On Monday on my trip to Toronto, I was seated next to an IT director of a large beverage company. We didn’t realize we had a common set of interests until the plane was about to descend. She asked me to give her an elevator pitch concerning the important shifts in IT -- by now the landing gear was down and so I had to be quick.
I went into a discussion about how many organizations are viewing IT incorrectly today, at least in my opinion. Many view IT as a subtractive (a cost cutting activity) as opposed to the additive activity that the business should expect -- focused on increasing the value of the enterprise as a whole.
I briefly talked about a few key concepts:
1) Ownership may be obsolete – today we have other options and ownership is a choice not a requirement. Our world is more dynamic than that.
2) Separate normal from unique – automate the normal and empower the unique. Use as much of what is abundant to capitalize on what’s scarce.
3) Focus on the future – move from reactive to proactive to predictive. We have the tools, we just now need to change our behavior and expectations
4) Create flexible systems of engagement – empower the workforce (or even the ecosystem) to do what they are good at. Make it a game if you can…
It seemed to reasonate with some of the issues she'd encountered.
Here is a video put together by some of the members of the HP CTO office about these issues.
There is also a post containing a few key trends that some of the HP CTOs believe are important for 2012 and a similar 4th wave of computing post I made a few years back. I also did a podcast on a more tactical view of the implications on 2012 last week, if you're interested.
