Oh no, the Zombies are coming!!! No, the Zombies are here, the Zombies are real, and millions more are being transformed every day. Don’t believe me … have a seat in front of any High School in the USA and just watch. Have a seat in any coffee shop and watch. Have a seat in any city and just watch. What you will see is person after person, staring buggy eyed into some device, walking aimlessly in any direction to destinations unknown. They henpeck at those devices with their thumbs like a chickens eating ticks. I realized that it is not henpecking but worse; with every click they’re killing more and more brain cells, consuming time, money and data plans until they are zombified. Millions of Zombies – the Apocalypse is happening now and growing! The best part is businesses and schools are capitalizing on the zombified masses by implementing a BYOD strategy to bring the zombies to the cloud. You know – Zombies as a Service (ZaaS).
Okay, so I am calling just about everybody in the world a zombie (no offense). There are a few exceptions, like my mother-in-law, and the few who have not bought into complete consumerization of just about everything. ZaaS refers to the ones ability to just “click” and rather than “think” about the consequences. It creates “but who cares, I got what I need, so I can play more Clash of Clans” attitudes. Not that this is a bad thing, except when the consumer market impacts the business, data security, privacy and fill in the blank _____. Information Technology (IT) has changed, expectations have changed, and the workforce has changed and will continue to change faster and faster every day. Add on to these changes the fact that the lines are blurred on responsibility of issues. How many people blame Netflix for being down when at the end of the day it was their service provider that was down?
The more I get in front of customers, the more I find that their IT staff and management teams are overwhelmed by ZaaS. ZaaS refers the consumerzation, how we as users have just become numb and expect everything right now. ZaaS has tasked IT to get BYOD and mobility under control which is like herding cats and dressing them all in tuxedos (which may actually be less painful). There is a reality check here; we react to what is happening today, and many are not looking at what is coming … the next wave of Zombies. Those High School and College students will be hitting the workforce with a completely different idea of what IT and technology is, with different expectations and different skill sets. Then add on the current workforce that will need to compete, change the way they work and could be resistant to change. Business and IT will need to embrace all these differences and be flexible, dynamic and resourceful and secure enough to meet the need of all users. Reacting with duct tape and crazy glue is not working. There needs to be a vision, and this is driven buy the business, the users, the market and IT.
In the coming weeks I’ll publish a series of articles targeted at solutions to this challenge based on business drivers and IT hurdles. Looking in to the wave of evolving technology called wearables, which looks to evolve the Zombies into the Borg. The series is going to build out a solution set and give IT some tools and new thinking to survive the Zombie Apocalypse.
As the series will develops, and we’ll look into building a Vision, then Strategies to achieve the Vision, and Tactical steps to deliver the Strategies.
Next up: The Beginning – You know they’re here … lets build a plan and embrace Zombie Apocalypse!
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