It’s a great overview and expertly edited _down_ to a mere 16 minutes – genius!

You can find the podcast here…

A few months back, I was approached by a colleague that had been thinking about the collision of a number of key events: the turbulent economic environment, political uncertainty, changing workplace dynamics and the consumerisation of IT – individually, these topics have all been visited here at the Envisioners and yet the bleedin’ obvious had, until now, escaped us – what happens when you bring all of these events together at once?

We know that each one of these topics is enough on it’s own to start a conversation around how the business world needs to change (in both public and private sector) and yet here we are, presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity (I hope) where the convergence of compelling events in each of these areas create the mother of all incentives to become more agile and effective in the way we live work and play.

The Hybrid Organisation work comprises of three studies by distinguished thought leaders in their field; Prof Michael Hulme on the impact of current social change, Philip Ross on the opportunity provided by changes in the “built environment” and finally Ken Wood from MSR and myself on both the current and future potential offered by technology.

Alone, each one of these studies mark an incredible insight into each specific area, yet combined they create an incredibly compelling view of how organisations, leaders and individuals need to change in order to take advantage of the opportunities being offered and more importantly, how to stay relevant and competitive in our changing world.

To help organisations and individuals understand how to make these changes happen, we’ve created a final summary report which outlines the key themes from each of the papers and outlines 20 things every organisation should do on it’s journey to becoming hybrid.

I know all the cynics out there will be rolling your eyes and saying, “we’ve heard all this before” and that it doesn’t matter – well two things spring to my mind:

1. The unprecedented convergence of the recession, the election, workplace demographics and IT consumerisation is something that _cannot_ be ignored.
2. Read the reports and judge for yourself – Look at the 20 point plan and ask yourself (honestly) where you and your organisation stand…

There were a number of really compelling things that came out from both the presentation and the ensuing discussion:

1. Understand the Opportunity Cost of any savings you make.
   OK, so you lot know I already get that one, but wow, Dell apparently are able to plough around 50% of their savings back into strategic IT (and when you’re making a $160m saving p/a, that’s a big deal). Read on to find out how they get away with that -especially at a time when most CFO’s want every penny they can get – and then some.
2. Use the Time:Cost ratio as the pivotal argument, not simply Cost savings alone.
   Robin (and the group) talked about the difference in motivating the "business" when you factor in the time to market for IT solutions rather than simply talking about cost savings alone. It sounds simple when you say it like that, but it’s a hard won position with many CFO’s/Steering Boards. If people understand the difference in time to market that more complex IT makes, it makes it easier for them to support you in making it simpler.
3. Pursue "Ruthless Standardisation"
   Driving a standards based architecture is a pretty tall challenge, no point in doing it then if you’re only going to go halfway. It’s tough, but if you’ve done the above, you can make it happen. Dell have only _2_ images for their 22,000 server estate. That’s pretty ruthless, but it enables them to do a lot more.
4. Create a path of least resistance
   The Dell guys talk about the "Happy Path" vs the "Unhappy Path" when it comes to IT Architecture and solutions design. Follow the "happy path" (i.e. use standard tools/architecture etc) and you will get your solution in place more quickly and more cost effectively. It is possible to walk the "unhappy path" but it’s hard work so only those that are committed take it.
5. "Good enough" is good enough
   It was in fact, the great Dash (from Disney’s Incredibles – see how I spare you no cultural expense on this blog that said (and I paraphrase) "When everyone is special, it actually means no-one is". Nowhere is this more true than in the internal IT vs Business debate. The more special we allow different groups/departments to be unique and special the more expensive their IT solution. This recession will force organisations and departments to come to terms with this (I hope)
6. Rigidly define flexibility
   Oxymoronic at first blush, but it simply means, leave a little wiggle room, so people still feel empowered and part of the solution. Avoid "doing things" to people, collaborate with them instead.
7. Finally (and another of my favourite topics) be cognisant of the effects of "Consumerisation"
   Robin talked about the "Sunday Night/Monday Morning" concept, whereby people have a great IT experience on Sunday night as they catch up on personal tasks on-line, then go into work the following morning to receive a comparatively poorer experience. This isn’t about embracing the millenials, but about providing a range of service that suits a range of generational stereotypes.

Although the discussion was mostly business focussed, there were a couple of key technological points that I felt we worth calling out:

1. Power consumption is the new gold
   Based on the granularity of their server provisioning approach (smallest unit of MIP "currency" is a 2U box), Dell reckon that it is now power consumption that drives their hardware refresh cycle. Robin currently reckons that a 3 year refresh cycle will provide sufficient financial savings in power consumption alone to pay for the refresh.
2. Virtualisation alone is not enough
   Although it took a record breaking 60 minutes into the discussion before anyone mentioned the "c" word (Cloud, that is), what was clear that a big part of Dell’s success in the rationalisation of their data centres was the automation of the server provisioning. This is a topic that we’re beginning to see again and again, a virtual server is still a server, it still needs to be provisioned and patched. You only get the big savings, when you can automate that process sufficiently (and model it so you know what you’re doing is right).

What ever next?

Experience and tenure are at stake, we are starting to see an army of amateurs falling out of the clouds (pun intended), and the new heroes are the underdogs, the unknowns and the every day Jo’s. We see it everywhere, from television atrocities such as X-Factor, where you can become a hero just as quick as becoming a loser. But there are important success stories to consider, such as the Cuban blogger, Yoani Sanchez who through political persecution spread the words around the world of the real experiences of those living in Cuba, to which she was awarded the prestigious ‘Maria Moors Cabot’ journalism award.

Leadbeater and Miller describe professional amateurs, or ‘Pro-Ams’ as “Innovative, committed and networked amateurs working to professional standard. This emerging group, the ‘Pro-Ams’ could have a huge influence on the shape of society in the next two decades”. I certainly wouldn’t disagree…But it’s also not a new thing, take Richard Branson and Bill Gates as examples, Pro-Ams in their own right back in the hay day, but I think what Leadbeater and Miller are getting at is the opportunity that the Internet, and more importantly the Web has created. In the past 15 years we have seen a proliferation of more multi-million dollar organizations than ever before, just to name-check a few: Google, Twitter, eBay, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, PayPal (etc) and these are not just fads, each organization in their own right has changed intricate details of society, and out of nowhere they were sprung by Pro-Ams. So what does this all mean? It means opportunity for those less fortunate, innovation enthusiasts and entrepreneurs.

Looking back over the past decade, the Internet and the Web have advanced and become pervasive commodities, and looking five years ahead it’s possible to see it becoming a mere service that we WILL take for granted, like many of our developed world pleasures. However, unlike the ‘real-world’ in the cyber-world your voice can be heard if you shout loud enough. Fede Alverez, a keen amateur film maker uploaded a video project that he’d been working on, it was a 4 minute sci-fi spectacle depicting giant robots destroying the capital city of Uruguay…not too dissimilar to Michael Bay’s blockbuster hit Transformers 2, but unlike Bay’s $50million flop, Alvarez’s powerful short film was made for free, instead opting to use his own skills behind the camera, creating his own CGI robots and getting his friends involved. Within a few days, Alvarez was contacted by many Hollywood studios and has now signed a $30million deal to shoot a film for Sam Raimi (Famed for his Spider-Man remake, and Evil Dead trilogy).

These are stories of glory, and maybe your next-door neighbour isn’t going to become the next James Cameron, but one thing is for certain, there are millions of people around the world being discovered for their fresh and new ideas. Talent is easier to spot than ever before, don’t be blind-sided by experience and tenure, because originality and passion will never become passé.

One thing I have realised is that businesses are becoming more demanding of technology. They aren’t interested in technology that “does the job” they want and expect technology that will push their business and drive the company forward. This is fantastic as it will force the technology industry to push the boundaries of innovation much further. When I say we talked about technology, I don’t mean products and specifications, but rather what technology enables us to do. One of the most interesting discussions was the need for office buildings. Do we really need them? Think about it, would it be possible to get rid of your office building and still run your business? One suggestion was to have team meetings in Barbados, attendance would almost certainly be at 100 %.

We all agreed that the education system will be incredibly important over the next decade or so as we need to ensure that the youngest Millennials can fill the huge gap that Baby Boomers will leave as they start to retire. And is it really true that all Millennials are tech savvy? definitely not. There are still a lot of young people in this country that do not have access to the internet which is something the government will have to improve drastically over the next couple of years.

Sessions like the one yesterday are very thought provoking and in our modern society there isn’t always time for that, but there should be. Thinking is crucial and it’s something we should make more time for, so I hope we made some people think about the workforce evolution and the change it will bring about.

Another thing that made my day yesterday was watching this video with Seth Godin presenting at the TED (Technology Entertainment Design).I think the guy is one of the best presenters on the planet. And in this video he talks about the internet and the way it is ending mass marketing, awesome stuff.

Seth Godin on the Tribes that we lead

 Before we get to the above conclusion though, whats’ more important is to understand how we will be getting there. There is logic behind my madness!

Where we are today (UK)

So today we have four generations in the workforce, but for this post I will focus on the three prominent generations, Baby Boomers*, Generation X** and the Millennials***.

The Baby Boomers*, 14 million strong in the workforce and hugely important to industry – A generation born between the years of 1946-1964, began coming into the workforce several years after WW2 with an enthusiasm to change the world by coming up with new ideas, building new industries from the ground up.

Generation X**, 11 million in the current workforce, born between the years of 1964-1980 -  The generation that witnessed the inception of the personal computer, worked through the ‘Dot.com’ boom and possibly dabbled in the rise of MTV and Punk music. Gen Xers are also presumed to be ‘Next in thrown’ to the boomers, but is this really true?

Millennials***, currently 8 million in the workforce, though having been born between the years of 1980-2000 meaning that there is a huge amount (9 million) still in education. The youngest era of this generation are in fact still at primary school. By 2020 it is possible that there could be 17 million Millennials in the workplace (A deeper look into the fundamentals and importance of this generation in relation to the evolution of the workforce will be explained in the next blog post).

These demographics matter, they’re not ‘shock’ facts or over glorified estimates, its a realistic possibility, our workforce is going to change, unless we can figure out a miracle cure for aging…

Baby Boomers are important, they carry mass amounts of invaluable knowledge, experience and seniority, the data and information that they hold is imperitive to the organisations that they are part of. Now is the time to start sharing with the generations that will be leading industry in the future, but how? Sharing information is simpler today than ever before, we can consume huge amounts of information from multiple repositories daily, now is the time to experiment with things such as social computing.

As stated, there are 9 million Millennials that have still not entered the workplace, but its important that they do in order to fill the void that the Boomers will leave over the course of the next decade. Good education is a must in order to get the rest of this generation into the workforce and fullfill generational blend and insdustry sustainability. But its not all doom and gloom, this generation are going to bring in a whole host of new skills and character into the workplace, not to mention their lack of fear towards technology, but the fact that they couldn’t give a stuff about it. Millennials ‘pick up and play’, not just technology but processes, they can learn from multiple mediums at a worryingly fast pace.

So going back to my intro-conclusion, the next generation of workers will change our methods of work, possibly not as drastically as first perscieved, but in terms of such things as sharing, storing and consuming information. Lessons can be learnt, are you going to sit and wait for the changes to be more apparent or are you going to be prepared for the change to occur?

I think many business leaders find what we say interesting, but they do as we all do, they forget. Buzz words like strategy, innovation and future are widely used by business leaders, but do they act upon it? Some people argue that short term thinking brought us the recession; business leaders talked the “long term language” then but clearly did not walk the talk.

Over the past couple of months I’ve met with many decision makers and its incredibly tough for them to make strategic decisions as the whole economy seems to be in survival mode. If your ideas do not show quick ROI or saves money then it’s not interesting. To me it seems we have gone from one extreme to another. Looking to the past to determine the future can sometimes work really well and when it comes to recession behaviour this is definitely true. Companies like Proctor & Gamble, Walt Disney, Microsoft and Google were all recession era start ups. Also, let’s not forget that transformational innovations such as the PC and the IPod were invented during tough economic times.

These companies believed in innovation and the long term but still managed to survive tough times. Maybe focusing all efforts on driving down costs will work for some, but the real winners will be those who can do what’s right now and act upon what they predict will happen in the future. Too often innovation is associated with technology and inventions, but it’s much more than that. Innovation is “a new way of doing something”, so how about behavioural innovation? Businesses will have to change their culture and behaviour to suit the most diverse workforce ever witnessed, and the way in which they respond will have a massive impact on their future success.

I’ve talked to you before about how innovation is the key to an organisation’s success and I meant it. Without innovation, we’re never going to be able to achieve the kind of gains (or savings) we are looking to make.To that extent, we’re witnessing another great industry transition as we move from the Knowledge Economy to the Innovation Economy. As people become increasingly aware of how crucial Innovation is, people are becoming increasingly sophisticated in how it is managed within their organisations.

Innovation has become the #1 goal of every major organisation, primarily due to the reason that we simply can’t continue as we have been if we are to make significant changes to our success for whatever reason.

As it turns out, actually having the idea is the easy bit, it’s being able to respond to it as an organisation that’s hard. As a result, organisations are increasingly reaching out for tools that help them manage the process of innovation.

To be truly successful, Innovation has to be something that is at the very essence of both the organisation and the individuals within – Microsoft is a great example of this. OK you can argue that releasing Office Suite after Office Suite isn’t exactly the pinnacle of Innovative success, but a lot of what Microsoft does is a direct result of true innovation much of which has been instigated by a single individual or small group of people and acted upon by the entire organisation.

Innovation has to be in your organisation’s DNA, it sounds a bit over the top, but it’s true. Rightly or wrongly, you have to believe you can all make a difference and feel empowered by your organisation to make a difference.

How does your organisation treat Innovation? Is it simply a suggestion box or is it more fundamental to the operation? The answer will tell you a lot about your organisation (and your prospects for the future…)