This morning we’re having an all-ITS staff meeting, and one of  the agenda agenda items is a breakout session to discuss “Improving ITS customer service.” Which (perhaps inevitably) is the wrong question. When we start thinking of people outside ITS as “customers” rather than friends and colleagues we’re already heading in the wrong direction.

The “customer” label assumes and supports an “us vs. them” point of view. Trying to improve ITS customer service is more about making ITS look good than about advancing the mission of the University. It’s also about avoiding responsibility for the overall success of our projects: “I provided the service you asked for, so if it didn’t work it’s your fault.”

What we need to ask is, “How can we work together with other staff members, faculty, and students to make the University of Texas at Austin the best place in the world to learn, teach, discover new things, and share what we’ve learned and discovered with the people of Texas and the whole human race?” If we could have a vision of how the University can improve the world, and how our own tasks contribute to realizing that vision, the “customer service” issues would disappear.