Where's the Beef

Getting I.T.

In 1998, Spencer Johnson wrote the well known parable or business fable: Who Moved My Cheese? “An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life”. It describes change in one's work and life, and four typical reactions to said change by two mice and two "littlepeople", during their hunt for cheese.

Similarly, I’ve been commenting in my preceding blog entries on how the “cheese” is getting moved for our I.T. departments and functions by an evolving business landscape, and that the industry is forced to re-evaluate itself due to this changes in circumstance. A change I cynically believe has been self induced.

I tried to show how we as I.T. Managers have to contend with the imminent changes we face organizationally and technically as a result. As I.T. functions we are mandated to prepare for a demise in the way we’ve become accustomed to for delivering I.T.. It is time to get ready for something new, and better.

Our vendors indeed face the same challenges.

I  comment and draw from my day-to-day experiences when contemplating subject matter for my blog (sometimes with eventful and surprising outcomes when the unintentional collaborators discover their part in inspiring a new insight). The entry for this week is no different. It draws from another “cheese moving” experience with which I was confronted first-hand, while interfacing with an application vendor, and a reputable I.T. infrastructure provider. 

The one gets “it”, and the other not yet, and possibly never.

In this blog entry I will cover the typical “classical” vendor landscape perspective discussed earlier in my writings. However, this time I hope to show that the vendor landscape model is still valid, but that the emphasis has been shifting to serve Generation 3 ready organizations moving towards business integration, managed service reliance and outcomes based delivery. Software as a Service is leading the way with rapid solution adoption and with day-to-day operations and support services included. But, there is more to come.

Some vendors will adjust their offerings to the new demands, and others won’t. Those that do, will have a better future and I argue, will prevail. Those that don’t will be relegated to the badlands for a slow and sometimes not so slow demise.

The question that begs is: Just how should vendors adjust their offerings to meet these demands? And, what should they do with I.T. departments and executives that just don’t get “it”.

The Lay of the Land

Vendor offerings can roughly be classified into four distinguishable offerings with a fee charging approach that varies between charges for time and materials to charges for business outcomes. 

The four offerings include: Resource Provisioning or Consulting, Solution Implementation and Modification, Solution Operate and Support, and lastly, Business Process Delivery.

Resource Provisioning, Contracting, Body Shopping, or disguised in a more “civil” cloak by some Companies as “Consulting” is the first of these offerings. A resource is provisioned on a fee per hour or day with a promise, or potential outcome for the client. 

The contractor or consultant is typically engaged as a specialist temporary arrangement and managed under the client’s prescribed processes, direction, and is mostly required to use the client’s tool landscape. 

This offering forms a large part of the prevailing vendor landscape with margins ranging from 5% from recruitment outfits, to 250% from the big consulting firms, depending on the scarcity and demand for a particular skill set (and their value they profess to contribute to your business).

In the next evolution of the I.T. service landscape this offering is bound to come under pressure as organizations move more towards outcome focussed service procurement, and away from in-house, and custom built or configured solutions.

The client’s reliance on temporary specialist technical skills will reduce. The client will leave it to the service vendor to procure, organize and manage the average day-to-day I.T. contractor instead of contracting the labour for in-house initiatives. Vendors will do more work for the clients, so vendors will require this temporary labour to provide flexibility to their delivery.

The service vendor will integrate this skill into defining and delivering their service outcome and offering. The niche opportunities that will remain for contractors or consultants are Advisory Services on Strategy, Business Architecture and Management Services. These consultants will contribute to crafting and motivating the future state for the client’s organization. Executing the state will be left to a larger vendor landscape under management provision by experts, internally and sourced external from the company.

The second offering of Solution Implementation and Modification is where a vendor is contracted to develop, configure and implement a custom configured solution in software or infrastructure. The solution is typically owned by the client. The vendor does it under a fixed price, and owns the majority of the risk associated with success or failure of the engagement. 

Due to the risk associated with meeting a client’s ever evolving requirements, vendors have typically shun away from this type of offering in favour of a less risky and more flexible time and material contractor provisioning model (as described above in the first offering). 

For example: If one was to buy a house in this approach, the buyer will specify the expectation and the builder will have the responsibility, for a fixed fee, to build the house as per specification. 

The alternative under vendor offering one, is when a builder has a reduced appetite for risk, and instead of building a house as per specification for a fixed price, it is more willing to fall back on the contractor offering by making its building skills available to the client to use as they see fit. It is up to the client to apply the skills of the builders, carpenters and project managers for building a house. The builder and crew is rewarded on a fee per hour basis. The risk is transferred back to the client - vendor offering one prevails.

Solutions for Business Outcomes

The good news is that with the advent of more mature standard industry operating frameworks it is becoming easier for vendors to offer outcome based solutions and customizations instead of bespoke custom and unique systems. This has become easier in customer relationship management, financial management, service level management, and others. 

For example: A project management software vendor can now offer a feature set in its solution that is underpinned with as much as eighty percent or more common, industry accepted features and processes (PMBOK). This greatly reduces the risk, implementation time, and requires a lower level of customization. The client can fast track mature industry compliant business practices on solutions that offer uniform industry accepted functionality. 

Vendors like SAP lead the way with configurable solutions that relies less on I.T. technical capability and software development and more on leading standard industry wide business process driven configuration with minimal client customization (still very expensive if one goes the customization route). 

The same is prevailing now in the infrastructure landscape with networking, server, storage and even hosted desktop solutions being made readily available to clients without the need for risky and costly implementation and customization cycles, or the need to procure and own technology. These are referred to as Managed Services or Selective Outsourcing offerings.

Where’s the Beef

It is in this part of the delivery landscape that I stepped into it recently. 

I’ve engaged a professed ITIL Service Level Management solution provider for a rapidly deployable industry standard solution that requires minimal customization. And, in the event of a required customization it should make it easy enough for a non-technical person to execute. I was looking for a business outcome of Service Level Management and did not want to be concerned with the technology. It must just work. 

Once the sales honeymoon came to an end, I discovered that instead, I got the all too familiar classical configuration platform with configurability up the yin-yang, and a professional services engagement that will see me come back for more frequently, often and routinely. 

This approach just won’t do anymore, regardless of the vendor professing that their flexibility is their customers’ preference. It is my conviction that clients are tired of the professional service engagement. Tired of having to think through customizations where industry processes have already done the thinking for them. Tired of architectural superiority matches while it is all going to be out of date in two years anyway. And, tired of vendors selling flexibility in their technology to disguise their passion and desire for ongoing services revenue.

What customers want is a business outcome in business language, and technology that makes it accessible anywhere anytime. Simple, quickly and preferably without the I.T. department’s involvement. 

Please I.T. people and vendors alike, get it!

With the new trend towards ‘Software as a Service” (SaaS), a provider licenses an application to customers as a service on demand, through a subscription or a “pay-as-you-go” model. SaaS is also called “software on demand.” SaaS was initially widely deployed for sales force automation and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Now, it has become commonplace for many businesses tasks, including computerized billing, invoicing, human resource management, and service desk management, amongst other.

The beauty of SaaS is that it also addresses the third offering in the vendor landscape: Solution Operate and Support. The vendor provides the infrastructure, operation, maintenance and support overhead included in the solution and business outcome. No need for this to be done by the internal I.T. department anymore.

Customers gravitate towards these solutions because it provides easy and rapid access to business outcomes. It makes things simple. It offers a level of customization, but still retains its promise of obscuring complexity in favour of industry standard execution and rapid adoption. 

The vendors that prevail are those that firstly meet these demands, but secondly set the tone for the evolution of the business outcome or industry in which it operates. If it is a Project Management solution vendor, they contribute not only through a tool that supports the practice, but they also help define the next evolution of the practice of project management. They make Project Management better. The same applies for vendors making CRM better, Warehouse Management, email better and more.

These are the solutions for the future, and no amount of data security scaremongering by the I.T. department will contain the deluge and migration towards a service where the promises are kept, and the outcome is already available the moment your credit card is processed. And, where the client’s I.T. department need not concern itself with any technical Operations and Support demands. 

All that remains is to direct the mice to their cheese.

Disenfranchised Techies

This brings me to my second vendor encounter the past week. I dealt with an infrastructure vendor that classically sell and implemented infrastructure solutions (servers, networks, etc.). They also provide outsourcing services for these infrastructural components. 

The vendor is aware of, and is recognizing that the lifecycle and the nature of the sale is rapidly moving away from the technical, custom and locally installed sale towards the business outcome driven “give me the beef” sale. 

They recognize that while the conversation with an I.T. department is still very much about the technology sale, that there is a new audience in town. This audience talks business outcomes with little regard to what the composition of the solution architecture necessarily contain.

Vendors are confronted with no longer selling to an I.T. department on the grounds of their supported or preferred technology choice, but rather to a business stakeholder with a service outcome in mind.

However, the vendor’s sales people are still distracted in interfacing their offerings through their client’s technical gatekeepers - the I.T. department. 

They discovered that the very people they deal with in the I.T. department is under threat of being disenfranchised by an outcome based offering. The I.T. department and its techies will become obsolete thanks to an outcome based service. 

It is natural that the technical I.T. folk will obstruct these engagements where possible as a result, and call the integrity of the solutions and vendors in question at every opportunity. The very nature of the command and control through complexity culture prevailing in the majority of I.T. functions, are being challenged by vendors, and thankfully by business stakeholders recognizing the issue as well.

This realization leaves the vendor with some soul searching on not only selling their current offerings in a different manner, but also coming up with new services that are meeting the demands for business outcomes. The vendor will have to evaluate and accommodate the impact this is bound to have on their own delivery organization when they assume the service outcome, and therefore business risk, for their clients. 

In the past, core platform decisions were usually deferred to the client (even in large outsourcing deals). In managed services, the platform decision is only relevant to the client in so far as it supports the contracted business outcome. 

In reality the client should not be bothered with it. The client should not necessarily be concerned about the brand of the devices in the network, as long as the business outcomes of throughput, reliability and security is met. The same applies for storage or servers. 

For example: When a mobile phone network access service is sourced, no consumer has any desire to know if it is Ericsson or Motorola providing the technology for the network. When processing is provided by Amazon’s Cloud Services there is no real reason to know if it is done on HP or Dell servers.

The technology decision becomes even more important to the service provider’s business because it underpins the maturity of their offering, and impacts their own cost structure, growth and competitiveness in the market. 

Clients mostly don’t care about the platform, as long as it is up, secure, doing what it is contracted to do, and if an option is available to extract from the vendor’s service and move it to another competing service relatively easily. 

Conclusion

There are two winners in this story, and one loser. 

The first is the solution provider that positions for industry standard business process and service execution on completed (slightly customizable) solutions. 

These are solutions that are available to clients for rapid adoption, without the need for professional services engagements (or an I.T. department’s involvement). 

These solutions come underpinned with all the required infrastructure, operations and support services. These providers not only provide the solutions, but also contributes to evolving the industry practices its solutions supports. 

The second winner is the client signing up for these service outcomes from above solution providers. These are clients focussed on their core business, leaving the experts to do the solutioning. 

These clients rapidly evolve their business practices thanks to mature, industry leading (true industry leading) solution providers, that anticipated their needs.

There is one loser in this story. It is the I.T. department that doesn’t realize that their cheese has moved.

Your comments and views are always welcome.

Hendrik van Wyk

VAMA - The Case for Value Add

VAMA

The concept of “value add” is misunderstood and often misused in business. Its proliferation in daily business language has become so ubiquitous and it is so frustratingly overused that some of my colleagues started to refer to it as VAMA (Value Add, My Ass).

Value Add Everywhere

Clients are frequently targeted with manipulative “added value” offerings by vendors attempting to differentiate themselves. 

For example: A vendor may claim to be offering “added value” by doing something additional to that which is typically expected from their service or product. They offer a sizzle with the steak by including a free coffee, a free towel, hockey tickets, or smile with their service.

Some vendors or organizations claim “value add” simply because they believe they are better at it than their competition. If you deal with Vendor A, you are getting added value. Vendor A knows what they are doing, and B doesn't. Thus, your vendor A adds value.

Others attempt to package added value as a service or offering in its own right, by adding the term value to what they are offering. For example adding “Value Management” to Project Management to differentiate from competition. 

Value Delivery and Added Chains

Programs and Projects are tasked with implementing a business’ strategy, and in the process is responsible for delivering “value” to our business endeavours or improvements. Our Projects are driving for Earned Value as the holy grail of sophistication. Showing more “value” than the the cost of the work performed is the goal. Apparently, the ability to calculate added value distinguishes good Project Managers from others.

We also use “value” in the definition of a chain of events or interactions that is said to improve the product or service. 

The value chain, is a concept from business management that was first described and popularized by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance”. 

In Porter’s definition: “The value chain is a chain of activities for a firm operating in a specific industry. The chain of activities gives the products (or service) more added value than the sum of added values of all activities.” Two plus two becomes more than four if value is added in the process.

Value Confused

What then is this value then that we are so easily interjecting into our daily business language, and why should it matter? Is there substance, or is it merely VAMA?

Finding Value

To get a better understanding of value, we need to turn ourselves to the experts:

The origin of the term is Old French: The feminine past participle of valoir ‘be worth’, from the Latin: Valere. 

We find the following explanation in the dictionary for the word “value” as a noun: “The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance or preciousness of something.” It is an amount, colour property, duration, ideal, numerical quantity, or worth. As a verb, it is about appreciation, assess (estimate), judge ,respect, importance and benefit. 

It is used in written language 1 in 5,300 times and spoken 1 in 14,000 times. (www.wolframalpha.com)

Once we depart from the basic definitions of amount and quantity, it becomes clear that “value” as a term cannot stand by itself. It is rather used in conjunction with other concepts to improve clarity or define a characteristic. For example: Value Marketing, value investing, intrinsic value, store of value or value add (our favourite).

In economics, the difference between the sale price of a product and the cost of materials to produce it, is the value (added).

Simon Sinek summed it up well: “In reality, value is a feeling.  And that feeling is created when someone perceives (not calculates) that what they are getting, vastly outweighs what they are paying. If it were a calculation of getting more than you pay, we wouldn't call it value, we'd call it a bargain. And because value is a feeling, it takes more than stuff to have someone feel they are getting more.” http://sinekpartners.typepad.com/refocus/2010/05/value-formula.html 

Value Significance

Now that we have some “perspective” on the meaning of “value”, how is it significant to what we are doing as Managers in I.T.? 

A simple approach is to understand at the outset how much a desired object, service or condition is worth to our client. If we know this, we can drive for a condition or outcome that is relatively better. We can add value.

Without a perspective of the worth, no amount of additional effort, lower cost, or more delivery, will satisfy a need. As we've seen above, worth is not just a quantity in monetary value or time. It is also a feeling of trust, appreciation, or recognition. 

The best way to truly understand worth is to define it in terms of “lack off”. If your Mr. Client, did not have “a” or “b”, what will that mean to them? How will it make them feel? 

If we can somehow quantify the purpose or desired state and the worth of it, then we can demonstrate improvement or value. For example: If we have a base expectation that a product or service will be delivered on a certain date, and it is important to be on that date (for a birthday), and it arrived a day or two earlier, then we have created value. However, if the delivery date was not of importance (it was not worth anything to the client if it was a day early or late), then no amount of early delivery will make any difference. No value will be added and perceived by the customer.

The old simple truth for value creation therefore rings true: Find out what your client expects, and exceed that expectation. Then you add value. 

If you assume or are misaligned with your client's expectations, then the only value that is added is the likely cost of you giving your client something that they don't care about or appreciate. 

Value is only added when the expectation is exceeded. Providing something additional that is not related to the expectation is a waste of money and effort. The coffee mug, towel or hockey tickets are nice, but not valuable. It is likely not going to be perceived as value. A promotional gift is not value added. A quality report on a project's performance is not value add, especially when it is expected. 

An easy test to determine if something is of value is to determine if the client will be willing to pay for it if he/she can get it. If the answer is no, don't bother. You are wasting your and your client's time. Stick to delivering the core expectation. 

Stick to the Core

Fifteen years ago I was fortunate to do a dissertation on consumer behaviour. Without going into the details of the dissertation, I made a discovery that is quite appropriate to this conversation. I discovered that no amount of “value add” will ever make up for a core failure to meet an expectation. 

For example: If a client has an expectation to withdraw cash from an automated bank teller machine, and the machine fails to provide the desired cash, then no feature of the experience or technology, no matter how sophisticated, can make up for the failure of the core expectation. The client’s core need was not met. No value is possible.

As I.T. Managers (Portfolio, Program, Project and Service Managers) we sometimes get so distracted from the core expectation of our clients, by our supposed value adding features, that we fail the expectations of our clients. 

Frankly, clients do not care if we are using tool “a” or tool “b”, if we use framework “d” or “e”. What they ultimately want is a kept promise, and an expected outcome to materialize with agreed attributes. 

For example: It mostly doesn't matter if the email was sent via Google or Microsoft. What does matter is that it is easy to do, and that the message got through, securely. The value thereafter may be getting the message through faster, and more securely with an easier interface. It probably doesn't matter if it is an Oracle or MySQL database that stores the data. What matters is that the data is accessible, fast and stored economically. Thereafter, the value can be added by making it even more accessible, faster and more economical. 

The roses or coffee mug with the the sale of a new database is not value. The training or extra support is not either. It is a distraction. It confuses clients and is most likely going to work against your offering in the long run. 

Keeping a promise or meeting an expectation is not value. It is the prerequisite for value. If we can do better than our promise, then, and only then do we add value. 

Conclusion

What we know now is that there is no standard definition for the word value. It has to have context, and it has to be distinguished alongside a client's core expectation. 

Only use the word “value” when you are clearly prepared to explain what you mean. Value in the context of our management duties can only be claimed if you exceed expectation. When you do better than what was promised. 

If you don’t, people will soon learn not to value what you say. If you do not understand how to add value, you merely distract and confuse, and waste your and your clients valuable time and resources.

Let us provide value excessively, now that we know what we are talking about. Believe me when I say, you will be distinguished from your competition.

Your comments and views are always welcome.

Hendrik van Wyk

Another Generation Story - for a beloved CEO

The Board Meeting

A few weeks ago I had the privilege to lunch with two leading C.I.O’s. One item we discussed was the increasing difficulty faced by the C.I.O to bring an organization’s Board of Directors along for the I.T. journey.

We agreed that educating a Board of Directors on the true implications of the technology and information landscape’s evolution is becoming more and more important. 

It is no mystery that information technology and its management is fundamental to any business’ day-to-day operations and in most cases principal to its ongoing survival. A Board ignores this large important item on the company’s agenda and strategy at its own peril.

While the modern day C.I.O wrestles daily with the need for corporate information on-tap, technical complexity, fast-paced obsolesce, unwieldy organizations, heartless clients, and the next project staring infinite doom in the face, it somehow has to also beat the drum that sets the rhythm for boardroom decision making.

The question we got stuck on during this conversation was: “How best to bring an organization’s Board along for the journey when most Board members think I.T. are those overpriced people that fix PC’s?” This important duty needs to be undertaken while I.T. is considered the bottomless financial pit that talks in incomprehensible three letter acronyms, which they use for defining imminent “doom and disaster”. I.T. is what you need (to blame) if nothing else can be held accountable for poor business performance, rising cost, sluggish response, broken promises and product or service failures.

We have yet to land on a consensus answer for this dilemma. 

While pondering an approach, I was invited to attend such a meeting first hand where I was offered an opportunity to air my views on this and other more pressing technology related strategic matters for my client. 

The topic I chose for the main theme of the conversation was the generational implications of the corporate user base for I.T. Services. The crux of the dialogue reflected on the digital divide between the different age groups of users we serve in Corporate I.T., and their individual preferences and attitudes towards technology and information. I aimed to demonstrate that our traditional “one-size-fits-all” approach to provisioning technology and information services for this diverse group of users was no longer meeting the needs of the modern day Knowledge Worker. 

As C.I.O’s we need to be sensitive to what each generation values and provide accordingly. If we do not, we risk losing valuable skill, disable talent, or worse, put our company out of business.

While the exchange was well received, it appeared to have been lost on one or more of the more important members of the party: Namely, the C.E.O. 

He politely reminded me at the next day’s postmortem, that if I ever worked on my iPhone during a Board meeting again, that he will not hesitate to “break my fingers”. While this will be a tumultuous feat for a man with his physical stature against my muscled frame, it got me thinking. 

Firstly, what irritates the baby boomer  generation so much about our use of technology (iPhones, Laptops, BlackBerries and more) during and for the purpose of meetings or conversations. 

Secondly, except for the primal fight or flight response when threatened with physical violence, why is it that when you touch a Generation X’s gadget (namely my use of the iPhone), are you also inherently touching his person. 

Thirdly, how would a Generation Y have responded (if it indeed made it, and were tolerated enough for a Board meeting)? 

Attitudes

It is clear that the different generations have different attitudes toward technology and their work environments. And yes, I am going to generalize and address broad categories in this Blog entry specific to knowledge workers. 

Please don’t be offended. By reading this Blog entry, you have already distinguished yourself. 

Let’s start with: 

The Fountain Pen and Office Memo Generation:

This is the generation that has grudgingly graduated away from the fountain pen and office memo towards the use of a personal computer. They are a league of employees loyal to the hand of their masters who promises stability, career progression, healthcare, succession and easy retirement.

Information technology in this era was practiced by Phd anointed scientists in white coats behind thick walls of heavily air conditioned rooms. The “computer” was the beast they tamed in the building downtown. The investment could be written off over ten years while they merrily took their sandwiches to work, striving for a spot on the next floor upstairs. Who knows: maybe one day that corner office with a secretary for tea, may become a reality.

Buying IBM never got anyone fired. 

Not too long after, a bunch of college dropout kids started to upset the applecart. What initially appeared to be merely a hobby fad had arrived with a bang in business. 

Suddenly, a fountain pen is only used for signing contracts and marriage certificates. The secretary no longer brings the tea. The corner office is under threat. Workers and executives alike are forced to use a mouse. The big building downtown had free space and they learned with horror that the boxes on their desks have double the capacity of the big iron investment they thought will last them ten years (five years ago).

Pillars of industry, men of stature, were faced with staring at flickering screens all day or perish. Only the really influential could afford a personal assistant for printing and typing their email.

The Gadget and Email Generation:

This generation doesn’t know how to work without a personal computer. They never had offices and the word secretary is offensive. They preferred to be “guns for hire” and went where work is interesting and where their needs for association and intellectual stimulation were met at a good hourly rate.

Instead, they are a generation of cubicle dwellers and email pushers. Their machines conform to a corporate standard, and the network is what separated them from the competition and the world “out there”. Antivirus software secured survival. 

Meetings were welcome interruptions to the monotony of “whack-a-(e)mail”, to the extend that it was confused with “work”. “It is what daddy does for a living my dear - meet all day.” This is what my wife told my daughter one day.

Information Technology was considered a competitive advantage, while investments lasted approximately five years before becoming obsolete (two years into the deal). 

Microsoft was king.

Soon they realized that the inability to take their personal computer with them to meetings only meant that they have to double productivity (i.e. “whack-many-more-(e)mails) when they get back to their box. Secondly, they then had to send the information onwards that was discussed in the meeting (read: do the meeting again via email, this time with the information you should have had with you in the meeting).

They aspired to a means (read: SmartPhone or Laptop) to take those pesky emails with them to meetings, so they can stay ahead of the game. When information is then discussed in a meeting, they may actually have it on hand for discussion (without having to fight a printer the half hour prior, as only alternative).

However, there were unintended positive consequences from smaller, mobile smart devices and meetings: People actually knew what they were talking about because they had the information in hand, literally. Where the others (without their gadgets) got actions assigned to them in the meeting minutes to go get, find out, forward, and send. Those with their gadgets already actioned their responsibilities. 

A new era arrived: Meetings with purpose that actually achieved something. Efficiency and outcomes.

Granted, to those not yet initiated to being productive, effective, connected and knowledgeable, it became a distracting irritant - having people in meetings playing with these little computers. Even more offensive to the uninitiated was how the gadget generation showed their disinterest when time was wasted. They will be working on their gadgets in meetings, guaranteed to be productive in unproductive moments.

Yet, there must be an even better way to work and communicate? 

The Always On, Work Anywhere Generation:

Having a gadget that liberates you from your personal computer and cubicle offers all kinds of possibilities. 

For the first time it is possible to communicate. Yes, truly communicate, instantly to masses, worldwide, and to the individual in many, many ways. Now there are email, forums, blogs, podcasts, tweets, IM’s, SMS, Skype, Video Chat, added to the traditional means of letters, telephone conversations, meetings, memos and telepathy. And, don’t forget the worldwide Interweb.

For the first time in human history we have ways to seek out audiences, collaborators and deliver messages that surpasses anything we’ve had, ever before (in physical existence at least). 

In the true sense of the word: “One can run but not hide.” 

Communicating in person is overrated and inefficient to this generation. Talking to one individual at a time distracts from the collective. Conversations are ongoing, always and everywhere, with everybody and anybody willing to listen(company or otherwise).

There are justifiable concern and questions about the quality and substance of all this conversation and the possibility of a lack thereof. However, the information that is communicated is still up to the communicator and the consuming audience to turn it into knowledge. There are now just more possibilities to deliver, consume and apply.  

All this is possible from anywhere as Internet access becomes ubiquitous and the network is everywhere. 

How is this influencing workspaces? 

For the first time, consuming, producing, collaborating, and applying information can happen almost everywhere on planet earth. Therefore, we are moving out of the office, past the cubicle and into to the Starbucks, home office, meeting place and workspace of choice in the physical world. As knowledge workers we can now truly work anywhere, anytime. As knowledge workers we demand the means to work anywhere and anytime.

It may only be in the online world where the company or organization can, and will be able to truly establish a traditional “work place” identity with like-minded individuals or groups assembling for a purpose, and contributing value in the process for reward (monetary or otherwise). 

The examples of these online organization around a common purpose or objective is evident in the initial stages of this development that we can find in open source communities, online encyclopedias like Wikipedia, marketplaces like Amazon, EBay, Blurb and communities like Linkedin and Spokenword. 

Some communities will be more selective of their participants and their beneficiaries. So will the company of the future be selective of its value contributors, and find ways to reward its collaborators. The construct of employee or contractor will disappear in favour of the “Contributor”. 

The contributor will be an individual, group or association adding value, owning their consumer’s problem and  creating service value (A simple, reliable, expectation aligned outcome, at a negligible fee). The I.T. of this world is the online assembled tools and accessed services available when and where required, in a similar fashion.

In more than one manner we may very well find ourselves in the online evolution of tribalism (See: Seth Godin) with the Company the tribe with which we choose to associate, and by who’s rules we subject ourselves in return for the benefits awarded in monetary and other terms. One big difference from the traditional construct is that we will belong to multiple tribes by choice: Our sports tribe, work tribe, hobby tribe, school tribe, professional tribe and more. The common thread in all of this is our ability to be always on, and work anywhere with any device.

Conclusion

What will be next?

It may not be long before the words of Vernon Vinge ring true and we find ourselves in a technological singularity where our technology is responsible for the amplification of human intelligence to the point that the resulting transhumans would be incomprehensible to their purely biological counterparts. Welcome to the Matrix.

Having broken fingers from using an iPhone in a Board meeting may be just a necessary step on the journey and evolution of the information worker of the future. On the other hand, broken fingers may just be what we need to save us from ourselves and our gadgets.

Your comments and views are always welcome.

Hendrik van Wyk