Social responsible… multi-faceted… highly networked.. operating smarter…. You can thank information technology for the shape of today’s emerging organizations on all levels. IT people are making it happen.
A couple of weeks back, I provided some snippets from Vinnie Mirchandani’s latest work, The New Polymath. Vinnie points out that organizations are evolving into socially conscious, networked entities, and driving this evolution are professions such as information technology, which are expanding beyond the bounds of managing operating and storage systems. (Polymath is a Greek word for one who excels in many disciplines.) In fact, Vinne says, IT lays at the very core of many of the important changes now reshaping business and society.
At the core of The New Polymath is what Vinnie describes as his “RENAISSANCE Framework” that supports his argument.
Vinnie recently pinged me about spelling out more details of the framework, and how these components all interact. So, here are more details on the essence of the RENAISSANCE Framework:
- Residence: “Homes better technologically equipped than the office.” As Vinnie describes it: “Enterprises are gradually waking up to the fact there is no law precluding them from using products aimed at consumers themselves, sometimes at startling savings.”
- Exotics: “Innovation from left field.”
- Networks: “Bluetooth to broadband.” Vinnie describes the revolution reshaping communications on all levels — limitless telco opportunities; mobile apps, entire countries joining the computer network, function-rich devices, and citizen journalism.
- “Arsonists” and other disruptors. Vinnie observes that “most rebels tend to be start-ups, but often larger, established vendors will go after one another, especially when they are trailing in a market or introducing a new product.” Vinnie quotes Seth Ravin: industries need to go through conversions, to go against what some would call today’s “evil empires.”
- Interfaces: “For all our services.” Beyond the iPad, Vinnie discusses technology-driven transportation, and even technology you can wear.
- Sustainability: “Delivering to both the ‘green’ and ‘gold’ agendas.” Social responsibility is not just a PR strategy; it’s baked into the business model of many organizations.
- Singularity: “The human-machine convergence.”
- Analytics: “Spreadsheets, search, and semantics.” Vinnie cites examples such as Best Buy, which “has 15-plus terabytes of data on over 75 million customers… its sophisticated analytics has allowed it to identify that a sliver—just seven percent of its customers—drive 43 percent of the company’s overall sales volume.”
- Networks: “Communities, crowds, contracts, and collaboration.” Vinnie quotes Paul Greenberg, who talks about the “Social CRM” phenomenon: “The customer is increasingly controlling the conversation… Classic” CRM was operational… Social CRM is not operational—it’s collaborative more often than not. It is based on the company and customer’s interplay. It’s no longer how do you manage a customer but how you engage that customer.”
- Clouds: “Technology-as-a-service.”
- Ethics: Essential in “an age of cyberwar and cloning.” Vinnie quotes Batya Friedman: “Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is a way of looking at systems that brings in human values — so informed consent, human dignity, physical and psychological well - being among others; designers can use VSD alongside their favorite design practices, doing their best technical and usability work.”
