It’s a typical day, HOTTER than the sun, AC’s blasting everywhere you go and you realize I forgot to send that report that was due. You quickly boot up your laptop, find the file & hit send. You then return to your day as if that was just normal and you did nothing major. The realization that you just leveraged one of the most powerful organizations in your company does not even hit your radar screen. Why do I think this is the case? Well, seriously end-users expectations of their IT service is continuing to move at a MEGA pace, not just a Crawl-Walk-Run, but a pole-vault step every month, quarter, year. I think that for end-users they are becoming more complacent about the service and just want “It to Work, however, whenever, whatever”! however for those in IT this is not just a easy exercise, but lucky for the end-user most of those that flourish and drive IT are bound by a common theme “Manage it, Secure it, DO as much as possible”. I realize there’s about a ½ dozen ways to say that expression, however the theme continues to come through in all that an IT shop does. In a perfect world, End users would not break the rules of installing rogue software, they would make sure their patches are installed and they wouldn’t take that laptop on a surf trip (NO pun intended here) in the sand. What’s the point? Well I think it’s time for that unsung hero in IT to get their day, their recognition for that theme that keeps a company alive, for without IT a company would not survive, not grow, flourish and be what it is.
So what do I recommend? Well I think showcasing to our peers, partners and leaders the value of IT, the theme that keeps the bond strong we can see a new level of respect, trust & response to IT shops. One of the challenge’s of getting that group of folks enlisted on your theme is to show them the big picture, specifically where do we want to go as an IT shop & what would it smell, feel, look like. One of the best examples of this for me are the following: Inside Intel IT they created a framework to talk, share & have a joint passion about the future (they call It the IT blue book), for the folks in my division we have taken pieces of this framework, applied the platform lens and we call it the Predictive Enterprise. Is Predictive Enterprise a pipe dream? - Kinda. It’s a vision based the theme that we can have a better environment, where we can work on the higher value problem statements that drive more biz value for the organization. What I have witnessed is when we use this forward looking picture it helps to get all the chiefs thinking the same, sharing that vision of where we want to go, no matter how BHAG (Big hairy Audacious goal) of it is.
Why does this matter for Intel? At the end of the day we want to co-innovate with our end users the new playing field for IT, we want to internalize that theme for where IT is going and truly make the impossible possible. While this may seem way optimistic it is truly the reality of what we think, talk and try to make happen. I have been on this journey with Intel for many years and the key ingredient in what we do is You , the user of our technology, those that are passionate with us about a better future and those that are continuing to hold higher expectations of us to drive better stuff (silicon, sw, hw, etc..). My vision of the future of Intel is to listen more, understand what we’re being told and drive tomorrow as if it’s today. One of our slogans for Intel recently has been “sponsors of tomorrow”, and while some may find this humorous, I certainly do not. I’ve witnessed countless times where we’ve been working on platforms for years and then finally produced them to show great value to the users (you), I’ve also spent a few years working in manufacturing on a product line that when it was released was absolutely a game changer for IT (45nm).
If you share this theme, this vision, the passion please let me know, please join us in our community of IT pro’s and let’s make tomorrow something magical.
Josh H
