We in the Brotherhood of Bytes — which, despite its name, contains a fair number of sisters — hold this truth to be self-evident:
Businesses are predicated on dividing work into little bitty pieces, each of which are simple and obvious.
Working with computers requires a higher level of abstract thinking. This is something most businessmen do not understand and do not know how to handle.
Some actually seem to resent it. (We don’t have this problem at 42nd and Treadmill, largely because we tend to lack the tendency to remind people of our indispensability.)
Of course, this doesn’t mean that any of us have any business running a business, either.
Computer geeks that keep the virtual gears turning smoothly have no such visible value. If things are working smoothly, well, we must not need the computer geeks.
I think the key is to manufacture a crisis every so often and then make a big show of having to work extremely hard to put things right.
I’ve never had to manufacture a crisis. And truth be told, I’d just as soon make it look easy, and give the users the sense of “Aw, crap, how come I can’t learn that?”