The ICT Optimist

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke, “Profiles of The Future”, 1961 (Clarke’s third law)
English physicist & science fiction author (1917 – )

The future of communications is not driven by what is technically possible based on past activity but rather by a radical approach to revolutionizing the user experience for the future.

Communications at its core is about interaction, knowledge transfer, sharing, collaborating, and linking groups, thoughts and skills. If we seek the future of communications, we should start by asking what an alternate and better, but so far unachievable, user experience should be. If your consider the Star Trek series and the technology displayed there, the details of how it worked were not what enthralled us, it was rather the way the technology enhanced the capabilities of the human beings using it. Warp Drive was about being able to take us farther than ever possible. The medical devices and scanners were about people being able to diagnose with certainty an illness or condition. Phasers where about being able to protect oneself in a way that allowed you to select the outcome (kill, stun…). And Communicators were about being able to invoke complex communications between people without technical intrusiveness (notice they never dialed a phone number or looked up a directory entry before they talked).

All of these technologies were intuitive to the audience because they represented a better way to experience the world, accomplish a goal or exist as a human being. Yet every one of them was equivalent to magic as the technical capability to do them still to this day eludes us.

When you see that vision of a better way to exist, depending on your view, you either dismiss it as a fantasy or decide that if you can dream it and it makes sense, you would try to make it happen. When I think about the future of communications, or any space for that matter, I always try to consider what about the user experience is missing and how we might improve or transform the task the technology is focused on rather than just try to find a role for a new technology without context. In essence, to answer the question “What is the Future of Communications?” we must start with a view of what the communications experience should look like regardless of our bias and insight of existing technical capabilities.

“What is the Future of Communications?” … continued in part II

“I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated”  – Poul Anderson

I thought that this quote was extremely insightful given the changes in the industry and the constant attempts by many to describe the changes as orderly and without unintended consequences. I have spent a great deal of time recently looking at structural and technology change in telecoms and IT and the one conclusion I can make is that in all of these activities, the corner cases and hidden complexities are greater than expected.

Its interesting to watch the industry and see how leadership seems to be hard to find. In thinking about this I remember a great set of quotes from Warren Bennis on the difference between leaders and managers…

Warren Bennis (1989) on leaders versus managers

Manager versus Leader

The manager administers; the leader innovates.

The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.

The manager maintains; the leader develops.

The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.

The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.

The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

The managers asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.

Managers have their eyes on the bottom line; leaders have their eyes on the horizon.

The manager imitates; the leader originates.

The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his own person.

The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

Warren Bennis

Consider the difference and look for examples of leadership and its pretty certain that where you find real leadership, those organizations will lead the recovery of both the economy and the ICT industry into a next era.

“In industry there are two kinds of companies: ones that play chess and ones that play checkers. The chess players shape their destiny while the checkers players have it inflicted upon them.”                                                                                                                                                                            –John Roese  

This is one of my favorite sayings and in today’s environment is clearly true. Companies that have a well-thought-out strategy (the chess players) and that have considered the implications of their actions and the possible counter moves of their competitors, the economy, and their customers are usually able to control their fate and behave much more predictably in complex situations. Alternatively, companies that either lack a strategy or don’t actually guide their actions based on that strategy (the checkers players) usually find that the complexity of their environment keeps surprising them with unintended and usually negative consequences.

I am sure you can think of companies that fall into either category. What is interesting though is that a company can, at different times, be either type of organization. The key, however,  is that a company that understands the value of vision, planning and strategy and is clear about its direction, its goals and the possible events it may have to react around, is usually a stronger company and a survivor.

In the ICT market today, companies have far more events to deal with than ever before (collapsing economies, fear, technology shifts, competitive changes, customer caution…). As an interesting test, consider any company in ICT and ask if they are clear about what they are, what they are moving to become and most importantly if they are proactively positioning themselves to deal with the inevitable obstacles they will face.

As an interesting example of this, in an analyst meeting for Juniper Networks this week, when CEO Kevin Johnson presented their strategy, it was obvious that he had considered in depth the environment and the challenges they will face. You may debate their strategy but the link between it and their long-term activity and execution is pretty obvious. I was particularly impressed when about 45 min into the presentation he made the statement that they “are a pure play in high-performance networking”. Clarity in a vision and identity is key but they also seem to be well-aligned to that strategy from an execution perspective and are taking proactive steps (pay cuts, cost control, increased R&D investment…) to navigate the complex ICT environment we are in today. I won’t predict if they will succeed but clearly they are playing chess not checkers.