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July 04, 2005
Organisation's Tech as Foundation For Innovation?
This week, a seismic shift will rip through the organisation I work for: our workstations are being replaced with new ones. So, while I slowly say good-bye to my eight-year-old PII running NT 4.0, I look forward to a P4 XP box. The new PCs will still be completely locked: no USB, no CD-R, no admin rights whatsoever.
The very long cycle of eight years PLUS the (justified) security paranoia means that the workstations are just that - they serve a specific task. Uniformity allows for economies of scale and thus relatively low unit prices.
I do wonder though whether this extreme lock-in is for the good, but this depends on the underlying philosophy of a company. This organisation is not innovative. The industry, financial services, might be conservative but it is my opinion that it needs innovation as much as others. Perhaps even more, since differentiation is often non-existent.
"Innovation" in some companies (think 3M) is very much an integral part of work. Successful new ideas for products need the right mindset base running throughout the company in order to happen and to be implemented. For this, it needs the right framework provided by the company where personal energy is channeled and valued.
Anyway, the prevalent level of innovation is presumably not directly linked to employees' workstations, but It could be seen as an indicator. Ideas are also about information: if we are not allowed to spend some time gathering, generating and priorising information, then there is no point in giving us more "open" workstations.
So don't expect us to be innovative.
Posted by Irakli at July 4, 2005 10:58 AM
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