I recently attended a trade show for the public sector.  Part of the event included bad economic news and it's impact on this particular sector of the government.  As I sat in my little booth and spoke with attendees coming by it was apparent that many were suffering from a feeling of paralysis.  A "What can I do or will I have a job mentality."  I believe this sort of questioning is prevalent in every business / government sector these past few weeks.

As technologist, this is an opportune time to demonstrate your real value to your organization.  When times are good we build infrastructure for growth.  When times are bad we need to be looking at ways to continue to build growth; but, the difference is we need to be looking at technology that can be funded from savings as opposed to pure investment.  Technologies exist now that provide better features and services at a price point better than your current in-house platforms - you just need to go looking.

The first place to start is your maintenance base.  Look at your maintenance budgets and identify those platforms that maybe two or three years old that have high maintenance dollars associated with them.  Chances are pretty good that there are equivalent (or better) platforms available that can be had for less than you are currently paying for maintenance.  Imagine how you look when you show your CFO "Better value for less cost!"  In order to accomplish this you need to move away from the 80's mentality of "buy IBM or get fired."

The second place to look is platform utilization.  We often deploy technologies with a myriad of bells and whistles but only use a percentage of them.  One area is online presentation tools.  We use GoToMeeting.com for support.  But, we barely use it for sales activities.  Instead we burden mileage when we have a technology that can be saving expenses.  Secondly, this technology can enable more "visits" versus the traditional driving.  I am a huge advocate of face-to-face meetings.  But times like these require a more judicious approach to those expenses.  Imagine how you look when you show your CFO "Increased sales activity with less cost."

Now is the time to prove your value as the organization's technologist.