September 1, 2007

My Dear Technology and Enterprise Architecture

Oh how dear is my technology?

The Wall Street Journal, 1-2 September 2007, wrote about a dying woman and her last words to her daughters:

“In the past four years, I have replayed that moment again and again. The beeping of machines. The manic bustle of nurses. Doctors spouting terms like ‘lung failure.’ And, ultimately, my mom toiling to draw a breath…so that she could ask that my sister, Lizzie, and I safeguard her eBay reputation.” !!!!!

There’s more…

“Mom radiated fear throughout her illness…once, when my sister brought to my mom an old photo album, my mom told her she didn’t want to look through it. And then Mom slid her Mac unto her lap and logged on to eBay.”

The daughter’s conclusion…

“She was dying. But with her iMac and wireless internet connection, she found life.”

I am sure that this article is as shocking to many of you as it was to me. Not that we can or should judge anyone. Hopefully, we will never be in this lady’s shoes. But it does seem bizarre that even when the mother is deathly sick, she is neither interested in her faith, her family, her memories, or her good deeds—the things that are usually the treasures of most of us—but rather is apparently all consumed by her computer, her wireless connection, and her website.

As a professional in EA, I have frequently encountered people at work at their love affair with their pet technologies. They saw it in a trade mag; got this “unbelievable” brief or slick brochure from ABC company; viewed this demo at a trade show; and now they “gotta gotta have it!”

In a sense, adults are just big children. They have to have their toys. They won’t stop whining and bellowing until they get it. And once they get it, they play with it for a short time, and then it goes into the corner to collect dust.

This is exactly what User-centric EA and IT governance is supposed to protect the enterprise against. EA and capital planning & investment control are designed to help filter out the technology winners from the losers, and those that align with the needs and strategies of the organization from those that are merely toys. There are a lot of whiners and bellowing customers out there, buying them their toys is not user-centric, but just foolish and a waste of valuable corporate investment dollars.


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