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| Predicting 2008 |
January 2, 2008 |
We take a look at how technology will fuel your company this year.
Hint: expect wikis
Welcome to our annual predictions issue. For our second annual look into the year ahead we tapped the industry smarts at IDC Canada. We asked the company’s analysts to predict which technology innovations and business trends are likely to shape 2008 for our readers.
The predictions range from the usual suspects—Voice over IP will continue its mainstream march, viruses and other computer nasties will get worse—all the way to less expected developments such as the coming of cellphone-based payment systems and a radical change in the way companies will source services. This last, according to analyst Sebastien Ruest, has the potential to be both the most disruptive and most valuable of the predictions.
One very interesting forecast centres on social networking. It’s old news by now that Wikipedia, Facebook and MySpace are taking over the world, so it’s not their popularity that is compelling but rather what these systems are beginning to replace.
Social networking tools are replacing the intranet-based information management systems that were all the rage in the mid ’90s. Back then, companies—most of which were still just trying to figure out the Internet—were told that the future of internal corporate communications lay in posting company information to private Web sites. This would replace memos and employee manuals and give everyone equal access to information in a timely manner.
The goal made sense and intranets became the bandwagon to ride. Soon, work groups and departments began building their own intranet sites in order to share information, track progress and develop documents. But as these sites proliferated, a problem emerged: employees were creating valuable data that was locked away in separate silos, inaccessible by other employees. And for every new project or deliverable, a new intranet site was created, often duplicating the information and experience of teams that had come before. Nothing was aggregated, maintained or tracked.
Companies ended up with hundreds or thousands of pools of information with no bridges spanning the divides.
More technology was thrown at the problem in the form of data-, content- and knowledge-management systems, often with effective—albeit expensive and complicated—results.
 The more things change
Fifteen years later we have the same basic requirement: disseminating important information to employees. But now we’re being told that social networking tools can fill this role. So, why will blogs, wikis and social collaboration work when the intranet silos of the past failed?
Three reasons. First, the boundaries to information access are lower now. Companies that once allowed locked silos are now creating open-access blogs and wikis. And while this volume of data might once have been overwhelming, improved search technology and the proactive use of tags and labels is actually making it easier to find relevant information.
Second, social networking is already successful at informing large groups of people. Look at Facebook and Wikipedia: they are useful and enjoyable to use and the same forces will make collaborative networking technologies work in the corporate world.
And lastly, consider another of this year’s predictions: that the business use of consumer-level technology will increase, not because CEOs or IT departments mandate it, but because tech-savvy employees simply import these new tools into the workplace. Just as with cellphones, instant messaging and notebooks, people like and understand collaboration tools and they will make them work—with or without management buy in. All of which makes the current issue an important read. There’s a good chance it contains significant signposts for your company’s technology future.
Coming in March: Our next issue is our fourth annual Top 300 presentation of the Branham300, a ranking of Canada’s top tech performers. This is the definitive list of Canada’s movers, shakers, newsworthy companies and success stories. Along with the rankings we will also present in-depth analysis of the larger technology industry that is driving these revenue numbers.
Peter Wolchak
Editor
pwolchak@backbonemag.com
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