Doing technology implementation in a company can be frustrating, but it doesn't seem to get the dander up as much as a sputtering printer or a downed hard drive. At Atlanta-based techKNOW-HOW, they're ready to tame your technology. Founder and president Anthony Perez chats about passion, craziness, and computer therapy.
How did techKNOW-HOW get started?
I found myself helping friends and family with everything from VCR programming to printer fixes to shopping for digital cameras, and it became apparent to me that there was a great need for someone like myself just to help people make sense of this technology that, in some senses, was being forced upon them.
I began researching the possibility of starting a company to do just that--help people with technology and at an affordable cost. Finally, a friend who was helping me re-write my resume insisted on hearing about my business idea. Our original business plan has expanded to providing IT support to small businesses but the vision has stayed consistent--to help people make sense of technology and allow them to get on with their lives.
What got you personally interested in doing this work?
My own experience taught me that once I overcame my frustration, anxiety, and fear of working with technology, I was able to see the true value of the computer as not only a productivity tool but as an outlet, a facilitator of my creative life.
I felt that if I could help people relate to the computer on their terms solve their hardware issues and then just share my passion for what technology can do, then more people could find out what I did. It is this passion for sharing the great benefits of technology and the belief that people should be able to just turn on the computer and go that drives me daily to do what we do at techKNOW-HOW.
In your marketing and advertising, what made you decide to use "therapy" as an analogy for what you do?
People get way too emotionally involved with their computers. Computers cause us to get angry at them, swear at them, hit them. They can cripple a business. Our job is to make that anxiety, anger, and frustration go away. We don't care what technology drives our clients crazy, we just care about how our clients relate to the technology they use. Our job is help them, not just solve the technology problem.
What are the largest challenges that you see in providing your service?
I think the greatest challenge is in growing our business without sacrificing our commitment to client service. Our greatest fear is to grow so fast that our level of service drops, and that is not acceptable. If we can't be responsive to our clients, then we need to find something else to do.
Beyond that, the next greatest challenge is the variety of equipment, problems, and system variables we encounter on a daily basis. In one day we may work with clients who own DOS computers that don't print, a Macintosh with USB issues, a wireless router that needs therapy and then end the day with a computer used for music downloading that is utterly corrupt with spyware. Just keeping up the amount of knowledge necessary to address these issues is challenge enough.
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