Take the Backbone technology test
Assess the health of your company’s information technology, before it’s too late
By Peter Wolchak
November 24, 2009
November 24, 2009
There are two particular articles in this issue to which I would like to draw your attention. The first is the technology test. It presents 50 questions looking at your company’s Green IT, Web presence, Security, Agility, and Communications and workflow. Together, these assessments are like taking a physical; at the end you’ll have a comprehensive picture of the overall health of your company’s information technology.
We wrote that completing the technology test takes about 30 minutes, but that’s only a guess. If you can fully and honestly answer each question easily then 30 minutes is about right. If you find you don’t know some answers, or are unsure, it will take longer. But that very hesitation is instructive. If you can’t readily lay your hands on some answers those are the areas that require attention.
But completed in 30 minutes or over three days, it will be time well spent. Like a physical at a doctor’s office, we hope everything is fine, but the only way to know is to go through the exercise. And identifying problems now may avoid a crisis later.
And while all the questions and a handy scoring chart are in this issue, we designed this tech test to be completed online. In the online version we’ll tally the score for you, present informative graphs and compare your results to other companies.
And the test is easy to share. Tell your colleagues, pass the technology test URL on to your industry association and post a note about it wherever you hang out on the Web. We’re looking for comparative results, so the more people who complete the survey the more useful it will be for everyone.
Canada’s health
The second story to highlight is our look at Canada’s digital economy strategy. Or lack of it. From a strong start we now have dwindling momentum. As Industry Minister Tony Clement pointed out, Canada was once third on the Global Competitiveness Index and second on the OECD’s broadband ranking. Those standings have now dropped to 13th and 10th, respectively. As Open Text’s Tom Jenkins put it, “Canada has had a tremendous economic run but has become fat, dumb and happy.”
Those comments originated during discussions held a few months ago but they have since been underlined by a recent survey from the CATAAlliance and The Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Shirley Ann George, Chamber senior vice-president of policy, said that “Without proper investment and dedication to ICT, innovation and protecting of intellectual property rights, Canada’s productivity will be limited and other nations will continue to surpass us...”
Both the meetings and the study draw the same conclusion: Canada has implemented a broad information and communications technology infrastructure—with near-ubiquitous Internet access, wired schools, etc.—but not a deep one. For example, the study found almost 94 per cent of respondents have a Web site but only 40 per cent use it to promote their products and services, nine per cent conduct online ordering and 13 per cent support online payments.
So Canadians built Web sites but, as Jenkins would say, we then sat back on our collective couches and stopped innovating.
So it is against this national backdrop that we encourage you to complete our tech test and to pass it along to others. It’s time that Canadians step up their game and begin innovating again, and it’s central to your own company’s profitability and security. Assessing where we stand now is the first step in improving where we’ll be in the future.
Peter Wolchak
Editor
pwolchak@backbonemag.com
We wrote that completing the technology test takes about 30 minutes, but that’s only a guess. If you can fully and honestly answer each question easily then 30 minutes is about right. If you find you don’t know some answers, or are unsure, it will take longer. But that very hesitation is instructive. If you can’t readily lay your hands on some answers those are the areas that require attention.
But completed in 30 minutes or over three days, it will be time well spent. Like a physical at a doctor’s office, we hope everything is fine, but the only way to know is to go through the exercise. And identifying problems now may avoid a crisis later.
And while all the questions and a handy scoring chart are in this issue, we designed this tech test to be completed online. In the online version we’ll tally the score for you, present informative graphs and compare your results to other companies.
And the test is easy to share. Tell your colleagues, pass the technology test URL on to your industry association and post a note about it wherever you hang out on the Web. We’re looking for comparative results, so the more people who complete the survey the more useful it will be for everyone.
Canada’s health
The second story to highlight is our look at Canada’s digital economy strategy. Or lack of it. From a strong start we now have dwindling momentum. As Industry Minister Tony Clement pointed out, Canada was once third on the Global Competitiveness Index and second on the OECD’s broadband ranking. Those standings have now dropped to 13th and 10th, respectively. As Open Text’s Tom Jenkins put it, “Canada has had a tremendous economic run but has become fat, dumb and happy.”
Those comments originated during discussions held a few months ago but they have since been underlined by a recent survey from the CATAAlliance and The Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Shirley Ann George, Chamber senior vice-president of policy, said that “Without proper investment and dedication to ICT, innovation and protecting of intellectual property rights, Canada’s productivity will be limited and other nations will continue to surpass us...”
Both the meetings and the study draw the same conclusion: Canada has implemented a broad information and communications technology infrastructure—with near-ubiquitous Internet access, wired schools, etc.—but not a deep one. For example, the study found almost 94 per cent of respondents have a Web site but only 40 per cent use it to promote their products and services, nine per cent conduct online ordering and 13 per cent support online payments.
So Canadians built Web sites but, as Jenkins would say, we then sat back on our collective couches and stopped innovating.
So it is against this national backdrop that we encourage you to complete our tech test and to pass it along to others. It’s time that Canadians step up their game and begin innovating again, and it’s central to your own company’s profitability and security. Assessing where we stand now is the first step in improving where we’ll be in the future.
Peter Wolchak Editor
pwolchak@backbonemag.com
