I recall all those Christmas Day meals in Australia eating turkey with my family with temperatures approaching 100 and wondering what it would be like to eat my Christmas Day bird in an environment more appropriate (i.e. cold and white). Sadly, this year the temperature in my Northern Hemisphere home was closer to the temps in Australia than temps appropriate for snow. But as the tryptophan took effect - and no football or cricket to watch - the result was the same: my hyperactive mind slid into what I only hope was sleep, but possibly, it was a trance and the outcome was five predictions for 2012 and beyond.
The dream began with an overwhelming unstoppable invasion, not of army of soldiers, but of consumer devices. These interconnected, communicating, networked, untethered devices were everywhere. There were tablets, smartphones, netbooks, laptops, gaming machines and more. Each person brought with them multiple devices and greeted me with a request for an IP address and the password to my wireless network. As they connected they drove my home network to a crawl, but the clever ones who also had 3G or 4G access abandoned my slow "old fashioned" (or so they said) network for theirs. As we ate our turkey people communicated over these devices. And instead of speaking to me, my Grandson "Facetimed" me from the basement, when he could have simply screamed and I would have been down there in an instant. As plans were made for the New Year, calendars were updated in real time and changes were made to various devices used to record programs on their cable or satellite systems. Even my coffee maker had adjusted the morning brew time to sync with my schedule.
As a result, prediction 1 for 2012 is the unstoppable bring-your-own-device train will leave the station and become business as usual in 2013.
Back in the office this week, my prediction gained further proof as the invasion of the consumer devices continued.
Colleague after colleague had a new tablet, netbook, smartphone or other device and they already were leveraging them for productivity improvements.
And I called a colleague of mine who is now working in the financial industry and he told me that effective January 1, his firm is no longer supplying new computing devices. The staff will be given an allowance to purchase the computing tool that they need to do their job and IT will be focusing on ensuring appropriate access to the appropriate information based on their location, roles and the role requirement. And all data will be stored centrally with connectivity assumed.
For those of you who think my dream and first prediction is fantasy, my experience at work and the message from my colleague indicate differently. The BYOD train is boarding now. It is a fast-moving train and unless IT departments jump onto it now they will be left at the station. I know that Risk Managers and Security Officers may see this is a risk to our most valuable asset - our information - and it could be if not handled correctly. BYOD is an opportunity for organizations to focus on securing the information and who accesses it from where and when and so on. In 2012 BYOD may start off as a trend, but it will end the year as business as usual. For many of you it started with that gift under the tree.
More predictions to come!
Magic 8 Ball image used under Creative Commons License courtesy of QnD2011. This blog also appears on CA Technologies Project and Portfolio Management blog.