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Contact UsAs much as I have always loved technology and held a deep appreciation for how technology can be used to solve business problems, I have always been fascinated by what is coming next. I have never considered myself a technology visionary, but I don’t feel bad saying so because I’m in pretty good company. Here are some famous quotes to prove my point:
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
– Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Patent Office, 1899
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
– Ken Olsen, Founder of Digital Equipment, 1977
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
– Bill Gates, Co-founder Microsoft, 1981
Predicting the future isn’t easy, and the pace at which technology moves makes it even more difficult. With that said, it is incumbent upon technologists to stretch the limits of today, establish a vision, challenge the status quo, and relentlessly pursue improvements. Information Technology holds a purpose; not just streamlining and automating those things that we do manually, but allowing us to think and work in entirely new ways. How can we possibly know what’s next?
I have a trick that I use to cheat the system. It is a theory that allows me to see into the future of technology for Fortune 500 companies. This theory is based on the motivations and behaviors of technology leaders. You see, good leaders affect change and have the responsibility and authority to make decisions. They are not being paid to maintain the status quo, but to move their companies forward. If they aren’t growing, they are dying. Leaders have a second motivation, and that is one of risk aversion. Not all change is good, so strong leaders know that they must make calculated decisions toward progress and avoid pitfalls that are going to have the undesirable results.
Now let’s start at the top of the food chain and put yourself in the shoes of a CIO at a Fortune 500 company. Without stereotyping too broadly, these organizations have a reputation for being slow moving, very risk averse, and unwilling to be the first to try anything new. Furthermore, when it comes to technology, these CIOs might be great leaders, but they may not be visionaries.
On the other end of the spectrum are some of my favorite people to talk to, technology leaders for non-profits. Why non-profits? Well, technology leaders at non-profits (I’m stereotyping again) are often charged with doing more with less. They have all of the demands to make the improvements of any other business, but are heavily constrained when it comes to human capital and funds. This combination effectively increases the risk tolerance of the non-profit leaders as compared to their Fortune 500 counterparts! Who better to initiate the fulfillment of the purpose of technology?
I have seen this over and over again with the adoption of “cloud” technologies. Non-profits were early adopters of Salesforce.com, gmail, Amazon Web Services, and countless other service based offerings because they had no capital to invest in buying servers and no budget to train an army of people to operate them. They are willing to take these risks because their alternative is to maintain status quo.
Once non-profits, and small businesses start to realize some wins, other business start to take notice…larger business, more complex business. They piggyback off of the success stories, and wonder whether these new technologies will work for their business. In the case of cloud computing, the stories drive discussion around what capabilities could be added to meet the risk tolerance of the next company, and the next, and the next. Pretty soon, mid-sized business take notice and technology leaders at those companies feel confident in adopting something that used to seem too risky because they had a peer group that had already paved the way. The confidence grows and the stealing continues up the corporate chain to SMBs, mid-sized, and mid-large organizations. Finally, the story extends all the way up to those Fortune 500 CIOs.
This pattern is a predictable and repeatable one. Some technologies will fizzle in the early stages, but the solid ones move through this evolution time after time. So next time you are at a conference, user group or chat room, spend some time with the non-profits and the small businesses; they will help you to predict the future.
Bill Kalma, VP Tech Services for Model Metrics