EDITOR'S NOTES. With this issue, we are beginning to close the gap between the actual date and the month the issue should be out. By the August issue, you should receive a copy during the month of Augustl If you would like to get something in for the August issue, I hope it gets to me by July 15, because you won't be reading this until August also. It seems to me that getting something distributed after printing takes about as much lead time as a computer project does. So if you have something you would like to have included in the OCTOBER issue, which will focus on Personnel Management, please get your material to me by the 15th of September. It seems to take six weeks from the day I mail the material until the finished product is in your hands. This issue was originally planned to have a lead article on the evaluation of a computer installation. However, since the article had appeared elsewhere, permission to reprint was needed. So far I haven't received the permission, so I will postpone that topic until the December issue. PLEASE NOTE: Unless I start getting more material, we won't have an Installation Management Review after March of 1977. During the year 1977 we will return to the four issues a year that are expected. Those issues will come out in March, June, September, and December. PLEASE, all you people who have talked about topics in your field, sit down and write it downl We also need book reviews and article reviews. Our primary request is that whatever you write be terse so that our readers will read it. Obviously, our readers are very busy or they would have overwhelmed me with response to the last two issues. IS ANYONE LISTENING? Okay, you people, if you won't write something, I will. I have some strong feelings about what kind of job we are doing for our companies. I believe that most of us are so immersed in our bits and bytes and nanoseconds, in building and protecting our empires, that we do not stand aside and look at ourselves and see what leeches we are to the organizations which pay our salaries. Maybe your organization gets something from you, but I'll bet you don't do it deliberately. And if you really take a good hard look, have you done anything significant t__oth__eorsanizatio n other than print paychecks? I say we have taken the basic human fear our users have of the unknown, in this case computers, and we have rubbed their noses in their fear. We have deliberately confused our users, treated them as stupid, refused to take their questions seriously, and blithely gone about our own little games. In the last 20 years, we have made bitchasing progress but little else. In the April, 1975 issue of IMR I wrote COMPUTER CENTERS ARE CANCERS. I think I was hoping that I would get a lot of reaction. Nothing. Couldn't someone at least write me a hate letter? Am I wrong? Are you people out there feeling productive for your organizations? Are you able to answer the puzzled frowns on your management's faces when you babble buzzwords at them? Is anyone listening? READER RESPONSE. HAl WE DON'T HAVE ANY READERS~ BOOKS AND ARTICLES. From IEEE Computer Society, a review of a book called Manasement Auditin 8 of Computer Operations should turn you on. It's edited by C.O. Smith, Harold J. Podell, and Ben Knowles, and is available from IEEE Computer Society Publications. You look up the address. The review: All too frequently managers lose sight of the real impact a computer has on the entire operations of their organizations. The costs of acquiring, installing, and operating a computer represent only the tip of the iceberg. Consequently, managers must begin to more fully comprehend the influence the computer has on their ability to manage the whole organization. In the past most computers were used for administrative support functions such as accounting, payroll, and inventory control. Although these functions are important, using the computer to help an organization achieve its goals and objectives is even more important. (Really? Ed.) -i-

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