Many strategists and senior managers in the IT world are graduates of the 90s.  One thing I think everyone can agree on is that the pace of change in business and IT has only increased.  What does that mean for the direction we’re taking and advising?

Remember the passion with which we evangelised the difference the web would make?  Remember the blank looks from senior management?  Remember how TCP/IP was just one of myriad network stacks, and the pain with Windows 3.11?  Remember how Windows 95 proved we were right?

Maybe you remember Marble, the UK’s first Internet-only credit card, beating Egg by days (no pun intended)?  Or being asked to pay for internet banking?  Perhaps you remember the promises of SOA, or CORBA?  Or your first Google search, replacing forever AltaVista in your heart?

Remember the bemusement, or slightly indulgent tolerance, when you advocated to senior management that the world was changing significantly and never be the same again due to the web?

The people who were born when I was studying for A-Levels are now my colleagues.  Call them the Digital Natives, call them the Millennials, call them whatever: the nomenclature is immaterial.  They’re bringing their passion, their evangelism, for their way of doing things, which “isn’t how we do things”.

They’re bringing their own devices.  They’re bringing their peer groups that they listen to.  And they know who to ignore.  They’re using whatever services they want, wherever they run.  They’re expecting service provision in seconds, any where, any time, any device.  They’re disrupting business through IT in exactly the same ways we all were and causing headaches for: security, risk, process, governance, regulatory compliance and more.  And they will drive the future, whether we embrace it or not.

So…  What’s the right approach: bemusement, amused tolerance, or adoption?  The high level trends are well known, but what about the innovation coming from individuals?  How should we propose to mentor and encourage such things, and encourage people to continue to create and disrupt but in the right way?

My view later.