Does IT Really Matter?

Did IT (information technology) really matter for you in the past year, in 2007?
Will IT matter for you in 2008?

Did it matter to you, for example, that Microsoft (above left) came out with Vista, its latest operating system, aimed at improving system security?

Did it or might it matter to you that Intel (above right) came out with a replacement for silicon, the metal hafnium, aimed at improving its processor performance?

If you have read the book Does IT Matter?: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage, you'd know that former editor of the Harvard Business Review, Nicholas G. Carr believes that IT does not matter; it's just a commodity.

What really matters, according to authors Howard Smith & Peter Fingar, is not so much information technology as Business Process Management.

This site takes the view that, although both IT and business process management matter a lot, what really matters, in using IT to achieve satisfaction, value and purpose in business, are people, organisation and management.

And what matters most of all is that mystical thing called Synergy.

Synergy, in the present context, is where you get:
1. People
2. Organisation
3. Management
4. Business Process
5. Information & Communications Technology
6. Development, acquisition & support of information systems
7. Data

- All combining emergently to provide Information Net-Value
to people, the organisation, and customers.

In other words, it's a holistic, or systemic approach that's needed.

At least, that's what they say in the book Making the Invisible Visible: How Companies Win with the Right Information, People and IT, by Donald Marchand et al.

For example, how do People think about IT:
- Problem oriented or customer-value oriented?
- In the box or out of the box?
- Cutting costs or getting value?
- Their problem or our problem?
- Wants or needs?
- Tactical tool or strategic resource?

In terms of Organisation, what kind of barriers are there between business managers and IT advisors, and how is the organisation set up to get real value from IT?

And what are the causes in the sensational security failures we read about, is it the Information Technology (which it might be), or is it Business Process Management?

So, yes, IT does matter, as has been shown in a number of studies.

However, people, organisation and management, in using IT to achieve satisfaction, value and purpose in business, would seem to be more critical than IT itself. These are the things that really matter.

What do you think; what matters most,
in achieving satisfaction, value and purpose with IT?

Angela & the Baby Jesus

The story of Angela and the Baby Jesus, by Frank McCourt, is a heart-touching, modern Nativity Story about a six-year old Irish girl, Angela, who thinks that the baby Jesus must be freezing in the Christmas crib, in church.

She decides to steal him from the crib, and take him through the dark, damp and deeply-cold streets of Dublin, back to her bed, to make Him warm.

Angela gets into trouble with the authorities of course, in the form of her father, the policeman, and the priest, who have little sympathy for Angela's good intentions.

Perhaps they needed a little more understanding, patience, kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, joy and love; all those things that make up the Spirit of Christmas.

In this Christmas season of 2007, and since this is a discussion site about modern technology in business; its people, organisation and management issues, it seems fitting to include this brief reference to a modern Nativity Story.

May the Spirit of Christmas be with us all this Christmas
and in the coming year.

Feliz Navidad; Happy Christmas.

Should U Facebook?

Social networking through Facebook, MySpace, and relative newcomers such as Yuwie, can represent a heavy use of time, and people who use these sites may need to evaluate the cost v. benefit of using them.

There is a strong connection between (a) information, (b) time, and (c) money. How do we use our time, and other people's, in getting, grinding and giving information?

Does the time and implicitly the money we spend in using and processing information through Facebook add Information Net-Value
to our lives and other people's? Could we use Information and Time more usefully?

And what is Information for? Is it:

• For decision-making, as university textbooks assume.
• Simply for knowledge work.
• For taking some kind of action.
• For social exchange & satisfaction, as implicit with Facebook.
  

Or is it for all these reasons, and more?

Whatever the reason and purpose for getting, grinding and giving information (Facebook being a notable example), is it worth it?

In fact there is a connection between (a) the Information we get, grind and give, (b) our use of Time, (c) the Money we spend (directly or indirectly), in buying and using IT, and (d) the Net Value we get, in some form or another, at the end of it all.

And what is IT (Information Technology) for? Same as above? The fact is that IT (or ICT - information & communications technology), and the use we make of it - such as Facebook, is a double-edged sword.

• ICT can save work, and make work.
• It can enable things we couldn't do before, and it can make us do things we didn't have to do before.
• ICT enables information which may, or may not, be useful.
• It can help in making things easier, and can make things harder.
• It can light up our life in networking with other people, or blight our life in adding stress and information overload.
• We can spend time & money on it usefully, or uselessly.
• It can reduce risk, or lead to increased risk.
  

We might therefore say that the social life of ICT-enabled information almost always has an upside and a downside to it.

The negative-net-value in Facebook Addiction (with its implications for social, moral and productivity issues in using a social networking site during business hours), is a further example of the downside.

So this article is not just about Facebook Addiction, nor is it about Should you get paid to Facebook?

What this article is really about is: Information Net-Value.
So, should U Facebook?

What do you think; should U Facebook?

Bill Gates Has IT Wrong!

Bill Gates has got IT wrong! At least, Bill Gates is dangerously half-right, in telling us that IT skills are undervalued.

IT skills are obviously important, but the challenge in business and government organisations is not the technology itself, but how to use it usefully.

Point & cllick is not where it ends, it's where it begins.

When Bill Gates went before government and business leaders in Edinburgh he gave us a Christmas present of the great man's thoughts on the skills you need to succeed in business. Was he right? It seems that everyone thinks so, judging by the enthusiastic support he received from his audience, and responses received on the BBC website.

According to Mr Gates, what we need to do, to impact productivity and profit, and enhance value and satisfaction in business life (if not life itself), is to acquire these IT skills.

But according to the 500 UK business leaders surveyed by Microsoft earlier this year, the things we need first and foremost are skills such as team working, interpersonal skills, initiative, verbal communication and analysing & problem-solving. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Microsoft survey concluded: computer knowledge 'undervalued'.

This is what Bill Gates himself said about software innovation:
"Software innovation, like almost every other innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs".

Which points to the conclusion that, in order to get innovative software products, the pre-eminent skills needed are things like team working, interpersonal skills, initiative, verbal communication and analysing & problem-solving!

Another group of senior executives who also seem to disagree with Mr Gates are the 650 senior executives surveyed in the 2007 survey of Technology Issues for Financial Executives. They said that Joining Up Business and IT (or Business-IT Alignment as they call it), is the paramount issue. Training Staff in New IT Skills, in fact, comes in at No. 16 on the list.

What's more important for these executives, below the No. 1 issue of joined-up Business-IT, are things like getting dialogue between Business and IT, improving business processes, prioritising IT investments, and achieving the expected benefits from IT.

Interestingly, at No. 14 in the Top 20, just ahead of Training Staff in New IT Skills, is Educating Senior Management on the Value of IT. So the point and click stuff, while important, is not where it's at for these business leaders.

The reason why Bill Gates is dangerously half right is that there is nothing more deceiving, nothing more likely to get our focus wrong and prevent us from winning, than a half-truth. If, for example, a business spends money on the latest version of a software product or business system and it fails to satisfy (and the majority do fail to satisfy), what is likely to have gone wrong?

The operation was successful (we got the technology right), but the patient died. There are three fundamentals that are likely to have gone wrong but which must, imperatively, be got right for business if not society itself, to harness the true value of IT. And it's not rocket science. These three fundamentals are:
- people
- organisation
- management.

Which may have resonance for Aussies & Kiwis as it give us POM!
Never mind about enhanced IT skills. First get the POM right in thinking about and developing and acquiring IT. Then productivity and profit, together with enhanced value and satisfaction in business life, is more likely to follow.

What do you think; has Bill Gates got IT wrong?