IT Value Stack

The Nirvana Scenario is not Enough

In the CIO post IT is transforming itself from a manufacturing to a service industry I like the theme of the IT department moving from a manufacturing mindset to one more service focused. I love the idea of encouraging all technologists to understand the implications of what they do on the customer's condition. Conceptually this is not new. This is what the business-IT alignment evangelists have been pushing for at least a decade. The significance of this piece is that we are still not really there yet.

Worse still the nirvana scenario that the article promotes in my view is not enough. We need to move beyond alignment to entwinement. The IT function, once it has got to the 'trusted supplier' stage, needs to press the agenda forward to the trusted partner state. Only then will we move from IT as a tool for automating business processes (cost efficiency focus) to IT as a tool for gaining a competitive edge (cost effectiveness focus).

The article presents a pragmatic perspective on what most organisations need to sort out today. I am simply trying to say that CxOs need to be alert to what needs to happen thereafter.

Discussion with EMC's Chuck Hollis

I had a very constructive conversation with Chuck Hollis of EMC recently where we covered such concepts as the CIO as the 'CFO of information'. Chuck suggesting that this analogy would encourage the organisation to see information as an asset to be exploited. It would also encourage the CIO to be more focused on those aspects of IT that best serve the business.

We also touched on how web 2.0 / social networking will lead to organisations having to relinquish control over their staff and their brand messaging.

We both felt that the role of the CIO and the  IT function was morphing. It likely being the case that for the IT function to remain relevant it will need to reinvent itself as the Business Process department. Similarly CIOs will need to move from tech-centric and operations focused to business-centric and boardroom-ready.

I'll post a link on this blog when the discussion is printed in EMC's ON magazine.

IT and the Future of Oil

There are many influential people across the globe who believe that the availability of oil against demand has peaked and that we are now hurtling uncontrollably towards what might be called the post hydrocarbon man' period where the oil based goods and services we have taken for granted become only affordable to a limited few. Given the role the IT industry has in the consumption of oil through component development and operational delivery, it is appalling to see how off the pace we are in the data centre.

Only market forces will stimulate a change in this situation. Users will eventually boycott organisations with poor green credentials as will corporate buyers. But it is taking time to come into effect.

I would like to see a smarter relationship between business and society. Rather than pump all that surplus heat out into the atmosphere, why not set one's data centres up next to, for example, sports centres? The excess heat could be used to heat the swimming pool. Or funnel the excess heat into some type of biosphere construction thus enabling the production of tropical fruit in non-tropical countries. Just a thought.

(For more on this you may want to read Lean & Green — Reducing Energy Drain for IT Business Gain)

DeGeeking IT

The IT industry certainly needs degeeking. There is little hope of ungeeking individuals, its a DNA thing. The best we can do is dilute the gene pool. Women offer that potential. Typically strong on the traits that geeks are so typically poor on, eg. empathy, nurturing and social skills in general. We need to encourage women into the industry.

Women need to be made aware that you can have a career in IT without being a technical person. Sales, marketing, training and recruitment come to mind. I meet a lot of IT graduates and sadly those women who have taken the brave move of entering a career in the technical side of IT are faced with males that to varying degrees promote the notion that to fit in around here you need to ‘geek up’. Thus I witness young female graduates pretending to be excited about the latest version of Vista, Linux, Star Wars etc. It’s very sad but that is how it is.

We need to reward the renaissance techies such that the males mimic the new role models and thus behave in a more socially acceptable way. Then women will feel more inclined to get involved, on their own terms.

Failing that a series of promotional ads starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney to promote careers in IT should do the trick!

Where will the users be?

On Cisco's Executive Thought Leadership blog Gladys Prisco writes:

"While much attention is directed to advocating the benefits of massively collaborative tools or debating the merits of technical architectures, little attention is devoted to end users and their perception."

Nobody can predict the future. So here goes!

There is no question that collaborative tools are the way forward in the corporate space, both for internal and external purposes. The question there is who can provide the most visited, and therefore knowledge rich, virtual water coolers. In the consumer space it is a bit more like the nightclub business. Fashion will dictate who goes where. The fashionistas will set the pace the rest of us will follow.  When kids find their parents on Facebook, they know it is time to move on.

Over time the social networking sites will move from all inclusive to exclusive. These virtual 'gentlemen clubs' will have stringent membership criteria.

In conclusion users will gravitate to where their interests / social aspirations take them constrained only by affordability.

Read the complete post on Cisco's blog: Don’t Lose Sight of the End User

The Impact of India Inc.

In The Impact of India Inc. on Telecommunications Nick Adamo writes:

"I recently returned from my first ever trip to India, and experienced firsthand the juggernaut that this country has become across most of the major industries in the world..."

Globalisation will shift power eastwards and India is currently best placed to exploit that reality. China will eventually grow companies of sufficient critical mass to give their western counterparts something to think about. I feel the Telecoms sector in general missed its opportunity to subsume the IT sector and so is stuck in a space between infrastructure and applications. Good at the former and aspiring but falling short on the latter. But the Internet is diminishing the value of playing in the infrastructure space; unless you are in the business of helping users migrate from the Telecoms vendors to the internet.

So the Telecoms industry's biggest threat is not the East but the Internet. There was a time when the Telecoms players had the money to buy out the IT industry. If that had happened they would be accelerating the production of mobile apps as we speak. Unfortunately today we have lots of bandwidth and very few interesting applications to exploit it.

Telecoms companies would be wise to hand over the keys if approached by eastern buyers. But I suspect the latter are too smart to fall for that.

An End Run Around IT

John Soat's Information Week article Don't Let Tech-Savvy Business Execs Do An End Run Around IT is certainly a wake up call for the CIO and the end user IT department in general.

The CIO has to raise their game or get out of the way. There are actually very few tech-savvy execs. However their can-do mindset coupled with web-service selling vendors is creating a 'we know IT' mindset. This is very dangerous as this creates stovepipe solutions that may meet the needs of individual departments but lead to poor enterprise-wide value extraction from the IT investment.

The global future of IT

Chuck Hollis, Vice President of Technology Alliances at EMC, has laid out his vision of the future of IT and what that means for IT professionals. His perspective is positive but he highlights that today's technologists will need to adapt to a world where their focus is more on information than technology and how to integrate internal services with those of external suppliers. The implication is that technology will be increasingly encapsulated into services sparing everyone apart from the creators the need to get their hands technologically dirty.

I go along with this. But I would also throw into the mix globalisation. It will mean that many infrastructure roles will migrate to so called low cost countries. Only those roles that are user-touching are likely to remain local. And those that remain local will need to be skilled in working with distributed teams made up of multiple cultures.

However, the good news for those concerned about their livelihood drifting to foreign lands is that India and China (and Brazil and Russia) are growing economically more powerful. They will cease to be low cost and are likely to see western countries as useful from both from a holiday destination perspective  and from an investment perspective. Buying an ailing bank or picking up some cheap property will become more the norm.

Ultimately their economies will be such that IT services will be seen as a second class occupation and so will turn to those economically weak western countries to seek out cheap IT talent. What goes around comes around. Those that prepare for this future will feel they have the most control over their professional destinies.

On the verge of the big switch

I am on the verge of making the big switch to reading Nick Carr's latest book on the holiday I am delaying by posting this blog! However this recent posting on his blog has prompted me to jump the gun and pass comment. The message coming across is that the web and new technologies in general will be so pervasive in the future that they will have a distorting effect on society and thus need the intervention of politicians and ultimate regulation of IT.

The natural extension of this is that like the evolution of the electricity industry, the IT industry as its morphs into a utility industry, will become increasingly regulated and in some cases nationalised. Whether it be to protect those on the wrong side of the digital divide, keep a lid on terrorism or simply control the people, it is only a matter of time before governments realise that they must tame IT and the IT industry.

Nick's book raises serious social issues. Imagine a future where the memory card in your camera is backed up to a storage service provider. Such a service will be very useful to ensure those Kodak moments are preserved. But how would you feel if your government was able to enjoy your photos because they own,  or at least control, this storage service.

Those of us who are trying to steer IT towards delivering better business value and improving the lives of consumers need to have one eye on where this journey might end.