By Sylvia Carr, 26 September 2006 11:20
NEWS
Young people are proving to be a disruptive force in the enterprise which will bring about the demise of the IT department as we know it today, according to technologist and futurist Peter Cochrane.
Making his keynote at today's silicon.com CIO Forum, he said: "Young people are pulling technology up and pushing at the boundaries of it uses. For that reason they're incredibly powerful in your company."
Young people can benefit organisations because of their fluent use of a number of technologies and their abilities to multitask and share information.
However, Cochrane warned, to get the most out of youngsters, managers must learn from them and not impose too rigid a structure on them.
When young people come into the workforce, they don't want to be told by an IT department which hardware and software they can and can't use, he explained.
This is one reason Cochrane predicted "corporate IT departments are going the way of the typing pool".
The tech-savvy workforce of the future won't need or want the usual type of IT support. "I can guarantee the young people coming into your company know more than the IT department," he said.
IT workers won't disappear altogether but they will have to change what they do - they will need to aid in the creation of business models that impact the company's direction. "If IT doesn't do that, who will?" he asked.
Cochrane, formerly CTO and head of research at telco BT, envisages an enterprise where workers are given an 'allowance' to spend on IT in exchange for giving up the right to tech support - a scheme that was pioneered at BP by silicon.com Agenda Setter Jim Ginsburgh.
He said: "People need support. They don't need an impeding force from within the company. If we empower people and lay out what's expected of them, they'll rise to the challenge."
Cochrane also called on business leaders to adopt the mindset of "anything and everything goes" in order to make their organisations efficient, productive and innovative.
He said: "People look at problems through a soda straw - they don't see the big picture. [Business leaders] have to look in new directions."
For instance, he encouraged events companies to employ modelling tools for predicting crowd behaviours and advertising agencies to take advantage of young people who are willing to create adverts for a small fee, as Apple did with its iPod ad campaign in the US.
Cochrane blamed recent IT project failures on the derision of the technologist, or 'nerds' over the last 30 years. "Managers thought they didn't need to understand technology to manage it. I find this appalling," he said.
In fact deep knowledge of IT is vital to businesses' and society's success, he said - and pointed out that 'nerds' - including Microsoft's Bill Gates and Apple's Steve Jobs - have become the richest and most influential people on the planet over the past three decades.
Comments
There are 36 comments. Join the discussion
1. Dan F
This sounds like a lot of utopian blarney to me. There are people in the business who know more about technology than me - anything to do with ipods, ripping music & films, high-end gaming machines, modded xboxes, bit-torrent etc etc ad infinitum. Does this mean they could have a positive impact on the provision of enterprise IT services to 10,000 people? Err, no! Give individuals and small groups control over technology and you will never see any manageable standard configs again! And you can forget five 9s availability when technology comes a strict 2nd in those peoples jobs compared to the core business. As for the decline in techie nerds, well its true that a deep understanding of technology is vital. However, it is also vital to be able to speak to people. Recent large project failures are due to tipping the balance too far in favour of the tech-ignorant project manager, but either extreme is no use.
2. kd
dont make me laugh...
As a reasonable young (30) system administrator with over 6 years experience in the field, that has been guiding new talent both in the field of system administration as well as supporting them, I can conclude only one thing. The younger generation understands less about IT and computers then the current one. Yes, they grew up with MSN, yes they can control their PS2. But their overal skill is almost bringing me to tears, so horribly bad (And that from someone living both among the most computer skilled people in the world - The Netherlands - and the considerably less intelligent USA).
3. Ralph Beales
It can be very difficult to accept claims made by people like Peter Cochrane, when they resort to marketing-speak. Impact is a noun not a verb and if PC doesn't know that, then does he know anything else?
I'd say his theme is more or less correct, although to claim youngsters coming into an organisation are more au-fait than the incumbent IT department, isn't overly probable (given IT departments are often made up of staff who might well be considered nerds or geeks)
He does make a good point for companies buying in services rather than owning big chunks of technology with his premise though. Who owns the infrastructure to supply gas/oil/electricity/water? Not the consumer or end-user. Thus the same surely holds true for IT?
4. anonymous
There are plenty of "young people" who don't have any idea about IT.
Substitute "intelligent" for "young" and you may have a good point.
5. BillK
Peter Cochrane said: "When young people come into the workforce, they don't want to be told by an IT department which hardware and software they can and can't use, he explained".
Of course they don't. And they don't like being told to get some work done either ---- instead of surfing the net, texting their mates, updating their MySpace profile, downloading music, etc. etc.
Has Peter Cochrane ever had a look at the tech swamp these techie youngsters produce at college or university?
Virus and malware run rampant, illegal software everywhere, servers full of illegal music and films, porn collections, etc.
It's all very well giving people an IT allowance to spend, but in a company all the different IT solutions must be able to communicate with each other.
If they give up IT support that means that they will be spending their time playing with their tech instead of doing their 'proper' job.
Getting rid of the IT department is a sure recipe for chaos.
6. Vic Tabram
I'm sorry but that is complete toffee.
The only software that young people have an opinion on is what messaging client they will use to avoid working!
To say that they are more savvy than myself or any of my colleagues is downright insulting.
And what software are you talking about?
We let them choose Thunderbird instead of Outlook and they lose the company's collaboration features.
We let them run their own AV client without the server administration. Dodgy.
We let them pick their own word processor. Fine but given that most people use about 15% of the app I hardly think it would happen much.
They CAN pick Firefox instead of IE if they prefer - not exactly work critical in most cases and hardly worth an article.
Let me have PC's job. I could do with the extra cash.
7. Andrew Robb
The same argument was made 20 years ago as non-IT departments deployed PCs as better tools that the IT department's mainframe. Then isolated PCs became networked and naive youngsters laid their departments and companies open to crimanal attack. Corporations also had a huge problem with pirate software. Their directors have a legal responsibility to prevent this, so the IT department regained its influence.
Unfortunately, many so-called tech-savvy youngsters run their own PCs riddled with malware and violated copyright material.
It departments will set up fire walls around each untrusted node to limit its activities. The resulting cost and loss of connectivity (e.g. no corporate e-mail) will limit the benefits of these skunkworks.
8. Simon
WHilst I can see the general gist, it's something I find rather worrying. It's one thing to have a truly knowledgable person dealing with things, but I can tell you that some of my biggest headaches in the past have been the people to THINK they know 'fixing' things - which then take much longer to get working than if they hadn't fixed them.
Then I'd like to know how it's intended to square the inherent conflict between letting all and sundry "fiddle with the IT" whilst maintaining the security and access controls that are legal requirements, or at the very least sound business practice.
I assume BP doesn't get some 'young kid' in straight from school, give them free access to everything, and tell them to do the groups tax returns !
In that respect, the argument is more about the difference between having an in-house team of accountants or paying a specialist accountancy firm for their services.
9. Anthony Hunt
It's not really a comment that holds any truth.
Most IT departments I deal with are incapable of understanding the concept of "customer service" and few seem to have knowledge beyond installs and basic MS Office. (both within the remit of a child of three). Passing the buck, on the other hand, they understand very well. "It's someone else's problem, we can't help you" being the mantra.
These are departments staffed for the most part by "young" people.
The idea that a generation of "young" people will negate the need for an IT department is absurd.
The more realistic concept is that intelligent users, ever more IT literate - regardless of age, will get fed up with the lousy service from their IT department and find ways to work around them or without them.
10. Bruce Sandeman
What a joke!
IT departments will not be killed off by young people, as the majority of them have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to IT. They certainly know nothing about business impact and responsibility.
Important decisions have to be made by people that know what they are talking about, not young people who "think" they know what they are talking about. If that were to happen you might aswell let your salesman make strategic IT decisions!!
However, I agree with the point regarding managers and geeks, so many managers including people in the company I work for refuse to ever listen to anyone that tries to explain the detail of a project because they say that it doesn't matter and that they "don't need to know". Frankly I have seen this attitude become extremely pervasive over the last few years and I am fed up with seeing more and more projects fail utterly because of it!
When we used to have managers that cared about the detail, they actually knew what they were managing and apart from then being able to set realistic deadlines, they motivate the staff better and are able to properly keep the customer in the picture . Those projects always succeeded! and often were completely well within budget!
These days it is rare to find a project anywhere near being under budget because of managers refusing to understand the detail.
Software gets more complex, managers get less complex! Then they give the rest of us a complex!
11. anonymous
Absolute rubbish - sounds like it was wrtten by a PR company with lots of Arts degrees and 'Research Budget', ie time spent in the pub. I'd love to put this guy's company in the hands of a bunch of kids who want to replicate the file-sharing game-playing home environment. Thankfully Silicon is free - I'd hate to have to pay to read that kind of tripe.
12. Nick Ashburner
I find Peter Cochranes assertion that all businesses can move to a different method of handling IT preposterous. Simply basing his argument on what happened at BP is unrealistic in that BP recruit the cream of the crop, as I suspect BT Research were able to do. These 'young' incredibles by no means represent the average young person coming into the work force, many of whom have difficulty in communicating simple statements, in fact many employers realise that they are faced with carrying out primary education in order to create valuable members of their work force.
It would be interesting to select, at random, 10 companies from the FTSE 250 and put Cochranes idea to the test - my monies on abject anarchy
13. Hid S
Yes, this article is nonsense.
Young kids know in general know NOTHING.
Using Bill Gates isn't exactly a great example is it? If all 'nerds' etc were like him, there'd be loads of people him but there aren't.
IT Dept is a helluva lot more than just knowing techie stuff.
I think I will employ a 16 yr old kid and ask him to transfer my SAP system to his iPod. COOOOL MAN!!!
14. The IT Department
Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated
Don't the visionaries who continually and incorrectly predict our death ever feel 'a bit stupid'.
Or do they believe that everything happens eventually, so, if they repeat it long enough, one day they'll be right?
15. Mat Barnard
Bless. How utterly naive.
With software piracy, malware and ever more stringent audit requirements the opposite is becoming true.
The last thing business needs at the moment is kids IMing business data over WIFI to their blogs.
Great for media companies I'm sure. Not so great for finance.
16. anonymous
I'm not sure what youngsters PC has met but apart from the very rare one, children nowadays seem to know less about the actual operation of a PC than they did 5 years ago. As has been said in previous comments their PCs are rtiddled with viruses and malware and they don't seem to understand why AV app's. etc are necessary. The only PCs that we have constant problems with are those used by these future replacement IT gurus. God help us all if they are ever allowed to get their hands on a corporate IT system without the proper training.
I've just thought could it be the Governement departments are using kids now to save money, is that why all Governement IT projects are over budget, late and never work the way that they are intended to do?
17. Ben Robinson
As an IT profesional who has to regularly restore entire folders full of important files becuase they have "disapeared" (i.e. moronic users have deleted them), i don't see this becoming a reality any time soon.
18. Richard Sankey
Remember when data warehousing was heralded as the answer to the problems caused by diversified IT? I am sure that many of the young people to which the article refers won't.
New ideas will always be the lifeblood of IT, but they must be tempered with experience and sound management.
The thinking behind this article is so out of date it could have come from the last century!
19. Steve Berry
Whilst I can see where PC is coming from and there's certain merits in his argument, the plain fact of the matter is that most businesses that use IT extensively do so in a process-controlled/orieneted environment. People are in effect "cocooned" by process geared to "pushing" the product forward and their actions are fundamentally dictated by those processes. Most medium/large business runs that way - because it just can't effectively run any other way.
It's the age-old argument. How much input does Management accept from the "shop-floor" ? Channels and processes must be in-place otherwise the whole system falls to bits.
This argument actually has nothing whatsoever to do with youngster/oldsters it's to do with people/processes and how people can be slotted in to those processes to achieve business goals. If the business goals need to be changed then business analysts need to become involved.
The few times where tech drives business as opposed to the more normal other way around requires an inordinate amount of intelligence. Case in point - BitTorrent - where new business models are being created.
Let's face it though - most of us just aren't up to the standards of the certain youngster who created the BitTorrent protocol and most people of that calibre don't like to be constrained by process - rather they prefer to create their own "process".
20. Roger Huffadine
Whatever he is smoking I need some - I work in a school - I know what kids get taught - I know their capabilities - I know these predictions are total bullshit.
21. Colin Thomson
That is just a recipe for anarchy in the IT world! The security issues alone would beggar belief.
22. anonymous
Way to many negative comments here..I am a young person (25 - 30)having worked at various companies and find the attitude of management mind boggling. If you work at an ecommerce business surely you would realise that there is a lot to it then just setting the "nerds" the task of building stuff that you think is cool. When I started introducing things like looking at historical data and producing a model for we think might happen so that we are always available it wasnt taken seriously enough because I was "young" there seems to be this slight age discrimination where even if you have the knowledge you are not considered in today's business world as can be seen by the comments to this article. So rather than most of you being negative why dont you look past the age of the person and decide if what they are saying makes sense and would be worth pursuing....
23. anonymous
I read the first couple of paragraphs of this and couldn't go on. It's not just the ageist bullshit or the toting of very tired stereo types. It's the fact that Silicon actually see fit to publish this content free tripe.
I'm sure Peter Cochrane is a pretty clever chap, he must be to maintain a career peddling this drivel to frigthened CEO's and CIO's looking to fix dodgy IT within their companies. But hiring someone just because they're young won't work never has never will.
Why argue the points when they're just so offensive. We should value people for who they are not for how old they are. There's nothing more stiffling to innovation than sticking labels on people and stuffing them in to pigeon holes. That's the way to an unproductive and resentful work force.
24. anonymous
Well that will make sure that IT professionals are in work for years to come sorting out the short sighted and ill researched "fixes" these people are free to use.
Sadly most companies are not in the league of being able to afford to throw billions of dollars at monkeys who want to try things out for themselves and surely won't want to waste hard earned cash sorting out monkey pzzles that with a bit of thought and expertise could have been resolved in a more intelligent and practical way.
25. anonymous
I've seldom read such drivle!
How much is this bloke paid?
26. anonymous
I usually agree with Peter...
... but can't fully on this occassion.
Yes the hoodie-clothed youth-of-today is tech-savvy, in that they can text and MSN at the same time, can rip anything to an iPOD, get ever-increasing hi-scores on XBOX/PS2, but that doesn't make them IT Material. The are USERS of consumer products, not CREATORS of it. Ask any one of them what binary is, and the blank look will prove it to you...
But I know of at least one IT department, at a local company, who should go the way of the typing pool real soon. They filter incoming mail, and delete it if it contains a .jpg. They delete mail which is one month old, regardless of desire to keep it, or importance. And they don't back-up users' files, becuase it 'costs too much money'.
They cannot be they only IT department which acts this way, and I presume it is *these* cretinous dinosaurs PC is describing - any iPod-weilding hoodie-wearer could run rings round these over-paid idiots... and should!
27. anonymous
Don't worry. From the end of next week it will be illegal in the UK to discriminate on the basis of age - so no more adverts for 'young', 'dynamic', 'energetic', 'experienced' (or, better still, 'inexperienced') people.
28. Steve Berry
[Quote]Don't worry. From the end of next week it will be illegal in the UK to discriminate on the basis of age - so no more adverts for 'young', 'dynamic', 'energetic', 'experienced' (or, better still, 'inexperienced') people.[/Quote]
And you think that's actually going to change anything ?
The "public face" will be one where they can't mention any of the previous drivel we're all so accustomed to seeing.
The "private face" will be as its always been. People will always be people and no legislation in the World will ever change that unless recruiters think they'll land themselves in some form of trouble.
People employ others fundamentally based on perception not necessarilly based on fact (old boy networks excepted).
It's just the Gvt covering their collective *****. In the big scheme of things it won't actually change much unfortunately.
29. anonymous
Given enough rope.....
If Cochrane is right then the demise of IT Departments will happen anyway and one might as well not agonise over it. If that happens and he is wrong (and I certainly think he is wrong) then lots of us have a lucrative future rescuing floundering companies who have decided they don't need their IT department any longer only to discover later that they do.
30. Rob
as a "young" person in the big wide world i think i have a fair perspective here. Im 20, and currently work as a tech support. Having read both the article and the comments, i can honestly say im disgusted at the misconception of youth. The biggest headaches for myself and the other guys on the helpdesk here are people that dangerously tinker with things they dont understand - and that applies to users of all ages. The IT knowledge that the incoming youth have is excellent as it means the ability to support them over the phone rather than visiting their desk to show them how to print to a different printer then is default. The issues that IT departments will deal with will become more specific and require experience and specific knowledge rather than general computing skills - and so young IT savvy workers will be a blessing to IT departments as they will be able to get on with the more important aspects of the job. People have posted that if the new "young" people started running IT it would go to pot, and I agree, but if new "older" people started running it it would happen quicker. The new younger generations, having grown up with technology are more likely to learn and integrate with the technical side, and so could focus sooner on the other aspects of the job.
31. anonymous
What utter rubbish!
Some young people are great with gadgets - they can text at lighting speed and download the Arctic Monkeys latest video to their Ipod before you can blink, but their computers are virus and spyware laden, they don't know how to share email, they can't put together a collaborative document to save their lives. They are the ME generation and businesses needs to shake them up so they use their undoubted skills productively for US. There'smore to business than playing with the IT infrastructure, leave that to people who are employed to make sure it works, not to push it till it breaks.
32. Brian Chappell
You know, I've heard this line regurgitated time and time again over the past 20 years. I was one of the first generation to have home computers and I guess we did hit the market with a good bit of knowledge albeit not of business systems. As PCs started appearing in the home the press started... just watch, the next generation will be computer whizz-kids and IT Support teams will be redundant. We waited... and waited... and saw some really poor candidates for IT Support roles emerge from the 'youth-of-the-day'.
As for 'their fluent use of a number of technologies', I have to admit that should I ever need someone who can type 20wpm of horribly abbreviated drivel with one thumb (when supported by predictive text) then I'll certainly be recruiting from the youth of today.
The biggest problem with technology today and the exposure the young are getting is that, on the whole, it's superficial. The really nitty gritty is hidden from them, editing the registry really doesn't explain how the whole system hangs together... it's also normally done verbatim from a web page! Those who do have real skills will get plucked and help maintain a base of good technical skill across the industry (the truly exceptional will set up their own companies, probably before they leave school, make a fair success before being shafted by the business-savvy CEO bought in for the company floatation).
So, kids going to take over... put us all out of jobs... give it another 5-7 years and we'll be told the same again, I stopped shaking in my boots years ago.
33. Dave Yearsley
Dead right – scary that IT staff do not see it!
IT Departments are an obstacle to change and obstruct business. They tend to be centralised and without committee or contract cannot assist.
Weak security concepts do not support open organisations.
Skilled staff master the IT they need for the job – few IT staff understand the business and translate ideas into ill fitting expensive concepts that satisfy constraints of IT. The future is staff who may or may not use corporate resources and who work collaboratively in and outside the organisation.
IT Departments think they are clever, laying a structure that is safe, correct and fit for purpose - but they are dull without imagination, constrained to last century and do not look beyond their own navels/shoes or self interest and exaggerate the particular. The future of IT is to be nimble, clever and add business advantage – if not it is dead – they will be bypassed and mobile devices/connection/own budgets will run the roosts.
Goodbye and thanks for all the fish. I am age 56, cannot get an IT job - must be because I do not comprehend students, staff and business folk as idiots, criminals or time wasters. I thought IT was meant to be visionary, out of the box and thinking the business/culture through the decades.
34. anonymous
Fortunately in the UK, as of today, it's illegal to discriminate in favour of young people. So in the UK at least the IT departments will have some time left to run.
35. Marc Wilson
I'm sorry, I think that "PC" has got some sort of memory virus.
"Kids today" know lots about firewalls- how to disable them because they slow down interactive gaming, for instance.
IME, kids know about PCs the way they know about cars- how to pull "donuts" in the B&Q car park, but little idea of what actually goes on under the bonnet.
There are exceptions, of course, but in the main they are, at best, "power users", and at worst, completely reckless about security, organisation, maintenance, backups..... give such a "kid" charge of your IT and watch your share price plummet.
36. Andrew Robb
The view of Tech Support will be skewed in favour of the temporaly disadvantaged (what used to be called young) because the proportion of technophobes contacting the help desk will naturally increase with age; experienced tech-savvy workers have been there, done that and got a dozen T-shirts (all in different colours). They find the 'knowledge' of tech support laughable and naturally avoid contact.