CA Technologies Corporate Blog: Perspectives : Consumerization of IT

The Work-From-Home Debate Heats Up as Consumer Driven IT Marches On

Jackie Kahle — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 10:57:00 GMT

I have been closely following the active discussion that has been taking place concerning Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to call all her home-bound workers back to the office. From numerous blog posts to tweets from Sir Richard Branson (@RichardBranson) to the recent insightful op-ed piece by Jennifer Glass in the New York Times, it seems like everyone has a strong opinion about her new policy. Now, other companies such as Best Buy are also re-considering their telecommuting policies. Let me state my personal bias up front: I have been working exclusively from home for almost 14 years, with four different technology companies. Starting out of necessity as Compaq began closing many of their New England offices, continuing through HP's acquisition of Compaq and their unwillingness to fund a mass relocation of people to California, followed by several years at Gartner where independent-minded analysts view it as their birthright to work where they please, through my positions at CA Technologies which has a very enlightened home-worker program, I am proof-positive that a work-from-home employee can be tremendously effective, efficient, motivated and successful at their job.

When the story first broke, the stated reason given for Yahoo's new policy was that people are more inventive and collaborative if they have the opportunity to casually meet face-to-face in the same physical workspace. This argument may have some merit, depending upon the type of team involved, for example small project teams in the early start-up phase, or tiger-teams working to solve a thorny problem. But it certainly isn't needed everywhere, all the time, and Gartner is a great example of how very close collaboration and brainstorming among their analysts can take place continuously even across large distances. But a short time later, another reason emerged for the new policy. According to reports, Ms. Mayer was suspicious that her telecommuters weren't really doing their jobs, and asked I.T. to check the VPN logs. She discovered that many were not logged on continuously to their company network, and new stories arose that there was widespread abuse of the policy and that people were even running other companies on the side from their home, on Yahoo's nickel. This then led to the blunt-force solution of eliminating telecommuting completely, for everyone.

Of course, one major problem with this is that being on the VPN does not equate to "working", nor vice-versa. I am logged out of my company's VPN sometimes for several hours at a time while I work on research and writing that requires concentration and an environment free from interruptions and distractions (including electronic ones, which are sometimes the worst of all!). But the even bigger problem here is this: what about a company's performance management system? Do employees not have concrete objectives and metrics on which they are measured throughout the year? Wouldn't managers know pretty quickly when an employee is not delivering on their commitments? Does one really need a VPN log to figure out if someone isn't doing their job? It sounds like something may be fundamentally broken, and it isn't the telecommuting policy.

From my perspective, this harkens back to the old-school notion of measuring people not by what they do and produce, but whether they appear to be active and busy. Home-based and in-office workers should be held to identical performance management standards based on committed, measurable results. If it is found that a home-based worker is not performing his or her job, their work location can be re-reviewed as part of an overall performance improvement plan. But to make an across-the-board decision to eliminate telecommuting for all workers, regardless of how well or poorly they are performing, seems misguided.

As for me, when I began telecommuting 14 years ago I didn't necessarily view it as a "right' or a core benefit, but I certainly do now. I simply wouldn't accept a job that required me to either re-locate, or spend a 3-hour roundtrip commute such as the one that would be required if I went into CA's closest office on a daily basis. Forget about things like quality-of-life and family time, just think of the 15+ hours per week of wasted time that would result from me being in my car instead of being home doing productive work.

So to CEOs everywhere who may be re-considering their telecommuting policies, I would say: first make sure your HR department has put in place effective performance evaluation and management systems, and then let your valued employees work where they please as long as they get the job done. As this blog has been pointing out for the last two years, the Consumer Driven IT tidal wave is inevitable and unstoppable, and employees managing their professional and personal lives in a seamless manner are a core part of it. There is no turning back.

Here's to 2013, The Year of the Customer

George Watt — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:50:00 GMT

Recently CA Technologies released our top IT predictions for 2013. There are, of course, many other interesting predictions from our customers, colleagues, and competitors alike. As I was about to close the book (or the browser) on that for another year I began to think about why we are predicting what we are predicting. What's the driving force behind it all? I came to an encouraging conclusion.

"It's peeeeeeeeo-plllllllllle!"

As Charlton Heston declared in the 1973 movie "Soylent Green"-- "It's people!" I might add, "finally!" Or, perhaps, "again!" It's all about the customer. About the consumer. About the employee. While the consumerization of IT has been a trend for a while now, it's much more than that. In fact, in 2013 it might be stated that the consumerization train has left the station. You can now choose whether you want to be on, or under, it.

In 2013 companies will begin to focus on engaging consumers (and employees) in compelling ways. Engagement will begin to drive changes in our approach to IT, some of which are already being seen through the likes of "mobile first" application development strategies. While I am not suggesting that every business will begin adopting this type of approach in 2013 (that will not happen), I do see evidence of the beginning of widespread preparation for these things; both consciously and subconsciously.

The compelling business value delivered by cloud and mobile solutions, and the consumer-led demand for both, has resulted in data moving anywhere and everywhere. With that comes a realization that we can no longer construct castle walls and moats around our data and applications to protect them. So ensuring the integrity of the identities of those who access the data becomes critical. What's even more critical is that the approach to managing security moves from one of prevention to one of service enablement.

The common thread in all of this... It's all about the consumer. It's all about the experience. It's all about engagement. And features such as location awareness and sensing provide opportunities to understand customers and employees like never before. We can now provide customers with exactly what they need, at exactly the time they need it. We can engage them "in the moment", when they most need services, and when they are most likely to purchase them, and with a minimum of input or intervention.

Fortunately, as this movement gains momentum several disruptive trends are maturing, at least to the point where they can be applied in a useful business context.; with mobile and cloud computing taking the lead, and big data closing in. So, I encourage you to take a look at our predictions, and others, and let us know what you think will happen in 2013.

*Image used courtesy of vjeran2001 via stock.xchng.

Chief & Chuck Cartoon: Adding Insult to Injury

Jackie Kahle — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:44:00 GMT

It's time to bring you the latest edition of Chief & Chuck, where they unfortunately learn they aren't even as tech-savvy as their own CEO! Well, they can always blame it on rampant IT acronyms run amok!

Read more about the new era of Consumer Driven IT at: www.ca.com/cdit.

Cartoon is under Creative Commons license (Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works)

Consumerization of IT Fatigue, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fun

Jackie Kahle — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:56:00 GMT

Despite my long background in IT, I have never been an early adopter of new technology. So it isn't surprising that I just finally got my first iPad this Christmas. My husband bought it for me in November and put it away, and in the month leading up to the grand unveiling I went onto my company's Service Desk and looked for information about how to connect my iPad to the various corporate systems. I wound up downloading 5 separate knowledgebase articles on how to connect it direct to the network (when I'm in the office), how to access our VPN, how to access the VPN via a new two-stage authentication process we adopted, how to set up an Exchange account and how to download and synch my work email.

Christmas morning I turned on the iPad and started accessing my personal email, my various social networks (including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn), tracking my portfolio with a cool Bloomberg app, taking really gorgeous Christmas photos, looking at the weather forecast and the constellations in the night sky, reading the New York Times and the New Yorker online, playing endless games of Angry Birds (I am actually getting pretty good at it), setting up a Dropbox account so I could share photos with my other home systems, watching stuff on Netflix and having really interesting conversations with Siri.

Every time I opened up my personal email account, I saw the five emails I sent to myself with the various Service Desk articles, mocking me. I reminded myself that I needed to get all the work stuff set up. Still I procrastinated, and played more versions of Angry Birds and Skyped my daughter in New York.

Here I am, more than a week later, and I finally leveled with myself: I don't want work-related stuff on my iPad. I don't want to read work e-mail, I don't want to access our intranet, and I don't want to use it to edit my documents and spreadsheets. I just want to have fun with it. Even though I love my job, work is work, and that is what my company laptop is for. It is bad enough that my Blackberry chirps all day long with incoming work email that I can't seem to avoid looking at even while on vacation. Why should I let work further intrude on my personal life? I like compartmentalizing them and keeping them as separate as I am able.

Yes, I know, this flies in the face of the promise of Consumer Driven IT and the seamless merging of one's personal and professional lives. Maybe it is because I am a baby boomer and not Gen-X or Gen-Y, or maybe we have just been sold a bill of goods by corporate America who is jumping at the chance to get their employees to work 24x7. But this is one consumer who plans to resist the siren call and draw a line in the sand so to speak (pardon the mixed metaphor).

Any one up for a game of Plants vs Zombies?

Chief & Chuck Are Back!

Jackie Kahle — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:36:00 GMT

When we first commissioned cartoonist Dave Blazek to create some cartoons to support our Consumer Driven IT initiative, we never dreamed the characters he came up with - Chief & Chuck - would become so popular among IT professionals. Since launching the first Chief & Chuck cartoon in October 2011, the strip has reached over nine million readers of IT and business publications and has been shared on various social networks countless times. It's easy to think that there are Chief & Chuck strips hanging in cubicles or serving as desktop wallpaper throughout IT organizations!

So now we are pleased to announce that Chief & Chuck are back with 8 brand new cartoons! If you follow this blog, every two weeks for the next several months you will be able to catch up on the trials and tribulations of our beleaguered IT manager Chief and his smart-aleck underling, Chuck. So without further ado, we bring you the latest edition of Chief & Chuck!

Read more about the new era of Consumer Driven IT at: www.ca.com/cdit

"A Shadow of Himself"

Source: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/