In our industry, there’s a continuous need to learn. Change is constant and ever increasing in rate. One of my favorite recent quotes comes from Satya Nardella, Microsoft’s CEO. It’s been a few years since I heard it, so I’ll paraphrase.
“We will see as much change in the next 10 years as we have in the last 40.“
Satya Nardella, Microsoft CEO
If my memory serves, he said this at an Ignite event a couple of years ago, perhaps 2020. Which makes us 3 years into this 10-year hyper-change phase. Let’s think about this for a moment. Forty years ago would be 1980. What has changed since 1980?
Appropriately, I asked Bing AI, “What technology do we have today that we didn’t have in 1980? Please list 20 items.”
- GPS: GPS technology was first introduced in the 1980s but it wasn’t until the 1990s that it became widely available to the public.
- MP3s: MP3s were first developed in the late 1980s but it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they became popular.
- Sony PlayStation: The first PlayStation was released in Japan in December 1994 and later in North America in September 1995.
- Google: Google was founded in September 1998.
- Cell Phones: The first commercially available cell phone was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, which was released in 1983.
- Digital Cameras: The first digital camera was invented by Steven Sasson of Eastman Kodak in 1975 but it wasn’t until the late 1980s and early 1990s that digital cameras became commercially available.
- Viagra: Viagra was approved by the FDA in March 1998.
- DVD Players: DVD players were first introduced in Japan in November 1996 and later in North America in March 1997.
- Smartphones: The first smartphone was IBM’s Simon Personal Communicator, which was released in August 1993.
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth technology was invented by Ericsson engineer Jaap Haartsen in 1994 but it wasn’t until the early 2000s that it became widely available.
- Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi technology was invented by Australian scientists John O’Sullivan and Terence Percival in the late 1990s but it wasn’t until the early 2000s that it became widely available.
- Netflix: Netflix was founded on August 29, 1997.
- Tesla Electric Cars: Tesla Motors was founded on July 1, 2003.
- Social Media: Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter were founded in the mid-2000s .
- YouTube: YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005 .
- Kindle: Amazon’s Kindle e-reader was first released on November 19, 2007.
- Uber: Uber was founded on March 2009.
- Airbnb: Airbnb was founded on August 2008.
- Virtual Reality Headsets: Oculus VR, a company that produces virtual reality headsets, was founded on July 2012.
- Artificial Intelligence Assistants: Apple’s Siri assistant was introduced with iPhone4S on October of 2011.
That’s only 20 items and they are all technology. (Except for Viagra, which is for men. Somehow also appropriate when talking about technology given the gender gap. I’ll save that topic for another day.) Take a look around your house and note all of the things you use today that were not available in 1980. It’s a lot more than just technology. Everyday new things are invented and often we adopt them without thinking. But not everyone does.
Accepting change
In the news, we are starting to see the tip of the iceberg that is resistance to change. This hyper rate of change is likely to cause further unrest and those that are resistant are likely to fall behind at work, or even fall out of the workforce itself. How do we remain happy embracers of change? How do you build a culture of change and constantly learning? This skill is important today, but it going to become necessary tomorrow and remember tomorrow started 3 years ago when Satya let us know that its coming.
Members only webinar
This is exactly what Larry Mandelberg’s Change Management webinar on June 28th is going to be all about. Here’s what Larry says about the webinar. Note that he’s certified in consulting businesses through adopting change as a culture.
An introduction to real-world change management that you can apply in your business today.
Our industry is not only defined by change, but the change we manage in IT also drives change in every other industry. Don’t just respond to change – Prepare to thrive through change.
• Are you frustrated by the lack of security concerns among some of your most vulnerable clients?
• Are you annoyed when they seem so reluctant to achieve and maintain compliance with data security & privacy laws?
• Does trying to educate customers about the need for enhanced security products result in accusations of trying to sell more services?
If you have any of these issues, you need to attend our upcoming webinar titled “Change Management for IT Service Providers” where Larry Mandelberg, certified Prosci Change Practitioner will help you understand how to approach these problems in a way that gets results. Results that lead to change!
Those of us in the IT industry can deliver this message to our clients, be agents of change and lead by demonstrating our own internal cultures of change adoption.
Why join the National Society of IT Service Providers?
Because of webinars like this one. And the below ones too. We’re providing unique content that is desperately needed and not provided by your typical vendor-led educational environment that we all work within. That’s not to say that the content they provide isn’t valuable, it is. But it’s not well rounded enough. Only a professional society cares about your professionalism enough to provide content like this:
- Insurance deep dive – here we explored what you need to understand about cyber insurance.
- Meet the Press: A media primer – why, how and when to speak to the press
- From the trenches: MFA Spoofed and the damage done to one small business
- Legislative primer
- State representative contact list
- Code of Ethics
- and more
If you’d like to learn more check out our website and listen to the most recent public quarterly meeting.
Are you reading this but aren’t yet a member of the National Society of IT Service Providers? Please join us today. Together we can move this industry toward more professionalism and be in all the places where people are making decisions about our future.