Vocational Rehabilitation consumer numbers. The idea is to shorten the time required to fix mistakes that are typo based. VR #’s previously assigned waste time if you’re shuffling paper. An interactive database that flags this while your typing will immediately save a nonprofit workers precious resource – time.
The database is one of the most important pieces of software in the company. Not always the most important, but probably more important than your code. That’s because your code, if it’s really good, will be rewritten over and over for years, but the data will stick around forever.
This seemly common sense fact of business is making headway in the rural south. About a year before I started the project I decided to switch majors – Geek > Human Services. At the time I was more comfortable with a keyboard than peope. This didn’t mean I changed my ways as I’ve been coding since I was 14 years old (remember BASIC :] ).
Sharing knowledge about technology in a rural community provides for some rather curious conversations. Like trying to explain to a local ISP that the Sun Microsystems Java TM programming environment is completely different and utterly separate from Javascript. That didn’t go over too well. I seems that people "in charge" of technology really aren’t that interested in suggestions. Their immediate response, from what I’ve seen, is to ignore you, become offended or basicly tell you to fuck off.
Maybe they’re right – how could I possibly know what I’m talking about. Right?
Popularity: 3% [?]
