The Way it Has Been

In “the old days,” it was common to show up to work and expect nothing more than a Windows PC with email and a good productivity suite.  That meant Outlook and Microsoft Office - nothing more, nothing less.  With these basic tools you could keep up with colleagues and attend to customers.  It was all about generating work product and receiving work product - one unit at a time.  What else could be needed?  Right?

Occasionally new employees would start asking for “annoyances” like:

• IM
• Wikis
• Social and departmental web sites

….but most IT departments have been able to ignore such requests because they seemed:

• too risky
• a time waster
• flash-in-the-pan busy work, with no longevity or upkeep

…and so we continue to use Outlook and Office and have moved on with our lives.

And Then Something Happened

Something started happening in the past couple of years where these little time wasters and annoyances started to become useful.  Departments started to use IM (against the wishes and policies of IT) because it made them more efficient.  Professionals started to connect via LinkedIn and Twitter and sharing information became more important.  Suddenly, modern tools were not to be ignored.

Have you ever collaborated on a document using Google Docs?  The experience is seamless, efficient and empowering.  Tried the same by emailing a Word document back and forth?  It is frustrating, time consuming and disjointed.  These new tools did not just creep into our lives, they leap frogged over the old tools and made them seem silly.

So what has IT done in response?  They give you Outlook and Word and tell you to have a good day.  They are really nice about.  And what do you expect?  Users have complained for years that they do not understand the tools that they already have, so why would IT think they could roll out access to a whole bunch of modern tools that may or may not be used properly.  That and IT departments are trying to control all of this information chaos…not add to it.

But here’s a clue to IT departments everywhere:  It is going to get worse.  Who saw the announcement from Google about the new Google Wave service that will be available later this year?  It is a new communications platform that really will change everything.  Connecting with people, collaborating with people and communicating with people will be easier and more powerful than ever before.  It will be a HUGE game changer and not a single company will be ready, because it will seem risky or a time waster or a flash-in-the-pan…..until it isn’t.

The Way it Will Be

New employees will come out of college, come out of grad-school and expect to use tools that work.  Lateral hires from other companies will not even know how to function without modern collaboration and productivity services.  If their new company does not support these services or provide these tools, the employees will make an end-run around IT and use them anyway, so they can get their jobs done.

So what is IT to do?  How are they going to respond?  Will they encourage progress and make things happen or be a road-block to success?  Whatever happens, one things for sure: progress will not stand still.