I have been writing about how we "do" technology and I have been talking about the importance of commodity technology for YWAM. Commodity IT today is Windows PCs, Macs, Email, MSWord, Skype and similar "no-brainer", plug and play technologies. Commodity IT is important to us because is allows us to benifit from the 80/20 rule -- we can get 80% of the benefit of technology by outputting 20% of the effort.
I was reading an posting in a learning forum the other day and Jamie's comment encouraged me.
He asked which is better?
A business with excellent processes and average technology?
or
A business with average processes and excellent technology?
Jim Collins in his book 'Good to Great' (2001) looks at selected businesses that have performed consistantly well and are leaders of their industry. He devotes a chapter (7) to this question. He concludes:
-'Good to great companies used technology as a accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it.'
-'None of the Good to great companies began their transformation with pioneering technology'.This would indicate that Processes would always come first and that IT is simply a means to carry out and sometime accelerate the Processes.
For an illustration of "excellent process" we do not need to look any further than tofirus's post this morning about the teaching at the GENESIS seminar.
Comments
Are these principles accurate for YWAM?
Most businesses are satisfied with common technology. But is this the same for YWAM?
1. We are YOUTH with a mission. And I would not know what would happen to MTV if they would not use new media to the max. I don't think they would be that succesfull.
2. Aren't we called to the apostolic? I understand apostolic as seeing possibilities, doing new things in new ways.
These two arguments make for me the guide that i want to do the beta stuff. But ofcourse are you right that our role as supporters is not THAT important in a overall succes.
Part of the story
There is a creativity and extremeness that is definately part of who we are. If you look at Genesis, you see a lot of experimentation and the technology is definately not "commodity" -- yet.
So I agree that "commodity" is not the whole picture or even most interesting part of it.
My comments come from reflecting on - for example - our adoption of a technology like VOIP (Voice over IP). Many large organisations who saw the benefits of VOIP can roll out the technology organisation-wide and have a whole department whose only job is to install/ support the gear. This roll-out will cost the organisation $$
In contrast, we adopt technologies on the basis of 1000's of individual and base decisions. So we are now adopting VOIP - and for many people this is because Skype has made this cheap. simple, easy and "no-brainer" -- ie a commodity.
As I look at us making a group decision about fax or email or VOIP that is the sum of 1000s of smaller decisions I take great encouragement that we will probably make the right ones!
You are right we do not have the structure to combine things...
But is this something we want to keep?
We are an organisation of 2000 people in Europe alone. An organisation this broad should have some common support structure. But maybe is that our weakness. The largest we think is in terms of our base, and maybe state. Our troubles in Torino and the Worldcup prove this. But as Jeff was sharing we should sometime come together and fight together. Like in the time of Nehemia.
"Divide and conquer" is still a well working strategie. But what would happen if we as all support joined up europe-wide and would help out eachother? Then we maybe could have had VOIP before. Would have costed a lot, but how much did we spend now on phonebills?
Problem with following the majority (and saving money) is that you are always too late. You are being reactive. We should create the oppurtunities!