Three levels of enthusiasm for technology

2014-08-02

Most businesses today believe that technology can dramatically improve the way they operate. But they embrace technology with varying levels of enthusiasm.

The lowest level of enthusiasm is to adopt technologies made by other companies - email, customer services software, etc - and perhaps create an "IT department" to manage those technologies but nothing more. The next level of enthusiasm is to create an internal technology organization - a senior executive position like a CTO, a technology department, etc - and develop proprietary software. The highest level of enthusiasm is to have top management with technology backgrounds who see technology as core to every organizational function. For them, having a technology department would be like having a business department - redundant and strange.

A lot of recent Silicon Valley startups look at first glance like non-technology companies, doing things like food delivery, home services, transportation, etc. The difference is that the founders often grew up with technology, have backgrounds developing software, and can't imagine anything other then a technology-centric worldview. They're betting that by putting technology at the core, they'll be able to create dramatically better products and services.

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