This continues a series of columns from practitioners I respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well.
This time it is Phil Simon, technology consultant and author who describes the learning as he developed his compendium with several other IT consultants and influencers
“A few months after I published Why New Systems Fail, Vinnie was kind enough to review my book on his site. In a post entitled ERP Déjà vu, Vinnie praised the content of the book while offering a few mild criticisms. To paraphrase Vinnie, the book looked backward more than it looked forward. ERP issues have been well documented but not as much is understood about emerging technologies or, as some would call it, Enterprise 2.0.
Against that backdrop, I am pleased to announce the publication of my second book, The Next Wave of Technologies. This ambitious book covers quite a bit of ground, with topics including: open source, cloud computing, SOA, Enterprise Search and Retrieval, SaaS, Social media, Mobile technologies, Green IT, Agile software development and Business intelligence
So, did I become an expert on all of these overnight? Hardly. I found experts on each topic and worked closely with them to ensure that the book had both an overall message and consistent style.
I can’t tell you how much I learned working with such distinguished people. I joke that, if anyone pulled down the average of the group, it was me. In a way, writing this book was tantamount to getting a real world MIS degree.
Some selected extracts:
Agile Software Development
Roland Cuellar’s chapter on Agile software development is simply fascinating. I had heard of Agile but did not understand its genesis in manufacturing. The rationale for “going Agile” is so straightforward that I began to ask myself why anyone would use traditional Waterfall methods these days.
Don’t get me wrong. As many of the other chapters touch upon, technology has evolved to the point at which Agile becomes more possible. We are far removed from the mainframe and client-server days. New technologies make iterations of applications much more feasible than years ago. If just about everything is web-based, then IT’s involvement supporting “applications” (especially in SaaS environments) becomes minimal.
Where Cloud Computing and Mobile Technologies Unite
Amy Wohl’s chapter on clouds and Bhuvan Unhelkar’s on mobility complement each other quite a bit. Think about it. Clouds may have existed (under a different name) for years, but how often would people really need to access data and applications when chained to their desktops? Not often. Mobility has increased the need for people to be able to do things wherever and whenever they are. This has fed the interest in cloud computing.
Social Media
I came very close to writing this chapter for a bunch of reasons. I find it amazing to this day that so many people claim to be social media experts because they know how to tweet and set up a Facebook page. Jason Miletsky’s touches on an important them of all Enterprise 2.0 technologies. Specifically, organizations are going to have to get out of their comfort zones. When you embrace YouTube, blogs, and social networks, you run the risk of not controlling the message, something that many companies have historically attempted to do. Embracing uncertainty is another key theme of the book.
Business Intelligence
Brian Morgan makes an excellent point: Is there such a thing as too much BI? The answer is “yes.” Many organizations actually suffer from a surfeit of BI tools. They would actually do more with less. Disparate applications that access data of questionable quality adds to the cost and frustration level from those asking, “If we spend so much money on these tools, then why are things such a mess?”
I could go on, there’s really just too much to say. To learn more about these topics, check out the book. It will be out in March and is already available for pre-order on Amazon.”
Where are the “Ten Commandments” for Technology?
As I finish up on book on innovation, one of the most intriguing chapters I wrote was about the growing ethical issues being spawned by innovation and technology. Food/biofuel tradeoffs, God powers with nanotechnology and genome technologies, the thin line between real and virtual worlds and on and on. Complex issues, few simple answers.
Yet, in tech we don’t really have a good forum to discuss these issues. Go to most hospitals and they can quickly convene an ethics committee. This often includes a doctor, nurse, social worker, attorney, chaplain, medical ethics professional, and a member of the community. The committee is available to a doctor or someone close to the patient to consult on an ever evolving set of yes, technology spawned, modern issues like around life extension and genetics.
In technology we don’t discuss these issues much. Bill Joy prominently wrote in Wired magazine “The future does not need us” in 2ooo about risks from nanotech, robotics and genetic engineering). Yes, a decade ago. Few tech execs take such public positions. For the most part discussion on cyber-ethics has stayed in academia.
One of the professors I interviewed was Herman Tavani at Rivier College and he told me between the second edition of his book on technology ethics in 2007 and the third edition this year, a whole laundry list of new technology spawned ethical issues had sprung up. And given how rapidly “Cybertechnology is converging with biotechnology and nanotechnology” the issues are going to proliferate even more rapidly.
The other thing I learned from the conversation with him and other professors is how few schools teach cyber-ethics. When I got my MBA, I had a class on business ethics. Back then, there were few tech issues – we explored issues around the morality of doing business with a then apartheid S. Africa. You think every MBA and MIS degree today would have a course on cyber-ethics.
So against this background the recent Google/China flare-up makes for a interesting conversation. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt was asked by Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek if his fiduciary responsibility to shareholders was not to maximize profits.
Eric’s response was:
“When we filed for our IPO, we attached to the document a statement about how we wanted to run our business. We said we were going to be different. We said that we were going to be motivated by concerns that were not always or strictly business ones.”
Many complimented Eric and asked what took him so long. Others said Eric would never had said it if Google was a dominant player in China – it is a distant second to Baidu. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft scolded him and called Google’s reaction “an irrational business decision.” John Chambers of Cisco called it “natural give and take” – i.e. a negotiation. But a virtual “ethics committee” like at a hospital came together to discuss various angles.
We need much more of that. We also need guiding principles. My friend Brian Sommer provided a perspective for that chapter :“For ethical innovation and technology, we need to find a higher-level set of principles …(like the) Ten Commandments. Here's a list of acceptable behaviors that's in three major religions and has survived thousands of years”
Interestingly, Steve invoked Saudi Arabia in his comments, and John made his comments in Saudi. The reality is increasingly states, particularly autocratic ones, are raising ethical issues with their growing tech savviness and resultant surveillance and censorship. They are also making it tougher for our tech vendors to live up to “Don’t be evil” promises.
We are giving governments access to all kinds of powerful technology, without burdening them with the obligations of “ fair and balanced use”. Who is going to call them out when they bully others to not question their actions?
And why just blame the autocratic states? Did we have in the US a real meaningful discussion around whether drones we are using for war violate Asimov’s First Law: “A robot may not injure a human being” and his second: “A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law”?
Yes, we are all in this to make money. But from the smallest person in the industry to mighty states, we need a better compass. And we need to encourage everyone to have their moment of conscience and convene the “virtual ethics committee” around them. These are complex issues that none of us should try to resolve by ourselves - smart as we all are in tech.
January 25, 2010 in Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)