Web 2.0's Future All Depends On IT's Future - The Diigo Meta page

• 30 Nov 07
  

  mark van

  Apr 2007 Will CIOs embrace the web or seek refuge with tools proved by the traditional big companies? Long article, refereces, two conflicting surveys

  web2.0 enterprise2.0 enterprise futurerology

• 11 Sep 07
  

  faeringen

  analysis læsestof_udskrevet opinion prediciton web2.0

• 16 Apr 07
  

  Tac Anderson

  edelman enrterprise2.0 web2.0

• 13 Apr 07
  

  Martin Koser

  IT Departments WILL disappear, much like the typing pool has

  web2.0 toread technology it-department enterprise2.0 adoption toblog

• 

  Orlin Monad

  analysis enterprise it item trends web2.0

  • My slant is that IT Departments WILL disappear, much like the typing pool has. My wife (my dad, my 3-year-old son ...) uses as much computing power as most office workers (browser, editing, video, homepage, search ...) and they don't have an IT department (not even me).
    
    If they can then surely businesses can.
  • By relaxing its vise-like grip on the technological wheel, IT can actually save itself from the bend in the road. By adopting a different social contract, IT may thrive again as differentiator in business - not by its ability to babysit the workforce, but by its ability to educate.
  • 10 more annotations...
  • • The LEF recognizes enterprise IT as a social contract among individuals and outlines a maturation step for everyone - IT, employees and management - in order to achieve the next generation of technology and business requirements. What the LEF describes to me is IT developing into more of an interactive, bi-directional department that concentrates less on policing and more on supporting its employees. In return, employees will have the responsibility to educate themselves on best practices and even bear the consequences of their decisions. As a result, employees will be able to choose the appropriate tools for their needs, information technology will again provide corporations with advantages over competitors. Accordingly, Web 2.0, and the entire software industry, should explode as the next generation arrives and is adopted.
    • But what if IT let technology be commoditized and instead focused on information? Could there be an 'educational' model whereby corporations may be able to compete less on technology and more on  information - specifically interpreting, analyzing and communicating information; much like a university? We all recognize the value of a Harvard or MIT, for example. So could IT departments eventually hold similar prestige and value?
    • Much like Joshua Bell playing violin during rush hour, you may have one of the great technical solutions in the world, but - as of today - the audience will be meager. And things will only get worse as CIO budgets constrict, solution providers winnow and IT slowly disappears. 
    • Unlike electricity, information has no inherent, physical properties. Information requires both interpretation and communication to give it value. As of today, that frames information technology as a wholly human endeavor. Furthermore, institutions such as working groups, professional guilds and even universities demonstrate that the best way to exchange ideas and knowledge is still person-to-person.

    • If indeed IT is undergoing a transformation similar to a power grid, then it follows that the focus of IT is how to do more with less. This in turn means less resources for implementing anything requiring more pieces, hence the desire to purchase broader solutions from fewer and larger vendors. Taking things to their logical conclusion, it's not a stretch, and even quite probable, that in the end IT will be a department of one - choosing, among the commoditized solutions, the best fit for the company. However, while information can travel in bits and bytes at the speed of light, it is not electricity. And a person is most definitely not a lamp.

      
      

    • business IT today is much like business power generation of yesterday - needed at the time, but better performed as a specialized entity that can properly scale. As businesses realized the superiority of commoditized and standard power distribution, they dismantled their water wheels and plugged into the grid. As a result, even though we take it for granted, anyone can go to any lighting store, purchase a lamp, plug it in and work well into the night. 'The End of Corporate Computing' makes a lot of sense when IT is compared to a utility.
    • Every generation there's a company that CIOs can purchase from which is considered 'safe' - perhaps because it's the best solution; certainly because everybody else is doing it. However, this is, in the long run, a self-defeating strategy. If there is no variation, then there is no advantage. If there is no advantage, then there is no superior profit margin. And if there is no superior profit margin, then there is no way to treat IT other than as a cost center. Suddenly the IT Cheetah is suffering from too little genetic variation and a decidedly herd mentality. If a social, more collaborative gene is suddenly needed, how much effort will be required to grow and nurture it - or is it even possible?
    • what if the next generation of business winners are selected by their ability to enhance communication - not just within the confines of business firewalls among colleagues, but outside the firewall with anybody that can provide an advantage? Furthermore, such choices in communication are highly individual. How will this square with IT departments that are trying to centralize every and all technology.
    • Most corporate IT departments today are well suited to catching and devouring modern information problems.

    • The IT Factor

      
      

      What is the current role of IT? A quick Google search gives us a few options:

      
      
      • Includes all matters concerned with the furtherance of computer science and technology and with the design, development, installation, and implementation of information systems and applications;
      • a term that encompasses all forms of technology used to create, store, exchange and utilize information in its various forms including business data, conversations, still images, motion pictures and multimedia presentations;
      • Information technology provides the "engine" used to drive useful information systems. This includes computers, software, Internet/Intranet and telecommunications technology.
• 12 Apr 07
  

  michelemmartin
  • By adopting a different social contract, IT may thrive again as differentiator in business - not by its ability to babysit the workforce, but by its ability to educate.
  • Doug Neal and The Leading Edge Forum presents this more compelling alternative. The LEF recognizes enterprise IT as a social contract among individuals and outlines a maturation step for everyone - IT, employees and management - in order to achieve the next generation of technology and business requirements. What the LEF describes to me is IT developing into more of an interactive, bi-directional department that concentrates less on policing and more on supporting its employees. In return, employees will have the responsibility to educate themselves on best practices and even bear the consequences of their decisions. As a result, employees will be able to choose the appropriate tools for their needs, information technology will again provide corporations with advantages over competitors. Accordingly, Web 2.0, and the entire software industry, should explode as the next generation arrives and is adopted.
  • 1 more annotations...
  • • But what if IT let technology be commoditized and instead focused on information? Could there be an 'educational' model whereby corporations may be able to compete less on technology and more on  information - specifically interpreting, analyzing and communicating information; much like a university?

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