Stories by Thornton May

Technology permeates our lives. This is no time for IT to flounder within the enterprise.

The shape of the future is discernible if we can find the relevant patterns.

Organizations won’t reap the rewards of powerful collaboration tools if they don’t make collaboration itself a strategic priority.

In our interdependent age, everything depends on a series of collaborations, and yet collaboration remains largely unmeasured and unmanaged.

While every career involves a bit of luck and serendipity, they can and should be managed.

Coming to terms with machine learning is critical, but most executives are unprepared.

We in IT need to lead. Within the enterprise, we need to be perceived as leaders. We need to articulate the value we bring to the table.  

I recently have been sounding ahead-of-the-curve executives about the questions we should be asking about the future. Here are five of particular importance.

We spend a whole lot of time in the IT world wondering about the future of the CIO role. It's a question of endless fascination, but we mustn't forget that CIOs are not the only C in the C-suite. And the fact is that the success of the CIO and the IT organization is very much a function of our relationship with those other executives. That means that if we want to get clues about the future of the CIO, it is incumbent upon us to be aware of the changing roles of the CEO, the CMO and the CFO.

In their introduction to Arc 2.1: Exit Strategies, "Escaping reality," editors Simon Ings and Sumit Paul-Choudhury tell us that "ninety-six percent of the cosmos is ineffable" -- incapable of being expressed or described in words. In addition to reminding us of the widely accepted scientific fact that 96% of our universe is made up by yet-to-be-explained dark matter and dark energy, their point -- I think -- is that it is in our imagination (our ability to make stuff up) that the future lies.

Asked to think about the future, most of us turn our minds toward technology. This isn't wrong. Technology -- and information technology in particular -- will be a big part of the future. <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/28/how_to_get_girls_to_choose_and_stick_with_stem_careers.html">As Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, has said</a>, "Every single problem that faces society today, whether we're talking about healthcare, poverty or education, is going to involve computing tech as part of the solution."

The future of IT very much depends on our industry collectively being able to rebrand our discipline as a <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/article/2824365/careers/women-in-it-no-longer-a-nice-to-have.html">preferred place for women to work</a>. The attraction and retention of female IT executives is not just a "feminist" or "women's studies" issue. It's an IT industry issue -- an issue all of us have to understand and take action on.

<a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2485655/personal-technology/no-second-reel--blockbuster-to-close-remaining-stores--end-dvd-service.html">Blockbuster</a>. <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2490305/smartphones/steven-j--vaughan-nichols--bye--nokia--nice-knowing-you.html">Nokia</a>. <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2470561/computer-hardware/can-ink-jet-save-kodak-.html">Kodak</a>. Most businesspeople know what they have in common. They are all companies whose footsteps you don't want to follow.

Analytics is something new for most of us, and therefore scary. But as it moves from the realm of the data geeks and into the general enterprise where most of us live, it's helpful to recognize that there is nothing new in the way this situation is unfolding.

Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead was once asked what the band's goal was. His response: "Our goal is to make the music only we can make." Like so many other things, this sound bite got me thinking about IT. What is the value only enterprise IT can make?