Exciting IT? Come to the Dark Side.

I am about to leave for holidays. And so are probably a few more of you. Thought it would be nice to leave you with a couple of ideas and concepts. Just to keep you focused among all the distraction of doing nothing and enjoying the great outdoors.

I can’t really tell you where I am going (although I will reveal that the local currency is quite low compared to the Euro), but the weather forecasts promises us lots of sun and high temperatures. No doubt we will have to seek protection in the shadow every now and then. Not to worry, it will give us the opportunity to contemplate the exciting things that will happen in IT after summer. And they are bound to happen in the shadow, on the dark side: in more and more organisations, market-facing departments leverage the power of service-oriented architecture, Web 2.0 and mash-up tools to build their own, instant solutions.

It is a direct result of the pent-up demand that is created by us all, spoiled as we are as consumers on the Internet and as owners of advanced tools and devices. We have come to expect the same experience at the office and if the IT department is not able to deliver it, we will do it ourselves.

Bricolage, is what the French would call this: use what is available to build your own solution. You may want to think about it, if you happen to stroll through the local markets in the Provence this summer.

So once again, it may be Shadow IT - at the dark side – that really delivers on the promise of emerging technologies. It is up to the IT department to avoid this time the problems of Island Automation (we’ll stay in holiday mode) that we got to know all too well with the rise of the PC.

And it will have to be done through enablement, not discouragement: central IT could be the architect and supplier of a technology platform that is both standardised and flexible. Sounds like contradictory attributes, but they are exactly what is needed to ensure that the cool, unplanned things that happen in the shadow stay nevertheless effective and move towards the same direction.

I will be most happy to discuss further with all of you. But not now. I will be perfectly incommunicado in the next three weeks. Well, almost that is. If you are a desperate Web 2.0 addict, you may want to follow my adventures on Twitter or even check our holidays blog. In that case, may the force be with you.

In iets gewijzigde vorm gepubliceerd op Capgemini's CTO Blog