Chapter 8

, “People.”

He or she can help you select the right software, for instance, or teach you how to use it. But you can’t always trust credentials, and here you’ll read of a young company that wasted $40,000 on the wrong consultants and their bungles. One man was so learned in computers that he had helped design the systems on an aircraft carrier, yet he lacked the exact technical expertise to help the company get _its_ work done.

My old newspaper in the Midwest made another people-type mistake, letting a computer expert befuddle staffers with technical jargon. A white-haired editor suffered especially. Although he knew his town better than did just about any other newsman and had been a fixture in the scruffy city rooms since World War II, the paper exiled him from the copy desk after the training program failed him. His health gave out amid the strain, and he ended up on extended sick leave, done in partly by the course’s scary talk of bits and bytes. You use a calculator without being—as one man put it—“calculator literate.” Why must you be “computer literate”? Be so if you’re an aspiring programmer or if you enjoy computers as a hobby. If, however, you don’t, well, forget it. Instead, simply concentrate on (1) finding the right experts for the grubby technical chores and (2) helping yourself and your employees learn _the programs of use on the job_.

You can also treat people well by guarding against “The Hal Syndrome.” I’ve named