I wrote the other week about the fact that it’s not about the technology, and have had a number of conversations this week where people have proven themselves to be in violent agreement, which is great. Having said that, we continue to be in this frame of mind where IT tries to drive organisational behaviour. Fortunately, real people seem to be fighting back.
Ben Young blogged the other day about wearing your customers shoes for a day, and from an IT point of view, the customers are the people who have to use the systems and tools that we provide. Increasingly, the customers within the enterprise are pushing the technology changes. Consumer technology is becoming so powerful, and more importantly USEFUL, that people are asking simple questions of their business tools.
- “Why can’t i share documents like i do at home?”
- “Why is it so hard to see a particular file?”
- “Why can’t we just use IM and video chat?”
- “Why does b****y IT make everything so difficult?!”
(There are numerous true stories about the lunacy of processes within big business (just read any Dilbert book!) – feel free to share your own in the comments)
And to be honest – these are good, valid, and often testing questions. There are more and more tools available that can mirror what the consumer world is doing.
Keep up the good work, keep asking the questions, and gradually these technologies and ways of working will become the norm, rather than the exception.
A few Google Apps links we discovered during the week that we think you’ll get a kick out from around the world:
