During the 80’s and 90’s the average user made technology decisions based on information they usually received from “the computer guy” at work. This was definitely a hold-over from the 60’s and 70’s where most technology was deployed and controlled by the “data processing” department at big businesses (“data processing” was the name that technology departments were widely called before they were called “Information Services” then “Information Technology”)
Today, most people are on their 3rd or 4th personal computer (if not 5th or 6th). Many have owned PDA devices or smartphones. They’ve played a lot of video games and have bought DVD players. The average consumer today is much more tech savvy. And instead of taking the advice from their IT department as gospel, users are now starting to dictate to the IT departments what technology they want to use. While this trend has been in motion for a long time now, IT departments are being forced at an accelerating rate to shift their roles – from being solely in control of the technology decisions – to partnering with those they serve to define the technology platforms in use at a company. The era of top-down technology management is giving way to bottom-up technology decisions. It’s a “grassroots” movement, to steal the political term du jour.
