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Saved by 14 people (4 private), first by anonymouse user on 2008-03-31


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IT's Not about the Technology

By: Kermit Pattison
Fast Interview: Gartner researcher Tom Austin on why your head of IT should be a cultural anthropologist and why you should think twice before you block YouTube.



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A new species of Information Technologist is emerging from the primordial ooze of Web 2.0 -- social scientists and humanists who focus on human behavior more than software code. So says Tom Austin, a researcher with Gartner, Inc., an information technology research and advisory firm. Austin believes that social sciences will become more important to IT Departments than IT itself. As computer systems become ever more automated and transparent, attention will shift to how to use these tools as social lubricants in the workplace. Here he explains why companies should worry less about blocking social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and more about using social networking to enhance collaboration and productivity.

Highlighted by charlesevan

why your head of IT should be a cultural anthropologist

Highlighted by ctscho

social scientists and humanists who focus on human behavior more than software code.

Highlighted by ctscho

As computer systems become ever more automated and transparent, attention will shift to how to use these tools as social lubricants in the workplace.

Highlighted by mgabriela

You say that in the future the true value of IT will come not from information or technology per se but from the social side.

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human interactions

Highlighted by mgabriela

The big difference is the speed at which we establish relationships, the ease with which we can find out about people, and the distance at which we can work with people.

Highlighted by willrich

The big difference is the speed at which we establish relationships, the ease with which we can find out about people, and the distance at which we can work with people.

Highlighted by ctscho

The big difference is the speed at which we establish relationships, the ease with which we can find out about people, and the distance at which we can work with people.

Highlighted by mgabriela

now we're going to think more about how to exploit the things we can do with social networking, expertise location, and all of the other higher-level social ordered phenomenon we can facilitate using technology.

Highlighted by mgabriela

It's not just the humanities. It's also cultural anthropologists, psychologists, organizational theorists -- people who can look at an environment and figure out, where do we let things go? Biologists are great at this. The problem with IT today is there are too many engineers and not enough social scientists

Highlighted by ctscho

It's also cultural anthropologists, psychologists, organizational theorists -- people who can look at an environment and figure out, where do we let things go? Biologists are great at this.

Highlighted by mgabriela

The problem with IT today is there are too many engineers and not enough social scientists

Highlighted by themingway

Does management specifically look for instances where employees helped others succeed where it didn't help the employee himself or herself succeed?

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on 2008-03-31 by willrich

How do we assess collaboration in schools?

Count on it. Look at teenagers today. They're teamagers. They work on projects as a group and think nothing of doing it that way. I expect to see that kind of thing percolate through the enterprise as an unstoppable force over the next two decades.

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on 2008-03-31 by willrich

I wonder. Are they teamagers?

That becomes a dynamic and important tool for navigating through the network of people inside the company to find others who may be able to help you.

Highlighted by scmorgan

It's not the technology that counts. It's the people.

Highlighted by willrich