Everchanging IT - Pervasive Technology

I have been working in the ever changing and evolving Information Technology (IT) industry for over 20 years and seen the rapid advancement and adoption of technology become so pervasive and mainstream that it is no longer the domain of information technology people.  IT was once restricted to the domains of research and development projects such as the oil exploration system written in C++ or the back office payroll and accounting systems written in Cobol/DB2/CICS that I started my career in were in the hands of professionally trained staff and educated users, this is no longer the case.

I started to write this on a flight from Wellington to New Zealand in Oct 2011 after watching the documentary "Front Page: A year inside the New York Times" directed by Andrew Rossi, that explores the perilous situation that the print media finds itself in as internet surpasses print media as the source of information and the impact it has on the traditional revenue source of cover price and advertising.  It got me thinking about how to capture the experiences that I have gained as well as the experiences of many of the friends and colleagues that I have worked with over the years to help shape where we are going...

Industry Trends Past and Present

The Information Technology industry is only 40 years old and is relative immature when you compare it to other fields such as mathematics, engineering, manufacturing and finance.  This is particularly evident when looking at the adoption of standards, approaches and governance and the race for technological superiority.

However there have been many so called inflection points that were hyped by as the solution and revolution of the industry.  It is important to spend some time and explore many of the solutions and technologies that have come and gone as it is the lessons learnt from these have driven the innovation to address the shortcomings and built on the previous capability for example:

• Computers: Mainframe to Mini to Midrange to PC to tablet
• Programming: 2GL, 3GL - procedural, 4GL - declarative, Object Orientation
• Word Processing: electronic typewriter to word star to Microsoft word
• Search Engine: Alta Vista to Yahoo to Google
• Information Exchange: EDI, batch processing, XML
• Integration: batch processing, service orientation
• Collaboration: inter office memo, facsimile, email, chat, Facebook, twitter ...
• Communication: telex, telegram, telephone, VoIP, SMS, Skype, facetime

Which brings us to today...  What are the top items and priorities for today's Chief Information Officer.

1. Information Technology Optimisation
2. Data Centre Optimisation
3. Cloud Computing

However what are the hottest consumer trends

1. Social Media and Collaboration
2. Online commerce and Analytics (big data)
3. Content Consumption : news, music, movies, television

This represents a significant mismatch between the agendas of many professional IT managers and the demands that consumers of information are looking for, not only in the context of the creation of products and services, but also in attracting and developing the next generation of knowledge worker.

So given that the past has been such a valid indicator of the future, what are the current shortcomings in the approaches and capabilities in today systems that we need to review to plan for the solutions that we need to provide in the future?

Keen to get your thoughts...