It is time (well nearly) for those 2008 predictions

Added by Chris Gabriel, 7 months ago.

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It is as close enough to Christmas now to be thinking about making some good old New Year predictions. "Too early", many of you might think, but getting in first is vital in this annual game of being a technology Nostradamus.

In the great tradition of our friends at BT and their team of Futurologists, I will be having a crack not at 2015 but at 2008, and will henceforth be known as a ‘Notmakingitupabitologist'. Please feel free to add your own or question mine, after all, as a ‘Notmakingitupabitologist' I am quite happy with corrections.

Prediction 1! It will finally dawn upon us all that ‘collaboration' is not simply about communications and that it involves information and behaviour. I spoke at a very good conference at IBM last week on collaboration, on the basis that delivering unified communications in isolation is fine, but instant collaboration with fifteen colleagues without having the information needed at our fingertips is a bit pointless. You also cannot force people to collaborate or share ideas. People will first ‘passively participate', using social enterprise tools like expert pages, enterprise social book marking, and so on. Once they have built a community of expertise they feel comfortable with, on a single project for example, they will then collaborate more freely. Therefore, we will see a big shift in 2008 towards ‘collaboration' being discussed as communications, information and people. This will spawn more use of unified communications technologies, driven by a desire to connect organisations up at a knowledge level (people and information) and create a community of the willing.

Predication 2! We will see a much greater move within IT departments to break down the barriers of technology silos and work collectively on some of the bigger issues. In a completely un-scientific straw poll, carried out by myself over many months now, it has become apparent that very few businesses have big-bet reviews of technologies, and this is perpetuating the Chinese walls. How many of your organisations have a ‘processor' strategy in the Data Centre? I know you will have a Wintel Strategy, a UNIX strategy, even a mainframe strategy, but, how many have created a processor strategy that sets out to provide the right level of processing power for the business irrespective of which platform you finally select? The challenge of making the IT supply chain more efficient and the challenge of ever-filling data centres will create the need to look more strategically at some of these big bets and make some potentially difficult decisions. I predict that we will stop thinking I have lots of Intel therefore I will ‘Virtualise' onto less Intel, or I have lots of UNIX and I will consolidate onto less UNIX and think about enterprise wide processor reviews and strategies. We will think bigger and wider. We will think about moving entire applications across platforms, retraining people from operating system to operating systems if it provides us with the chance of making big savings and big advances in how we deliver the application and information needed by our businesses.

Prediction 3! Now, you can see, I do not make short predictions, so this is my last, and I will let you add your own in from now on. We will see the CIO/IT Director propelled ever closer to the boardroom. If, and by all accounts it is a certainty, 2008 is going to be a hard financial year for us all, IT will show its true colours and demonstrate itself as a major business differentiator. Times have been good; the world economy growing relentlessly and businesses have looked at IT as a great thing to have, but not in my opinion as the business differentiator it can be. Well, as times get tough, IT must shine through. So, IT departments who have got their house in order (got the balance between Operate and Innovate right), have created efficient platforms, got an agile infrastructure ready to change to support changing business demands will be those that deliver their businesses the key recession proof edge. IT leadership must be able to communicate this agility to the business and the business cmust be able to take advantage of it, that means connecting IT with the business and that means getting the CIO on the board ASAP. I am predicting a great year for the visibility if IT within business and public sector. We will be the ones that allow our businesses to cope better in troubled times; we just have to prove we are up to the challenge. Any CEO who doesn't allow the CIO on the board must be questioned...

Right, it is over to you, but do not forget, your status as a ‘Notmakingitupabitologist' is at stake....

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Nathan, 7 months ago

Given your comments in #1 I think you may find my post on the barriers to enterprise collaboration and how to overcome them by focusing on the flow of information interesting - http://www.e-gineer.com/v2/blog/2007/12/building-enterprise-20-on-culture-10.htm