Here at Ars, we’re lucky to have one of the most skilled and technically adept audiences of just about any tech news publication in existence: that’s you fine folks! A huge number of you are what the industry calls “ITDMs,” or “IT decision-makers”—that most sought-after demographic that decides (or helps decide) whose applications and hardware your employers will end up buying. In fact, no small number of the Ars staff (me included) were ITDMs themselves in a past life, and it’s a role we well understand.

ITDMs represent a huge cross-section of employees stretching from system administrators to “C-suite” company officers—it’s a role that is often stressful and typically thankless, and it more often than not requires dealing with designed-by-committee requirements that can seem contradictory or insane. Nonetheless, the ITDM role is one around which a whole company can pivot, as the choices ITDMs make directly affect the tools and processes a company uses to generate its revenue.