“Perfection is attained, not when no more can be added, but when no more can be removed.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

This quote is a maxim — almost an ideology — in user experience design (UX). We believe in making websites, consumer products, interactive devices, brands, exhibition spaces, retail shops, you name it, as easy to use as possible, and often this involves removing inessential functions and parts.

In Information Technology (IT), that’s not commonly the case. Too often, IT is about buying more stuff (physical or digital), adding features, providing new interfaces, and otherwise adding complexity. The reasons are numerous, but some unfortunate ones I see frequently are:

• Empire-building. The more equipment, software, and functions, the larger the budget and team necessary.
• Focusing on the tech. For years IT has meant to focus on service delivery and positive end-user outcomes, but instead too often focuses on the new thing, the more powerful thing, the thing that solves more problems than there are, because what if those problems arise someday?
• Not listening to users. IT people take pride in knowing what users need they need before they need it. But they sometimes aim too far into the future, and substitute solving their own problems for meeting customer goals.

I believe in applying UX principles to nuts and bolts IT … in providing human-centered IT, rather than tech-centered IT. The experience is what counts. So Concrete Computing’s approach, instead, includes:

• Listening and empathizing — we internalize your current goals and aim no further into the future. But we move all infrastructure to the cloud and get your business systems to hosted providers, so we can ramp up later with just a credit card.
• Using low-maintenance productivity solutions like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 — so there’s less to break down.
• Recommending laptops for your entire staff, so mobility is easy and nobody needs two computers — minimizing costs and time spent on maintenance.
• Moving all your files to the cloud (OneDrive/Sharepoint, Google Drive, Dropbox) and syncing everything so working remotely is no different from being in the office.
• Turning all expenses into regular annual costs, so there are few budget surprises.
• Minimizing your cost by minimizing how much you need us. And any time we spend frees you to focus on what your business needs to do, so our time costs you nothing in real terms.

In this way, Zero IT with Concrete Computing delivers value at minimum cost in dollars and lost time. At the same time, we meet all your needs and goals. That’s all it is: getting the job done with a minimum of technology and expense.