What happend whilst you were Whilst your on the golf course.
Ive just read this article and …. this point of view is totally out of date
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/silicon/news/20/~3/398719685/0,39024673,39289155,00.htm
The author of this article says that there are only three successful collaboration technologies that penetrate the boardroom Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange and the BlackBerry.
He has omitted the Internet, the penetration of which is so complete that it is easy to overlook it. If you include it, you will see that it shows the results of many millions of different collaborations using tools like wordpress, joomla, svn and good old notepad.
The generation of people who make the 99% of this content not only reject playing golf as a way to communicate, but they also reject the notion of a boardroom.
The exclusive and location static nature of the “boardroom and golf” means of communication is in comparison to the “basecamp and msn” form of communication, far slower, which all things being equal places the boardroom style of business at a commercial disadvantage.
If the author of this article is looking to the future of business, then he (Im guessing he is a he) should be looking to the technologies that are going to replace the boardroom not those that are going to get past its security coded doors for the short time that it still exists.
2 Responses to “What happend whilst you were Whilst your on the golf course.”
Francis
Just to play the devil’s advocate (and his taste in suits ain’t bad), while the internet has been an enabler for the technologies mentioned, it’s down to good ol’ brand awareness at the end of it all and the only way in which the collaboration is seen, is by: Blackberry, Exchange/Outlook and Lotus Notes. No-one wonders around with a gadget marked “internet”.
Also don’t underplay the value of trust. Right now that is taking a battering out there, and also that thing called “leadership”, these things can only be established by creating relationships, and the strongest ones are generally with those you can see and talk to physically. Imagine a bar instead of a golf course and a plain ol’ meeting room instead of a boardroom and we’ve all done it.
If you want the boardroom to change, it’s going to be a two way process, and technology needs to provide for their needs in as much as they need to adapt to the technology.
I’m pretty bad at golf. Maybe we should get a practise game in ?
simon
Since I wrote this post Ive had a bunch more exposure to board level guy’s (not many women).
These people are incredibly powerful, and they make decisions fast an on little information. From what I can see they split into two streotypes the technophobe and the technofile.
The technophobe is well into all the gadgets, blueberrys, black berries and whotnot but … they dont google! and they wont touch the corporate build on the llaptop (i.e. install msn desktop search). These dinosaurs will bet beaten by the others who use the gadgets to get better information rather than as a status symbol. These are the technofiles.
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