SYNOPSIS

There’s more to a computer than the sum of its hardware and software components.  Over time, you personify that piece of silicon and plastic.  You add pictures of fond memories.  You keep a record of web sites that are important to you.  Even the settings related to your desktop and your printers are customized to your liking.  All these elements combine to define the personality of that computer.  And without the right tools in place, any replacement or upgrade of it forces your users to start that process over from scratch.

For too long IT organizations have disregarded the comfortable workspace created by the users of computers.  Replacing hardware, upgrading operating systems, and adding remote application infrastructures all create entirely new and separate locations where personalization has to begin again.  That process takes time, takes away from productive work, and reduces customer satisfaction.

The solution for these problems is to create an environment of pervasive personalization.  With such an environment, no matter where your users log in – desktops, laptops, remote applications, recently-replaced hardware – they will experience the same comfortable workspace every time.  The Essentials Series: Delivering Pervasive User Profiles will illuminate the power of pervasive personalization, where it fits, and how to make it happen in your environment today.

CHAPTER PREVIEWS

Article 1: What is Personalization and Why Should You Care?

The first step in this process is to truly understand your users and the workspaces they create every day as they work with their computers. This first article explains personalization, where it can be located, and what it is made up of. This article defines the user workspace and what needs to be preserved to ensure the user’s experience is maintained across devices.

Article 2: The Power of Pervasive Personality

Who cares about user settings? They should be working at work, right? Not so, any more. These days the happiness and ultimate satisfaction of your users is critical to providing them a safe and comfortable place to work. Not having that is a drain on their productivity and your bottom line. This second article discusses how an architecture of pervasive personality can actually benefit the business in a number of both obvious and surprising ways.

Article 3: Delivering Pervasive Personalization

In reading the first two articles, you’ll discover very quickly that home-grown solutions for transferring personality between devices are complex to create. This final article continues the conversation by discussing what is necessary to actually deliver on the promise of pervasive personalization. You’ll take away an appreciation for the tools and techniques you’ll want to put into place to make it happen.