IT doesn't risk boring business. It risks amusing it too much.

Time after time, I find clear evidence that we, the IT professionals, are promulgating policies we think we should promulgate but we know users will ignore. The gulf between policy and practice grows wider. Dilbert grows bigger. Scott Adams accumulates more material. And so on.

These massive "don't ask, don't tell" deceptions - the promulgation of little white lies - destroy credibility.

So, for example, we persist in the notion that end users abuse e-mail and store too much there and transport things that should be elsewise transported. So we rail against users, institute draconian quotas and issue "get tough" proclamations (along with "reeducation campaigns"). Meanwhile, IT professionals are often the worst offenders. Why? Well, because our proclamations are wrong.

Consider the town green with a few paved foot paths. They're where people are supposed to walk. What if the town finds that there are unpaved foot paths trodden by people ignoring the paving? What's the right thing to do? Erect fences to force people onto the paved paths? Or pave the unpaved but well-trodden foot paths?

When policy and practice are out of line, sometimes it makes a lot of sense to adjust the policies.

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David, you say, "IT, by its very name, seeks to transform legitimate business activities - activities that require skill, grace, innuendo and even cunning - into digitally enhanced shadows of reality." That's a fairly profound viewpoint. The notion that IT inherently diminishes the full color of business by reflecting it imperfectly in information structures is something I will dwell on for a while to come.

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Business process management (BPM) presents a big opportunity for IT to re-engage business. IT bores business leaders. IT, by its very name, seeks to transform legitimate business activities - activities that require skill, grace, innuendo and even cunning - into digitally enhanced shadows of reality. "Information" is groped and rendered by "technology," and we tell the business that "all can be better" because of our transformative efforts. This positivistic mentality suggests that all human interaction and commerce are best represented by a parallel world of server-based logic acting on our behalf, for our general benefit. IT practitioners are notorious for following frivolity and novelty. Yesterday's "great new technology" is immediately replaced by the "toy du jour," if we in IT are doing our jobs. IT will use a flamethrower when a match would do; it will push voice over IP (VoIP), instant messaging (IM) and videoconferencing when all business wants to do is phone up for a sandwich. IT overkills everything it does with its incessant chase for the next big thing and its naive acceptance of technological determinism. IT needs a new reputation.

In this light, it is risky to propose that IT can benefit business in a big new way, if it will just back down from its hype-induced sales pitch and its technocratic view of reality. However, there is a technology trend emerging from IT that matches a bigger business-level trend. BPM is starting the break the traditional IT organization from its self-centered vision of the corporate future. BPM is appealing to the business side of the house, so much so that its principles are driving the business to knock on IT's door for technological assistance. In some cases, IT is caught off-guard, with no hype and story to promote. Some in IT "get" BPM, but many do not - especially the core of programmers who consider BPM to be a poor man's way to do systems development. Those who do get BPM see in it a new way to justify IT's value to the business. In theory, the business wants to be agile, and at the same time, it wants to be deterministic. In theory, business wants to be able to tune itself to new conditions where competitive situations demand agility, and to apply repeatable best practices in a consistent manner in those cases where they don't need to fix what isn't broken. BPM offers the business a vision of how that new agile and deterministic dyad can coexist, in theory. "In theory" is the operative phrase here because most current uses of BPM are pedantic and minimalist: BPM for simple administrative tasks; BPM for repetitive paper-processing. IT can wake up to the potential power of BPM as a true transformational methodology and paradigm, and IT can lead the business with best practices, competency centers, reference templates and utility-level software infrastructure. The IT outsourcers are not "BPM smart" yet - many of them equate BPM with document workflow in a model mired in the mid-1990s. IT can compete and IT can re-awaken with a new business-ready story. IT has an opportunity to re-engage the business and hush the "Oh, IT…" rumors. Or, IT can let this opportunity pass while it chases frivolity and freshness - just as the pedant chases misplaced commas in a work of art.

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Yes, IT is fast approaching the realm of being a boring topic to business leaders - but in the sense of "IT as a bunch of technology that can enable things" - as a "means to an end." CRM, SOA, whatever. It is becoming the "engine room." Boring.

But what is exciting is what that ultimate target might be. That is enabled by IT but is clearly different. It is in fact the revolutionary capability to put information out there, and to be able to sort through, collect and use that information.

I think IBM has it right. The result is dramatic changes in business structures and dramatic changes in the idea of collaboration and sharing with unimaginable communities as sources of ideas.

Did you see the recent piece in the San Francisco Chronicle about Prosper? Phenomenal. This is a Web site (prosper.com) that is connecting individuals who want to borrow money with those who want to lend it. The borrower makes a request with justifications and qualifications, and prospective loaners bid to take the loan at a specified interest rate - all via the Web. Once agreed on, the deal is done, without the enormous structure of Citigroup, Visa, etc. Prosper gets a 1 percent fee (and does the payment processing), the borrower gets a much lower interest rate than 18 percent, and the loaner gets much more than the 4 percent a money market fund might yield. The key here is a whole new structure of business; it's a radical idea. That's not to say that Prosper will or won't be successful, but what an idea.

The other example we heard about at one of our internal research meetings recently was in the healthcare industry. It dealt with the emergence of the "infomediary," who can bring together all the relevant information about your healthcare: conditions, symptoms, sources, patterns, costs, locations, treatments, insurance, physicians, et al. This is a new approach - and enabled by the access of this incredible amount of information - but structured or accessed in a way that is actually useful. Again, remarkable.

Given this access, all kinds of people get involved and "discover gold" from unimaginable sources - via sharing a bit of information. Why not get more than half your ideas from external sources?

So, this is the type of message that business will be picking up in a big way as we move forward. Does IT have a lot to do with the understanding and acceptance of this concept? I very much doubt it. It will merely repeat the history of not being the source either.

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The problem with "next big business challenge" is that it presupposes that it will be a temporary thing - following the last temporary thing and preceding the next temporary thing. What is often missed (witness the comment that "agility" is vague) is that we are shifting from a focus on the technologies that it brings to the table, toward the things you can do with them to bring you value. This is a too-subtle shift for some to grasp, because they are blinded by the bright lights of technologies or the hype of "next big things" - and so, we keep going round in circles trying to catch our tails. By contrast, ideas like software as a service (SaaS), virtualization, mobile workforce, collaborative communities, IT utilities, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and even Web 2.0 all share at least one common trait - they lead us to center our attention on what we do, who we do it with, and what the value is, instead of the technology that makes it possible. That is the wave of the future. Call it, "we-business" if you need a name. It is about collaboration, it is about information, it is about processes, it is about people, and it is indeed about the effective, efficient use of technology to enable a desired outcome - agility.

Agility is a beneficiary and an enabler of we-business. Agility is about effective response to the need for change. It is not vague. Information must flow; people must strategize, commit and act. When the technology gets out of the way, those things can happen. The sum total of the best technology innovations of the last 20 years is driving this in a major way. That is why markets are changing. That is why business models are changing. That is why people are at the center of it all through process orientation. We-business is the next wave. It is the culmination of what "e-business" was supposed to be. It is the realization that people have been here for centuries and that computing technology is just a "second" on that time scale.

When we recognize that the "next big thing" is actually "making the last three 'next big things' work right," then we will see why agility is critical and why "we-business" will not be temporary.

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That's an interesting perspective, Martin. Without getting the basics right - why should IT be allowed to get involved in more business innovation? I can see that. But we could also argue that accounting has its fair share of reputation issues, and marketing projects don't have a much better reputation than IT for being on time and on budget - or even for measuring value contribution.

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One of the great IT challenges remains that of delivering on existing requirements and new projects in a timely and efficient fashion. Business processes are changing faster than ever before as connectivity offers new ways to cut cycle time and overhead. Managers are expecting more-efficient interfaces to let them see into business data. And users expect IT applications to be efficient, easy to operate and easily available. For IT leaders, delivering on these requirements is the single most important function. To do this, you must have project management in place and a team culture that does not permit individuals or projects to fail when others could have helped - the "that's not my job" syndrome, a disturbing artifact of the outsourcing age.

With these objectives met, business managers will license IT to deliver innovation that builds competitive advantage. Both are essential to long-term success, but without getting the basics in place, IT will fail.

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Andy, you say it so well. Makes me wonder whether all the business magazine and newspaper articles about Web 2.0 will help or hinder the industry’s reputation with business leaders overall.

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The IT industry's incessant search for "the next big thing" is what actually bores business. Every two-bit software house, IT startup, pundit and consultant who can come up with a new three-letter acronym or marketing gibberish immediately starts touting it as "the next big thing," the amazing wonder technology that will somehow transform the fortunes of all who touch it. Like the villagers in the tale "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," business no longer responds to these outlandish claims - nor should they.

Businesses succeed by integrating a disparate set of components of a business architecture into a value proposition that is effective in a market at a point in time. Of course, it's true that the efficient exploitation of IT is likely to underpin a successful business. And it's also true that IT is likely to play a role in creating new markets and opportunities for wealth creation. However, the IT industry itself has a dismal track record of being able to clearly detect and signal which individual technology, out of a plethora of emerging technologies and fads, is actually going to deliver this transformation. In fact, what is now happening is entrepreneurs are creating business value by spotting technology-fueled opportunities in the markets and going out and sourcing the technology. Thus, IT value creation has become a "business pull," not an "IT push."

The IT industry would be well advised to spend more time and energy discovering and promulgating the remarkable achievements of leading businesses in the exploitation of today's technologies. A little bit of humility would go a long way to re-establishing the credibility of a tarnished and jaded industry.

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I agree, Richard. Many of the management science techniques applied in business today originated from the industrial era. Computing has put them on steroids and made them more effective (or example, via the spreadsheet), but it's the completely new techniques that could be operated only in a networked computerized era that may prove revolutionary. Management culture takes decades to evolve (whole generations of leaders must sometimes pass by before new techniques can take hold). I read about ideas like "beyond budgeting" and "real options" with interest, but recognize that very few companies are ready to take them on...yet. Actually, we are hoping to have an analyst address this "new management science" topic in a new presentation at Spring Symposium in May.

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A few days ago, Bob Hayward wrote: "Productivity figures for developed economies in recent years clearly show that IT investment is failing to contribute as much as it used to. The easy stuff has been automated and made more efficient; now we're down to the really hard gains."

I bet that the next big wave is automation that changes the way managers, not frontline employees, work. McKinsey has written recently about the imminent arrival of "scientific management." I appreciate that the topic goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, but there is certainly big untapped potential for IT to change how executives run the show.

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I think this issue is both important and very timely. We intend to direct more of our research efforts toward it, and the Gartner Scenario we are developing for Spring Symposium in May will focus on this. IT user budget increases consistently averaging below 3 percent or so for the past few years is a serious industry development to ponder.

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Last month, Gartner published its 2006 EXP CIO membership program survey report (clients: see "Growing IT's Contribution: The 2006 CIO Agenda"). It sheds some light on the appetite for business-change-directed IT among the 1,400 end-user organizations that responded. Despite an overall conclusion that there remains softness in average IT expenditure growth, it identifies some segments where organizations are investing more in IT. For example, companies with more-ambitious business growth percentage targets are investing significantly more than the average in IT. The report's lead author, head of EXP research Mark McDonald, also notes attitude changes among CIOs toward their role in business change. The EXP research team sees a shift coming, with more CIOs working "on" the business (helping to reshape its future products, services and structure), rather than fulfilling on the traditional role of working "in" the business (addressing current operational requirements and tactical improvements).

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Good question, Bob - What competitors are out there to IT as a source of innovation? From the CEO's vantage point, I guess there are quite a few options: creative financial moves with private equity, new strategic HR organization designs, new pricing strategies, advances in materials science applied to physical products, creative and aesthetic design in new areas like services, a new wave of investment in brand development, and many more besides. Investment funds allocated to any of these would have some project trickle-down toward IT enablement, but they do not have IT as the core innovation catalyst. I met a plastics industry CIO recently who told me he did not see IT as important to business innovation. I asked him what was, and he quickly became enthusiastic about a future where we all drink beer from plastic bottles instead of glass. Apparently, recent developments in PET bottle technology make this possible for the first time. His attitude told me he was very business-aligned. He had already standardized, consolidated and outsourced IT where appropriate. It's interesting, though, that he saw no obvious big IT-enabled idea to offer the company. My point is that the IT industry - all of us - compete for management mind share with a number of other progressive forces in business. Sometimes, I think we collectively take IT's innovative position for granted. Moore's Law needs to be converted into new economic-value-creating concepts - and that takes effort, because they don't seem to be growing on trees.

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Productivity figures for developed economies in recent years clearly show that IT investment is failing to contribute as much as it used to. The easy stuff has been automated and made more efficient; now we're down to the really hard gains.

But I question how many organizations have really "done" ERP, CRM, e-business and the like. Surely, there's plenty of scope for continued enhancements and improvements. Before we move on to the "next big thing," let's make sure we've properly finished the last great thing. Nearly all our clients would probably claim that they have business intelligence tools and capabilities. But I don't know many (or any, come to think of it) that would declare that they do business intelligence really well and have exhausted all possibilities with it.

As for the next big thing, our own emerging trends and technologies research points toward the merging of the physical world with the communications and compute worlds (real world web) and the possibilities that pervasive computing can unleash in innovation. Mesh, sensor, RFID, location, presence and broadband wireless technologies will be the foundation for all sorts of business innovations. The convergence of IT with biology (biotech), IT with molecular science (nanotech) or IT with autonomous robots also offers an interesting future. And most IT remains counterintuitive and difficult to interact with; the human-computer interface is a fertile place for innovation.

And if not IT, where will business look for innovation? What competitor is out there?

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It was interesting that the spring 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos closed with a session where world business leaders focused on true innovation to solve major problems: "The Creative Imperative". Others are echoing this general call for innovation. For example, it's both an internal and an external lead message at IBM and a hot topic in this month's Harvard Business Review. However, at about the same time, a Capgemini survey suggested European CIOs have been focused on external sourcing strategies to reduce costs, but the savings are not being reinvested into IT for business innovation. Our own surveys reveal budget growth trends that suggest a rather mediocre strategic investment attitude toward IT. We know it is not CIOs who usually lead big business changes enabled by IT, and recently I have met some CIOs who suggest IT is not a business strategic force, while others say their primary objective is simply to cut the cost of IT to the company.

So, what really big ideas is the IT industry offering business leaders these days — or are we running out of steam? They did ERP, CRM and e-business (thanks, IT — those were neat!). What comes next? A cursory glance at IT industry umbrella marketing suggests some fuzziness. "Business agility" is vague, and few companies get passionate about ideas like "on-demand business" or "the adaptive enterprise." Compliance is sometimes seen as FUD, and security is an operating cost. Web 2.0 looks like fun for Google and Silicon Valley startups — but not much else. Has the IT industry run out of really big business ideas? What should the industry be proposing?

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