Kjellquist Blog

Very interesting up date on an old (if you’re old enough) theme from CIO Magazine. Basically, it is a story about how smart users are getting technology tools and how they are bringing in their own solutions to the workplace. I say this is an old theme because I saw exactly the same concerns expressed with the introduction of personnel computing to the workplace. Today it seems laughable but when we transitioned from the central mainframes to PCs the gatekeepers were spelling the end of organized business because everyone was going to have computer power. However the CIO Mag article does have some interesting statistics from the Pew Internet and American Life Project

Quoting Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew project

“The big story is that the boundary that existed in people’s lives between the workplace and the home has broken down,” says Rainie. Almost unlimited storage and fast new communication tools allow people to use whatever information they choose, whenever they want to, from wherever is most convenient for them.

According to Pew, 42 percent of Internet users download programs, 37 percent use instant messaging, 27 percent have used the Internet to share files, and 25 percent access the Internet through a wireless device. (And these numbers are all one or two years old. Rainie “would bet the ranch” that the current numbers are higher.)

I would also bet the ranch that besides increasing with time, they are also much larger for a tech savvy workforce and even larger for younger workers.

Again from the article

The consumer technology universe has evolved to a point where it is, in essence, a fully functioning, alternative IT department. Today, in effect, users can choose their technology provider. Your company’s employees may turn to you first, but an employee who’s given a tool by the corporate IT department that doesn’t meets his needs will find one that does on the Internet or at his neighborhood Best Buy.

“Employees are looking to enhance their efficiency,” says André Gold, director of information security at Continental Airlines. “People are saying, ‘I need this to do my job.'” But for all the reasons listed above, he says, corporate IT usually ends up saying no to what they want or, at best, promising to get to it…eventually. In the interim, users turn to the shadow IT department.

Note that this shadow IT department (referring to the Internet or local Best Buy) has profound implications for customer relationships in IT companies. Just as employees may feel this way about their internal IT departments. They will similar expectations about mission capabilities and IT that vendors deliver. “What you mean it’ll be 2 years, I’ll just go to Best Buy and get it! Or, maybe 75% of capability.

The article goes on for 4 pages and discusses CIO responses to this “threat” from users. Interesting reading