by: Bryan Edwards
i
“I know that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant”
RICHARD NIXON
According to the Radicati Group an estimated 183 billion emails are sent every day. That’s around 2 million emails every second sent by 1.2 billion email Users! Moreover, there are an estimated 516 million business email boxes worldwide. That’s a heck of a potential for mis-communication, misunderstandings, angry words, bad feelings and loss of productivity if the messages go wrong.
Communication experts say that email is good for INFORMATION and CONFIRMATION. However it’s not good for EMOTION or PERSUASION. It is very difficult to convey enthusiasm, empathy or sincerity via email. You can type the words, but one doesn’t get a sense of the way the words are conveyed, and therefore the message can be misinterpreted.
Here are some tips on email etiquette.
When sending:
•In character, e-mail is somewhere between an informal telephone call and a formal letter, but an e-mail can be easily kept as a permanent record – a phone call is more difficult. Avoid slang, careless writing, thoughtless comments, too many dots or exclamation marks.
•Consider the recipient – who really needs to know? Is it ‘nice to know’ or ‘essential to their job to know’? Consider using group names very carefully – it may save you time but does everyone on the group list really need that message?
•Talk to your boss about the types of information he/she needs to be copied in on.
•Beware of humour and sarcasm – unless you know the recipient very well.
•Where is the recipient? If they are in the same office area, why not talk to them instead? Think of how long it takes to ‘talk’ the message compared to having to write it out.
•Don’t use email as an excuse not to talk to somebody. Barriers in communicating with difficult people can be broken down by hearing your voice, or perhaps seeing you, to build better rapport.
•Never email in anger. Calm down first, or consider an alternative method – email can never convey emotion. Face to face can be a much more effective way of getting how you feel across to an individual.
•Indicate the subject of the e-mail, and the purpose, in the subject header, to help the recipient e.g. ‘Leadership Training: Joining Instructions below’.
•Keep to business issues, avoiding personal e-mails and gossiping.
•Include ‘pleasantries’ at the start of the email e.g. ‘Hope you’re having a good week’ or perhaps a ‘Thanks for doing that last project so quick’ before you launch into your reason for emailing.
•Emailing bad news can be seen as ‘the coward’s way out’ because you don’t want to face the reaction. Also you can’t guarantee when they’ll read the bad news.
•Re-read the message before sending, putting yourself in the recipient’s shoes – what is the tone like? What unintended messages could the recipient see? Am I being succinct enough?
•Be careful about criticising people and organisations by email. A hasty remark by phone will be forgotten, on email there is a permanent record.
•Avoid writing in capital letters (to some this is the equivalent of shouting, and it makes it more difficult to read) and be carefully about emboldening words.
•If you classify all your e-mails as urgent, people may gradually stop treating them as such.
•Be careful about copying the message to the recipient’s manager – some people may view this as untrusting and underhand.
•Break the email ‘tennis’ – it’s far quicker to pick up the phone than reply with an email.
When reading:
•Deal with e mail at set times of the day ONLY– two or three times per day is a good guide. The tendency is to open email as soon as one arrives – if it was that urgent, the sender would have picked up the phone.
•Turn off the automatic ‘incoming email alert’ facility.
•Remove unwanted e-mails regularly – one user had 350 e-mails in his inbox after 3 days holiday! Always question WHY you keep an electronic copy?
•Set regular times e.g. last day of the month, to review and delete your e-mails.
•Set up folders for recipients. Important people such as the boss, the boss’s boss, and key customers could go into one folder that you check more frequently.
•If you feel emotional after reading a message, give the sender the benefit of the doubt and assume there has been a misunderstanding. Have you read the message carefully? Are you quite sure you’ve understood?
•If it’s about a complicated topic, or it’s a request for ideas or opinions, consider replying by phone, or meet up with the person.
•If you are out of the office for a few days, set up an automated ‘out of office reply’, giving an alternative person’s name who may be able to help.
•Send joke emails to your home inbox for reading later.
Kamis, Januari 21, 2010
Software Development in an Offshore Destination
by: David Jackson
i
India is a country of color, of unity in diversity and of culture. It’s a land of the saints and seers. It’s a land where languages change every six miles. At the behest of a technically demanding world, India has now also turned into a trusted destination where software development firms have invested in millions and results have already been quite satisfactory. Abundance of human resource, good connectivity with all global destinations and investment friendly environment make India a top choice for foreign firms for outsourcing. Offshore development India firms working on behalf of parent European countries now offer all types of software solutions at really attractive rates. Hence, growth and investment have shown a decent merge.
Software development firms in India work on all types of software projects. Industry and firm specific custom software development projects are also brilliantly handled by the India outsourced software companies. An offshore development company India also boasts of satisfying regular back-office, helpdesk and supports processes. BPO and call centers for software as well as travel and other segments have also been set up to serve to the global clienteles. Offshore software development company in India offers various services such as ASP.net and PHP software development and also helps clients’ dependency on Manpower which otherwise may have cost them a whale.
Software development is a specialized task and it generally involves big investments and specialized workforce. Outsourcing the same to an India based software development firm, a company can easily get web based products/services developed at lower costs. Some of the major advantages of software development outsourcing to an offshore destination are as follows:
Access to specialized labor at low costs
Cutting operational costs
Research and development can be done at reduced costs
Reducing training costs
Reducing expenditure on software
Apart from India, other Asian countries like China and Philippines have also been top choices for outsourcing these days. So, the outsourcing scene is quite lucrative in Asia!
i
India is a country of color, of unity in diversity and of culture. It’s a land of the saints and seers. It’s a land where languages change every six miles. At the behest of a technically demanding world, India has now also turned into a trusted destination where software development firms have invested in millions and results have already been quite satisfactory. Abundance of human resource, good connectivity with all global destinations and investment friendly environment make India a top choice for foreign firms for outsourcing. Offshore development India firms working on behalf of parent European countries now offer all types of software solutions at really attractive rates. Hence, growth and investment have shown a decent merge.
Software development firms in India work on all types of software projects. Industry and firm specific custom software development projects are also brilliantly handled by the India outsourced software companies. An offshore development company India also boasts of satisfying regular back-office, helpdesk and supports processes. BPO and call centers for software as well as travel and other segments have also been set up to serve to the global clienteles. Offshore software development company in India offers various services such as ASP.net and PHP software development and also helps clients’ dependency on Manpower which otherwise may have cost them a whale.
Software development is a specialized task and it generally involves big investments and specialized workforce. Outsourcing the same to an India based software development firm, a company can easily get web based products/services developed at lower costs. Some of the major advantages of software development outsourcing to an offshore destination are as follows:
Access to specialized labor at low costs
Cutting operational costs
Research and development can be done at reduced costs
Reducing training costs
Reducing expenditure on software
Apart from India, other Asian countries like China and Philippines have also been top choices for outsourcing these days. So, the outsourcing scene is quite lucrative in Asia!
Software Development: Outsourcing is the New Mantra for Success
by: David Jackson
i
They say profit maximization is the prime goal for any management team and those managers are successful enough who are capable of controlling their subordinates. In today’s web driven world, the role for managers has increased manifold. A project manager is not only responsible for bringing good amounts of projects, but also need to look after it besides making its final delivery to clients. The software industry has been going under severe competition presently and in order to sustain in the retrace, project managers are conceiving new strategies so that business goals can be achieved on the behalf of the organization without compromising on quality of deliverables. Most of the companies have chosen outsourcing as a means of achieving targets at without investing much on cost. In a recession hit economic scenario, outsource software development firms are still shoeing good amount of courage thus retaining clients.
Software development firms generally need huge investments. Resources are getting costlier and all are asking for huge pay hikes. In such a scene, outsourcing has turned into a nice way of meeting the clients’ project requirements without spending much on labor cost. Outsource software development India is now one of the biggest and most trusted software development destinations in the entire world. Compared to the USA or the UK, labor comes cheap here and companies can earn significant amount on profits keeping quality of work intact. Apart from India, China, Philippines and Thailand have now emerged as good venues for outsourcing for the European software firms.
Outsource software development firms are the best choices for all types of software development products. They have also proved to be reliable and less costly resorts for custom software application development projects. So, be it industry specific software development or application development for iPhone, outsource custom software development service providers are here to stay for a long time for sure. In the coming days, their offers and reach would be multiplied – that’s a guarantee. You just watch and see!
i
They say profit maximization is the prime goal for any management team and those managers are successful enough who are capable of controlling their subordinates. In today’s web driven world, the role for managers has increased manifold. A project manager is not only responsible for bringing good amounts of projects, but also need to look after it besides making its final delivery to clients. The software industry has been going under severe competition presently and in order to sustain in the retrace, project managers are conceiving new strategies so that business goals can be achieved on the behalf of the organization without compromising on quality of deliverables. Most of the companies have chosen outsourcing as a means of achieving targets at without investing much on cost. In a recession hit economic scenario, outsource software development firms are still shoeing good amount of courage thus retaining clients.
Software development firms generally need huge investments. Resources are getting costlier and all are asking for huge pay hikes. In such a scene, outsourcing has turned into a nice way of meeting the clients’ project requirements without spending much on labor cost. Outsource software development India is now one of the biggest and most trusted software development destinations in the entire world. Compared to the USA or the UK, labor comes cheap here and companies can earn significant amount on profits keeping quality of work intact. Apart from India, China, Philippines and Thailand have now emerged as good venues for outsourcing for the European software firms.
Outsource software development firms are the best choices for all types of software development products. They have also proved to be reliable and less costly resorts for custom software application development projects. So, be it industry specific software development or application development for iPhone, outsource custom software development service providers are here to stay for a long time for sure. In the coming days, their offers and reach would be multiplied – that’s a guarantee. You just watch and see!
My Experiences with HP9000 Printheads
by: Matthew Theobald
i
HP9000s Head Replacement
Although we have found this printer to produce a good quality print and to have been reliable, there is a question mark over the longevity of the printheads and also the high cost of replacing them. You will find, in this article, my experiences dealing with these issues and I hope you will find some inspiration for dealing with your own problems.
If you own or operate one of these printers you will be aware of the cost of replacement of the printheads and may also be aware of the relatively short life-span reported by a number of owners. Hopefully, if you read on, you will find the confidence to attempt the replacement yourself and save up to £400 per head in doing so.
When routinely printing the IQ test print to confirm that the quality of print from each head was acceptable, we noticed that the L Magenta swatch had a scratchy appearance. We were advised that this was an indication of a head that was wearing out and that it would need replacing soon.
Just in case the engineer had been mistaken we decided to give the head a physical clean using a fine cloth and some wiper fluid. Repeating this a number of times resulted in the print quality returning to its original quality.
Over 2-3 days, however, the IQ print became somewhat 'scratchy' again - although the majority of prints were of an acceptable quality the problem was particularly apparent on large regions of single colour using the light magenta.
We continued in this manner for 2-3 months with reasonable success but eventually the amount of up-time deteriorated to a level where the machine could print no more than a few feet before needing a headclean, so the decision was taken to replace the suspect printhead. The price that we were given was around £1800-£2000 for parts and labour. A maintenance engineer was arranged to attend on the Tuesday following the weekend to double-check that the head needed replacing.
In order to improve the head as much as possible before the engineer came to confirm the need for replacement we switched the printer off - this seats the printheads in a bath of ink and is recommended in order to soften any congealed ink and aid cleaning.
When Monday arrived we switched the printer back on and gave the heads a purge in anticipation of the engineer arriving the next day.
When the engineer arrived he ran the IQ test to ascertain the state of the print quality and found that all 6 heads were printing scratchily. The heads did seem to recover a little after a number of strong purges but it was not consistent and still did not produce a useable print quality.
After a significant amount of further cleaning it was decided that we would replace the Magenta and Light Magenta Head under a scheme run by HP for out of warranty machines where they agree to sort out any problem (including changing up to 2 heads) for a 1 off charge of £1000 (I’m not aware if they are still running this scheme)
When a second engineer came to change the heads he noticed that there was an air leak into the ink reservoir. Once this had been fixed and the heads cleaned a number of times, the prints being produced were of an acceptable quality and the IQ prints appeared to be improving a little each time they were printed.
We were concerned, however, that once the engineer had gone, if the heads deteriorated we would have missed our opportunity to have them replaced as part of the HP scheme. We persuaded the engineer to leave the 2 heads with us so that they could be installed as part of a follow up call and we would only have to pay for the call out and not for the parts.
Almost inevitably, the day following the engineers visit, the light magenta and magenta heads deteriorated significantly. The earliest that the engineer could return was in three days so we decided to investigate replacing the heads ourselves.
We parked the head assembly, switched off the printer and removed the plastic covers. Next the printhead assembly covers were removed to allow access to the printhead themselves. Using a sharp implement such as a knife blade or screwdriver blade, score a positional mark into the fixing plate in order to record the heads position of the head prior to removal. Using the caps supplied with the new printhead, seal off the ink flow and remove the connector for the electrical feed. Take a small socket driver and undo the screws which secure the head to the fixing plate.
We then removed the printhead from the storage packet and carefully placed onto the head fixing plate, lining it up with the marks previously made. Next connect up the ink supply tube as before and press-on the electrical connector. Replace covers and run the ink system purge routine in the maintenance menu to fill the printhead with ink and run the head alignment routines to fine tune the alignment.
This was repeated with the second printhead both of which continue to print well. All the other heads have improved with use (and regular cleaning) and are printing well.
We have since been made aware that the use of an ultrasonic cleaner can return the heads to a good condition when they have been clogged with ink.
i
HP9000s Head Replacement
Although we have found this printer to produce a good quality print and to have been reliable, there is a question mark over the longevity of the printheads and also the high cost of replacing them. You will find, in this article, my experiences dealing with these issues and I hope you will find some inspiration for dealing with your own problems.
If you own or operate one of these printers you will be aware of the cost of replacement of the printheads and may also be aware of the relatively short life-span reported by a number of owners. Hopefully, if you read on, you will find the confidence to attempt the replacement yourself and save up to £400 per head in doing so.
When routinely printing the IQ test print to confirm that the quality of print from each head was acceptable, we noticed that the L Magenta swatch had a scratchy appearance. We were advised that this was an indication of a head that was wearing out and that it would need replacing soon.
Just in case the engineer had been mistaken we decided to give the head a physical clean using a fine cloth and some wiper fluid. Repeating this a number of times resulted in the print quality returning to its original quality.
Over 2-3 days, however, the IQ print became somewhat 'scratchy' again - although the majority of prints were of an acceptable quality the problem was particularly apparent on large regions of single colour using the light magenta.
We continued in this manner for 2-3 months with reasonable success but eventually the amount of up-time deteriorated to a level where the machine could print no more than a few feet before needing a headclean, so the decision was taken to replace the suspect printhead. The price that we were given was around £1800-£2000 for parts and labour. A maintenance engineer was arranged to attend on the Tuesday following the weekend to double-check that the head needed replacing.
In order to improve the head as much as possible before the engineer came to confirm the need for replacement we switched the printer off - this seats the printheads in a bath of ink and is recommended in order to soften any congealed ink and aid cleaning.
When Monday arrived we switched the printer back on and gave the heads a purge in anticipation of the engineer arriving the next day.
When the engineer arrived he ran the IQ test to ascertain the state of the print quality and found that all 6 heads were printing scratchily. The heads did seem to recover a little after a number of strong purges but it was not consistent and still did not produce a useable print quality.
After a significant amount of further cleaning it was decided that we would replace the Magenta and Light Magenta Head under a scheme run by HP for out of warranty machines where they agree to sort out any problem (including changing up to 2 heads) for a 1 off charge of £1000 (I’m not aware if they are still running this scheme)
When a second engineer came to change the heads he noticed that there was an air leak into the ink reservoir. Once this had been fixed and the heads cleaned a number of times, the prints being produced were of an acceptable quality and the IQ prints appeared to be improving a little each time they were printed.
We were concerned, however, that once the engineer had gone, if the heads deteriorated we would have missed our opportunity to have them replaced as part of the HP scheme. We persuaded the engineer to leave the 2 heads with us so that they could be installed as part of a follow up call and we would only have to pay for the call out and not for the parts.
Almost inevitably, the day following the engineers visit, the light magenta and magenta heads deteriorated significantly. The earliest that the engineer could return was in three days so we decided to investigate replacing the heads ourselves.
We parked the head assembly, switched off the printer and removed the plastic covers. Next the printhead assembly covers were removed to allow access to the printhead themselves. Using a sharp implement such as a knife blade or screwdriver blade, score a positional mark into the fixing plate in order to record the heads position of the head prior to removal. Using the caps supplied with the new printhead, seal off the ink flow and remove the connector for the electrical feed. Take a small socket driver and undo the screws which secure the head to the fixing plate.
We then removed the printhead from the storage packet and carefully placed onto the head fixing plate, lining it up with the marks previously made. Next connect up the ink supply tube as before and press-on the electrical connector. Replace covers and run the ink system purge routine in the maintenance menu to fill the printhead with ink and run the head alignment routines to fine tune the alignment.
This was repeated with the second printhead both of which continue to print well. All the other heads have improved with use (and regular cleaning) and are printing well.
We have since been made aware that the use of an ultrasonic cleaner can return the heads to a good condition when they have been clogged with ink.
Implementing New Business Management Software: 7 Ways To Make It Smooth and Seamless
by: Robert M. Callanan
i
As a small business or a business just getting started, you might be using an entry level accounting system where the investment in training and configuration is minimal because the product is fairly easy to use. Often these systems are ideal until your business begins adding more users and your business processes become more complex than what the system can support.
When a small business decides to implement a new accounting or business management system, it cannot shut its doors or stop day-to-day responsibilities to install, configure, and test a new system. Also, it cannot expect to start using a new system without investing time to consider potential improvements to existing business processes or train end users and migrate historical data.
This is where the role of your solution provider or consultant is critical. Top solution providers efficiently transition you from your old system to your new system with minimal downtime for your staff. In addition, your solution provider will continue supporting the solution for you as your business grows and evolves.
When choosing a new system, your choice of a solution provider should carry as much weight as the product itself. Here are a few things to look for when choosing a solution provider:
1. Understands Your Business and System Needs
A software provider should understand your business and business processes to interject which processes can be more efficient. The provider should listen to you, give good examples of how the system should work, and ask good questions, not just about software, but also how your people work, who they are, their skill sets, and how they would use the application.
2. Exhibits Exceptional Knowledge About Their Product(s)
It is a must for your software provider to thoroughly understand the functionalities, capabilities and intricacies of their solutions and coherently explain those to your end users so you optimize your investment and use the business management system to its fullest potential for your organization.
3. Knowledge of Other Products and Solutions
A good solution provider makes sure you understand what you are looking for and know ahead of time what the expected returns and benefits will be. If you do not know what you need to do well versus what a business management system does well, you can get trapped into buying a system because of something it does that is not important to you. System selection prepares the client for the sales cycle, gets their information together, and allows them to quickly eliminate inappropriate systems.
4. Proven Approach to Implementing
Entry level accounting systems can often be implemented by following the software vendor’s checklist. However, mid-level systems require more planning and testing because there are many different configuration options to make it adaptable to your business processes. The top solution providers have developed and can explain to you their approach to implementing the system. The approach should include options for functional design, pilot testing, data migration planning, a cut-over strategy and ongoing support.
5. Communication
When evaluating systems, many businesses are first introduced to a salesperson and may not have the opportunity to assess the communication skills of the consultants who will eventually be assigned to the project. A top solution provider will have an approach for communicating with the client regarding project status and budgets. Also, your solution provider is often preparing deliverables to you, including procedures documentation, end user training guides and more – a top solution provider can provide sample documents that demonstrate their ability to communicate in these areas.
6. System Cut-over
When your company starts using the new business management system, your comfort level must be established by the solution provider. That can take anywhere from 30 days to six months, depending upon the client and how significant the changes are in IT and business processes. During this time, your solution provider should still pay attention to you, check in to make sure things are working the way they were expected, and provide any additional support and training your end users need.
7. Ongoing Support
Many businesses begin realizing a positive return on their investment in a new system within the first 12 to 18 months. The project and your relationship with your solution provider should not end there. As your business grows and evolves, you want some assurance that your solution provider is always looking after your business – recommending improvements to business processes, assessing new modules or tools and their impact on your business, or offering user groups where you can interact and share ideas with other end users. The top solution providers make these and other services available to you for as long as you own the system.
i
As a small business or a business just getting started, you might be using an entry level accounting system where the investment in training and configuration is minimal because the product is fairly easy to use. Often these systems are ideal until your business begins adding more users and your business processes become more complex than what the system can support.
When a small business decides to implement a new accounting or business management system, it cannot shut its doors or stop day-to-day responsibilities to install, configure, and test a new system. Also, it cannot expect to start using a new system without investing time to consider potential improvements to existing business processes or train end users and migrate historical data.
This is where the role of your solution provider or consultant is critical. Top solution providers efficiently transition you from your old system to your new system with minimal downtime for your staff. In addition, your solution provider will continue supporting the solution for you as your business grows and evolves.
When choosing a new system, your choice of a solution provider should carry as much weight as the product itself. Here are a few things to look for when choosing a solution provider:
1. Understands Your Business and System Needs
A software provider should understand your business and business processes to interject which processes can be more efficient. The provider should listen to you, give good examples of how the system should work, and ask good questions, not just about software, but also how your people work, who they are, their skill sets, and how they would use the application.
2. Exhibits Exceptional Knowledge About Their Product(s)
It is a must for your software provider to thoroughly understand the functionalities, capabilities and intricacies of their solutions and coherently explain those to your end users so you optimize your investment and use the business management system to its fullest potential for your organization.
3. Knowledge of Other Products and Solutions
A good solution provider makes sure you understand what you are looking for and know ahead of time what the expected returns and benefits will be. If you do not know what you need to do well versus what a business management system does well, you can get trapped into buying a system because of something it does that is not important to you. System selection prepares the client for the sales cycle, gets their information together, and allows them to quickly eliminate inappropriate systems.
4. Proven Approach to Implementing
Entry level accounting systems can often be implemented by following the software vendor’s checklist. However, mid-level systems require more planning and testing because there are many different configuration options to make it adaptable to your business processes. The top solution providers have developed and can explain to you their approach to implementing the system. The approach should include options for functional design, pilot testing, data migration planning, a cut-over strategy and ongoing support.
5. Communication
When evaluating systems, many businesses are first introduced to a salesperson and may not have the opportunity to assess the communication skills of the consultants who will eventually be assigned to the project. A top solution provider will have an approach for communicating with the client regarding project status and budgets. Also, your solution provider is often preparing deliverables to you, including procedures documentation, end user training guides and more – a top solution provider can provide sample documents that demonstrate their ability to communicate in these areas.
6. System Cut-over
When your company starts using the new business management system, your comfort level must be established by the solution provider. That can take anywhere from 30 days to six months, depending upon the client and how significant the changes are in IT and business processes. During this time, your solution provider should still pay attention to you, check in to make sure things are working the way they were expected, and provide any additional support and training your end users need.
7. Ongoing Support
Many businesses begin realizing a positive return on their investment in a new system within the first 12 to 18 months. The project and your relationship with your solution provider should not end there. As your business grows and evolves, you want some assurance that your solution provider is always looking after your business – recommending improvements to business processes, assessing new modules or tools and their impact on your business, or offering user groups where you can interact and share ideas with other end users. The top solution providers make these and other services available to you for as long as you own the system.
Blog Optimization
by: Victoria Phee
Search engine optimization is the process done to generate traffic through search engines. It became a need for websites because 80%-90% of visitors come from major search engines. Higher rankings mean greater number of visitors. The same concept applies to blogs. However, many blog owners are not aware of their chances of being more visible on the web. They just update it once in a while and that's it. Considering the great number of blogs on the net today, from personal to corporate blogs, all their efforts will just go to waste if they do not optimize it.
Yes, blogs can be optimized, too. It should be done for the benefit both of your readers and search engine spiders. Although the process is quite similar with the standard website search engine optimization, it is a bit different. Here are some tips that you can do to start:
Consider the Design
It is not advisable to use the default template being offered by blog publishing sites. You wouldn't want to bump into a girl in a party wearing the same dress, do you? Same thing goes to blogs. You can hire a designer to do the work for you. If running a tight budget, you can always look for free templates offered by web design companies and you can customize it a little to make it unique.
Optimize the Tags
Use the most substantial phrase for your blog in the hard code of the title tag. Also, you have to double check that each entry's title appears on the tile tag. This is sometimes overlooked.
Keywords
You should always use your keywords in the blog post titles and categories. You can also use many categories in one entry if appropriate.
RSS Feed
It is best that you have RSS subscription button available on your blog. This would be more convenient to your readers because it will publish your recently updated work. If your blog publisher don't have RSS automatically available, there are RSS feed button creation tool on the net. But make sure that you place it where the readers can easily see them. You can put it in your sidebar. It is already on the blog owner's prerogative if he/she wants to full or partial RSS.
Use Email
Because there are some people who are not familiar with RSS feeds, go the extra mile and offer them something else with the same benefits. I'm talking about You can have your blog post via email. Free tools are also available online to do this.
Compelling Introduction
Introduction about the blog post is sent out via RSS feed. Make sure that it is compelling to enough to make your readers want to have more of it so that they would click the “more” button and read the entire article. Therefore, it should be interesting.
Check you CSS
It is common that blogs come with overwhelming amount of CSS or Cascading Style Sheets. The solution to this is to place it in an external CSS file to avoid clutter in the main template and for the main entry not to go further down.
Keywords-rich Anchor Texts
In placing links in other sites/blogs and even in putting internal links, make sure that you are using keyword-rich anchor text. Remember that it is always better to use your keywords than “click here” or “more”. It would benefit you when search engine spiders crawl your blog.
Keep Your Posts Bonded
If your blog post is somehow connected to your previous posts, link them to each other. The idea is that if your reader is interested in this particular topic, then he/she probably can also be entertained of a different story with the same subject matter. You can use Related Posts Plugin for this.
Do the same in other blogs. If you see a blog entry or an article on the same issue, make them knowledgeable of your existence by placing a link going to your post.
Purchase a Domain
We all know that blog hosting companies will only be around for such a time. Once they close their business, they will be closing your blog as well. If that happens, where will your loyal followers find you? Or there are change in the domain of your blog host, it will surely affect your rankings.
In case you have limited resources and can only settle to free hosting companies, look for those who offer to display your own domain rather than displaying their own like Wordpress and Blogger.
Proper URL Naming Convention
It is always a bad idea to use dynamic URLs whether on websites or blogs. You should always take advantage of any chance you have to use keywords, without keyword stuffing, including this one. Meaning, instead of using “www.xyzblog.com/?246”, you can consider “www.xyzblog.com/blog-post-keywords-here”. When you cannot do anything about it, use mod rewrite.
Good Navigation
If your blog is just a part of a website, it is not ebough that you a have a link going to your blog's main page. Use the sidebar to syndicate your new posts because the visitors of the website might get interested in your articles if they see the titles.
Fast Page Load
The amount of time involved for a page to load all depends on your host. There are some blogs that takes about half a minute just from the snippet of RSS feed to the full article. You can lose a lot of readers just because of this reason alone.
Moderated Trackbacks and Comments
Spammers are everywhere. They always find a way to abuse your blog by putting non-sense comments with links going to their website. It is annoying and it can also affect your rankings. There are numerous tools available online which you can use to moderate and avoid comment and trackbak spam.
Don't just create a blog to share great information or to prove that you know a lot about the field you are into. Do not settle on the number of followers your blog has. Start to optimize now and see the great changes on the next few months.
Search engine optimization is the process done to generate traffic through search engines. It became a need for websites because 80%-90% of visitors come from major search engines. Higher rankings mean greater number of visitors. The same concept applies to blogs. However, many blog owners are not aware of their chances of being more visible on the web. They just update it once in a while and that's it. Considering the great number of blogs on the net today, from personal to corporate blogs, all their efforts will just go to waste if they do not optimize it.
Yes, blogs can be optimized, too. It should be done for the benefit both of your readers and search engine spiders. Although the process is quite similar with the standard website search engine optimization, it is a bit different. Here are some tips that you can do to start:
Consider the Design
It is not advisable to use the default template being offered by blog publishing sites. You wouldn't want to bump into a girl in a party wearing the same dress, do you? Same thing goes to blogs. You can hire a designer to do the work for you. If running a tight budget, you can always look for free templates offered by web design companies and you can customize it a little to make it unique.
Optimize the Tags
Use the most substantial phrase for your blog in the hard code of the title tag. Also, you have to double check that each entry's title appears on the tile tag. This is sometimes overlooked.
Keywords
You should always use your keywords in the blog post titles and categories. You can also use many categories in one entry if appropriate.
RSS Feed
It is best that you have RSS subscription button available on your blog. This would be more convenient to your readers because it will publish your recently updated work. If your blog publisher don't have RSS automatically available, there are RSS feed button creation tool on the net. But make sure that you place it where the readers can easily see them. You can put it in your sidebar. It is already on the blog owner's prerogative if he/she wants to full or partial RSS.
Use Email
Because there are some people who are not familiar with RSS feeds, go the extra mile and offer them something else with the same benefits. I'm talking about You can have your blog post via email. Free tools are also available online to do this.
Compelling Introduction
Introduction about the blog post is sent out via RSS feed. Make sure that it is compelling to enough to make your readers want to have more of it so that they would click the “more” button and read the entire article. Therefore, it should be interesting.
Check you CSS
It is common that blogs come with overwhelming amount of CSS or Cascading Style Sheets. The solution to this is to place it in an external CSS file to avoid clutter in the main template and for the main entry not to go further down.
Keywords-rich Anchor Texts
In placing links in other sites/blogs and even in putting internal links, make sure that you are using keyword-rich anchor text. Remember that it is always better to use your keywords than “click here” or “more”. It would benefit you when search engine spiders crawl your blog.
Keep Your Posts Bonded
If your blog post is somehow connected to your previous posts, link them to each other. The idea is that if your reader is interested in this particular topic, then he/she probably can also be entertained of a different story with the same subject matter. You can use Related Posts Plugin for this.
Do the same in other blogs. If you see a blog entry or an article on the same issue, make them knowledgeable of your existence by placing a link going to your post.
Purchase a Domain
We all know that blog hosting companies will only be around for such a time. Once they close their business, they will be closing your blog as well. If that happens, where will your loyal followers find you? Or there are change in the domain of your blog host, it will surely affect your rankings.
In case you have limited resources and can only settle to free hosting companies, look for those who offer to display your own domain rather than displaying their own like Wordpress and Blogger.
Proper URL Naming Convention
It is always a bad idea to use dynamic URLs whether on websites or blogs. You should always take advantage of any chance you have to use keywords, without keyword stuffing, including this one. Meaning, instead of using “www.xyzblog.com/?246”, you can consider “www.xyzblog.com/blog-post-keywords-here”. When you cannot do anything about it, use mod rewrite.
Good Navigation
If your blog is just a part of a website, it is not ebough that you a have a link going to your blog's main page. Use the sidebar to syndicate your new posts because the visitors of the website might get interested in your articles if they see the titles.
Fast Page Load
The amount of time involved for a page to load all depends on your host. There are some blogs that takes about half a minute just from the snippet of RSS feed to the full article. You can lose a lot of readers just because of this reason alone.
Moderated Trackbacks and Comments
Spammers are everywhere. They always find a way to abuse your blog by putting non-sense comments with links going to their website. It is annoying and it can also affect your rankings. There are numerous tools available online which you can use to moderate and avoid comment and trackbak spam.
Don't just create a blog to share great information or to prove that you know a lot about the field you are into. Do not settle on the number of followers your blog has. Start to optimize now and see the great changes on the next few months.
Just Twitter FIND IT!
by: i80 Equipment
On their website, I 80-Equipment invite the online truck shopper to “Just say FIND IT!” (http://www.i80equipment.com/locator.html) and they promise to help you find whatever you’re looking for. It’s only a matter of time before twittering truckers adopt this on Twitter too.
Remember two months ago, when people asked what Twitter was. Now if you’re a business and you’re worth your salt, you want to be Twitterin’.
For any business though, it is a calculated decision to twitter. You don’t want to start Twittering until you’re sure that you’ll have followers. It’s probably a costly mistake in the business world, to be seen Twittering with only 5 followers in tow. You want to start twittering when you’ve got a solid client-base who would do repeat business with you, if the need arises, and who will happily follow you, if invited.
Twitter is a great tool if you want to give your clients and potential clients a forum for a dialogue, and even more importantly if you want to let them see what you’re up to. The logic of Twittering is if you like being well-informed as to what’s happening in your industry, you keep your client-base and other people in your niche market in the loop, and gather a following. And then, at some point, your following will do a 180 degree turn. You’ll start attracting the ‘big fish’ in your industry. Like-minded professionals, who have interesting business partnerships and deals to offer, will approach you because of your following. This is where Twitter is miles ahead of other social networking platforms. Twitter acknowledges that it’s all about your following. “If you have the numbers, let’s talk” is the attitude.
Most people get that Twitter is a social network. But ask them about micro-blogging, and you might get a few raised eyebrows. But that’s what Twitter is about – it’s micro-blogging. And in this era of information overload, micro-blogging is the freshest, user-friendly alternative to blogging.
If you want to be with the top players, hang out where everyone is hanging out. Twitter ranks as one of the 50 most popular websites worldwide. You’ll be looking for elbow space alongside 6 million monthly visitors, and close to 10 times this number of monthly visits. It’s where people who are going places go.
I 80 Equipment, based in Colona, IL has earned the reputation of being #1 Supplier of Quality Bucket Trucks Digger Derricks and Cranes. I 80 Equipment also have a sales hotline service, and they are always happy to walk you through any aspect of a truck purchase, be it choosing the right truck for your company, ensuring your drivers know what they need to know, or getting financing.
I-80 Equipment has earned themselves a strong reputation for the quality trucks they offer, their 77 point inspection and their financing solutions. And their name is known nation-wide as well internationally. They sell boom trucks, bucket trucks, crane trucks, digger derricks, and other heavy equipment for many different industries. They Twitter.
On their website, I 80-Equipment invite the online truck shopper to “Just say FIND IT!” (http://www.i80equipment.com/locator.html) and they promise to help you find whatever you’re looking for. It’s only a matter of time before twittering truckers adopt this on Twitter too.
Remember two months ago, when people asked what Twitter was. Now if you’re a business and you’re worth your salt, you want to be Twitterin’.
For any business though, it is a calculated decision to twitter. You don’t want to start Twittering until you’re sure that you’ll have followers. It’s probably a costly mistake in the business world, to be seen Twittering with only 5 followers in tow. You want to start twittering when you’ve got a solid client-base who would do repeat business with you, if the need arises, and who will happily follow you, if invited.
Twitter is a great tool if you want to give your clients and potential clients a forum for a dialogue, and even more importantly if you want to let them see what you’re up to. The logic of Twittering is if you like being well-informed as to what’s happening in your industry, you keep your client-base and other people in your niche market in the loop, and gather a following. And then, at some point, your following will do a 180 degree turn. You’ll start attracting the ‘big fish’ in your industry. Like-minded professionals, who have interesting business partnerships and deals to offer, will approach you because of your following. This is where Twitter is miles ahead of other social networking platforms. Twitter acknowledges that it’s all about your following. “If you have the numbers, let’s talk” is the attitude.
Most people get that Twitter is a social network. But ask them about micro-blogging, and you might get a few raised eyebrows. But that’s what Twitter is about – it’s micro-blogging. And in this era of information overload, micro-blogging is the freshest, user-friendly alternative to blogging.
If you want to be with the top players, hang out where everyone is hanging out. Twitter ranks as one of the 50 most popular websites worldwide. You’ll be looking for elbow space alongside 6 million monthly visitors, and close to 10 times this number of monthly visits. It’s where people who are going places go.
I 80 Equipment, based in Colona, IL has earned the reputation of being #1 Supplier of Quality Bucket Trucks Digger Derricks and Cranes. I 80 Equipment also have a sales hotline service, and they are always happy to walk you through any aspect of a truck purchase, be it choosing the right truck for your company, ensuring your drivers know what they need to know, or getting financing.
I-80 Equipment has earned themselves a strong reputation for the quality trucks they offer, their 77 point inspection and their financing solutions. And their name is known nation-wide as well internationally. They sell boom trucks, bucket trucks, crane trucks, digger derricks, and other heavy equipment for many different industries. They Twitter.
The Real Reason for CRM implementation Failure
by: Chuck Lewis
You can search the Internet and look at technology trade magazines and find list after list of why CRM (Customer Retention Management) implementations fail. To me, most of these "articles" are laundry lists from many "post mortem meetings". We can talk for days about "How the executives did not buy in to the solution", or "the employees, especially users, did not believe in the selected system" even "poor project management" are great excuses for spending thousands and even millions of dollars. Please don't misunderstand me; these are all valid reasons to project failure while the blame is placed on users, executives, project managers and even the solution itself. No one discusses the beginning of the failure point.
A simple scenario:
. A large company's Sales Department decides that a CRM solution is needed to help increase sales, customer retention and track support calls. Different CRM vendors meet with the Company's executive staff. CRM sales representatives explain why the business should choose their product. From my experience as a consultant for Amdocs ClarifyCRM, which is extremely customizable. The sales person informs the business that the software can be customized to accommodate any business requirements, such as billing, invoice generation, provisioning and even Human Resource utilities. Expectations have now been set. I, being a good ole southern boy, have said that "Windshield wipers can be put on a goat's rear, but it just doesn't make sense. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. One system is not the "do all, be all" solution even though you can customize it to the nth degree.
Many companies send the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to training for a 2 to 5 day course that only touches the surface of the applications use and does not allow for complete familiarity of the system. The SME is now expected to quasi train a selected group of end users and executive staff on the operation of the newly purchased CRM system. To me this is almost like asking a college freshman to write his Master's Thesis. He may understand the subject and know how to write, but he doesn't have the complete experience to complete the task. A test system may or may not be installed so the company is not truly ready for the implementation process to begin. Soon the CRM vendor's PSO's (Professional Service Organization) analyst team arrives like a flood. The documentation processes and gathering of business requirements begin. The analyst team will meet with users and SMEs to gather this information. Here is where the failure begins. Even though the SME has been trained he is still not truly a SME, and the PSO consultants provided by the vendor are not experts in the exact methods and processes of this particular company and in many cases they do not have any experience within this particular industry. Keep in mind that the only way a Professional Service Organization generates revenue is by billable hours.
Now the process begins and so does the failure point. James Thurber said "It is better to know some of the questions then all of the answers" and so is the case with the PSO They have templates of questions to ask, and begin meetings with user groups and SMEs to drive out requirements on a system that the company's employees do not really understand. Users are asked, about drop down list items, data capture, process and workflow, user rights or privileges and integration. There is about 2 to 4 weeks dedicated to filling out a design matrix. The executive committee is asked to sign off on the matrix and the design document is written. All this has been done with know true knowledge. The design document is the accepted or signed off on and the implementation begins. During the implementation process training is developed based on the design and customizations being added to the system. As the system changes due to change requests and future enhancements the training must be updated.
A major aspect of the CRM implementation is data migration. Due to project timelines, data is mapped, custom fields are defined and the data is migrated with no real data clean up. The entire focus of the project is on the actual system and not any type of foundation or integrity. In many cases the CRM system is CBAR (Customized Beyond All Recognition)
After 9/11 Donald Rumsfield referring to the "War on Terror" he stated "There are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, things we don't know we know and things we don't know we don't know. The business and CRM world are the same so a change request process is put in place that can eventually stretch the project timeline and increase the cost to production.
Planned Resolution
The most successful projects that I have been involved with, and I have lead projects that have won the Aberdeen 10 Most successful CRM implementations of the Year, began by allowing the users and SMEs use an OOB (out of the box) system and compare it to their current CRM process and applications. Training on the OOB system is a much easier process then reinventing the wheel. Utilizing the CRM vendors training programs offers a true and complete foundation for each and every user. The users now have more of a complete understanding of the system, especially if the OOB system goes live with only minimal administrative customizations and changes. With a deeper understanding of the application and actually using it, the business can now explore the changes or gaps in the system. These changes should be well managed. Many CRM implementations are not completed for months and even with high cost and low Return on Investment (ROI). Most importantly is the data integrity.
How are the changes managed? Changes to the system should be grouped based on priority, system module, and time. A recommended methodology to manage and organize changes is the SCRUM process. Within the scrum process a sprint is created which usually is no longer then 2 to 4 weeks from beginning through to production including development time. As I stated in the beginning most articles on CRM implementation failures are a laundry list from post mortem meetings.
Top 10 reasons CRM implementation fail and the answers using the above methodology:
To answer one such laundry list examine "Top 10 Factors For CRM Implementation Factors" from http://www.crmsolution.com/top10failure.html.
Items in bold are quoted.
1. "Not defining clear objectives for the software implementation is a commonly cited contributing factor associated with failed implementations. A successful project is one that attains its objectives, but it is amazing how many business entities undertake a CRM solution with vague, unidentified, immeasurable goals. "
All CRM vendors have a basic or OOB system that will achieve many of the objectives of the company immediately. These objectives may be very basic, but offers the business, SMEs and users the opportunity to gain knowledge of the system and allow for business objectives to be defined more clearly based on experience.
2. "Not attaching measurements to your objectives is a similar contributing factor. Labeling a project unsuccessful requires some degree of measurement, and if a company does not calculate pre-implementation assessments of critical objectives, it becomes impossible to pinpoint the issues responsible for either success or failure. While it may be a generally accepted fact that a project is not successful, unless the business can identify where and why, it is doomed to repeated failures."
After using an OOB system critical objectives can be defined and allow pre-release assessments of these objectives. Using the SCRUM methodology the project team can measure the objectives urgency, cost and time to production.
3. "A failure to review and define the key performance indicators for the company is the reason many a project descend into disaster. Evident, but an amazing number of implementations do not define clear metrics. Unclear metrics or poor metric quality is an often-overlooked factor in the dividing line judging a system implementation's failure or success."
Using the OOB system users will have a greater understanding of the CRM application. This understanding combined with the expertise of the particular business model and process, users can define critical, necessary, and precise metrics.
4. "Over-customization of the software particularly during an early implementation phase can spell the demise of a project. While lack of defined business objectives is a sin of crucial importance, going to the other extreme, is perhaps the second most common reason Client Relationship Management solutions are not utilized by users. Do not attempt to implement every feature inherent in the software. This tactic guarantees failure."
By implementing the OOB system there are no customizations of the software during the early implementation process. Using the experience of the users to define key customizations and enhancements that are prioritized and implemented in a strategic manner using release management, offers the ability to monitor the amount of customizations and the affects on performance. Keep in mind that one system is not a do all, be all system.
5. "An equally common reason for failure is planning to customize the selected solution before utilizing it in a test environment. Even identified, possible holes in software functionality can often be worked around, thus avoiding customization."
Utilizing the system in a test environment is a good idea. Most companies will test the system with sample test data from the real world. This is better then no testing at all. By placing the system in a production type role where users are performing their day-to-day functions will identify the holes or gaps and the work-a-rounds that may apply. Allowing the users to discover work-a-rounds provides user involvement and peer-to-peer training.
6. "Not incenting your employees to use the system contribution to user adoption challenges. Possibly the most important single quantitative gauge of success is the user adoption rate. If only the self-motivated utilize the system, it is not successful. Use a combination of rewards and procedures to spur users' buy-in, and recognize that this is necessary for all personnel, including executives."
One of the greatest incentives to users is involvement. Utilizing the experience of the users and allowing them to generate ideas on system improvements will also generate excitement.
7. "Insufficient training and support delivered during key periods can burry a project. User adoption rates drop off for a number of reasons, but two rank high on the list - lack of training and support prior to and post implementation. Sometimes this occurs not because the training and support are absent, but because it is not provided in the appropriate format. A remote sales force, for example, may not be able to rely on in-house personnel for remote support."
In many cases a customized system is released and a complete training strategy must be developed and implemented. This can be a high increase in cost. By utilizing the OOB system, training is much easier. The CRM vendor offers training on the OOB system. As customizations and enhancements are added training is simpler for the company to provide. This gives each and every user a true foundation.
8. "Another reason for poor user buy-in is incorrect, incomplete or bogus data. Marketing cannot direct concerted successful campaigns if prospect information is inaccurate. The same holds true for both the Sales and Service divisions, and, indeed, in these lines of business, erroneous records can bring operations to a complete halt, ensuring dismal failure."
Simply stated, the CRM application collects data and relates it. Data scrubbing and deduping should be a very high priority. Users want access to exact and accurate data, not the ability to search for possibilities. Dedicated data cleanup will insure user buy-in.
9. "Failure to align the business operations of the divisions utilizing the system virtually guarantees the project's outcome. CRM solutions generally involve three often disparate departments with separate processes, cultures, and aims. Numerical targets exist for each division and these can be contradictory. Unless these areas are aligned harmoniously prior to the project's initiation, failure is likely. Not only must operations be aligned across sectors, but they must share consistent processes where those processes interact with the customer. Each salesperson must perform the same process to take a lead to client in the same manner. Consistent, aligned processes cannot be translated into system workflow unless they are documented and understood. Undocumented business practices are unreliable and leave large margins for inefficiency and breakdown."
When the OOB system is implemented users from all business operations will follow the basic process within the system. Users, understanding the current business workflow, can easily adapt to the basic workflow contained within the system. As users gain experience workflow processes may be documented and aligned then implemented into the CRM application.
10. "Not planning for change and delineating a specific method of handling each out-of-scope incident can doom a project. Besides user adoption rates, two other important gauges of a successful CRM implementation are budget and cost overruns. Both of these are simple, quantitative evaluations easily measured by objective analysis. If a project was supposed to be completed within six months, but actually took in excess of a year, users will view it as unsuccessful and become reluctant to associate with the project. Project duration estimates are exceeded for numerous reasons; inadequate resources, timely unavailability of resources, the changing global marketplace, and many others. Exceeding the budgeted dollar figure for installing and using a CRM system is a result of many factors, but the primary culprit is creeping project scope."
Scope creep is a huge culprit causing project timelines and budgets to increase creating a more complex system to develop and implement. By using an agile process with short design to production time frames scope creep and budgets can be more controlled. Your time to production is shortened. Changes are not discovered during the design, development or testing phases, but are discovered by users. These changes are more solution oriented for the users because they are documented based on usage of the OOB system.
In Summary:
In all projects the (highly) customized CRM system becomes the base or foundation while in actuality the original OOB implementation should be the baseline and all changes and customizations should enhance the original functionality.
You can search the Internet and look at technology trade magazines and find list after list of why CRM (Customer Retention Management) implementations fail. To me, most of these "articles" are laundry lists from many "post mortem meetings". We can talk for days about "How the executives did not buy in to the solution", or "the employees, especially users, did not believe in the selected system" even "poor project management" are great excuses for spending thousands and even millions of dollars. Please don't misunderstand me; these are all valid reasons to project failure while the blame is placed on users, executives, project managers and even the solution itself. No one discusses the beginning of the failure point.
A simple scenario:
. A large company's Sales Department decides that a CRM solution is needed to help increase sales, customer retention and track support calls. Different CRM vendors meet with the Company's executive staff. CRM sales representatives explain why the business should choose their product. From my experience as a consultant for Amdocs ClarifyCRM, which is extremely customizable. The sales person informs the business that the software can be customized to accommodate any business requirements, such as billing, invoice generation, provisioning and even Human Resource utilities. Expectations have now been set. I, being a good ole southern boy, have said that "Windshield wipers can be put on a goat's rear, but it just doesn't make sense. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. One system is not the "do all, be all" solution even though you can customize it to the nth degree.
Many companies send the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to training for a 2 to 5 day course that only touches the surface of the applications use and does not allow for complete familiarity of the system. The SME is now expected to quasi train a selected group of end users and executive staff on the operation of the newly purchased CRM system. To me this is almost like asking a college freshman to write his Master's Thesis. He may understand the subject and know how to write, but he doesn't have the complete experience to complete the task. A test system may or may not be installed so the company is not truly ready for the implementation process to begin. Soon the CRM vendor's PSO's (Professional Service Organization) analyst team arrives like a flood. The documentation processes and gathering of business requirements begin. The analyst team will meet with users and SMEs to gather this information. Here is where the failure begins. Even though the SME has been trained he is still not truly a SME, and the PSO consultants provided by the vendor are not experts in the exact methods and processes of this particular company and in many cases they do not have any experience within this particular industry. Keep in mind that the only way a Professional Service Organization generates revenue is by billable hours.
Now the process begins and so does the failure point. James Thurber said "It is better to know some of the questions then all of the answers" and so is the case with the PSO They have templates of questions to ask, and begin meetings with user groups and SMEs to drive out requirements on a system that the company's employees do not really understand. Users are asked, about drop down list items, data capture, process and workflow, user rights or privileges and integration. There is about 2 to 4 weeks dedicated to filling out a design matrix. The executive committee is asked to sign off on the matrix and the design document is written. All this has been done with know true knowledge. The design document is the accepted or signed off on and the implementation begins. During the implementation process training is developed based on the design and customizations being added to the system. As the system changes due to change requests and future enhancements the training must be updated.
A major aspect of the CRM implementation is data migration. Due to project timelines, data is mapped, custom fields are defined and the data is migrated with no real data clean up. The entire focus of the project is on the actual system and not any type of foundation or integrity. In many cases the CRM system is CBAR (Customized Beyond All Recognition)
After 9/11 Donald Rumsfield referring to the "War on Terror" he stated "There are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, things we don't know we know and things we don't know we don't know. The business and CRM world are the same so a change request process is put in place that can eventually stretch the project timeline and increase the cost to production.
Planned Resolution
The most successful projects that I have been involved with, and I have lead projects that have won the Aberdeen 10 Most successful CRM implementations of the Year, began by allowing the users and SMEs use an OOB (out of the box) system and compare it to their current CRM process and applications. Training on the OOB system is a much easier process then reinventing the wheel. Utilizing the CRM vendors training programs offers a true and complete foundation for each and every user. The users now have more of a complete understanding of the system, especially if the OOB system goes live with only minimal administrative customizations and changes. With a deeper understanding of the application and actually using it, the business can now explore the changes or gaps in the system. These changes should be well managed. Many CRM implementations are not completed for months and even with high cost and low Return on Investment (ROI). Most importantly is the data integrity.
How are the changes managed? Changes to the system should be grouped based on priority, system module, and time. A recommended methodology to manage and organize changes is the SCRUM process. Within the scrum process a sprint is created which usually is no longer then 2 to 4 weeks from beginning through to production including development time. As I stated in the beginning most articles on CRM implementation failures are a laundry list from post mortem meetings.
Top 10 reasons CRM implementation fail and the answers using the above methodology:
To answer one such laundry list examine "Top 10 Factors For CRM Implementation Factors" from http://www.crmsolution.com/top10failure.html.
Items in bold are quoted.
1. "Not defining clear objectives for the software implementation is a commonly cited contributing factor associated with failed implementations. A successful project is one that attains its objectives, but it is amazing how many business entities undertake a CRM solution with vague, unidentified, immeasurable goals. "
All CRM vendors have a basic or OOB system that will achieve many of the objectives of the company immediately. These objectives may be very basic, but offers the business, SMEs and users the opportunity to gain knowledge of the system and allow for business objectives to be defined more clearly based on experience.
2. "Not attaching measurements to your objectives is a similar contributing factor. Labeling a project unsuccessful requires some degree of measurement, and if a company does not calculate pre-implementation assessments of critical objectives, it becomes impossible to pinpoint the issues responsible for either success or failure. While it may be a generally accepted fact that a project is not successful, unless the business can identify where and why, it is doomed to repeated failures."
After using an OOB system critical objectives can be defined and allow pre-release assessments of these objectives. Using the SCRUM methodology the project team can measure the objectives urgency, cost and time to production.
3. "A failure to review and define the key performance indicators for the company is the reason many a project descend into disaster. Evident, but an amazing number of implementations do not define clear metrics. Unclear metrics or poor metric quality is an often-overlooked factor in the dividing line judging a system implementation's failure or success."
Using the OOB system users will have a greater understanding of the CRM application. This understanding combined with the expertise of the particular business model and process, users can define critical, necessary, and precise metrics.
4. "Over-customization of the software particularly during an early implementation phase can spell the demise of a project. While lack of defined business objectives is a sin of crucial importance, going to the other extreme, is perhaps the second most common reason Client Relationship Management solutions are not utilized by users. Do not attempt to implement every feature inherent in the software. This tactic guarantees failure."
By implementing the OOB system there are no customizations of the software during the early implementation process. Using the experience of the users to define key customizations and enhancements that are prioritized and implemented in a strategic manner using release management, offers the ability to monitor the amount of customizations and the affects on performance. Keep in mind that one system is not a do all, be all system.
5. "An equally common reason for failure is planning to customize the selected solution before utilizing it in a test environment. Even identified, possible holes in software functionality can often be worked around, thus avoiding customization."
Utilizing the system in a test environment is a good idea. Most companies will test the system with sample test data from the real world. This is better then no testing at all. By placing the system in a production type role where users are performing their day-to-day functions will identify the holes or gaps and the work-a-rounds that may apply. Allowing the users to discover work-a-rounds provides user involvement and peer-to-peer training.
6. "Not incenting your employees to use the system contribution to user adoption challenges. Possibly the most important single quantitative gauge of success is the user adoption rate. If only the self-motivated utilize the system, it is not successful. Use a combination of rewards and procedures to spur users' buy-in, and recognize that this is necessary for all personnel, including executives."
One of the greatest incentives to users is involvement. Utilizing the experience of the users and allowing them to generate ideas on system improvements will also generate excitement.
7. "Insufficient training and support delivered during key periods can burry a project. User adoption rates drop off for a number of reasons, but two rank high on the list - lack of training and support prior to and post implementation. Sometimes this occurs not because the training and support are absent, but because it is not provided in the appropriate format. A remote sales force, for example, may not be able to rely on in-house personnel for remote support."
In many cases a customized system is released and a complete training strategy must be developed and implemented. This can be a high increase in cost. By utilizing the OOB system, training is much easier. The CRM vendor offers training on the OOB system. As customizations and enhancements are added training is simpler for the company to provide. This gives each and every user a true foundation.
8. "Another reason for poor user buy-in is incorrect, incomplete or bogus data. Marketing cannot direct concerted successful campaigns if prospect information is inaccurate. The same holds true for both the Sales and Service divisions, and, indeed, in these lines of business, erroneous records can bring operations to a complete halt, ensuring dismal failure."
Simply stated, the CRM application collects data and relates it. Data scrubbing and deduping should be a very high priority. Users want access to exact and accurate data, not the ability to search for possibilities. Dedicated data cleanup will insure user buy-in.
9. "Failure to align the business operations of the divisions utilizing the system virtually guarantees the project's outcome. CRM solutions generally involve three often disparate departments with separate processes, cultures, and aims. Numerical targets exist for each division and these can be contradictory. Unless these areas are aligned harmoniously prior to the project's initiation, failure is likely. Not only must operations be aligned across sectors, but they must share consistent processes where those processes interact with the customer. Each salesperson must perform the same process to take a lead to client in the same manner. Consistent, aligned processes cannot be translated into system workflow unless they are documented and understood. Undocumented business practices are unreliable and leave large margins for inefficiency and breakdown."
When the OOB system is implemented users from all business operations will follow the basic process within the system. Users, understanding the current business workflow, can easily adapt to the basic workflow contained within the system. As users gain experience workflow processes may be documented and aligned then implemented into the CRM application.
10. "Not planning for change and delineating a specific method of handling each out-of-scope incident can doom a project. Besides user adoption rates, two other important gauges of a successful CRM implementation are budget and cost overruns. Both of these are simple, quantitative evaluations easily measured by objective analysis. If a project was supposed to be completed within six months, but actually took in excess of a year, users will view it as unsuccessful and become reluctant to associate with the project. Project duration estimates are exceeded for numerous reasons; inadequate resources, timely unavailability of resources, the changing global marketplace, and many others. Exceeding the budgeted dollar figure for installing and using a CRM system is a result of many factors, but the primary culprit is creeping project scope."
Scope creep is a huge culprit causing project timelines and budgets to increase creating a more complex system to develop and implement. By using an agile process with short design to production time frames scope creep and budgets can be more controlled. Your time to production is shortened. Changes are not discovered during the design, development or testing phases, but are discovered by users. These changes are more solution oriented for the users because they are documented based on usage of the OOB system.
In Summary:
In all projects the (highly) customized CRM system becomes the base or foundation while in actuality the original OOB implementation should be the baseline and all changes and customizations should enhance the original functionality.
The Real Reason for CRM implementation Failure
by: Chuck Lewis
You can search the Internet and look at technology trade magazines and find list after list of why CRM (Customer Retention Management) implementations fail. To me, most of these "articles" are laundry lists from many "post mortem meetings". We can talk for days about "How the executives did not buy in to the solution", or "the employees, especially users, did not believe in the selected system" even "poor project management" are great excuses for spending thousands and even millions of dollars. Please don't misunderstand me; these are all valid reasons to project failure while the blame is placed on users, executives, project managers and even the solution itself. No one discusses the beginning of the failure point.
A simple scenario:
. A large company's Sales Department decides that a CRM solution is needed to help increase sales, customer retention and track support calls. Different CRM vendors meet with the Company's executive staff. CRM sales representatives explain why the business should choose their product. From my experience as a consultant for Amdocs ClarifyCRM, which is extremely customizable. The sales person informs the business that the software can be customized to accommodate any business requirements, such as billing, invoice generation, provisioning and even Human Resource utilities. Expectations have now been set. I, being a good ole southern boy, have said that "Windshield wipers can be put on a goat's rear, but it just doesn't make sense. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. One system is not the "do all, be all" solution even though you can customize it to the nth degree.
Many companies send the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to training for a 2 to 5 day course that only touches the surface of the applications use and does not allow for complete familiarity of the system. The SME is now expected to quasi train a selected group of end users and executive staff on the operation of the newly purchased CRM system. To me this is almost like asking a college freshman to write his Master's Thesis. He may understand the subject and know how to write, but he doesn't have the complete experience to complete the task. A test system may or may not be installed so the company is not truly ready for the implementation process to begin. Soon the CRM vendor's PSO's (Professional Service Organization) analyst team arrives like a flood. The documentation processes and gathering of business requirements begin. The analyst team will meet with users and SMEs to gather this information. Here is where the failure begins. Even though the SME has been trained he is still not truly a SME, and the PSO consultants provided by the vendor are not experts in the exact methods and processes of this particular company and in many cases they do not have any experience within this particular industry. Keep in mind that the only way a Professional Service Organization generates revenue is by billable hours.
Now the process begins and so does the failure point. James Thurber said "It is better to know some of the questions then all of the answers" and so is the case with the PSO They have templates of questions to ask, and begin meetings with user groups and SMEs to drive out requirements on a system that the company's employees do not really understand. Users are asked, about drop down list items, data capture, process and workflow, user rights or privileges and integration. There is about 2 to 4 weeks dedicated to filling out a design matrix. The executive committee is asked to sign off on the matrix and the design document is written. All this has been done with know true knowledge. The design document is the accepted or signed off on and the implementation begins. During the implementation process training is developed based on the design and customizations being added to the system. As the system changes due to change requests and future enhancements the training must be updated.
A major aspect of the CRM implementation is data migration. Due to project timelines, data is mapped, custom fields are defined and the data is migrated with no real data clean up. The entire focus of the project is on the actual system and not any type of foundation or integrity. In many cases the CRM system is CBAR (Customized Beyond All Recognition)
After 9/11 Donald Rumsfield referring to the "War on Terror" he stated "There are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, things we don't know we know and things we don't know we don't know. The business and CRM world are the same so a change request process is put in place that can eventually stretch the project timeline and increase the cost to production.
Planned Resolution
The most successful projects that I have been involved with, and I have lead projects that have won the Aberdeen 10 Most successful CRM implementations of the Year, began by allowing the users and SMEs use an OOB (out of the box) system and compare it to their current CRM process and applications. Training on the OOB system is a much easier process then reinventing the wheel. Utilizing the CRM vendors training programs offers a true and complete foundation for each and every user. The users now have more of a complete understanding of the system, especially if the OOB system goes live with only minimal administrative customizations and changes. With a deeper understanding of the application and actually using it, the business can now explore the changes or gaps in the system. These changes should be well managed. Many CRM implementations are not completed for months and even with high cost and low Return on Investment (ROI). Most importantly is the data integrity.
How are the changes managed? Changes to the system should be grouped based on priority, system module, and time. A recommended methodology to manage and organize changes is the SCRUM process. Within the scrum process a sprint is created which usually is no longer then 2 to 4 weeks from beginning through to production including development time. As I stated in the beginning most articles on CRM implementation failures are a laundry list from post mortem meetings.
Top 10 reasons CRM implementation fail and the answers using the above methodology:
To answer one such laundry list examine "Top 10 Factors For CRM Implementation Factors" from http://www.crmsolution.com/top10failure.html.
Items in bold are quoted.
1. "Not defining clear objectives for the software implementation is a commonly cited contributing factor associated with failed implementations. A successful project is one that attains its objectives, but it is amazing how many business entities undertake a CRM solution with vague, unidentified, immeasurable goals. "
All CRM vendors have a basic or OOB system that will achieve many of the objectives of the company immediately. These objectives may be very basic, but offers the business, SMEs and users the opportunity to gain knowledge of the system and allow for business objectives to be defined more clearly based on experience.
2. "Not attaching measurements to your objectives is a similar contributing factor. Labeling a project unsuccessful requires some degree of measurement, and if a company does not calculate pre-implementation assessments of critical objectives, it becomes impossible to pinpoint the issues responsible for either success or failure. While it may be a generally accepted fact that a project is not successful, unless the business can identify where and why, it is doomed to repeated failures."
After using an OOB system critical objectives can be defined and allow pre-release assessments of these objectives. Using the SCRUM methodology the project team can measure the objectives urgency, cost and time to production.
3. "A failure to review and define the key performance indicators for the company is the reason many a project descend into disaster. Evident, but an amazing number of implementations do not define clear metrics. Unclear metrics or poor metric quality is an often-overlooked factor in the dividing line judging a system implementation's failure or success."
Using the OOB system users will have a greater understanding of the CRM application. This understanding combined with the expertise of the particular business model and process, users can define critical, necessary, and precise metrics.
4. "Over-customization of the software particularly during an early implementation phase can spell the demise of a project. While lack of defined business objectives is a sin of crucial importance, going to the other extreme, is perhaps the second most common reason Client Relationship Management solutions are not utilized by users. Do not attempt to implement every feature inherent in the software. This tactic guarantees failure."
By implementing the OOB system there are no customizations of the software during the early implementation process. Using the experience of the users to define key customizations and enhancements that are prioritized and implemented in a strategic manner using release management, offers the ability to monitor the amount of customizations and the affects on performance. Keep in mind that one system is not a do all, be all system.
5. "An equally common reason for failure is planning to customize the selected solution before utilizing it in a test environment. Even identified, possible holes in software functionality can often be worked around, thus avoiding customization."
Utilizing the system in a test environment is a good idea. Most companies will test the system with sample test data from the real world. This is better then no testing at all. By placing the system in a production type role where users are performing their day-to-day functions will identify the holes or gaps and the work-a-rounds that may apply. Allowing the users to discover work-a-rounds provides user involvement and peer-to-peer training.
6. "Not incenting your employees to use the system contribution to user adoption challenges. Possibly the most important single quantitative gauge of success is the user adoption rate. If only the self-motivated utilize the system, it is not successful. Use a combination of rewards and procedures to spur users' buy-in, and recognize that this is necessary for all personnel, including executives."
One of the greatest incentives to users is involvement. Utilizing the experience of the users and allowing them to generate ideas on system improvements will also generate excitement.
7. "Insufficient training and support delivered during key periods can burry a project. User adoption rates drop off for a number of reasons, but two rank high on the list - lack of training and support prior to and post implementation. Sometimes this occurs not because the training and support are absent, but because it is not provided in the appropriate format. A remote sales force, for example, may not be able to rely on in-house personnel for remote support."
In many cases a customized system is released and a complete training strategy must be developed and implemented. This can be a high increase in cost. By utilizing the OOB system, training is much easier. The CRM vendor offers training on the OOB system. As customizations and enhancements are added training is simpler for the company to provide. This gives each and every user a true foundation.
8. "Another reason for poor user buy-in is incorrect, incomplete or bogus data. Marketing cannot direct concerted successful campaigns if prospect information is inaccurate. The same holds true for both the Sales and Service divisions, and, indeed, in these lines of business, erroneous records can bring operations to a complete halt, ensuring dismal failure."
Simply stated, the CRM application collects data and relates it. Data scrubbing and deduping should be a very high priority. Users want access to exact and accurate data, not the ability to search for possibilities. Dedicated data cleanup will insure user buy-in.
9. "Failure to align the business operations of the divisions utilizing the system virtually guarantees the project's outcome. CRM solutions generally involve three often disparate departments with separate processes, cultures, and aims. Numerical targets exist for each division and these can be contradictory. Unless these areas are aligned harmoniously prior to the project's initiation, failure is likely. Not only must operations be aligned across sectors, but they must share consistent processes where those processes interact with the customer. Each salesperson must perform the same process to take a lead to client in the same manner. Consistent, aligned processes cannot be translated into system workflow unless they are documented and understood. Undocumented business practices are unreliable and leave large margins for inefficiency and breakdown."
When the OOB system is implemented users from all business operations will follow the basic process within the system. Users, understanding the current business workflow, can easily adapt to the basic workflow contained within the system. As users gain experience workflow processes may be documented and aligned then implemented into the CRM application.
10. "Not planning for change and delineating a specific method of handling each out-of-scope incident can doom a project. Besides user adoption rates, two other important gauges of a successful CRM implementation are budget and cost overruns. Both of these are simple, quantitative evaluations easily measured by objective analysis. If a project was supposed to be completed within six months, but actually took in excess of a year, users will view it as unsuccessful and become reluctant to associate with the project. Project duration estimates are exceeded for numerous reasons; inadequate resources, timely unavailability of resources, the changing global marketplace, and many others. Exceeding the budgeted dollar figure for installing and using a CRM system is a result of many factors, but the primary culprit is creeping project scope."
Scope creep is a huge culprit causing project timelines and budgets to increase creating a more complex system to develop and implement. By using an agile process with short design to production time frames scope creep and budgets can be more controlled. Your time to production is shortened. Changes are not discovered during the design, development or testing phases, but are discovered by users. These changes are more solution oriented for the users because they are documented based on usage of the OOB system.
In Summary:
In all projects the (highly) customized CRM system becomes the base or foundation while in actuality the original OOB implementation should be the baseline and all changes and customizations should enhance the original functionality.
Bibliography
http://www.crmsolution.com. Last update unknown. Author Unknown. Accessed 8/28/09
You can search the Internet and look at technology trade magazines and find list after list of why CRM (Customer Retention Management) implementations fail. To me, most of these "articles" are laundry lists from many "post mortem meetings". We can talk for days about "How the executives did not buy in to the solution", or "the employees, especially users, did not believe in the selected system" even "poor project management" are great excuses for spending thousands and even millions of dollars. Please don't misunderstand me; these are all valid reasons to project failure while the blame is placed on users, executives, project managers and even the solution itself. No one discusses the beginning of the failure point.
A simple scenario:
. A large company's Sales Department decides that a CRM solution is needed to help increase sales, customer retention and track support calls. Different CRM vendors meet with the Company's executive staff. CRM sales representatives explain why the business should choose their product. From my experience as a consultant for Amdocs ClarifyCRM, which is extremely customizable. The sales person informs the business that the software can be customized to accommodate any business requirements, such as billing, invoice generation, provisioning and even Human Resource utilities. Expectations have now been set. I, being a good ole southern boy, have said that "Windshield wipers can be put on a goat's rear, but it just doesn't make sense. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. One system is not the "do all, be all" solution even though you can customize it to the nth degree.
Many companies send the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to training for a 2 to 5 day course that only touches the surface of the applications use and does not allow for complete familiarity of the system. The SME is now expected to quasi train a selected group of end users and executive staff on the operation of the newly purchased CRM system. To me this is almost like asking a college freshman to write his Master's Thesis. He may understand the subject and know how to write, but he doesn't have the complete experience to complete the task. A test system may or may not be installed so the company is not truly ready for the implementation process to begin. Soon the CRM vendor's PSO's (Professional Service Organization) analyst team arrives like a flood. The documentation processes and gathering of business requirements begin. The analyst team will meet with users and SMEs to gather this information. Here is where the failure begins. Even though the SME has been trained he is still not truly a SME, and the PSO consultants provided by the vendor are not experts in the exact methods and processes of this particular company and in many cases they do not have any experience within this particular industry. Keep in mind that the only way a Professional Service Organization generates revenue is by billable hours.
Now the process begins and so does the failure point. James Thurber said "It is better to know some of the questions then all of the answers" and so is the case with the PSO They have templates of questions to ask, and begin meetings with user groups and SMEs to drive out requirements on a system that the company's employees do not really understand. Users are asked, about drop down list items, data capture, process and workflow, user rights or privileges and integration. There is about 2 to 4 weeks dedicated to filling out a design matrix. The executive committee is asked to sign off on the matrix and the design document is written. All this has been done with know true knowledge. The design document is the accepted or signed off on and the implementation begins. During the implementation process training is developed based on the design and customizations being added to the system. As the system changes due to change requests and future enhancements the training must be updated.
A major aspect of the CRM implementation is data migration. Due to project timelines, data is mapped, custom fields are defined and the data is migrated with no real data clean up. The entire focus of the project is on the actual system and not any type of foundation or integrity. In many cases the CRM system is CBAR (Customized Beyond All Recognition)
After 9/11 Donald Rumsfield referring to the "War on Terror" he stated "There are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, things we don't know we know and things we don't know we don't know. The business and CRM world are the same so a change request process is put in place that can eventually stretch the project timeline and increase the cost to production.
Planned Resolution
The most successful projects that I have been involved with, and I have lead projects that have won the Aberdeen 10 Most successful CRM implementations of the Year, began by allowing the users and SMEs use an OOB (out of the box) system and compare it to their current CRM process and applications. Training on the OOB system is a much easier process then reinventing the wheel. Utilizing the CRM vendors training programs offers a true and complete foundation for each and every user. The users now have more of a complete understanding of the system, especially if the OOB system goes live with only minimal administrative customizations and changes. With a deeper understanding of the application and actually using it, the business can now explore the changes or gaps in the system. These changes should be well managed. Many CRM implementations are not completed for months and even with high cost and low Return on Investment (ROI). Most importantly is the data integrity.
How are the changes managed? Changes to the system should be grouped based on priority, system module, and time. A recommended methodology to manage and organize changes is the SCRUM process. Within the scrum process a sprint is created which usually is no longer then 2 to 4 weeks from beginning through to production including development time. As I stated in the beginning most articles on CRM implementation failures are a laundry list from post mortem meetings.
Top 10 reasons CRM implementation fail and the answers using the above methodology:
To answer one such laundry list examine "Top 10 Factors For CRM Implementation Factors" from http://www.crmsolution.com/top10failure.html.
Items in bold are quoted.
1. "Not defining clear objectives for the software implementation is a commonly cited contributing factor associated with failed implementations. A successful project is one that attains its objectives, but it is amazing how many business entities undertake a CRM solution with vague, unidentified, immeasurable goals. "
All CRM vendors have a basic or OOB system that will achieve many of the objectives of the company immediately. These objectives may be very basic, but offers the business, SMEs and users the opportunity to gain knowledge of the system and allow for business objectives to be defined more clearly based on experience.
2. "Not attaching measurements to your objectives is a similar contributing factor. Labeling a project unsuccessful requires some degree of measurement, and if a company does not calculate pre-implementation assessments of critical objectives, it becomes impossible to pinpoint the issues responsible for either success or failure. While it may be a generally accepted fact that a project is not successful, unless the business can identify where and why, it is doomed to repeated failures."
After using an OOB system critical objectives can be defined and allow pre-release assessments of these objectives. Using the SCRUM methodology the project team can measure the objectives urgency, cost and time to production.
3. "A failure to review and define the key performance indicators for the company is the reason many a project descend into disaster. Evident, but an amazing number of implementations do not define clear metrics. Unclear metrics or poor metric quality is an often-overlooked factor in the dividing line judging a system implementation's failure or success."
Using the OOB system users will have a greater understanding of the CRM application. This understanding combined with the expertise of the particular business model and process, users can define critical, necessary, and precise metrics.
4. "Over-customization of the software particularly during an early implementation phase can spell the demise of a project. While lack of defined business objectives is a sin of crucial importance, going to the other extreme, is perhaps the second most common reason Client Relationship Management solutions are not utilized by users. Do not attempt to implement every feature inherent in the software. This tactic guarantees failure."
By implementing the OOB system there are no customizations of the software during the early implementation process. Using the experience of the users to define key customizations and enhancements that are prioritized and implemented in a strategic manner using release management, offers the ability to monitor the amount of customizations and the affects on performance. Keep in mind that one system is not a do all, be all system.
5. "An equally common reason for failure is planning to customize the selected solution before utilizing it in a test environment. Even identified, possible holes in software functionality can often be worked around, thus avoiding customization."
Utilizing the system in a test environment is a good idea. Most companies will test the system with sample test data from the real world. This is better then no testing at all. By placing the system in a production type role where users are performing their day-to-day functions will identify the holes or gaps and the work-a-rounds that may apply. Allowing the users to discover work-a-rounds provides user involvement and peer-to-peer training.
6. "Not incenting your employees to use the system contribution to user adoption challenges. Possibly the most important single quantitative gauge of success is the user adoption rate. If only the self-motivated utilize the system, it is not successful. Use a combination of rewards and procedures to spur users' buy-in, and recognize that this is necessary for all personnel, including executives."
One of the greatest incentives to users is involvement. Utilizing the experience of the users and allowing them to generate ideas on system improvements will also generate excitement.
7. "Insufficient training and support delivered during key periods can burry a project. User adoption rates drop off for a number of reasons, but two rank high on the list - lack of training and support prior to and post implementation. Sometimes this occurs not because the training and support are absent, but because it is not provided in the appropriate format. A remote sales force, for example, may not be able to rely on in-house personnel for remote support."
In many cases a customized system is released and a complete training strategy must be developed and implemented. This can be a high increase in cost. By utilizing the OOB system, training is much easier. The CRM vendor offers training on the OOB system. As customizations and enhancements are added training is simpler for the company to provide. This gives each and every user a true foundation.
8. "Another reason for poor user buy-in is incorrect, incomplete or bogus data. Marketing cannot direct concerted successful campaigns if prospect information is inaccurate. The same holds true for both the Sales and Service divisions, and, indeed, in these lines of business, erroneous records can bring operations to a complete halt, ensuring dismal failure."
Simply stated, the CRM application collects data and relates it. Data scrubbing and deduping should be a very high priority. Users want access to exact and accurate data, not the ability to search for possibilities. Dedicated data cleanup will insure user buy-in.
9. "Failure to align the business operations of the divisions utilizing the system virtually guarantees the project's outcome. CRM solutions generally involve three often disparate departments with separate processes, cultures, and aims. Numerical targets exist for each division and these can be contradictory. Unless these areas are aligned harmoniously prior to the project's initiation, failure is likely. Not only must operations be aligned across sectors, but they must share consistent processes where those processes interact with the customer. Each salesperson must perform the same process to take a lead to client in the same manner. Consistent, aligned processes cannot be translated into system workflow unless they are documented and understood. Undocumented business practices are unreliable and leave large margins for inefficiency and breakdown."
When the OOB system is implemented users from all business operations will follow the basic process within the system. Users, understanding the current business workflow, can easily adapt to the basic workflow contained within the system. As users gain experience workflow processes may be documented and aligned then implemented into the CRM application.
10. "Not planning for change and delineating a specific method of handling each out-of-scope incident can doom a project. Besides user adoption rates, two other important gauges of a successful CRM implementation are budget and cost overruns. Both of these are simple, quantitative evaluations easily measured by objective analysis. If a project was supposed to be completed within six months, but actually took in excess of a year, users will view it as unsuccessful and become reluctant to associate with the project. Project duration estimates are exceeded for numerous reasons; inadequate resources, timely unavailability of resources, the changing global marketplace, and many others. Exceeding the budgeted dollar figure for installing and using a CRM system is a result of many factors, but the primary culprit is creeping project scope."
Scope creep is a huge culprit causing project timelines and budgets to increase creating a more complex system to develop and implement. By using an agile process with short design to production time frames scope creep and budgets can be more controlled. Your time to production is shortened. Changes are not discovered during the design, development or testing phases, but are discovered by users. These changes are more solution oriented for the users because they are documented based on usage of the OOB system.
In Summary:
In all projects the (highly) customized CRM system becomes the base or foundation while in actuality the original OOB implementation should be the baseline and all changes and customizations should enhance the original functionality.
Bibliography
http://www.crmsolution.com. Last update unknown. Author Unknown. Accessed 8/28/09
Troubleshooting Internet Explorer 7.0 Issues
by: SalemHassan
i
Introduction:
Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is light years ahead of its predecessors, but by no means does that proclamation mean that the browser is perfect. You are still going to encounter issues with IE from time to time.
Here are some of the concise guides that deliver some troubleshooting steps that will clear up the majority of issues we encountered with IE7.
Issues with Internet Explorer 7.0 with solutions
Problem: Crashes or hangs
If IE crashes, the most likely problem is that there's a buggy add-on (Toolbar or Browser Helper Object). In order to verify and isolate the buggy add-on, follow these steps:
1. Start IE in No Add-ons mode, either by right-clicking the Desktop icon, or clicking START - RUN and typing: iexplore.exe -extoff
2. Determine if IE fails.
3. If not, use Tools - Manage Add-ons to disable all browser extensions and toolbars.
4. Restart IE and re-enable browser extensions one-by-one.
5. Once you've found a broken extension, contact the manufacturer and ask for an update.
(Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=928426)
If IE still crashes often, even when browser add-ons are disabled:
• Please ensure that you are running the very latest version of your anti-virus, anti-malware, and/or firewall programs.
• Please ensure that the drivers for your graphics card are up to date.
• If you have Google Desktop installed, please ensure that you update to the latest version of Google Desktop.
• If you have 7-Zip or other Windows Explorer extensions installed, please ensure that you update to the latest.
Problem: Cannot connect to Internet using IE after updates installed
If you see the "Page Cannot be Displayed" error after installing Internet Explorer updates from Windows Updates, it's possible that you have a 3rd party firewall installed that is blocking access because the IE files have been updated. Please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942818/en-us for more information.
Problem: IE always starts in "No Add-ons" mode
The problem is that you're launching Internet Explorer using a shortcut icon that has the "-extoff" command line parameter. That parameter causes IE to start without add-ons. Thus, every time you use that shortcut icon, IE will start in No Add-ons Mode.
1. How do you normally start Internet Explorer? Right-click whatever icon you're using to start IE, choose "Properties" and remove the -extoff part of the shortcut.
2. If you click the green START button, click Run, type iexplore.exe in the RUN box, then hit the ENTER key, IE will start with Addons enabled.
Problem: IE opens small windows
IE opens new windows at the size of the last closed window. If you find that IE is opening small windows, do this:
• Close all IE windows.
• Open one new IE window.
• Adjust that window to the size you prefer. Do this by dragging the window borders. Do not use the maximize button:
• Close the IE window.
• New IE windows will open at the size you chose.
Problem: ClearType Text appears fuzzy
IE7 turns on a text-smoothing technology called "ClearType" by default. ClearType is scientifically proven to make text easier to read, particularly on LCD flat panel monitors.
If ClearType looks fuzzy on your monitor, you might want to try the ClearType tuning wizard, which can help you adjust the display of ClearType.
If you still don't like the appearance of ClearType, you can turn it off by unchecking the checkbox: Tools - Internet Options - Advanced - Multimedia - Always use ClearType for HTML.
Problem: IE Startup takes a long time (>3 seconds)
1. IE may start very slowly if you have a huge number of sites listed in your Restricted or Trusted sites zone. Some tools, like "SpyBot Search & Destroy" will place thousands of sites in these zones if you use their "immunize" feature.
2. Follow the "Crashing on startup" steps above to see if starting in No Add-ons mode starts much faster
3. If you're not using a proxy, uncheck IE's "Automatically detect settings" option on the Tools - Internet Options - Connections - LAN Settings dialog.
Problem: Slow Page rendering
1. Increase the connection limit. This tweak allows IE to make up to 16 connections per server.
2. Ensure that both "HTTP1.1" checkboxes in Tools - Internet Options - Advanced are checked.
Problem: IE7 Setup fails to install Internet Explorer
See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917925
Problem: My address bar won't turn green?
IE7 includes a cool new feature that turns the address bar green when a secure site presents an Extended Validation certificate:
If you're having trouble with this feature, on a site you know has an EV certificate:
1. Ensure that you either have the Phishing Filter set to "Automatic" mode or Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Security > Check for Server Certificate revocation checked.
2. If that doesn't work, install this: Windows Root Certificate Update and restart.
Problem: After installing, IE7 starts then vanishes
It's possible that one of IE's DLLs isn't installed correctly
1. Click START - RUN and type cmd
2. In the command prompt, type cd\
3. In the command prompt, type cd Program Files
4. In the command prompt, type cd Internet Explorer
5. In the command prompt, type regsvr32 IEPROXY.DLL
(Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=928427)
Problem: Error message about PSAPI.DLL
If you install IE7 and the following error message begins to show:
The procedure entry point GetProcessImageFileNameW could not be located in the dynamic link library PSAPI.DLL
1. Search your hard disk for PSAPI.dll.
2. Any copies of this DLL that are found outside of the Windows or Windows\System32 folder should be renamed to PSAPI.bak.
Problem: IE always goes to http://runonce.msn.com/runonce2.aspx instead of my homepage
If IE7 always goes to the RunOnce page on startup, even after you've tried to save the first run settings, it's possible that the mechanism that IE is using to save the settings does not work for some reason.
You can prevent IE from going to the RunOnce page and cause it to go directly to your homepage by running this script.
For more info, check out this Knowledge Base article.]
Problem: IE always goes to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx instead of my homepage
If Internet Explorer always goes to this page on startup, it's likely that you have an anti-spyware package (like "SpyBot") that prevented IE from correctly modifying your registry.
Try running this script. Note: you may need to disable your anti-spyware tool temporarily for the script to work.
Problem: On startup, IE always shows an error message about the AOL toolbar
If you see the following error message every time IE starts:
"Cannot find 'file:///C:/Program%20Files/AOL%20Toolbar/welcome.html'. Make sure the path or Internet address is correct."
..then you've hit a bug in the AOL Toolbar.
Try running this script. Note: you may need to disable your anti-spyware tool temporarily for the script to work.
Problem: I installed a "branded" version of IE7, but I'd prefer a "plain" copy without toolbars and customizations.
An article on this topic can be found here: How to remove branding in Internet Explorer 7.
Problem: Malware / Adware
If Internet Explorer is behaving strangely (crashing, visiting unwanted sites, etc), it's possible that there is malicious software installed on your computer.
As a first step, you should allow your antivirus software to scan and attempt to repair your computer. Additionally, you may want to try the following Microsoft tools:
• Windows Defender
• Windows Live OneCare
• Windows Live Safety Center
• Malicious Software Removal Tool
You should also ensure your computer has all the security updates available at Microsoft Update.
Problem: My searches are redirected to unrelated sites and I cannot connect to WindowsUpdate or antivirus websites
If Internet Explorer searches are redirected to unrelated sites or search engines, it's possible that your computer was infected with malware (see the previous tip). However, if your computer is not currently infected with malware, it's possible that at some time in the past, malicious software altered your computer's DNS settings. DNS works like an "internet phonebook" that maps URLs (like "windowsupdate.microsoft.com") to internet protocol addresses (like "207.46.225.221").
To determine if a malicious DNS server is configured:
- Go to Start -> Control Panel ->Network Connections.
- Right click your default connection, usually Local Area Connection or Dial-up Connection, if you are using Dial-up, and left click on Properties.
- Double-click on the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) item
Check to see if you're set to something other than "Obtain DNS servers automatically". If so, contact your ISP to ensure that the address specified is correct, or set the "Obtain DNS servers automatically" checkbox. Then restart your computer.
Problem: After opening many tabs, Windows and IE paint abnormally.
See http://blogs.msdn.com/tonyschr/archive/2005/05/25/desktop-heap-limitations.aspx
Problem: A remote user is having networking problems with Internet Explorer. How can I collect information about his system to help me to troubleshoot?
Have the user run Netcheck and send you the log file.
Problem: Overlong headers result in HTTP/4xx or HTTP/5xx errors, particularly on devices like routers or webcams
Problems of this nature are usually caused by one of the two request headers in yellow being longer than the device expects.
GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: image/gif, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-ms-application, application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument, application/xaml+xml, application/x-ms-xbap, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, application/x-shockwave-flash, application/x-silverlight, application/x-silverlight-2-b2, */*
Accept-Language: en-us
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30618; OfficeLiveConnector.1.3; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; MS-RTC LM 8)
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: Keep-Alive
Host: 192.168.10.1
These headers are dynamically generated out of registry keys. They can usually be trimmed by editing the registry without any important side-effects.
To trim the list in the Accept header, click START > RUN > REGEDIT.EXE. Using RegEdit, navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Accepted Documents
..and remove elements from the "Name/Type/Value" list to remove values that aren't strictly required. Elements in red are of lower importance than those in black:
image/gif, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-ms-application, application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument, application/xaml+xml, application/x-ms-xbap, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, application/x-shockwave-flash, application/x-silverlight, application/x-silverlight-2-b2, */*
A similar problem can occur with the User-Agent header.
To trim the list in the User-Agent header, click START > RUN > REGEDIT.EXE. Using RegEdit, navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent\Post Platform
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\User Agent\Post Platform
..and remove elements from the "Name/Type/Value" list to remove values that aren't strictly required. Elements in red are of lower importance than those in black:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.30618; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.3; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; MS-RTC LM 8)
For more information please visit http://www.pleasehelpme.com/
i
Introduction:
Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is light years ahead of its predecessors, but by no means does that proclamation mean that the browser is perfect. You are still going to encounter issues with IE from time to time.
Here are some of the concise guides that deliver some troubleshooting steps that will clear up the majority of issues we encountered with IE7.
Issues with Internet Explorer 7.0 with solutions
Problem: Crashes or hangs
If IE crashes, the most likely problem is that there's a buggy add-on (Toolbar or Browser Helper Object). In order to verify and isolate the buggy add-on, follow these steps:
1. Start IE in No Add-ons mode, either by right-clicking the Desktop icon, or clicking START - RUN and typing: iexplore.exe -extoff
2. Determine if IE fails.
3. If not, use Tools - Manage Add-ons to disable all browser extensions and toolbars.
4. Restart IE and re-enable browser extensions one-by-one.
5. Once you've found a broken extension, contact the manufacturer and ask for an update.
(Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=928426)
If IE still crashes often, even when browser add-ons are disabled:
• Please ensure that you are running the very latest version of your anti-virus, anti-malware, and/or firewall programs.
• Please ensure that the drivers for your graphics card are up to date.
• If you have Google Desktop installed, please ensure that you update to the latest version of Google Desktop.
• If you have 7-Zip or other Windows Explorer extensions installed, please ensure that you update to the latest.
Problem: Cannot connect to Internet using IE after updates installed
If you see the "Page Cannot be Displayed" error after installing Internet Explorer updates from Windows Updates, it's possible that you have a 3rd party firewall installed that is blocking access because the IE files have been updated. Please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942818/en-us for more information.
Problem: IE always starts in "No Add-ons" mode
The problem is that you're launching Internet Explorer using a shortcut icon that has the "-extoff" command line parameter. That parameter causes IE to start without add-ons. Thus, every time you use that shortcut icon, IE will start in No Add-ons Mode.
1. How do you normally start Internet Explorer? Right-click whatever icon you're using to start IE, choose "Properties" and remove the -extoff part of the shortcut.
2. If you click the green START button, click Run, type iexplore.exe in the RUN box, then hit the ENTER key, IE will start with Addons enabled.
Problem: IE opens small windows
IE opens new windows at the size of the last closed window. If you find that IE is opening small windows, do this:
• Close all IE windows.
• Open one new IE window.
• Adjust that window to the size you prefer. Do this by dragging the window borders. Do not use the maximize button:
• Close the IE window.
• New IE windows will open at the size you chose.
Problem: ClearType Text appears fuzzy
IE7 turns on a text-smoothing technology called "ClearType" by default. ClearType is scientifically proven to make text easier to read, particularly on LCD flat panel monitors.
If ClearType looks fuzzy on your monitor, you might want to try the ClearType tuning wizard, which can help you adjust the display of ClearType.
If you still don't like the appearance of ClearType, you can turn it off by unchecking the checkbox: Tools - Internet Options - Advanced - Multimedia - Always use ClearType for HTML.
Problem: IE Startup takes a long time (>3 seconds)
1. IE may start very slowly if you have a huge number of sites listed in your Restricted or Trusted sites zone. Some tools, like "SpyBot Search & Destroy" will place thousands of sites in these zones if you use their "immunize" feature.
2. Follow the "Crashing on startup" steps above to see if starting in No Add-ons mode starts much faster
3. If you're not using a proxy, uncheck IE's "Automatically detect settings" option on the Tools - Internet Options - Connections - LAN Settings dialog.
Problem: Slow Page rendering
1. Increase the connection limit. This tweak allows IE to make up to 16 connections per server.
2. Ensure that both "HTTP1.1" checkboxes in Tools - Internet Options - Advanced are checked.
Problem: IE7 Setup fails to install Internet Explorer
See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917925
Problem: My address bar won't turn green?
IE7 includes a cool new feature that turns the address bar green when a secure site presents an Extended Validation certificate:
If you're having trouble with this feature, on a site you know has an EV certificate:
1. Ensure that you either have the Phishing Filter set to "Automatic" mode or Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Security > Check for Server Certificate revocation checked.
2. If that doesn't work, install this: Windows Root Certificate Update and restart.
Problem: After installing, IE7 starts then vanishes
It's possible that one of IE's DLLs isn't installed correctly
1. Click START - RUN and type cmd
2. In the command prompt, type cd\
3. In the command prompt, type cd Program Files
4. In the command prompt, type cd Internet Explorer
5. In the command prompt, type regsvr32 IEPROXY.DLL
(Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=928427)
Problem: Error message about PSAPI.DLL
If you install IE7 and the following error message begins to show:
The procedure entry point GetProcessImageFileNameW could not be located in the dynamic link library PSAPI.DLL
1. Search your hard disk for PSAPI.dll.
2. Any copies of this DLL that are found outside of the Windows or Windows\System32 folder should be renamed to PSAPI.bak.
Problem: IE always goes to http://runonce.msn.com/runonce2.aspx instead of my homepage
If IE7 always goes to the RunOnce page on startup, even after you've tried to save the first run settings, it's possible that the mechanism that IE is using to save the settings does not work for some reason.
You can prevent IE from going to the RunOnce page and cause it to go directly to your homepage by running this script.
For more info, check out this Knowledge Base article.]
Problem: IE always goes to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx instead of my homepage
If Internet Explorer always goes to this page on startup, it's likely that you have an anti-spyware package (like "SpyBot") that prevented IE from correctly modifying your registry.
Try running this script. Note: you may need to disable your anti-spyware tool temporarily for the script to work.
Problem: On startup, IE always shows an error message about the AOL toolbar
If you see the following error message every time IE starts:
"Cannot find 'file:///C:/Program%20Files/AOL%20Toolbar/welcome.html'. Make sure the path or Internet address is correct."
..then you've hit a bug in the AOL Toolbar.
Try running this script. Note: you may need to disable your anti-spyware tool temporarily for the script to work.
Problem: I installed a "branded" version of IE7, but I'd prefer a "plain" copy without toolbars and customizations.
An article on this topic can be found here: How to remove branding in Internet Explorer 7.
Problem: Malware / Adware
If Internet Explorer is behaving strangely (crashing, visiting unwanted sites, etc), it's possible that there is malicious software installed on your computer.
As a first step, you should allow your antivirus software to scan and attempt to repair your computer. Additionally, you may want to try the following Microsoft tools:
• Windows Defender
• Windows Live OneCare
• Windows Live Safety Center
• Malicious Software Removal Tool
You should also ensure your computer has all the security updates available at Microsoft Update.
Problem: My searches are redirected to unrelated sites and I cannot connect to WindowsUpdate or antivirus websites
If Internet Explorer searches are redirected to unrelated sites or search engines, it's possible that your computer was infected with malware (see the previous tip). However, if your computer is not currently infected with malware, it's possible that at some time in the past, malicious software altered your computer's DNS settings. DNS works like an "internet phonebook" that maps URLs (like "windowsupdate.microsoft.com") to internet protocol addresses (like "207.46.225.221").
To determine if a malicious DNS server is configured:
- Go to Start -> Control Panel ->Network Connections.
- Right click your default connection, usually Local Area Connection or Dial-up Connection, if you are using Dial-up, and left click on Properties.
- Double-click on the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) item
Check to see if you're set to something other than "Obtain DNS servers automatically". If so, contact your ISP to ensure that the address specified is correct, or set the "Obtain DNS servers automatically" checkbox. Then restart your computer.
Problem: After opening many tabs, Windows and IE paint abnormally.
See http://blogs.msdn.com/tonyschr/archive/2005/05/25/desktop-heap-limitations.aspx
Problem: A remote user is having networking problems with Internet Explorer. How can I collect information about his system to help me to troubleshoot?
Have the user run Netcheck and send you the log file.
Problem: Overlong headers result in HTTP/4xx or HTTP/5xx errors, particularly on devices like routers or webcams
Problems of this nature are usually caused by one of the two request headers in yellow being longer than the device expects.
GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: image/gif, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-ms-application, application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument, application/xaml+xml, application/x-ms-xbap, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, application/x-shockwave-flash, application/x-silverlight, application/x-silverlight-2-b2, */*
Accept-Language: en-us
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30618; OfficeLiveConnector.1.3; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; MS-RTC LM 8)
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: Keep-Alive
Host: 192.168.10.1
These headers are dynamically generated out of registry keys. They can usually be trimmed by editing the registry without any important side-effects.
To trim the list in the Accept header, click START > RUN > REGEDIT.EXE. Using RegEdit, navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Accepted Documents
..and remove elements from the "Name/Type/Value" list to remove values that aren't strictly required. Elements in red are of lower importance than those in black:
image/gif, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-ms-application, application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument, application/xaml+xml, application/x-ms-xbap, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, application/x-shockwave-flash, application/x-silverlight, application/x-silverlight-2-b2, */*
A similar problem can occur with the User-Agent header.
To trim the list in the User-Agent header, click START > RUN > REGEDIT.EXE. Using RegEdit, navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent\Post Platform
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\User Agent\Post Platform
..and remove elements from the "Name/Type/Value" list to remove values that aren't strictly required. Elements in red are of lower importance than those in black:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.30618; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.3; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; MS-RTC LM 8)
For more information please visit http://www.pleasehelpme.com/
Alligator
Dari Wikipedia bahasa Indonesia, ensiklopedia bebas
Langsung ke: navigasi, cari
?Alligator
American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)
American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)
Klasifikasi ilmiah
Kerajaan: Animalia
Filum: Chordata
Kelas: Reptilia
Ordo: Crocodilia
Famili: Alligatoridae
Genus: Alligator
Daudin, 1809
Species
Alligator mississippiensis
Alligator sinensis
Alligator di Louisiana
Alligator adalah hewan yang masih berkerabat dekat dengan buaya (famili Crocodilian). Nama alligator diambil dari bahasa Spanyol el laganto (sang kadal) yang di-ingriskan.
Perbedaan alligator dengan buaya (crocodile) terlihat jelas dari bagian mulut dan gigi, mulut alligator terlihat lebih lebar dan bibir tampak rapi menutupi gigi. Sedangkan buaya mempunyai mulut agak memanjang dan membentuk huruf V, dan banyak terlihat gigi yang keluar dari bibir, walaupun dalam keadaan mulut tertutup. Khususnya gigi keempat bagian bawah.
Terdapat 2 spesies alligator di dunia:
* Alligator China (Alligator sinensis)
* Alligator Amerika (Alligator mississipiensis)
Di samping itu terdapat lagi 6 spesies Caiman, yang masih juga keluarga alligator (masih anggota keluarga besar Crocodilian, yang total semuanya beranggotakan 23 spesies).
[sunting] Habitat
Ada dua negara di dunia yang memiliki alligator: Amerika Serikat dan Republik Rakyat Cina. Alligator China terancam punah dan tinggal hanya di lembah Sungai Yangtze. Alligator Amerika ditemukan di Amerika Serikat dari Carolina sampai Florida dan sepanjang Gulf Coast. Mayoritas Alligator Amerika tinggal di Florida dan Louisiana. Di Florida sendiri, terdapat lebih dari 1 juta alligator. Amerika Serikat adalah satu-satunya negara yang memiliki keduanya, alligator dan buaya. Alligator Amerika tinggal di lingkungan air tawar, seperti kolam, rawa-rawa, daratan basah (wetland), dan sungai. Di Tiongkok, mereka hanya tinggal di sepanjang Sungai Yangtze.
[sunting] Perilaku
Alligator adalah hewan yang hidup sendiri. Spesies terbesarnya (jantan dan betina) akan mempertahankan wilayah utamanya. Mangsa utama alligator adalah hewan yang lebih kecil yang dapat mereka bunuh dan makan dalam satu gigitan. Alligator terkadang juga memangsa hewan yang lebih besar dengan cara mencengkramnya dan menenggelamkannya di dalam air.
[sunting] Reproduksi
Alligator adalah hewan yang berkembangbiak secara musiman. Masa kawin pada musim semi ketika air hangat. Alligator berkembangbiak secara bertelur.
Langsung ke: navigasi, cari
?Alligator
American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)
American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)
Klasifikasi ilmiah
Kerajaan: Animalia
Filum: Chordata
Kelas: Reptilia
Ordo: Crocodilia
Famili: Alligatoridae
Genus: Alligator
Daudin, 1809
Species
Alligator mississippiensis
Alligator sinensis
Alligator di Louisiana
Alligator adalah hewan yang masih berkerabat dekat dengan buaya (famili Crocodilian). Nama alligator diambil dari bahasa Spanyol el laganto (sang kadal) yang di-ingriskan.
Perbedaan alligator dengan buaya (crocodile) terlihat jelas dari bagian mulut dan gigi, mulut alligator terlihat lebih lebar dan bibir tampak rapi menutupi gigi. Sedangkan buaya mempunyai mulut agak memanjang dan membentuk huruf V, dan banyak terlihat gigi yang keluar dari bibir, walaupun dalam keadaan mulut tertutup. Khususnya gigi keempat bagian bawah.
Terdapat 2 spesies alligator di dunia:
* Alligator China (Alligator sinensis)
* Alligator Amerika (Alligator mississipiensis)
Di samping itu terdapat lagi 6 spesies Caiman, yang masih juga keluarga alligator (masih anggota keluarga besar Crocodilian, yang total semuanya beranggotakan 23 spesies).
[sunting] Habitat
Ada dua negara di dunia yang memiliki alligator: Amerika Serikat dan Republik Rakyat Cina. Alligator China terancam punah dan tinggal hanya di lembah Sungai Yangtze. Alligator Amerika ditemukan di Amerika Serikat dari Carolina sampai Florida dan sepanjang Gulf Coast. Mayoritas Alligator Amerika tinggal di Florida dan Louisiana. Di Florida sendiri, terdapat lebih dari 1 juta alligator. Amerika Serikat adalah satu-satunya negara yang memiliki keduanya, alligator dan buaya. Alligator Amerika tinggal di lingkungan air tawar, seperti kolam, rawa-rawa, daratan basah (wetland), dan sungai. Di Tiongkok, mereka hanya tinggal di sepanjang Sungai Yangtze.
[sunting] Perilaku
Alligator adalah hewan yang hidup sendiri. Spesies terbesarnya (jantan dan betina) akan mempertahankan wilayah utamanya. Mangsa utama alligator adalah hewan yang lebih kecil yang dapat mereka bunuh dan makan dalam satu gigitan. Alligator terkadang juga memangsa hewan yang lebih besar dengan cara mencengkramnya dan menenggelamkannya di dalam air.
[sunting] Reproduksi
Alligator adalah hewan yang berkembangbiak secara musiman. Masa kawin pada musim semi ketika air hangat. Alligator berkembangbiak secara bertelur.
Aksi T4
Dari Wikipedia bahasa Indonesia, ensiklopedia bebas
Langsung ke: navigasi, cari
Keterangan poster: "60.000 Reichsmark[1] adalah jumlah yang dibebankan oleh penderita penyakit kelainan genetika kepada masyarakat sepanjang hidupnya. Sahabat Jerman, itu adalah uang anda juga." (Dari majalah bulanan New People, milik Biro Politik Ras (Bureau for Race Politics), Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, sekitar tahun 1938.)
Aksi T4 (bahasa Jerman: Aktion T4) adalah program Nazi yang resminya berlangsung antara tahun 1939 dan 1941, dan sepanjang masa tersebut Adolf Hitler telah melakukan pembunuhan secara sistematis terhadap 200.000 hingga 250.000 penderita kelainan genetika.[2] Setelah tahun 1941, pembunuhan tersebut menjadi tidak resmi dan tidak terlalu sistematis lagi. [3] Kode T4 adalah singkatan dari kata Tiergartenstrasse 4, yaitu nama sebuah jalan di pusat kota Berlin di wilayah Tiergarten. Pada jalan tersebut terdapat sebuah vila yang merupakan kantor pusat Yayasan Kesejahteraan dan Lembaga Perawatan (Gemeinnützige Stiftung für Heil- und Anstaltspflege).[4] Lembaga ini berada di bawah pimpinan Philipp Bouhler dan Karl Brandt, yang masing-masing menjabat sebagai kepala rumah tangga Hitler[5] dan dokter pribadinya. Vila tersebut sekarang sudah tidak ada lagi, namun terdapat sebuah plakat di pelataran Tiergartenstraße yang menjadi monumen dari lokasi itu.
Program T4 dikembangkan berdasarkan kebijakan Nazi mengenai kesehatan rasial, yaitu suatu keyakinan bahwa rakyat Jerman harus dibersihkan dari unsur ras yang tidak sehat, termasuk orang-orang cacat. Program ini menjadi cikal-bakal dari program holocaust (pemusnahan massal) terhadap bangsa Yahudi di benua Eropa. Sejarawan Ian Kershaw menyebutnya sebagai suatu langkah penting menuju lahirnya kebiadaban modern.[6]
Daftar isi
[sembunyikan]
* 1 Latar belakang
* 2 Arah kebijakan program
* 3 Pembunuhan terhadap anak-anak
* 4 Pembunuhan terhadap orang dewasa
* 5 Gerakan perlawanan
* 6 Peristiwa setelah perang
* 7 Catatan kaki
* 8 Bacaan selanjutnya
* 9 Lihat pula
* 10 Pranala luar
[sunting] Latar belakang
Karl Brandt, dokter pribadi Hitler dan salah satu inisiator program T4 (foto tahun 1947).
Ide untuk melakukan "pembersihan ras" , sejak semula adalah elemen dasar pada ideologi Hitler. Secara umum Hitler seringkali menggunakan kata kiasan "medis" untuk orang-orang yang ingin "dimusnahkannya" dari komunitas Jerman. Ia menyebut orang-orang Yahudi sebagai basil (bacillus) yang harus dibunuh atau kanker yang akan menyebar. Demikian pula cara pandang Hitler terhadap orang cacat sebagai "unsur yang sakit" dalam tubuh ras bangsa Jerman. Dalam diskusinya dengan Phillip Bouhler dan Hans Lemmers, Hitler menggambarkan orang-orang yang demikian sebagai "orang yang mengotori dirinya sendiri" dan yang "menaruh najis di mulutnya".[7] Hitler dan pendukung Nazi lainnya berpendapat bahwa kebutuhan untuk membersihkan ras Jerman merupakan bagian yang penting dari proyek Nazi.
Dalam bukunya yang berjudul Mein Kampf (1924), Hitler mengatakan sebagai berikut:
“ Mereka yang secara jasmani dan rohani tidak sehat dan layak tidak boleh menurunkan kemalangannya ke tubuh anak-anaknya. Pemerintahan nasionalis (völkische staat) haruslah melakukan tugas pemeliharaan yang luar biasa di sini. Bagaimanapun juga, suatu hari hal ini akan tampak sebagai perbuatan yang lebih besar daripada kemenangan-kemenangan perang terbaik di era borjuis kita saat ini.[8] ”
Rezim Nazi dengan segera melaksanakan pembersihan rasial ini sesaat setelah diberlakukannya ketentuan tersebut. Pada Juli 1933, terbit suatu "Undang-undang Pencegahan Pewarisan Penyakit Keturunan" yang mewajibkan sterilisasi bagi orang-orang penderita penyakit keturunan seperti skizofrenia, epilepsi, penyakit Huntington, dan imbesilitas (gangguan otak/bodoh). Sterilisasi juga diharuskan bagi pecandu alkohol kronis dan bentuk-bentuk lain deviasi sosial.
Selama kurun waktu tahun 1933 dan 1939, diperkirakan sebanyak 360.000 orang telah disterilisasi berdasarkan undang-undang ini. Hukum ini juga diterapkan bagi para wanita yang telah dinyatakan bersalah melakukan kegiatan prostitusi.[9]) Bahkan orang-orang yang tidak menderita penyakit kelainan genetika pun juga terkena ketentuan ini, dengan adanya pendapat bahwa program harus diperluas kepada mereka yang menderita cacat fisik.[10]
Walaupun Hitler menyatakan gagasan pembersihan ras ini dalam bentuknya yang ekstrem, ternyata gagasan ini menyebar ke seluruh negara Barat pada awal abad ke-20. Pergerakan eugenika ini memiliki banyak pengikut di kalangan terpelajar, terutama di Amerika Serikat. Gagasan sterilisasi terhadap pembawa penyakit keturunan atau orang yang dianggap memiliki kelakuan anti-sosial dapat diterima secara luas, dan kemudian diatur di dalam hukum di beberapa negara; seperti di Amerika Serikat, Swedia, Swiss, dan di beberapa negara lainnya. Sebagai contoh, pada periode tahun 1935 hingga 1975, 63.000 orang telah disterilisasi di Swedia atas dasar eugenika.[11]
[sunting] Arah kebijakan program
Plakat pada pelataran Tiergartenstraße nomor 4 untuk memperingati korban-korban dari program eutanasia Nazi
Hitler selalu mendukung dilakukannya pembunuhan terhadap orang-orang yang dikategorikan "memiliki hidup yang tidak berguna". Kedua dokternya, Karl Brandt dan Hans Lemmers, menyatakan bahwa Hitler pernah mengatakan kepada mereka seusai perang tahun 1933 dan pada saat itu undang-undang sterilisasi telah diberlakukan; bahwa ia mendukung pembunuhan terhadap orang-orang yang menderita penyakit yang tak tersembuhkan, namun menyadari bahwa opini publik tidak akan dapat menerima hal ini.[12] Hitler pada tahun 1935 mengatakan kepada pimpinan dokter Jerman, dr. Gerhard Wagner, bahwa hal tersebut tidak dapat dilaksanakan pada masa damai. Hitler berpendapat bahwa "banyak masalah dapat terselesaikan dengan mudah pada saat perang".
Sebelum masa Nazi berkuasa pun, kelompok pergerakan eugenika di Jerman telah memiliki pengaruh kuat yang digerakkkan oleh Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding, yang pada tahun 1920 mendukung pembunuhan terhadap orang-orang yang dikategorikan "memiliki kehidupan yang tidak berguna" (lebensunwertes Leben).[13]. Setelah Perang Dunia I, Jerman menjadi terpengaruh oleh gagasan ini. Mereka mengartikan teori Darwin sebagai suatu anjuran bahwa suatu bangsa harus meningkatkan pembiakan gen yang bermutu, serta melakukan pencegahan atas berbiaknya gen yang "membahayakan". Lifton menuliskan: "argumentasinya adalah bahwa banyak pemuda telah gugur dalam peperangan, dan ini merupakan kehilangan 'gen terbaik yang ada' bagi Jerman. Gen dari mereka yang tidak berperang (gen buruk) berkembang biak dengan bebasnya, mempercepat kemerosotan budaya dan biologis."[14]
Pandangan ini mulai memperoleh pembenaran setelah terjadinya keputusasaan yang disebabkan oleh pemotongan anggaran belanja untuk rumah sakit jiwa, sehingga mengakibatkan timbulnya kepadatan dan kekumuhan pada rumah sakit.[15] Kebanyakan ahli eugenika Jerman merupakan kelompok nasionalis, anti-Semit, dan pengikut Nazi yang antusias. Banyak di antara mereka yang menduduki jabatan penting pada Kementerian Kesehatan dan Institut Penelitian. Gagasan-gagasan mereka banyak diikuti oleh profesi kedokteran Jerman, yang kelak "dibersihkan" terhadap unsur dokter-dokter Yahudi dan dokter-dokter beraliran kiri yang membangkang.[16]
Sepanjang era 1930-an, Partai Nazi melakukan kampanye propaganda terhadap "eutanasia". Biro Sosialis Nasional Ras dan Politik (The National Socialist Racial and Political Office, NSRPA) membuat selebaran, poster, dan film pendek yang dipertunjukkan di bioskop-bioskop, yang menunjukkan beban biaya yang harus ditanggung Jerman untuk memelihara para penderita sakit parah dan sakit jiwa. Film Das Erbe (1935), Opfer der Vergangenheit (1937), diputar di semua bioskop-bioskop utama di Berlin dan juga film Ich klage an (1941), yang dibuat berdasarkan novel karangan dr. Helmut Unger, seorang konsultan dari program eutanasia terhadap anak-anak. [17] Lembaga-lembaga perawatan Katolik yang diharapkan dapat menentang dengan keras pembunuhan terhadap para pasien yang dirawat di lembaga-lembaga Katolik tersebut banyak yang ditutup dan penghuninya dialihkan ke lembaga-lembaga perawatan milik pemerintah yang kondisinya semakin penuh sesak. Kondisi yang kumuh ini digunakan sebagai bahan kampanye bagi eutanasia.
[sunting] Pembunuhan terhadap anak-anak
Schloss Hartheim, foto salah satu tempat yang dijadikan pusat pembunuhan dalam program T4
Persetujuan oleh Hitler, tertanggal 1 September 1939
Pada bulan Mei 1939, sewaktu Hitler memutuskan untuk menyerang Polandia, para orang tua dari anak-anak yang lahir cacat di dekat Leipzig menulis surat kepada Hitler untuk meminta izin kematian bagi anak-anak mereka tersebut. Hitler menyetujuinya dan memeintahkan Komite Nasional untuk pendataan ilmiah dari untuk Penyakit keturunan yang serius serta penyakit bawaan (Reichsausschuss zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung erb- und anlagebedingter schwerer Leiden), yang dipimpin oleh Karl Brandt, seorang dokter pribadi Hitler, dan dikelola oleh Menteri Dalam Negeri Herbert Linden serta Viktor Brack, seorang perwira SS. Brandt dan Bouhler memiliki kekuasaan untuk menyetujui permohonan bagi kematian terhadap anak-anak dengan kondisi demikian.[18]
Preseden ini digunakan untuk menciptakan program "pembunuhan anak-anak" yang menderita cacat dan dengan adanya program ini maka tidak diperlukan lagi adanya kesuka-relaan bagi orang tua. Anak-anak yang dimasukkan ke dalam program "harus dibunuh", yaitu mereka yang berusia di bawah tiga tahun, yang dicurigai mengidap penyakit kelainan keturunan seperti idiot dan sindrom keterbelakangan mental (sindrom Down-mongolisme) khususnya yang tunanetra atau tunarungu; mikrosefalus; hidrosefalus; malfungsi dalam segala bentuk khususnya anggota badan (tangan/kaki), kepala, tulang belakang (columna spinalis), paralisis termasuk kondisi lumpuh otak."[19] Penilaian harus dilakukan oleh suatu panel ahli kedokteran dan diperlukan persetujuan 3 orang sebelum pembunuhan terhadap seorang anak dapat dilaksanakan.[20]
Berbagai muslihat digunakan untuk mendapatkan izin, khususnya di kalangan Katolik dengan para orang tua umumnya tidak mau bekerjasama. Kepada para orang tua ini dikatakan bahwa anak-anaknya tersebut dibawa ke "seksi khusus" untuk anak-anak tempat mereka akan memperoleh perawatan yang lebih baik.[21] Anak-anak yang dikirim ke pusat-pusat perawatan ini "dipantau" selama beberapa minggu kemudian dibunuh dengan suntikan racun, lalu kematiannya dilaporkan sebagai pneumonia. Otopsi biasanya dilakukan dan contoh otak diambil untuk penelitian kedokteran. Hal ini rupanya membawa penghiburan bagi mereka yang terlibat dalam pembunuhan tersebut yaitu bahwa kematian anak-anak tersebut menjadi tidak sia-sia dan secara keseluruhan program ini adalah semata untuk tujuan dunia kedokteran.
Sewaktu perang berkecamuk pada September 1939, proses penilaian dan persetujuan menjadi melunak, bahkan diperluas hingga terhadap anak-anak yang berusia lebih tua dan anak remaja. Kondisi ini juga diperluas hingga mencakup anak-anak dari berbagai usia dengan berbagai keterbelakangan atau cacat ringan dan pada puncaknya juga mencakup anak-anak yang melakukan kejahatan (juvenile delinquents). Anak-anak Yahudi adalah yang menjadi target utama hanya dikarenakan mereka adalah Yahudi dan sebuah departemen khusus dibentuk untuk minoritas campuran Yahudi - Arya.[22] Pada tahun 1941 lebih dari 5.000 anak telah dibunuh.[23]
[sunting] Pembunuhan terhadap orang dewasa
Brandt dan Bouhler pada bulan Juli 1939 mengadakan pertemuan dengan dr. Leonardo Conti pimpinan dari badan kesehatan Jerman yang juga sekretaris Menteri Dalam Negeri untuk urusan kesehatan dan Profesor Werner Heyde kepala departemen medis SS (Schutzstaffel) dan pada pertemuan tersebut dibahas rencana persiapan untuk pendaftaran secara nasional terhadap para penderita gangguan jiwa dan cacat fisik yang berada di lembaga-lembaga perawatan.
Orang dewasa penderita cacat yang pertama dibunuh oleh rejim Nazi adalah bukan warga negara Jerman melainkan Polandia. Di wilayah Danzig, sekarang bernama Gdańsk, sekitar 7.000 orang Polandia telah dieksekusi mati dengan cara ditembak, sedangkan 10.000 orang lagi dibunuh di wilayah Gdynia.[24]
Di wilayah Poznań, ratusan pasien dibunuh dengan menggunakan gas karbon monoksida yang disalurkan ke dalam kamar gas yang dibuat oleh dr. Albert Widmann, kepala bagian kimia Polisi Kriminal Jerman (German Criminal Police-Kripo).
Bunker No. 17 di dalam dinding artileri Fort VII di Poznań, yang digunakan sebagai kamar gas
Plakat peringatan pada dinding bunker No. 17 di Fort VII
Pada bulan Desember 1939, kepala SS Heinrich Himmler menyaksikan sendiri salah satu proses eksekusi gas ini guna memastikan bahwa penemuan ini kelak dapat digunakan untuk tujuan yang lebih luas lagi.[25]
Gagasan untuk "menghabisi nyawa" pasien gangguan jiwa ini kelak menyebar ke wilayah perbatasan Jerman, mungkin disebabkan partai Nazi dan pejabat SS di wilayah ini telah terbiasa dengan praktek di Polandia. Franz Schwede-Coburg, pemimpin cabang partai dari NSADP (Gauleiter dari Pomerania "menyingkirkan" 1.400 pasien dari 5 rumah sakit di Pomerania ke Polandia dan membunuhnya di sana, tempat di rumah sakit tersebut dibutuhkan bagi para prajurit Jerman yang terluka sewaktu peperangan di Polandia. Sedangkan Gauleiter dari Prusia Timur, Erich Koch melakukan pembunuhan terhadap 1.600 pasien. Secara keseluruhan lebih dari 8.000 orang Jerman dibunuh dalam gelombang pembunuhan masal ini yang dilakukan oleh masing-masing pejabat disetiap daerah yang diketahui dan disetujui oleh kepala SS, Himmler.[26]
Program pembasmian orang-orang dewasa dengan kelainan mental dan cacat fisik ini diawali dengan surat keputusan dari Hitler pada bulan Oktober 1939[27] Surat tersebut bertanggal mundur ke 1 September 1939 untuk memberikan legalitas terhadap pembunuhan yang telah dilakukan sebelumnya,[28] dan menghubungkan program tersebut dengan peperangan untuk memberikan alasan rasionil dengan dasar keadaan darurat perang.[29] Sangat penting untuk dicatat bahwa surat tersebut yang dijadikan dasar bagi program tersebut adalah bukan merupakan "keputusan formal" Führer yang didalam Nazi Jerman memiliki kekuatan mengikat. Dengan alasan inilah maka Hitler "melangkahi" Menteri Kesehatan Conti dan departemennya yang diketahui tidak sejalan dengan kekejaman partai Nasional Sosialis dan mungkin saja akan mempertanyakan keabsahan dari program tersebut dan untuk itu mempercayakannya kepada orang-orangnya yaitu Bouhler dan Barndt .[30]
Program ini dikelola oleh staf dari Brack dari kantor yang terletak di Tiergartenstraße 4, yang disamarkan dalam bentuk yayasan umum untuk kesejahteraan dan lembaga perawatan yang diawasi langsung oleh Bouhler dan Brandt.
dr. Herbert Linden, yaitu orang yang terlibat dalam program pembunuhan terhadap anak-anak dan dr. Ernst-Robert Grawitz, dokter kepala di SS adalah merupakan orang-orang yang sangat terlibat dalam program ini dimana merekalah yang memilih dokter-dokter untuk melaksanakan operasional program. Mereka dipilih berdasarkan keandalan politik , reputasi, dan simpatisan radikal terhadap egenetika. Mereka adalah beberapa orang yang telah membuktikan perannya dalam program pembunuhan anak-anak seperti Unger, Heinze, and Hermann Pfannmüller.[31]
Di awal Oktober 1939, seluruh rumah sakit, panti perawatan, panti jompo, sanatorium diwajibkan untuk memberikan data-data pasien yang telah dirawat selama 5 tahun atau lebih, penjahat kriminal, ras non Arya, atau pun yang terindikasi mengidap penyakit : skizofrenia, epilepsi, penyakit Huntington, sifilis, demensia uzur, paralisis, ensefalitis dan penyakit syaraf. Kebanyakan dokter dan pengelola beranggapan bahwa tujuan daripada laporan tersebut adalah untuk mengidentifikasi para penghuni panti yang kondisinya kemampuannya memungkinkan untuk dikirim sebagai tenaga kerja, oleh karenanya para dokter dan pengelola tersebut menaikkan tingkat ketidakmampuan penghuni pantinya untuk menyelamatkan mereka dari "wajib kerja" - dengan suatu konsekwensi yang fatal.[32]
Sewaktu beberapa lembaga di kalangan Katolik menolak untuk bekerjasama, tim dokter dari T4 ( beberapa merupakan mahasiswa kedokteran Nazi) mengunjungi mereka dan memilah mereka berdasarkan daftar yang dibuat sendiri terkadang secara sembarangan dan berdasarkan motivasi ideologi.[33] Pada saat yang bersamaan, sepanjang tahun 1940 telah terjadi pembunuhan terhadap seluruh pasien Yahudi.[34]
Disepanjang tahun 1940, di pusat-pusat program di Brandenburg, Grafeneck dan Hartheim telah dilakukan pembunuhan terhadap sekitar 10,000 orang disetiap pusat program, dimana sekitar 6.000 dibunuh di Sonnenstein. Kira-kira sebanyak 35.000 orang terbunuh oleh program T4 pada tahun tersebut. Di tahun 1941 terbunuh lagi sebanyak 35.000 orang hingga akhir Agustus 1941 sewaktu program T4 dihentikan. Namun walaupun demikian di pusat-pusat program tersebut pembunuhan masih terus berlangsung untuk membunuh para penghuni kamp konsentrasi yang diperkirakan mencapai 20.000 orang.[35]
Pada tahun 1971 seorang jurnalis berkebangsaan Hungaria melakukan serangkaian wawancara dengan Franz Stangl, seorang tahanan di penjara Düsseldorf yang dinyatakan bersalah atasketerlibatannya dalam pembunuhan sebanyak 900.000 orang selaku ia menjabat sebagai komandan dari kamp Sobibór dan kamp Treblinka di Polandia. Stangl memberikan jumlah korban pembunuhan program T4 secara terinci kepada Sereny semasa ia masih menjabat sebagai komandan dari tempat "pembantaian" di Hartheim.[36] Stangl menjelaskan bagaimana proses pemindahan para penghuni tersebut dengan menggunakan bis ke Hartheim, beberapa dari mereka bahkan merupakan orang yang waras dan mereka tertipu. Dikatakan kepada mereka bahwa mereka akan dibawa ke klinik khusus untuk menerima perawatan yang lebih baik dan akan dilakukan pemeriksaan medis setibanya di sana. Mereka kemudian dibujuk untuk memasuki ruang pancuran untuk mandi dimana disana mereka dibunuh dengan menggunakan gas karbon monoksida (tipu muslihat ini dikemudian hari digunakan untuk skala lebih besar dalam kamp "pemusnahan").
[sunting] Gerakan perlawanan
Grafeneck
Pirna dan Schloss Sonnenstein, lukisan Bernardo Bellotto (Canaletto)
Sejak semula Hitler dan sekutu-sekutunya menyadari bahwa kebijakan pembunuhan terhadap warga Jerman yang cacat tersebut dapat merupakan suatu tindakan yang tidak didukung oleh publik di Jerman. Walaupun Hitler tidak menerbitkan suatu instruksi tertulis untuk kebijakannya tersebut (yang di kemudian hari dikategorikan sebagai suatu "kejahatan terhadap kemanusiaan"), namun ia membuat pengecualian dengan menerbitkan instruksi tertulis dalam surat rahasianya pada Oktober 1939 yang memberikan kewenangan kepada Bouhler dan Brack untuk melaksanakan program T4.[37]
Sejak awal Hitler menegaskan kepada Bouhler bahwa Kedutaan Führer dalam keadaan apapun juga tidak boleh nampak keterlibatannya dalam masalah ini.[38] Diperlukan suatu pehatian khusus terhadap wilayah Katolik, setelah Austria dan Sudetenland pada tahun 1938 dikuasai Jerman yang populasi penduduknya hampir mencapai separuh dari penduduk Jerman dan di sana terdapat kemungkinan adanya pendapat publik yang menentang. Pada bulan Maret 1940, sebuah laporan rahasia dari Sicherheitsdienst di Austria memperingatkan bahwa program pembunuhan tersebut harus dilaksanakan secara terselubung dan rahasia guna menghindari kemungkinan timbulnya pukulan balik oleh opini publik selama masa perang.[39]
Kelompok oposisi ini terus menekan pemerintahan. Seorang hakim distrik Lothar Kreyssig menulis surat kepada Gürtner untuk memprotes bahwa program T4 adalah ilegal disebabkan tidak adanya suatu hukum ataupun surat resmi dari Hitler yang menjadi dasar hukum pelaksanaan program tersebut. Gürtner menjawabnya dengan mengatakan bahwa "apabila kamu tidak dapat memahami keinginan dari Führer sebagai sumber hukum artinya kamu tidak layak sebagai hakim" dan akhirnya Kreyssig dipecat.[40]
Berdasarkan Reichskonkordat tahun 1933 antara Tahta Suci dan Jerman, Gereja Katolik menyetujui untuk tidak terlibat dalam segala bentuk kegiatan politik, namun pembunuhan massal warga Jerman merupakan sebuah tantangan terhadap kepercayaan fundamental Katolik terhadap kekudusan dari kehidupan manusia dan ini menjadi suatu dilema serius dari gereja Katolik di Jerman. Pada tahun 1935, Gereja Katolik mengajukan protes dalam sebuah memorandum untuk menentang sebuah rancangan untuk melegalisasi eutanasia.
Pada bulan Januari 1939, Brack kemudian meminta Dr Joseph Mayer, seorang guru besar Teologi Moral pada Universitas Paderborn untuk dibuatkan suatu makalah mengenai bagaimana kemungkinan reaksi gereja apabila peraturan mengenai eutanasia diberlakukan. Mayer yang sejak lama telah menjadi pendukung eutanasia, lalu menulis dalam makalahnya bahwa gereja tidak akan menentang program tersebut sepanjang dilakukan bagi kepentingan nasional. Kemudian Brack menunjukkan makalah tersebut kepada Hitler pada bulan Juli 1939 dan inilah yang meningkatkan rasa percaya diri Hitler bahwa program "eutanasia" dapat diterima oleh opini publik di Jerman.[41] (sewaktu Gitta Sereny mewawancarai Mayer sesaat sebelum ia meninggal pada tahun 1967, ia menyangkal bahwa ia menyetujui pembunuhan terhadap orang-orang cacat, namun selama salinan makalah ini tidak ditemukan, hal ini belum bisa dibuktikan kebenarannya[42]). Pada kenyataannya program T4 dari rejim Nazi ini telah menuai banyak sekali protes masyarakat.
Tidak mungkin suatu program seperti T4 dirahasiakan terus menerus, yang dalam program tersebut melibatkan ribuan dokter, perawat, pelaksana dan kebanyakan korban juga memiliki keluarga yang peduli terhadap keselamatan mereka.
Bernberg tahun 1650
Meskipun terdapat perintah tegas untuk merahasiakan program ini, beberapa staf dari pusat pelaksanaan pembunuhan menceritakannya ke pihak luar tentang segala suatu yang terjadi di tempat pembunuhan tersebut saat mereka mabuk di tempat-tempat minum. Dan dalam beberapa kasus, keluarga korban menceritakan bahwa penyebab kematian yang dinyatakan dalam surat kematian adalah tidak benar seperti misalnya pasien yang dinyatakan meninggal karena usus buntu sebenarnya tidak pernah menderita usus buntu (appendiks). Juga adanya kasus contohnya beberapa keluarga dalam suatu kota yang sama menerima surat kematian keluarganya dalam hari yang sama. Pada kota-kota yang terdapat lokasi pusat pembunuhan banyak orang melihat kedatangan dari bus-bus berisikan tahanan, lalu melihat asap keluar dari cerobong krematorium dan mereka dapat mengambil suatu kesimpulan atas apa yang terjadi di sana. Pada abu yang berjatuhan di atas kota Hadamar terdapat rambut manusia.[43] Pada bulan Mei 1941 pengadilan Frankfurt menulis surat kepada Gürtner menjelaskan kejadian di Hadamar, anak-anak berteriak-teriak di jalanan bahwa orang-orang yang dibawa oleh bus-bus tersebut akan dibunuh dengan menggunakan gas.[44]
Pemandangan Hadamar, sekitar 1900
Selama tahun 1940, desas desus yang beredar semakin meluas dan banyak warga Jerman mengambil kembali keluarganya yang berada di panti-panti dan sanatorium untuk dirawat sendiri di rumah masing-masing walaupun untuk itu mereka harus mengalami kerepotan dan mengeluarkan biaya yang besar. Para dokter dan ahli jiwa di beberapa tempat bersedia membantu keluarga-keluarga tersebut tanpa memungut biaya atau kalau keluarganya menyetujui maka si pasien akan dipindahkan ke klinik pribadi yang berada di luar jangkauan program T4 (Program T4 ini yaitu terutama ditujukan bagi kaum pekerja yang keluarganya yang cacat dirawat pada lembaga perawatan negara.) Keluarga mampu dapat merawat sendiri keluarganya yang cacat tersebut di rumah ataupun di klinik-klinik pribadi) Beberapa dokter menyetujui untuk melakukan diagnosa ulang terhadap beberapa pasien sehinga mereka tidak masuk dalam kriteria pada program T4, walaupun demikian cara ini dapat ketahuan sewaktu pengikut fanatik Nazi dari Berlin melakukan pemeriksaan ulang. Di Kiel, Professor Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt menyelamatkan hampir seluruh pasiennya.[45] Creutzfeldt juga dikenang sebagai penemu pendamping dari penyakit Creutzfeldt-Jakob. Namun hampir di semua tempat para dokter umumnya mendukung program tersebut.[46]
Selama tahun 1940 surat protes mengalir ke kedutaan dan ke kementerian kehakiman dan beberapa di antaranya bahkan dari anggota Nazi. Demonstrasi menentang "pemusnahan" jiwa manusia tersebut pertama kalinya berlangsung di kota Absberg di Mittelfranken pada bulan Februari 1941, dan diikuti oleh yang lainnya.
Gerakan menentang kebijakan T4 ini semakin meluas setelah serbuan Jerman ke Uni Soviet pada bulan Juni 1941 sebab pada peperangan tersebut timbul korban yang cukup besar di pihak Jerman sehingga rumah sakit dan panti perawatan lainnya dipenuhi dengan prajurit-prajurit muda yang terluka dan cacat. Desas desus mulai beredar bahwa orang-orang ini akan menjadi sasaran dari eutanasia, walaupun kenyataannya tidak ada rencana yang demikian.
Daftar jumlah korban Aktion T4 (data tak resmi)
1940 - September 1941
Pusat T4 Kegiatan Jumlah korban
awal akhir 1940 1941 total
Grafeneck 20 Januari 1940 Desember 1940 9.839 --- 9.839
Brandeburg 8 Februari 1940 Oktober 1940 9.772 --- 9.772
Bernburg 21 November 1940 30 Juli 1943 --- 8.601 8.601
Hartheim 6 Mei 1940 Desember 1944 9.670 8.599 18.269
Sonnenstein Juni 1940 September 1942 5.943 7.777 13.720
Hadamar Juni 1941 31 Juli 1942 --- 10.072 10.072
Jumlah keseluruhan: 35.224 35.049 70.273
Catatan: Document 87, S. 232 cit. in Erst Klee. Dokumente zur „Euthanasie“, 1985.
Selama tahun 1940 hingga 1941 beberapa tokoh gereja Protestan secara pribadi memprotes program T4 ini namun tidak ada yang berkomentar secara terbuka kepada publik.
Theophil Wurm, seorang uskup Lutheran dari Württemberg, pada bulan Maret 1940 menulis sebuah surat yang bernada cukup keras kepada Menteri Dalam Negeri Frick. Protes lainnya dilakukan oleh teolog Lutheran bernama Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, yang merupakan direktur dari Lembaga Bethel untuk epilepsi di kota Bielefeld, dan pastor Paul-Gerhard Braune, direktur dari Lembaga Hoffnungstal di Berlin. Keduanya menggunakan pengaruh koneksinya dengan rejim Nazi guina mendapatkan pengecualian untuk pasien-pasien di lembaga perawatan miliknya. Bodelschwingh bernegosiasi langsung dengan Brandt dan secara tidak langsung dengan Hermann Göring, yang kemenakannya adalah merupakan seorang ahli jiwa yang terkenal. Braune mengadakan pendekatan kepada Menteri Kehakiman Gürtner yang senantiasa meragukan legalitas dari program tersebut dan Gürtner kelak menulis suatu surat bernada keras kepada Hitler untuk memprotes program ini; Hitler tidak membacanya tapi mendapatkan penyampaian dari Lammers tentang surat keberatan ini.[47] Namun pada umumnya gereja Protestan telah tertangkap dalam jerat Nazi dan tidak mau mengkritik tindakan Nazi.[48]
Gereja Katolik sejak tahun 1933 memiliki kebijakan untuk menghindari konfrontasi dengan rejim Nazi dengan harapan bahwa hal tersebut dapat memelihara keutuhan lembaga gereja, namun gereja semakin tidak mampu untuk menahan diri menghadapi bukti-bukti nyata adanya pembunuhan-pembunuhan terhadap penghuni rumah sakit dan tahanan. Pemimpin gereja Katolik Michael Kardinal von Faulhaber, Kardinal dari München, menulis surat pribadi kepada pemerintah untuk memprotes kebijakan T4 tersebut.
Wikisource
Wikisource memiliki naskah sumber yang berkaitan dengan Letter of Bishop Hilfrich to Reich Justice Minister
Pada bulan Juli 1941 gereja Katolik mulai bersuara dengan adanya surat pastoral[49] dari uskup yang dibacakan di semua gereja. Pada surat pastoral tersebut dinyatakan bahwa "pembunuhan adalah suatu perbuatan yang tidak dapat dibenarkan (terkecuali dalam pembelaan diri dalam suatu perang resmi).[50] Inilah yang membesarkan hati kaum Katolik untuk menyuarakan lebih banyak protes.
Beberapa minggu setelah surat pastoral tersebut dibacakan, Clemens August Graf von Galen, uskup dari Münster di Westfalen secara terbuka mencela program T4 di khotbahnya dan mengirimkannya khotbahnya tersebut dengan menggunakan telegram kepada Hitler yang isinya mengatakan bahwa "Führer harus melindungi rakyatnya terhadap Gestapo. Adalah sangat tidak baik dan tidak adil serta merupakan suatu malapetaka apabila seseorang memaksakan kehendaknya dengan menentang kehendak Tuhan" selanjutnya Galen mengatakan juga bahwa "kita sedang berbicara mengenai pria dan wanita, patriot (pejuang), saudara dan saudari kita. Yang dapat kamu katakan adalah orang-orang tidak berguna yang harus mendapatkan belas kasihan, tapi apakah ini berarti bahwa mereka tidak lagi memiliki hak untuk hidup?"[51] Robert Lifton mengomentari khotbah ini sebagai berikut: Khotbah yang sangat hebat dan penuh pengharapan ini diperbanyak dan diedarkan keseluruh Jerman oleh angkatan udara Kerajaan Inggris yang menjatuhkan selebaran berisikan khotbah ini ke tengah-tengah pasukan Jerman. Khotbah Galen ini memiliki akibat yang sangat besar dibandingkan pernyataan-pernyataan anti eutanasia lainnya yang pernah ada."[52]
Walaupun Hitler amat marah sekali, namun ia menyadari bahwa ia tidak mungkin berkonfrontasi dengan Gereja pada saat yang bersamaan dengan dua peperangan hidup mati yang sedang dihadapi Jerman[53]. Himmler mengatakan bahwa: "apabila operasi T4 diserahkan kepada SS maka hasilnya akan menjadi lain sama sekali sebab sewaktu Führer mempercayai kami untuk melaksanakan suatu tugas, kami tahu bagaimana melakukannya dengan benar tanpa menimbulkan suatu kegemparan di masyarakat.[54]
Pada tangal 24 Agustus 1941 Hitler memerintahkan untuk menghentikan program T4 serta menginstruksikan pula kepada para Gauleiter untuk menghentikan provokasi terhadap gereja-gereja sepanjang peperangan.
Invasi Uni Soviet pada bulan Juni membuka suatu kesempatan baru bagi para personil T4, yang mana kelak mereka dikirim ke wilayah timur untuk memulai suatu tugas pembunuhan yang sangat besar yang disebut dengan sandi Solusi Akhir (Jerman: Die Endlösung der Judenfrage), yang merujuk kepada rencana Nazi untuk melakukan suatu genosida yang sistematis terhadap bangsa Yahudi selama Perang Dunia II.
[sunting] Peristiwa setelah perang
Monumen peringatan di Tiergartenstrasse, Berlin.
Viktor Brack.
Pada bulan Desember 1946, pengadilan militer Amerika yang biasa dikenal dengan sebutan Pengadilan Dokter mengajukan sebanyak 23 orang dokter dan administratur untuk bertanggung jawab atas kejahatan perang dan kejahatan kemanusiaan. Tuduhan ini mencakup pula kejahatan pembunuhan sistimatis terhadap mereka yang cacat fisik termasuk penderita keterbelakangan mental. Setelah melalui proses persidangan selama 140 hari dengan mendengarkan keterangan saksi-saksi sebanyak 85 orang serta mempelajari sebanyak 1.500 dokumen maka pada bulan Agustus 1947, pengadilan memutuskan bersalah terhadap 16 terdakwa dan 7 diantaranya dijatuhi hukuman mati dan dieksekusi pada tanggal 2 Juni 1948 termasuk dr. Karl Brandt dan Viktor Brack.
Dakwaan terhadap mereka adalah sebagai berikut :
“ 14. Antara bulan September 1939 hingga April 1945, terdakwa Karl Brandt, Blome, Brack, dan Hoven secara melawan hukum dan secara sengaja dengan sadar telah melakukan kejahatan terhadap perikemanusiaan sebagaimana diatur dalam artikel II dari Control Counsil Law nomer 10, dimana mereka terlibat didalamnya, turut membantu, turut memerintahkan, melakukan persekongkolan, memberikan persetujuan, serta terlibat langsung dalam suatu perencanaan dan terlibat dalam prakarsa guna pelaksanaan program "eutanasia" dari kerajaan Jerman dimana terdakwa telah menghilangkan nyawa ratusan bahkan ribuan manusia, termasuk penduduk sipil Jerman maupun penduduk sipil berkebangsaan lainnya. Fakta-fakta menunjukkan bahwa telah terjadi pembunuhan sebagaimana dimaksud dalam paragraf 9 bahagian kedua dari dakwaan ini yang dilampirkan sebagai lampiran dakwaan ini.[55] ”
Pada tahun 1945, 7 orang staf dari Institut Hadamar juga didakwa atas pembunuhan warga Soviet dan Polandia namun bukan untuk pembunuhan warga Jerman dalam jumlah besar yang terjadi di institut tersebut. Alfons Klein, Karl Ruoff and Wilhelm Willig dijatuhi hukuman mati dan dieksekusi sedangkan 4 orang lainnya dijatuhi hukuman penjara seumur hidup.[56]
Philipp Bouhler dan Leonardo Conti membunuh diri sewaktu ditangkap pada bulan Mei 1945, sedangkan dr. Ernst-Robert Grawitz melakukan bunuh diri sesaat sebelum jatuhnya Berlin. Dr Friedrich Menneke meninggal pada tahun 1947 sewaktu menunggu persidangan perkaranya. Paul Nitsche dihukum mati dan dieksekusi oleh pengadilan Jerman Timur pada tahun 1948. Werner Heyde, membunuh diri pada tahun 1964 setelah menjadi buronan selama 18 tahun. Dr Heinrich Gross lolos dari hukuman.
Langsung ke: navigasi, cari
Keterangan poster: "60.000 Reichsmark[1] adalah jumlah yang dibebankan oleh penderita penyakit kelainan genetika kepada masyarakat sepanjang hidupnya. Sahabat Jerman, itu adalah uang anda juga." (Dari majalah bulanan New People, milik Biro Politik Ras (Bureau for Race Politics), Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, sekitar tahun 1938.)
Aksi T4 (bahasa Jerman: Aktion T4) adalah program Nazi yang resminya berlangsung antara tahun 1939 dan 1941, dan sepanjang masa tersebut Adolf Hitler telah melakukan pembunuhan secara sistematis terhadap 200.000 hingga 250.000 penderita kelainan genetika.[2] Setelah tahun 1941, pembunuhan tersebut menjadi tidak resmi dan tidak terlalu sistematis lagi. [3] Kode T4 adalah singkatan dari kata Tiergartenstrasse 4, yaitu nama sebuah jalan di pusat kota Berlin di wilayah Tiergarten. Pada jalan tersebut terdapat sebuah vila yang merupakan kantor pusat Yayasan Kesejahteraan dan Lembaga Perawatan (Gemeinnützige Stiftung für Heil- und Anstaltspflege).[4] Lembaga ini berada di bawah pimpinan Philipp Bouhler dan Karl Brandt, yang masing-masing menjabat sebagai kepala rumah tangga Hitler[5] dan dokter pribadinya. Vila tersebut sekarang sudah tidak ada lagi, namun terdapat sebuah plakat di pelataran Tiergartenstraße yang menjadi monumen dari lokasi itu.
Program T4 dikembangkan berdasarkan kebijakan Nazi mengenai kesehatan rasial, yaitu suatu keyakinan bahwa rakyat Jerman harus dibersihkan dari unsur ras yang tidak sehat, termasuk orang-orang cacat. Program ini menjadi cikal-bakal dari program holocaust (pemusnahan massal) terhadap bangsa Yahudi di benua Eropa. Sejarawan Ian Kershaw menyebutnya sebagai suatu langkah penting menuju lahirnya kebiadaban modern.[6]
Daftar isi
[sembunyikan]
* 1 Latar belakang
* 2 Arah kebijakan program
* 3 Pembunuhan terhadap anak-anak
* 4 Pembunuhan terhadap orang dewasa
* 5 Gerakan perlawanan
* 6 Peristiwa setelah perang
* 7 Catatan kaki
* 8 Bacaan selanjutnya
* 9 Lihat pula
* 10 Pranala luar
[sunting] Latar belakang
Karl Brandt, dokter pribadi Hitler dan salah satu inisiator program T4 (foto tahun 1947).
Ide untuk melakukan "pembersihan ras" , sejak semula adalah elemen dasar pada ideologi Hitler. Secara umum Hitler seringkali menggunakan kata kiasan "medis" untuk orang-orang yang ingin "dimusnahkannya" dari komunitas Jerman. Ia menyebut orang-orang Yahudi sebagai basil (bacillus) yang harus dibunuh atau kanker yang akan menyebar. Demikian pula cara pandang Hitler terhadap orang cacat sebagai "unsur yang sakit" dalam tubuh ras bangsa Jerman. Dalam diskusinya dengan Phillip Bouhler dan Hans Lemmers, Hitler menggambarkan orang-orang yang demikian sebagai "orang yang mengotori dirinya sendiri" dan yang "menaruh najis di mulutnya".[7] Hitler dan pendukung Nazi lainnya berpendapat bahwa kebutuhan untuk membersihkan ras Jerman merupakan bagian yang penting dari proyek Nazi.
Dalam bukunya yang berjudul Mein Kampf (1924), Hitler mengatakan sebagai berikut:
“ Mereka yang secara jasmani dan rohani tidak sehat dan layak tidak boleh menurunkan kemalangannya ke tubuh anak-anaknya. Pemerintahan nasionalis (völkische staat) haruslah melakukan tugas pemeliharaan yang luar biasa di sini. Bagaimanapun juga, suatu hari hal ini akan tampak sebagai perbuatan yang lebih besar daripada kemenangan-kemenangan perang terbaik di era borjuis kita saat ini.[8] ”
Rezim Nazi dengan segera melaksanakan pembersihan rasial ini sesaat setelah diberlakukannya ketentuan tersebut. Pada Juli 1933, terbit suatu "Undang-undang Pencegahan Pewarisan Penyakit Keturunan" yang mewajibkan sterilisasi bagi orang-orang penderita penyakit keturunan seperti skizofrenia, epilepsi, penyakit Huntington, dan imbesilitas (gangguan otak/bodoh). Sterilisasi juga diharuskan bagi pecandu alkohol kronis dan bentuk-bentuk lain deviasi sosial.
Selama kurun waktu tahun 1933 dan 1939, diperkirakan sebanyak 360.000 orang telah disterilisasi berdasarkan undang-undang ini. Hukum ini juga diterapkan bagi para wanita yang telah dinyatakan bersalah melakukan kegiatan prostitusi.[9]) Bahkan orang-orang yang tidak menderita penyakit kelainan genetika pun juga terkena ketentuan ini, dengan adanya pendapat bahwa program harus diperluas kepada mereka yang menderita cacat fisik.[10]
Walaupun Hitler menyatakan gagasan pembersihan ras ini dalam bentuknya yang ekstrem, ternyata gagasan ini menyebar ke seluruh negara Barat pada awal abad ke-20. Pergerakan eugenika ini memiliki banyak pengikut di kalangan terpelajar, terutama di Amerika Serikat. Gagasan sterilisasi terhadap pembawa penyakit keturunan atau orang yang dianggap memiliki kelakuan anti-sosial dapat diterima secara luas, dan kemudian diatur di dalam hukum di beberapa negara; seperti di Amerika Serikat, Swedia, Swiss, dan di beberapa negara lainnya. Sebagai contoh, pada periode tahun 1935 hingga 1975, 63.000 orang telah disterilisasi di Swedia atas dasar eugenika.[11]
[sunting] Arah kebijakan program
Plakat pada pelataran Tiergartenstraße nomor 4 untuk memperingati korban-korban dari program eutanasia Nazi
Hitler selalu mendukung dilakukannya pembunuhan terhadap orang-orang yang dikategorikan "memiliki hidup yang tidak berguna". Kedua dokternya, Karl Brandt dan Hans Lemmers, menyatakan bahwa Hitler pernah mengatakan kepada mereka seusai perang tahun 1933 dan pada saat itu undang-undang sterilisasi telah diberlakukan; bahwa ia mendukung pembunuhan terhadap orang-orang yang menderita penyakit yang tak tersembuhkan, namun menyadari bahwa opini publik tidak akan dapat menerima hal ini.[12] Hitler pada tahun 1935 mengatakan kepada pimpinan dokter Jerman, dr. Gerhard Wagner, bahwa hal tersebut tidak dapat dilaksanakan pada masa damai. Hitler berpendapat bahwa "banyak masalah dapat terselesaikan dengan mudah pada saat perang".
Sebelum masa Nazi berkuasa pun, kelompok pergerakan eugenika di Jerman telah memiliki pengaruh kuat yang digerakkkan oleh Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding, yang pada tahun 1920 mendukung pembunuhan terhadap orang-orang yang dikategorikan "memiliki kehidupan yang tidak berguna" (lebensunwertes Leben).[13]. Setelah Perang Dunia I, Jerman menjadi terpengaruh oleh gagasan ini. Mereka mengartikan teori Darwin sebagai suatu anjuran bahwa suatu bangsa harus meningkatkan pembiakan gen yang bermutu, serta melakukan pencegahan atas berbiaknya gen yang "membahayakan". Lifton menuliskan: "argumentasinya adalah bahwa banyak pemuda telah gugur dalam peperangan, dan ini merupakan kehilangan 'gen terbaik yang ada' bagi Jerman. Gen dari mereka yang tidak berperang (gen buruk) berkembang biak dengan bebasnya, mempercepat kemerosotan budaya dan biologis."[14]
Pandangan ini mulai memperoleh pembenaran setelah terjadinya keputusasaan yang disebabkan oleh pemotongan anggaran belanja untuk rumah sakit jiwa, sehingga mengakibatkan timbulnya kepadatan dan kekumuhan pada rumah sakit.[15] Kebanyakan ahli eugenika Jerman merupakan kelompok nasionalis, anti-Semit, dan pengikut Nazi yang antusias. Banyak di antara mereka yang menduduki jabatan penting pada Kementerian Kesehatan dan Institut Penelitian. Gagasan-gagasan mereka banyak diikuti oleh profesi kedokteran Jerman, yang kelak "dibersihkan" terhadap unsur dokter-dokter Yahudi dan dokter-dokter beraliran kiri yang membangkang.[16]
Sepanjang era 1930-an, Partai Nazi melakukan kampanye propaganda terhadap "eutanasia". Biro Sosialis Nasional Ras dan Politik (The National Socialist Racial and Political Office, NSRPA) membuat selebaran, poster, dan film pendek yang dipertunjukkan di bioskop-bioskop, yang menunjukkan beban biaya yang harus ditanggung Jerman untuk memelihara para penderita sakit parah dan sakit jiwa. Film Das Erbe (1935), Opfer der Vergangenheit (1937), diputar di semua bioskop-bioskop utama di Berlin dan juga film Ich klage an (1941), yang dibuat berdasarkan novel karangan dr. Helmut Unger, seorang konsultan dari program eutanasia terhadap anak-anak. [17] Lembaga-lembaga perawatan Katolik yang diharapkan dapat menentang dengan keras pembunuhan terhadap para pasien yang dirawat di lembaga-lembaga Katolik tersebut banyak yang ditutup dan penghuninya dialihkan ke lembaga-lembaga perawatan milik pemerintah yang kondisinya semakin penuh sesak. Kondisi yang kumuh ini digunakan sebagai bahan kampanye bagi eutanasia.
[sunting] Pembunuhan terhadap anak-anak
Schloss Hartheim, foto salah satu tempat yang dijadikan pusat pembunuhan dalam program T4
Persetujuan oleh Hitler, tertanggal 1 September 1939
Pada bulan Mei 1939, sewaktu Hitler memutuskan untuk menyerang Polandia, para orang tua dari anak-anak yang lahir cacat di dekat Leipzig menulis surat kepada Hitler untuk meminta izin kematian bagi anak-anak mereka tersebut. Hitler menyetujuinya dan memeintahkan Komite Nasional untuk pendataan ilmiah dari untuk Penyakit keturunan yang serius serta penyakit bawaan (Reichsausschuss zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung erb- und anlagebedingter schwerer Leiden), yang dipimpin oleh Karl Brandt, seorang dokter pribadi Hitler, dan dikelola oleh Menteri Dalam Negeri Herbert Linden serta Viktor Brack, seorang perwira SS. Brandt dan Bouhler memiliki kekuasaan untuk menyetujui permohonan bagi kematian terhadap anak-anak dengan kondisi demikian.[18]
Preseden ini digunakan untuk menciptakan program "pembunuhan anak-anak" yang menderita cacat dan dengan adanya program ini maka tidak diperlukan lagi adanya kesuka-relaan bagi orang tua. Anak-anak yang dimasukkan ke dalam program "harus dibunuh", yaitu mereka yang berusia di bawah tiga tahun, yang dicurigai mengidap penyakit kelainan keturunan seperti idiot dan sindrom keterbelakangan mental (sindrom Down-mongolisme) khususnya yang tunanetra atau tunarungu; mikrosefalus; hidrosefalus; malfungsi dalam segala bentuk khususnya anggota badan (tangan/kaki), kepala, tulang belakang (columna spinalis), paralisis termasuk kondisi lumpuh otak."[19] Penilaian harus dilakukan oleh suatu panel ahli kedokteran dan diperlukan persetujuan 3 orang sebelum pembunuhan terhadap seorang anak dapat dilaksanakan.[20]
Berbagai muslihat digunakan untuk mendapatkan izin, khususnya di kalangan Katolik dengan para orang tua umumnya tidak mau bekerjasama. Kepada para orang tua ini dikatakan bahwa anak-anaknya tersebut dibawa ke "seksi khusus" untuk anak-anak tempat mereka akan memperoleh perawatan yang lebih baik.[21] Anak-anak yang dikirim ke pusat-pusat perawatan ini "dipantau" selama beberapa minggu kemudian dibunuh dengan suntikan racun, lalu kematiannya dilaporkan sebagai pneumonia. Otopsi biasanya dilakukan dan contoh otak diambil untuk penelitian kedokteran. Hal ini rupanya membawa penghiburan bagi mereka yang terlibat dalam pembunuhan tersebut yaitu bahwa kematian anak-anak tersebut menjadi tidak sia-sia dan secara keseluruhan program ini adalah semata untuk tujuan dunia kedokteran.
Sewaktu perang berkecamuk pada September 1939, proses penilaian dan persetujuan menjadi melunak, bahkan diperluas hingga terhadap anak-anak yang berusia lebih tua dan anak remaja. Kondisi ini juga diperluas hingga mencakup anak-anak dari berbagai usia dengan berbagai keterbelakangan atau cacat ringan dan pada puncaknya juga mencakup anak-anak yang melakukan kejahatan (juvenile delinquents). Anak-anak Yahudi adalah yang menjadi target utama hanya dikarenakan mereka adalah Yahudi dan sebuah departemen khusus dibentuk untuk minoritas campuran Yahudi - Arya.[22] Pada tahun 1941 lebih dari 5.000 anak telah dibunuh.[23]
[sunting] Pembunuhan terhadap orang dewasa
Brandt dan Bouhler pada bulan Juli 1939 mengadakan pertemuan dengan dr. Leonardo Conti pimpinan dari badan kesehatan Jerman yang juga sekretaris Menteri Dalam Negeri untuk urusan kesehatan dan Profesor Werner Heyde kepala departemen medis SS (Schutzstaffel) dan pada pertemuan tersebut dibahas rencana persiapan untuk pendaftaran secara nasional terhadap para penderita gangguan jiwa dan cacat fisik yang berada di lembaga-lembaga perawatan.
Orang dewasa penderita cacat yang pertama dibunuh oleh rejim Nazi adalah bukan warga negara Jerman melainkan Polandia. Di wilayah Danzig, sekarang bernama Gdańsk, sekitar 7.000 orang Polandia telah dieksekusi mati dengan cara ditembak, sedangkan 10.000 orang lagi dibunuh di wilayah Gdynia.[24]
Di wilayah Poznań, ratusan pasien dibunuh dengan menggunakan gas karbon monoksida yang disalurkan ke dalam kamar gas yang dibuat oleh dr. Albert Widmann, kepala bagian kimia Polisi Kriminal Jerman (German Criminal Police-Kripo).
Bunker No. 17 di dalam dinding artileri Fort VII di Poznań, yang digunakan sebagai kamar gas
Plakat peringatan pada dinding bunker No. 17 di Fort VII
Pada bulan Desember 1939, kepala SS Heinrich Himmler menyaksikan sendiri salah satu proses eksekusi gas ini guna memastikan bahwa penemuan ini kelak dapat digunakan untuk tujuan yang lebih luas lagi.[25]
Gagasan untuk "menghabisi nyawa" pasien gangguan jiwa ini kelak menyebar ke wilayah perbatasan Jerman, mungkin disebabkan partai Nazi dan pejabat SS di wilayah ini telah terbiasa dengan praktek di Polandia. Franz Schwede-Coburg, pemimpin cabang partai dari NSADP (Gauleiter dari Pomerania "menyingkirkan" 1.400 pasien dari 5 rumah sakit di Pomerania ke Polandia dan membunuhnya di sana, tempat di rumah sakit tersebut dibutuhkan bagi para prajurit Jerman yang terluka sewaktu peperangan di Polandia. Sedangkan Gauleiter dari Prusia Timur, Erich Koch melakukan pembunuhan terhadap 1.600 pasien. Secara keseluruhan lebih dari 8.000 orang Jerman dibunuh dalam gelombang pembunuhan masal ini yang dilakukan oleh masing-masing pejabat disetiap daerah yang diketahui dan disetujui oleh kepala SS, Himmler.[26]
Program pembasmian orang-orang dewasa dengan kelainan mental dan cacat fisik ini diawali dengan surat keputusan dari Hitler pada bulan Oktober 1939[27] Surat tersebut bertanggal mundur ke 1 September 1939 untuk memberikan legalitas terhadap pembunuhan yang telah dilakukan sebelumnya,[28] dan menghubungkan program tersebut dengan peperangan untuk memberikan alasan rasionil dengan dasar keadaan darurat perang.[29] Sangat penting untuk dicatat bahwa surat tersebut yang dijadikan dasar bagi program tersebut adalah bukan merupakan "keputusan formal" Führer yang didalam Nazi Jerman memiliki kekuatan mengikat. Dengan alasan inilah maka Hitler "melangkahi" Menteri Kesehatan Conti dan departemennya yang diketahui tidak sejalan dengan kekejaman partai Nasional Sosialis dan mungkin saja akan mempertanyakan keabsahan dari program tersebut dan untuk itu mempercayakannya kepada orang-orangnya yaitu Bouhler dan Barndt .[30]
Program ini dikelola oleh staf dari Brack dari kantor yang terletak di Tiergartenstraße 4, yang disamarkan dalam bentuk yayasan umum untuk kesejahteraan dan lembaga perawatan yang diawasi langsung oleh Bouhler dan Brandt.
dr. Herbert Linden, yaitu orang yang terlibat dalam program pembunuhan terhadap anak-anak dan dr. Ernst-Robert Grawitz, dokter kepala di SS adalah merupakan orang-orang yang sangat terlibat dalam program ini dimana merekalah yang memilih dokter-dokter untuk melaksanakan operasional program. Mereka dipilih berdasarkan keandalan politik , reputasi, dan simpatisan radikal terhadap egenetika. Mereka adalah beberapa orang yang telah membuktikan perannya dalam program pembunuhan anak-anak seperti Unger, Heinze, and Hermann Pfannmüller.[31]
Di awal Oktober 1939, seluruh rumah sakit, panti perawatan, panti jompo, sanatorium diwajibkan untuk memberikan data-data pasien yang telah dirawat selama 5 tahun atau lebih, penjahat kriminal, ras non Arya, atau pun yang terindikasi mengidap penyakit : skizofrenia, epilepsi, penyakit Huntington, sifilis, demensia uzur, paralisis, ensefalitis dan penyakit syaraf. Kebanyakan dokter dan pengelola beranggapan bahwa tujuan daripada laporan tersebut adalah untuk mengidentifikasi para penghuni panti yang kondisinya kemampuannya memungkinkan untuk dikirim sebagai tenaga kerja, oleh karenanya para dokter dan pengelola tersebut menaikkan tingkat ketidakmampuan penghuni pantinya untuk menyelamatkan mereka dari "wajib kerja" - dengan suatu konsekwensi yang fatal.[32]
Sewaktu beberapa lembaga di kalangan Katolik menolak untuk bekerjasama, tim dokter dari T4 ( beberapa merupakan mahasiswa kedokteran Nazi) mengunjungi mereka dan memilah mereka berdasarkan daftar yang dibuat sendiri terkadang secara sembarangan dan berdasarkan motivasi ideologi.[33] Pada saat yang bersamaan, sepanjang tahun 1940 telah terjadi pembunuhan terhadap seluruh pasien Yahudi.[34]
Disepanjang tahun 1940, di pusat-pusat program di Brandenburg, Grafeneck dan Hartheim telah dilakukan pembunuhan terhadap sekitar 10,000 orang disetiap pusat program, dimana sekitar 6.000 dibunuh di Sonnenstein. Kira-kira sebanyak 35.000 orang terbunuh oleh program T4 pada tahun tersebut. Di tahun 1941 terbunuh lagi sebanyak 35.000 orang hingga akhir Agustus 1941 sewaktu program T4 dihentikan. Namun walaupun demikian di pusat-pusat program tersebut pembunuhan masih terus berlangsung untuk membunuh para penghuni kamp konsentrasi yang diperkirakan mencapai 20.000 orang.[35]
Pada tahun 1971 seorang jurnalis berkebangsaan Hungaria melakukan serangkaian wawancara dengan Franz Stangl, seorang tahanan di penjara Düsseldorf yang dinyatakan bersalah atasketerlibatannya dalam pembunuhan sebanyak 900.000 orang selaku ia menjabat sebagai komandan dari kamp Sobibór dan kamp Treblinka di Polandia. Stangl memberikan jumlah korban pembunuhan program T4 secara terinci kepada Sereny semasa ia masih menjabat sebagai komandan dari tempat "pembantaian" di Hartheim.[36] Stangl menjelaskan bagaimana proses pemindahan para penghuni tersebut dengan menggunakan bis ke Hartheim, beberapa dari mereka bahkan merupakan orang yang waras dan mereka tertipu. Dikatakan kepada mereka bahwa mereka akan dibawa ke klinik khusus untuk menerima perawatan yang lebih baik dan akan dilakukan pemeriksaan medis setibanya di sana. Mereka kemudian dibujuk untuk memasuki ruang pancuran untuk mandi dimana disana mereka dibunuh dengan menggunakan gas karbon monoksida (tipu muslihat ini dikemudian hari digunakan untuk skala lebih besar dalam kamp "pemusnahan").
[sunting] Gerakan perlawanan
Grafeneck
Pirna dan Schloss Sonnenstein, lukisan Bernardo Bellotto (Canaletto)
Sejak semula Hitler dan sekutu-sekutunya menyadari bahwa kebijakan pembunuhan terhadap warga Jerman yang cacat tersebut dapat merupakan suatu tindakan yang tidak didukung oleh publik di Jerman. Walaupun Hitler tidak menerbitkan suatu instruksi tertulis untuk kebijakannya tersebut (yang di kemudian hari dikategorikan sebagai suatu "kejahatan terhadap kemanusiaan"), namun ia membuat pengecualian dengan menerbitkan instruksi tertulis dalam surat rahasianya pada Oktober 1939 yang memberikan kewenangan kepada Bouhler dan Brack untuk melaksanakan program T4.[37]
Sejak awal Hitler menegaskan kepada Bouhler bahwa Kedutaan Führer dalam keadaan apapun juga tidak boleh nampak keterlibatannya dalam masalah ini.[38] Diperlukan suatu pehatian khusus terhadap wilayah Katolik, setelah Austria dan Sudetenland pada tahun 1938 dikuasai Jerman yang populasi penduduknya hampir mencapai separuh dari penduduk Jerman dan di sana terdapat kemungkinan adanya pendapat publik yang menentang. Pada bulan Maret 1940, sebuah laporan rahasia dari Sicherheitsdienst di Austria memperingatkan bahwa program pembunuhan tersebut harus dilaksanakan secara terselubung dan rahasia guna menghindari kemungkinan timbulnya pukulan balik oleh opini publik selama masa perang.[39]
Kelompok oposisi ini terus menekan pemerintahan. Seorang hakim distrik Lothar Kreyssig menulis surat kepada Gürtner untuk memprotes bahwa program T4 adalah ilegal disebabkan tidak adanya suatu hukum ataupun surat resmi dari Hitler yang menjadi dasar hukum pelaksanaan program tersebut. Gürtner menjawabnya dengan mengatakan bahwa "apabila kamu tidak dapat memahami keinginan dari Führer sebagai sumber hukum artinya kamu tidak layak sebagai hakim" dan akhirnya Kreyssig dipecat.[40]
Berdasarkan Reichskonkordat tahun 1933 antara Tahta Suci dan Jerman, Gereja Katolik menyetujui untuk tidak terlibat dalam segala bentuk kegiatan politik, namun pembunuhan massal warga Jerman merupakan sebuah tantangan terhadap kepercayaan fundamental Katolik terhadap kekudusan dari kehidupan manusia dan ini menjadi suatu dilema serius dari gereja Katolik di Jerman. Pada tahun 1935, Gereja Katolik mengajukan protes dalam sebuah memorandum untuk menentang sebuah rancangan untuk melegalisasi eutanasia.
Pada bulan Januari 1939, Brack kemudian meminta Dr Joseph Mayer, seorang guru besar Teologi Moral pada Universitas Paderborn untuk dibuatkan suatu makalah mengenai bagaimana kemungkinan reaksi gereja apabila peraturan mengenai eutanasia diberlakukan. Mayer yang sejak lama telah menjadi pendukung eutanasia, lalu menulis dalam makalahnya bahwa gereja tidak akan menentang program tersebut sepanjang dilakukan bagi kepentingan nasional. Kemudian Brack menunjukkan makalah tersebut kepada Hitler pada bulan Juli 1939 dan inilah yang meningkatkan rasa percaya diri Hitler bahwa program "eutanasia" dapat diterima oleh opini publik di Jerman.[41] (sewaktu Gitta Sereny mewawancarai Mayer sesaat sebelum ia meninggal pada tahun 1967, ia menyangkal bahwa ia menyetujui pembunuhan terhadap orang-orang cacat, namun selama salinan makalah ini tidak ditemukan, hal ini belum bisa dibuktikan kebenarannya[42]). Pada kenyataannya program T4 dari rejim Nazi ini telah menuai banyak sekali protes masyarakat.
Tidak mungkin suatu program seperti T4 dirahasiakan terus menerus, yang dalam program tersebut melibatkan ribuan dokter, perawat, pelaksana dan kebanyakan korban juga memiliki keluarga yang peduli terhadap keselamatan mereka.
Bernberg tahun 1650
Meskipun terdapat perintah tegas untuk merahasiakan program ini, beberapa staf dari pusat pelaksanaan pembunuhan menceritakannya ke pihak luar tentang segala suatu yang terjadi di tempat pembunuhan tersebut saat mereka mabuk di tempat-tempat minum. Dan dalam beberapa kasus, keluarga korban menceritakan bahwa penyebab kematian yang dinyatakan dalam surat kematian adalah tidak benar seperti misalnya pasien yang dinyatakan meninggal karena usus buntu sebenarnya tidak pernah menderita usus buntu (appendiks). Juga adanya kasus contohnya beberapa keluarga dalam suatu kota yang sama menerima surat kematian keluarganya dalam hari yang sama. Pada kota-kota yang terdapat lokasi pusat pembunuhan banyak orang melihat kedatangan dari bus-bus berisikan tahanan, lalu melihat asap keluar dari cerobong krematorium dan mereka dapat mengambil suatu kesimpulan atas apa yang terjadi di sana. Pada abu yang berjatuhan di atas kota Hadamar terdapat rambut manusia.[43] Pada bulan Mei 1941 pengadilan Frankfurt menulis surat kepada Gürtner menjelaskan kejadian di Hadamar, anak-anak berteriak-teriak di jalanan bahwa orang-orang yang dibawa oleh bus-bus tersebut akan dibunuh dengan menggunakan gas.[44]
Pemandangan Hadamar, sekitar 1900
Selama tahun 1940, desas desus yang beredar semakin meluas dan banyak warga Jerman mengambil kembali keluarganya yang berada di panti-panti dan sanatorium untuk dirawat sendiri di rumah masing-masing walaupun untuk itu mereka harus mengalami kerepotan dan mengeluarkan biaya yang besar. Para dokter dan ahli jiwa di beberapa tempat bersedia membantu keluarga-keluarga tersebut tanpa memungut biaya atau kalau keluarganya menyetujui maka si pasien akan dipindahkan ke klinik pribadi yang berada di luar jangkauan program T4 (Program T4 ini yaitu terutama ditujukan bagi kaum pekerja yang keluarganya yang cacat dirawat pada lembaga perawatan negara.) Keluarga mampu dapat merawat sendiri keluarganya yang cacat tersebut di rumah ataupun di klinik-klinik pribadi) Beberapa dokter menyetujui untuk melakukan diagnosa ulang terhadap beberapa pasien sehinga mereka tidak masuk dalam kriteria pada program T4, walaupun demikian cara ini dapat ketahuan sewaktu pengikut fanatik Nazi dari Berlin melakukan pemeriksaan ulang. Di Kiel, Professor Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt menyelamatkan hampir seluruh pasiennya.[45] Creutzfeldt juga dikenang sebagai penemu pendamping dari penyakit Creutzfeldt-Jakob. Namun hampir di semua tempat para dokter umumnya mendukung program tersebut.[46]
Selama tahun 1940 surat protes mengalir ke kedutaan dan ke kementerian kehakiman dan beberapa di antaranya bahkan dari anggota Nazi. Demonstrasi menentang "pemusnahan" jiwa manusia tersebut pertama kalinya berlangsung di kota Absberg di Mittelfranken pada bulan Februari 1941, dan diikuti oleh yang lainnya.
Gerakan menentang kebijakan T4 ini semakin meluas setelah serbuan Jerman ke Uni Soviet pada bulan Juni 1941 sebab pada peperangan tersebut timbul korban yang cukup besar di pihak Jerman sehingga rumah sakit dan panti perawatan lainnya dipenuhi dengan prajurit-prajurit muda yang terluka dan cacat. Desas desus mulai beredar bahwa orang-orang ini akan menjadi sasaran dari eutanasia, walaupun kenyataannya tidak ada rencana yang demikian.
Daftar jumlah korban Aktion T4 (data tak resmi)
1940 - September 1941
Pusat T4 Kegiatan Jumlah korban
awal akhir 1940 1941 total
Grafeneck 20 Januari 1940 Desember 1940 9.839 --- 9.839
Brandeburg 8 Februari 1940 Oktober 1940 9.772 --- 9.772
Bernburg 21 November 1940 30 Juli 1943 --- 8.601 8.601
Hartheim 6 Mei 1940 Desember 1944 9.670 8.599 18.269
Sonnenstein Juni 1940 September 1942 5.943 7.777 13.720
Hadamar Juni 1941 31 Juli 1942 --- 10.072 10.072
Jumlah keseluruhan: 35.224 35.049 70.273
Catatan: Document 87, S. 232 cit. in Erst Klee. Dokumente zur „Euthanasie“, 1985.
Selama tahun 1940 hingga 1941 beberapa tokoh gereja Protestan secara pribadi memprotes program T4 ini namun tidak ada yang berkomentar secara terbuka kepada publik.
Theophil Wurm, seorang uskup Lutheran dari Württemberg, pada bulan Maret 1940 menulis sebuah surat yang bernada cukup keras kepada Menteri Dalam Negeri Frick. Protes lainnya dilakukan oleh teolog Lutheran bernama Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, yang merupakan direktur dari Lembaga Bethel untuk epilepsi di kota Bielefeld, dan pastor Paul-Gerhard Braune, direktur dari Lembaga Hoffnungstal di Berlin. Keduanya menggunakan pengaruh koneksinya dengan rejim Nazi guina mendapatkan pengecualian untuk pasien-pasien di lembaga perawatan miliknya. Bodelschwingh bernegosiasi langsung dengan Brandt dan secara tidak langsung dengan Hermann Göring, yang kemenakannya adalah merupakan seorang ahli jiwa yang terkenal. Braune mengadakan pendekatan kepada Menteri Kehakiman Gürtner yang senantiasa meragukan legalitas dari program tersebut dan Gürtner kelak menulis suatu surat bernada keras kepada Hitler untuk memprotes program ini; Hitler tidak membacanya tapi mendapatkan penyampaian dari Lammers tentang surat keberatan ini.[47] Namun pada umumnya gereja Protestan telah tertangkap dalam jerat Nazi dan tidak mau mengkritik tindakan Nazi.[48]
Gereja Katolik sejak tahun 1933 memiliki kebijakan untuk menghindari konfrontasi dengan rejim Nazi dengan harapan bahwa hal tersebut dapat memelihara keutuhan lembaga gereja, namun gereja semakin tidak mampu untuk menahan diri menghadapi bukti-bukti nyata adanya pembunuhan-pembunuhan terhadap penghuni rumah sakit dan tahanan. Pemimpin gereja Katolik Michael Kardinal von Faulhaber, Kardinal dari München, menulis surat pribadi kepada pemerintah untuk memprotes kebijakan T4 tersebut.
Wikisource
Wikisource memiliki naskah sumber yang berkaitan dengan Letter of Bishop Hilfrich to Reich Justice Minister
Pada bulan Juli 1941 gereja Katolik mulai bersuara dengan adanya surat pastoral[49] dari uskup yang dibacakan di semua gereja. Pada surat pastoral tersebut dinyatakan bahwa "pembunuhan adalah suatu perbuatan yang tidak dapat dibenarkan (terkecuali dalam pembelaan diri dalam suatu perang resmi).[50] Inilah yang membesarkan hati kaum Katolik untuk menyuarakan lebih banyak protes.
Beberapa minggu setelah surat pastoral tersebut dibacakan, Clemens August Graf von Galen, uskup dari Münster di Westfalen secara terbuka mencela program T4 di khotbahnya dan mengirimkannya khotbahnya tersebut dengan menggunakan telegram kepada Hitler yang isinya mengatakan bahwa "Führer harus melindungi rakyatnya terhadap Gestapo. Adalah sangat tidak baik dan tidak adil serta merupakan suatu malapetaka apabila seseorang memaksakan kehendaknya dengan menentang kehendak Tuhan" selanjutnya Galen mengatakan juga bahwa "kita sedang berbicara mengenai pria dan wanita, patriot (pejuang), saudara dan saudari kita. Yang dapat kamu katakan adalah orang-orang tidak berguna yang harus mendapatkan belas kasihan, tapi apakah ini berarti bahwa mereka tidak lagi memiliki hak untuk hidup?"[51] Robert Lifton mengomentari khotbah ini sebagai berikut: Khotbah yang sangat hebat dan penuh pengharapan ini diperbanyak dan diedarkan keseluruh Jerman oleh angkatan udara Kerajaan Inggris yang menjatuhkan selebaran berisikan khotbah ini ke tengah-tengah pasukan Jerman. Khotbah Galen ini memiliki akibat yang sangat besar dibandingkan pernyataan-pernyataan anti eutanasia lainnya yang pernah ada."[52]
Walaupun Hitler amat marah sekali, namun ia menyadari bahwa ia tidak mungkin berkonfrontasi dengan Gereja pada saat yang bersamaan dengan dua peperangan hidup mati yang sedang dihadapi Jerman[53]. Himmler mengatakan bahwa: "apabila operasi T4 diserahkan kepada SS maka hasilnya akan menjadi lain sama sekali sebab sewaktu Führer mempercayai kami untuk melaksanakan suatu tugas, kami tahu bagaimana melakukannya dengan benar tanpa menimbulkan suatu kegemparan di masyarakat.[54]
Pada tangal 24 Agustus 1941 Hitler memerintahkan untuk menghentikan program T4 serta menginstruksikan pula kepada para Gauleiter untuk menghentikan provokasi terhadap gereja-gereja sepanjang peperangan.
Invasi Uni Soviet pada bulan Juni membuka suatu kesempatan baru bagi para personil T4, yang mana kelak mereka dikirim ke wilayah timur untuk memulai suatu tugas pembunuhan yang sangat besar yang disebut dengan sandi Solusi Akhir (Jerman: Die Endlösung der Judenfrage), yang merujuk kepada rencana Nazi untuk melakukan suatu genosida yang sistematis terhadap bangsa Yahudi selama Perang Dunia II.
[sunting] Peristiwa setelah perang
Monumen peringatan di Tiergartenstrasse, Berlin.
Viktor Brack.
Pada bulan Desember 1946, pengadilan militer Amerika yang biasa dikenal dengan sebutan Pengadilan Dokter mengajukan sebanyak 23 orang dokter dan administratur untuk bertanggung jawab atas kejahatan perang dan kejahatan kemanusiaan. Tuduhan ini mencakup pula kejahatan pembunuhan sistimatis terhadap mereka yang cacat fisik termasuk penderita keterbelakangan mental. Setelah melalui proses persidangan selama 140 hari dengan mendengarkan keterangan saksi-saksi sebanyak 85 orang serta mempelajari sebanyak 1.500 dokumen maka pada bulan Agustus 1947, pengadilan memutuskan bersalah terhadap 16 terdakwa dan 7 diantaranya dijatuhi hukuman mati dan dieksekusi pada tanggal 2 Juni 1948 termasuk dr. Karl Brandt dan Viktor Brack.
Dakwaan terhadap mereka adalah sebagai berikut :
“ 14. Antara bulan September 1939 hingga April 1945, terdakwa Karl Brandt, Blome, Brack, dan Hoven secara melawan hukum dan secara sengaja dengan sadar telah melakukan kejahatan terhadap perikemanusiaan sebagaimana diatur dalam artikel II dari Control Counsil Law nomer 10, dimana mereka terlibat didalamnya, turut membantu, turut memerintahkan, melakukan persekongkolan, memberikan persetujuan, serta terlibat langsung dalam suatu perencanaan dan terlibat dalam prakarsa guna pelaksanaan program "eutanasia" dari kerajaan Jerman dimana terdakwa telah menghilangkan nyawa ratusan bahkan ribuan manusia, termasuk penduduk sipil Jerman maupun penduduk sipil berkebangsaan lainnya. Fakta-fakta menunjukkan bahwa telah terjadi pembunuhan sebagaimana dimaksud dalam paragraf 9 bahagian kedua dari dakwaan ini yang dilampirkan sebagai lampiran dakwaan ini.[55] ”
Pada tahun 1945, 7 orang staf dari Institut Hadamar juga didakwa atas pembunuhan warga Soviet dan Polandia namun bukan untuk pembunuhan warga Jerman dalam jumlah besar yang terjadi di institut tersebut. Alfons Klein, Karl Ruoff and Wilhelm Willig dijatuhi hukuman mati dan dieksekusi sedangkan 4 orang lainnya dijatuhi hukuman penjara seumur hidup.[56]
Philipp Bouhler dan Leonardo Conti membunuh diri sewaktu ditangkap pada bulan Mei 1945, sedangkan dr. Ernst-Robert Grawitz melakukan bunuh diri sesaat sebelum jatuhnya Berlin. Dr Friedrich Menneke meninggal pada tahun 1947 sewaktu menunggu persidangan perkaranya. Paul Nitsche dihukum mati dan dieksekusi oleh pengadilan Jerman Timur pada tahun 1948. Werner Heyde, membunuh diri pada tahun 1964 setelah menjadi buronan selama 18 tahun. Dr Heinrich Gross lolos dari hukuman.
Langganan:
Komentar (Atom)
