A few signs of the ongoing sea change in IT.
I’ve been doing a series of interviews with IT executives over the past few months about their technology plans for the back half of 2012. I’ve had a number of discussions on a variety of topic areas but there has been a big theme that I’ve noticed. It seems one of the biggest challenges with IT is dealing with so many issues that were once exceptions to IT, or even not allowed, that have become part of the new norm for IT.
For example, and this has become obvious to most, take the whole BYOD wave. Consumer devices were once brought in on an exception basis. High-performing workers, business leaders and, my favorite, the loud worker who complains so much that IT caves were once the exceptions to the “no consumer device” policy. Now, of course, BYOD hasn’t just become the norm – many organizations use it as a way of attracting employees. One of the main drivers for BYOD revolves around another exception and that is the fact the users feel they have better technology at home than they do in the workplace. A decade ago, many individuals feared technology so they left the decision making to IT. Today, everyone’s an expert.
Another example is around who makes IT decisions. Back in the day, during my tenure in corporate IT, we tech people made all the decisions with very few exceptions. Today, primarily because of the cloud, there are far more line-of-business leaders and IT executives making decisions than ever before. When it comes to cloud, including line of business in the decision process has definitely become the norm.
Macs in the workplace also used to be an exception. It seems like just yesterday when you saw someone with a Mac it seemed really out of place in the work environment. That’s certainly not the case today as not only users are bringing in their own Macs, but IT departments are buying and supporting themas well. The use of Macs has grown since the launch of iPads. I do believe that the use of iPads in the workplace has made using Macs less intimidating for long-time Windows users.
Another historical exception is the use of video in the work place. While the capabilities have been around for decades, the use of video was a very unusual event and something that required a significant amount of IT time. When I was in IT, it took about 30-45 minutes of IT time to get video calls going, sometimes even longer. Now, almost every new device has a camera on it and it’s so easy to hold a videoconference with someone. While video isn’t quite “the new voice,” as Cisco claims, it has become a mainstream technology and I find myself having a few video calls per week. I’d like to see better interoperability, but the technology is light years better than it was even five years ago.
The last example of an “exception” that has become a norm is working from home. At one time, working from home required approval from human resources, support from IT and a bunch of other hoop jumping. Today, not only is working from home accepted, it’s become preferred for some roles, such as on demand call center agents. The ubiquity of chat and mobile phones combined with IP-based video and voice has removed the fear that user productivity will fall when individuals work from home.
There’s a definite sea change occurring with corporate technology and part of the role of IT is to understand when these changes occur. There are many “exceptions” today, such as tablet computing and social media that, I believe, will become the norm in the near future. IT leaders need to embrace these and make these changes happen instead of waiting for them to happen.
