We're Clueless About Our Users

See other posts about consumerization -- "the notion that, nowadays, innovation in information technology is generated by the consumer market, rather than by what corporate IT shops might develop, distribute, and support, as had been the case up through the mid-1990s" -- which underlies what is related in this piece in readwrite: that an organization's IT department literally has no idea what the organization's communities are using for cloud services.

There are lessons for the library here, certainly. The same way that a company's workers go around central IT to get their work done, a university's faculty, students, and staff may go around the library to procure their information resources and services.

This is both powerful -- for the user and the company, in potentially getting work done in ways that would otherwise be difficult or less familiar to the worker -- and risky for both parties, given that institutional resources may be misaligned with work requirements, the institution's IT expertise may be misaligned, unofficial efforts may prove to be unsupportable, and risk the of loss or loss of control of institutional data. 

IT's Losing Battle Against Cloud Adoption

As cloud adoption continues to accelerate, IT is the last to know.

Matt Asay January 31, 2014 

Asking IT about emerging trends in enterprise computing is increasingly a fool's errand.

Open source pioneer Billy Marshall once quipped that "the CIO is the last to know," because she was too far removed from what open-source code her IT team was downloading or which SaaS services they were accessing. Now this phrase may apply to entire IT organizations, with major lines of business tuning into the cloud and tuning out IT prescriptions.

Of course, this has been happening for years. What's striking is just how pervasive the shift away from IT has become.

What IT Doesn't Know

We know cloud computing is big. We also know the cloud is outpacing traditional data center workloads. Cisco, for example, finds that from 2012 to 2017, data center workloads will grow a little more than two-fold while cloud workloads will grow almost four-fold.

What we didn't know, however, is just how clueless enterprise IT has been about the state of cloud adoption within their own enterprises. For example, according to a report from Netskope, a cloud analytics and policy company, IT thinks it has a grasp on cloud apps running within the enterprise, but in reality it may not have the foggiest clue:

In other words, IT underestimates cloud app usage within their organizations by about 10 times. That's a shocking delta between perception and reality, and means that IT has a lot of work to do, given that many of the apps being run are almost certainly not up to IT's security standards.

The potential problem is widespread across the enterprise, with different groups turning to the cloud to get stuff done: Marketing (51 cloud apps per enterprise), HR (35), Storage (26), and CRM/SFA and Collaboration (23).

The piece goes on (see link above) to note that it's just not the expected communities -- Marketing, for instance -- that are using "unofficial" apps: IT's own developers are using unofficial tools and services, too. 

Consumerization

There are certainly parallels for libraries in the consumerization of IT, which is the notion that, nowadays, innovation in information technology is generated by the consumer market, rather than by what corporate IT shops might develop, distribute, and support, as had been the case up through the mid-1990s. The parallels for libraries are grounded in that, the same way employees aren't solely dependent on corporate IT organization for their IT, people aren't solely dependent on their library organization for their library and information resources and services. 

Two articles by Brien Posey in Redmond Magazine describe the "fundamental truths" underpining IT consumerization. (See also the tag, Consumerization.)

The Real Consumerization of IT, Part 1

Rising user tech IQ, easier-to-use gadgets and the transformation of users into consumers is changing the landscape of IT.

By Brien Posey, 12/12/2013

Lately I have been writing quite a few columns on the future of Microsoft, its various products and the IT industry as a whole. The reason for all of these posts is simple. I have worked in IT for over 20 years and I cannot think of another period of time in which I have seen the potential for such radical transformation. That's a big statement when you consider that less than 15 years ago most households did not even have Internet access.

For this blog post I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about how I see IT jobs changing in the future. Contrary to what some people have predicted, I do not believe that corporate IT is going away any time soon. However, I think that the role of corporate IT is about to change as a result of the consumerization of IT.

When most people talk about the consumerization of IT, the discussion typically centers around end users who want to use their iPad to access corporate resources. Even though the BYOD trend is an undeniable part of the consumerization of IT, I think that most people overlook the big picture. There are three fundamental truths related to the consumerization of IT that I believe will shape IT over the next few years. These truths are:

• Consumers have become far more tech savvy.
• The technology industry tries to appeal to a broader range of consumers by dumbing down tech products.
• Corporate IT is turning users into consumers.

Article continues at link.

The second article discusses what these truths mean for IT professionals and the new (constant) roles for IT organizations (i.e., responsible for infrastructure management, capacity management, policy creation and enforcement). 

BYOD

BYOD = "bring your own device," the enterprise technology management construct that encourages/allows/tolerates employees using their personal devices -- their own smartphones, tablets, laptops -- to access and use corporate information system assets. That is, in addition to -- or perhaps even instead of -- issuing you a company-owned and -managed device, we'll set up a technical environment that provides for you using your own, personally owned, device. 

BYOD is a corporate reaction to the consumerization of IT, which is the notion that, nowadays, innovation in information technology is generated by the consumer market, rather than by what corporate IT shops might develop, distribute, and support, as had been the case up through the mid-1990s. 

Smartphones are a principal manifestation of consumerization of IT and the accommodating BYOD construct. Computerworld has a Digital Spotlight on BYOD/Consumerization of IT, with pieces on 

• how three companies -- Starz Entertainment, Ricoh Americas, and CareerBuilder -- are dealing with Android devices (for example)
• software to manage mobile devices 
• how BYOD empowers employees 
• a columnist's -- Mke Elgan; he's great -- experience using only Google's offerings