THE major force on organisations to change their technology

Technology changes have a dramatic affect on people and therefore groups of people be they communes, communities of corporations.

Within the workplace the change from the "work place" IT environment to the "consumer" IT environment is one akin to boiling water and the frog. Not heard that analogy, here it is from Wikipedia:

The boiling frog story states that a frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough — it is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out.

I am trying to get organisations and particularly IT Departments to see the change in "water temperature".

Forrester Research have just released a report reaching the same conclusions:

"Technology populism is driven by people's needs to interact," says Forrester analyst Matthew Brown. "Today's organisations are increasingly dominated by Generation Xers and Millennials, a workforce that is adept at provisioning its own technology and one that is willing to shun traditional methods of communication. For many employees, the telephone and email are being replaced by text messaging, instant messaging and mobile devices, such as iPhones and BlackBerrys, and social computing tools like Facebook and Wikipedia."

Source: Computerworld - Populism will drive the next IT wave: Forrester

Ok, so the IT Department may have to allow a few more websites through but that's it, surely ... think again:

According to Brown, "One leading technology vendor told Forrester that one of its clients required Sony PlayStation support because many of its younger employees used PlayStations instead of PCs."

The IT Department is slowly moving away from the one stop shop for your IT requirements - you are becoming your own technical support. People want choice, to work in the way they feel more comfortable and to carry on their normal on-line lives without having to conform to organisational boundaries.

Not everyone. Some just want what they're given and get on with it.
When that number become the minority (as it surely will) what then for IT Support Desks?

All of this change away from command-and-control is not new of course - compare how you currently work and this video of a typical 1950's office worker:


I think you'll agree that we've been on this road to a more natural workplace for quite some time now!

Other views on this report is at ReadWriteWeb: Technology Populism: Risks & Rewards and Capgemini CTO blog.
BTW: Almost every site I listed in the Google results merely regurgitated the Forrester press release!?!


Other related articles:

• What's the difference between software you WANT to use and the stuff you HAVE to
• 5 steps for CIOs to cope with the "shadow IT Department"
• 50 reasons not to change
• Beware of IT excuses when you want to do something