The corporate culture at work has been on my mind a lot. I look at the average employee and see someone who for all of their good qualities, is not what I would consider a technically savvy individual. I do not not mean this in any derogatory way, I only mean to point out most people are on the tailing end of the technology curve. This has bothered me, not because I feel that I am any better for being an IT professional who is immersed in technology all day, but rather as a member of management, I worry about the lost opportunity to the company.
I talk to sales people from various vendors all day long. I often ask them how they leverage technologies like Blackberries, Unified Communications, sales force apps, etc… I wonder to myself why these people say they cannot live without them, but then I hear nothing from my sales force asking for them. I recently visited a large HMO’s office for a vendor sponsored technical briefing. While sitting in the cafeteria during a break, I was blown away by the number of employees sitting in working groups with laptops collaborating. I rarely see that in my office outside of IT.
One of the core values where I work is being Savvy. While many employees are savvy in a variety of ways, technolgy seems to be an afterthought. Much of our core values and general culture is derived from priciples out of the book, Good to Great. In that book there is a section devoted to technology as follows;
The last point is one that really hit home. I need to give credit where credit is due, most companies our size do not have a full ERP system in place. Many infrastructure technologies are on the front of the curve like virtualization. But when I look at how the average user interacts with technology, I see the gap. Our CIO is trying to push a business intelligence system through, but few lines of business catch the vision. I show up to management meetings, and everyone left thier laptops at their desk and brought a paper and pencil. I see a fear of social networking technologies and even see them labeled as a frivolous waste of time. I talk to managers who do not want IM, video conferencing or presence technology installed for fear or abuse, distractions or big brother monitoring by IT.
So now what? I cannot envision our company using technology to it’s fullest potential when IT is doing all of the pushing. How do you get the lines of business to embrace and even demand technology solutions? How do you get average employees to catch the vision and see the potential? Part of me wonders what would happen if desktops were replaced by laptops? If smart phones became the norm, not the exception? If cubicle banks were replaced with open work areas? What is the missing catalyst?
Obviously I do not expect a mid-size manufacturing company to become a google-like culture. But can’t a company like this pick some of the best attributes of a high tech culture and make it thier own?
It has been a long time since Microsoft created a device that I actually wanted. Windows Mobile has become as exciting as a beige 1990 Camry and the Zune seemed a day late and a dollar short. There is the XBox which is a great product, but I am not a gamer. However, now there is the 