Yes, the main thrust of the posting is to “remind” that IT folks need to provide education. There’s probably lots of room for improvement at all levels across the board due to the perpetual discussions related to “bridging IT and Business” which indicates that it’s not all too successful.

What’s dangerous is that if users are not sufficiently up to speed with the potential of IT capabilities to help them succeed and the business successful, the organizational impact is much greater and sometimes difficult to measure. It also brings up the point – how much are the senior IT managers educating their own staffs or encouraging their teams to push the envelope and innovative? And how well are the teams responding and proactively communicating about it?

As for my extreme example…let’s just say that IT sophistication and knowledge does vary by geography, business sophistication, IT literacy etc.

Cheers,

I think the answer is different for every company. How do you the educate business? You do it over time and have them at the table. The business should be steering IT in the direction the business needs to go.

The example you give of the business user thinking of setting up an ERP system is like “cutting and pasting” I would hope is an extreme example that is not true. If this is true, then the IT department and the CIO, if there is one, has failed to provide value and education.

I agree with Krishna that the CIO should make it easier for business users to see, touch and feel new technologies. This should be done over time and what is best for the business. The CIO should educate the business in all matters related to technology.

Thanks for your comments and dropping by. I agree with you here. It’s important that we provide a platform for innovation to happen. Your suggestion is one way to do it.

Despite the cost cutting happening everywhere, it’s up to us to have our IT infrastructure capable of providing a development or test environment for the business to try out new technology. Business innovation requires this collaboration.

Thanks,

Great topic, first of all.

So then folks, how DO we educate our users better with all the technologies coming out in 3-6 months cycles

At the risk of sounding somewhat self-serving, as a technology provider, I would respond to that question by saying CIOs should make it easier for their customers – the business users – to see, touch and “feel” new technologies. The key implications and applications of promising and relevant new technologies should be evaluated quickly and cheaply with a real-life problem.

In other words, prototypes.

Short, focused pilot projects (2-6 week lifecycle) with clear objectives in mind, solving small-but-important business problems with a new technology and then comparing the outcome with the traditional approaches. All these will probably help.

IMHO, such practical education – with both sides having a stake in the process – works FAR better than sending users the vendor’s slideshow or analyst reports.