Enterprise IT vs. Consumer IT
John Mancini

By: John Mancini on February 22nd, 2010

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Enterprise IT vs. Consumer IT

Intelligent Information Management (IIM)

iPod

Where has the action been in technology over the past decade?

I can tell you one thing for certain. It has been in a very different place than it was during the early stages of my professional career.

For most of my career, the action has been in PC-centric applications and solutions that were delivered by the IT gods and goddesses at the organizations for which I worked. I have been lucky to work for some pretty flexible organizations, but most of the time, I was a pretty good corporate citizen even without mandates or restrictions. It was rare that I would covet some piece of software or hardware from home and wish I could get it at work. Enterprise IT was a pretty cool place.

It doesn't require a rocket scientist to know that all that has sure changed.

Consumer IT and network delivered applications are where all the fun has been for the past decade. We constantly besiege our IT staff with "Why can't we?" questions. The power has shifted to the business side of the house, whose impatience with long and cumbersome implementation cycles grows daily.

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The Challenge with Enterprise IT

In this environment, we constantly struggle with what I call the "80% problem." As a person in charge of the business of AIIM, a solution that delivers 80% of what I want and is delivered right NOW is WAY better than one that might be 100% of what I need, but is #23 on an ever-growing set of IT "priorities."

In this process, I am even willing to give up on some integration desires in return for speed. I realize this is likely not likely in our long-term interests, but don't care.

Here's an example. Even though we are a small organization, email has ceased to be the place where we keep track of what is going on in the business. Email is the place where you go when you want someone to approve something. Everything else that comes on email is noise. As a result, email fails miserably in providing to an organization the kind of awareness that we all get routinely about our social connections through Facebook.

The Solution

My IT people say wait and a lot of Facebook-like functionality will be present in SharePoint. We (business types) found a product called Yammer that delivers Facebook-like social functionality to private networks. And we implemented it in a few hours, including implementation on a variety of mobile devices for free.

That kind of responsiveness and ease of implementation is the expectation the business increasingly will take into its dealings with IT and into its expectations of content solutions. The enterprise needs to find ways to catch up, or the people with the business problem will find a way around them.

 

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About John Mancini

John Mancini is the President of Content Results, LLC and the Past President of AIIM. He is a well-known author, speaker, and advisor on information management, digital transformation and intelligent automation. John is a frequent keynote speaker and author of more than 30 eBooks on a variety of topics. He can be found on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook as jmancini77. Recent keynote topics include: The Stairway to Digital Transformation Navigating Disruptive Waters — 4 Things You Need to Know to Build Your Digital Transformation Strategy Getting Ahead of the Digital Transformation Curve Viewing Information Management Through a New Lens Digital Disruption: 6 Strategies to Avoid Being “Blockbustered” Specialties: Keynote speaker and writer on AI, RPA, intelligent Information Management, Intelligent Automation and Digital Transformation. Consensus-building with Boards to create strategic focus, action, and accountability. Extensive public speaking and public relations work Conversant and experienced in major technology issues and trends. Expert on inbound and content marketing, particularly in an association environment and on the Hubspot platform. John is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the College of William and Mary, and holds an M.A. in Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.