As a technology consultant living in a world that is moving at such a ridiculous pace it can feel very lonely. Businesses can feel the same, smart competitors constantly snapping at your heels, vendors and suppliers offering too much choice. Finding a trusted partner to help you through the techsand is essential.
Today my brain hurts! In fact, on a daily basis my brain hurts, it’s a pain that can’t be cured by the swallowing of a paracetamol, it’s like a cloudy fog that has descended and is taking up residence within my skull.
This is what it’s like being a technology consultant. The world is a complex place at the best of times, but the accelerating pace of change in technology is frightening.
If you are not careful it can become so overwhelming that it leads to paralysis. A state where you find yourself constantly surfing the web for help and only result in opening more and more tabs. It’s a condition I like to call cyber staring.
Moore’s law states that processing power for computers will double every two years, and visionaries like Ray Kurzweil state that the total power of all computers will be equitable to the total brainpower of the human race as early as 2019.
There are many predictions like this which can amplify the fear. The trick is to not be scared, to embrace change and to find a way to move out of the techsand and make technology work for you.
It’s easier said than done, I recently presented to a group of IT professionals who were discussing the risks of the new world of IOT and machine learning. The lawyers present were laying out the new threats posed by sensors publicly storing data sets. Two good examples used were Alexa being aware when you are in and out of the house and pattern management sensors used to support dementia sufferers who want to stay longer in their own homes, both data sets in the wrong hands will show when homes are unoccupied and where vulnerable people live.
The conversation continued to play out along a similar vein with different technologies looked at in a negative, we are all doomed fashion. Until one person stepped up and commented, “well if you knew then of all the bad things the Internet can be used for, would you still have invented it?”
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The consensus was a resounding yes, and a sense around the room that we should all look at the good in things first. Embrace technology, embrace progress, embrace change then look at working with the challenges to adjust, shift and head towards transformation.
It can be a daunting landscape for a business, with new solutions that promise the world, with your competition always seeming to embrace these new technologies faster than you can. How can you possibly navigate your way through safely? It’s all about small fast steps.
Be prepared to try out new things, but don’t take your eye off the things you do really well. Success within technology needs to be about balance. A balance between the continuation of the things you do well, mixed with a hunger and desire to discover new avenues that your business can go down.
The other important point is that you move at the right pace, and keep moving. Build the right technology foundations that will facilitate and complement your future transformation plans. For example, if you are under pressure to move or have a desire to move to the Public Cloud, do so in a controlled way at your own pace, move to a hybrid environment before you go full Public Cloud.
In my day job, I jump from one technology conversation to another, from BlockChain to Big Data, from Haptic Feedback sensors to Hashing Algorithms. It can be a complex world.
At one of my particularly foggy moments I decided to create a mind map of all of the technologies that had crossed my path over the last few weeks. I call it my crow’s nest, I imagine myself every now and then taking a quick shimmy up to my crow’s nest so I can look out and take in the chaos that lays around.
If you have the right technology partner they will talk to you about finding the right pace for your business. Whether it’s starting to look at IoT trials and the way sensors will benefit the way you do business
Or how you can become infrastructure-free or how sweating the assets that you have invested in can complement a next generation strategy. When we created our consultancy, just over a year ago the best piece of advice we received was to hire someone to look after the books.
Find the right partner who understands your business goals and objectives, let them help you through the techsand, so you can reach your transformation goals.
We are technologists not accountants. The same could be said of the network and technology. Find the right partner who understands your business goals and objectives, let them help you through the techsand, so you can reach your transformation goals. Move at a pace that doesn’t break your business, finding that perfect balance of sweating what you do well verses trying new things. Now I am off for a quick shimmy up my crow’s nest.
Article written by Che Smith, Technology Associate