Computer World has a new article titled “Gartner: Age, attitude matter in IT“, that raises a lot of the issues that I have been discussing about the changing of the guard in IT and the ensuing culture wars. This has been brewing for a long time, and I think it will be a hot issue in virtually every organization over the next 5-10 years.  Let’s face it, it’s never too late to be a genius, but it’s also never to early to be self-centered.

One person cannot run a company into the ground. It takes an entire management team to do that.

– Stephan Pachikov

It is not worth an intelligent man’s time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.
G. H. Hardy (1877 - 1947)

Kathy Sierra wrote a great post titled, “It’s not too late to be a genius“. A lot of people use the excuse that they are too old to try something new, because they aren’t in their 20’s (of course, this is a load of crap). However, even worse than using this excuse on yourself is using it on your organization.

In a previous life, I was involved in hiring technology workers for a company that was very young, very successful, and very hip (at the time). The jobs were supporting a large web application, but the jobs required a large amount of anyalysis and familiarity with databases and data processing. It frustrated me to no end that we would hire a 25-year-old fresh out of college and then take 6 months to get them familiarized with statistics, reporting, databases, and data processing so they could contribute. This was considered a success.

If we couldn’t find a 25-year-old, we would hire a 50-year old as a contractor and take a month to get him familarized with web applications, something they were very interested in learning anyway. Then they could contribute and share with us their experiences of solving the same problems over the last 20 years. Even after that it was rare that we would end up converting these folks over to permanent employees.

This situation frustrated me to no end. I am from Generation X, and as a class we seem have a chip on our shoulder. A lot of our rebellion was simply in reaction to the Baby Boom’s hegemony and demographic dominance of the workplace. However, every organization has to understand that there is a great value in wisdom, especially that borne of experience. This is very rarely present in someone who has been in the workplace less than 5 years.

Duct Tape Marketing has an article with an incredibly insightful title, “Is CRM a Culture or a Software?”. In his posting, John opines that:

CRM starts with a strategic approach to marketing, a strategic approach to selling and a strategic approach to maximizing customer relationships. Nail those things and pretty much any of the major CRM tools can be customized to make it happen. Too many people waste lots of time and money trying to apply technology to fix a problem caused by a lack of business strategy.

Right on!!!!

Getting Skinny

While it is particularly prevalent with CRM, the phenomenon of “wishful purchasing” is seen across all organizations, especially with regard to information techology. Often, we think that if we just get the right hardware, software, and applications in place then our organization will be transformed into what it really ought to be.Which, of course, is complete balderdash. Hogwash. Horse Hooey.

This is the Atkins approach to information architecture, and in the long term it doesn’t work. You don’t lose weight by buying smaller sized clothing. You need to be eating sensibly, exercising, and dealing with the issues that got you to where you are in the first place.

What I am Trying to Say

I have seen organizations that have happy, profitable customers and don’t have any infrastructure ouside of a few spreadsheets. At the same time, I have seen organizations that have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into technology and are losing customers at an epic rate. The tools didn’t make the difference, the culture did. Information Architects need to understand this so they can avoid the systems that are not going to deliver tangible value to their organization.

As John said,

The best … tool is the one you and your staff will actually adopt and adapt to achieve better sales results and automation.

Wishful purchasing is just an expression of consumerism in an organization.  Just because there are lots of people (salespeople, consultants, trade magazines, web sites, blogs, etc.) that tell you that you need something doesn’t mean that you do. Tools are tools, they enable you to do what it is you want to do. If you have organizational issues, spending money on infrastructure is just going to accentuate and reinforce those them.