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CGF ARTICLES, OPINIONS & EDITORIALS

'Heads-up" for Directors in the Cloud (2012-03-13)

There’s much that can be said about the manner in which members of a board are ‘wired’, and it does not take much to recognise those directors who embrace technology and those who don’t. 

Interestingly, as technology races well ahead of the predictions stated by Moore’s Law in 1965 -- where the number of transistors would double on an integrated circuit every 18 months -- some have embraced this change, whilst many of the old school have ‘run away’ from it in fear.  Considering its pace, technological change is a huge adrenaline rush especially for the techno-savvy youngsters, but for the majority of those people who are ‘technologically challenged’ and their comfort zones threatened, they will become increasingly scared and may even flee their positions as their confidence levels in this area steadily decline.

Turning our attention then to a typical boardroom of today, still dominated by many directors who may not have been ‘nurtured with technological and computer gadgets’; understandably the older generation director will be seriously challenged when suggesting that the organisation’s hardware, software and data should be managed by a complete stranger to the organisation, and worse so, somewhere in the world wide web! The reactions expected from these less accepting board members, who are presented with a computing service -- Cloud computing which was conseptualised by John McCarthy in the 1960s -- which implies non-ownership or control of essentially the organisation’s computing backbone, however the shape or form, is predictably obvious.  Remembering of course that this situation will be fuelled even further if any of the following circumstances prevail; for example the organisation regards IT as an ‘intangible’ asset and is averse to IT expenditure, or its market share is in decline, or it is facing aggressive new market entrants, and finally -- but not least -- the organisation is technologically challenged or deprived.  Adding further pressure upon the existing directors who are reticent about Cloud computing, could also be the new and aggressive young executives rallying for the next position on the board, who themselves are ardent supporters of this new technology format.  Again, one hardly needs to be reminded of the manner in which directors may be regarded by the techno-savvy newcomers if their thinking still rests in the adage, “don’t fix what ain’t broke” or continuing to “box things in specific departments” with the belief that silo mentalities still work in a modern and highly wired world. The results will simply be disastrous, as the two worlds of dinosaurs and virtual, electronically wired executives collide!



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