8 April - June, 2020IN MYPINIONMy career in information technology predates the wide use of the internet. I downloaded Linux from a BBS in the early 90s. From that time to now, the world has gone from DVD to Blue Ray to streaming, from phones built into cars to super computers in our pockets that handle voice, and from beastly, slow systems to elegant solutions like the iPhone, Surface, and flash storage. Digitalization offers benefits to almost every area of business, and digital ideas come from all over. There is an adage that "change is the only constant." While that is certainly the case, technology's creep into every facet of our lives has been relentless. Things that were once the domain of large corporate or university IT shops started ending up in smaller shops and home offices. The organizational spend on technology was massive, but there was a bigger target in the sights of the manufacturers- consumers. Consumer technology now permeates everyone's lives. As the workforce went home, mobile, or self-supporting, consumer technology started coming into the enterprise.One of the best examples of consumer technology coming to the office and the shift it has caused is the iPad. The IT leaders of many organizations vowed never to allow such a thing on their networks. This vow lasted about a month­ up to the point when the CEO walked in with an iPad.These consumer devices also offered new capabilities. With a credit card and an account in an app store, anyone can purchase virtually any technology-enabled service without relying on their IT department. This kind of consumer expectation combined with the currency of cloud technologies, and it set the stage for an explosion.Now we have a free for all. Parts of your organization are doing things with technology you know nothing about. If you think you know all about it you're fooling yourself. Technology has become everyone's domain and the scariest part of all is that your customers may not need you any longer. To remain relevant, a CIO must make customers want the services provided. If they don't want the services, the offering is probably not aligned with the organization.This shift­ from wielding control to wielding influence­ can be very difficult to make. CIOs and other IT leaders have been accountable for "making it work" for decades. The only way this could work in the past was rigor, and this rigor was built and maintained by IT strictly controlling the environment. STAYING IN THE LOOP BY LETTING GO (A LITTLE)By Jeremy Campbell, CIO, Electric Power Research InstJeremy Campbell
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