I travel quite a bit. When I meet someone new and they find out what I do, invariably they ask a question or two about technology trends. “What’s your favorite app? or “What program will help me be better at …” are common.
And I suppose there is a good reason for that.
Remember when you were young and asked, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” At that age, you saw no boundaries: you could be anything! But something happened on the journey of growing up. For most, interesting distractions occurred that captured your attention and led to habits (or more likely, lack of habits) that seemed valuable in the moment, but ultimately led nowhere: watching TV, hanging out with friends, chasing after a romantic interest, etc.
This is the first of a four-part series describing the main IT personalities. The intent of this series is to assist organizations in defining and hiring the right IT staff for their needs. In categorizing the personalities I will be making generalizations.
I meet with a lot of companies and still the two most-asked questions I hear are: “What is the value of IT?” and “How come my IT group can’t offer strategic value?” The nature of these questions can almost always be traced back to the perspective that IT is an Infrastructure Provider (equipment, network and applications).
The first question usually comes from an organization’s underlying desire to keep costs as low as possible.
Photo courtesy of Martin Abegglen, twicepix
I wanted each of these posts to provide my readers with a unique insight or call to action. I hope that through my writings I can motivate some of you to make a small change that improves your business or life.
Ding. Ding. Another text. Another e-mail. Oops – there goes the phone. Even if ignored there’s still the nagging buzzing of a voicemail left behind. All of these intrusions impact our ability to stay focused on one task. Rather than you managing your time, they manage your time.