Mark McDonald

A member of the Gartner Blog Network

Entries Categorized as 'Technology'


The European Citizen Initiative using social media in the first and last mile of the policy process.

by Mark P. McDonald  |  February 2, 2012  |  6 Comments

Last week I had the honor of being on a panel at the launch of the European Citizens Initiative (ECI).  The ECI represents an innovation in the relationship between citizens, the government and representative democracy.   Social media is at the center of the initiative representing one of the first formal ways in which social media [...]

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Category: Innovation Personal Observation Social Media Social Organization Technology     Tags: , , , , ,

Situation is the next step beyond service or solution

by Mark P. McDonald  |  January 27, 2012  |  3 Comments

Value creation and innovation come from thinking in new ways about organizational offerings.  Over the last 50 years there has been a progression from offerings based on products (things that you use in your life), to those based on selling solutions (products that we use for you) to selling services (that you incorporate into your [...]

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Category: Innovation Social Media Social Organization Technology     Tags: , , ,

What is your IT mindset?

by Mark P. McDonald  |  January 24, 2012  |  3 Comments

In a prior post I raised the point of what happens when frugality fails?  This leads to the question of where IT goes from here.  While the future of IT is an ongoing concern, re-imagining that role starts by recognizing your IT mindset and the mindset of other enterprise leaders. What do you think when [...]

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Category: 2012 Technology     Tags: , ,

Technology > IT

by Mark P. McDonald  |  January 16, 2012  |  1 Comment

Technology is becoming more important than IT.  Now that may sound strange, after all what is the difference between technology and IT.  For years the answer was, not much.  Corporate technology centered on automating corporate business processes such as ERP, CRM, SCM, PLM, etc.  These technologies requires corporate IT to acquire, install, tailor and operate [...]

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Category: 2012 Innovation Re-imagine IT Strategic planning Technology     Tags: , , , , , , ,

The sources of distortion

by Mark P. McDonald  |  January 12, 2012  |  Submit a Comment

Amplifying the enterprise involves turning up the value of technology in the enterprise.  Eliminating distortion is one of the ways that technology amplifies the enterprise. Distortion refers to the internal complexities; costs, duplication and redundancies that make it harder to get work done. Think about the things that get in the way, make it difficult [...]

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Category: 2012 Strategy Technology Tools     Tags: , , , , , ,

Customer Experience bridges the gap between revenue growth and cost cutting

by Mark P. McDonald  |  January 6, 2012  |  Submit a Comment

One of the issues facing CIOs in 2012 is the apparent conflict between growing revenue and cutting cost.  While IT may be asked to do both, in reality plans and priorities fall heavily on the cost cutting side limiting IT’s impact and value. Customer Experience brings a different perspective to issues of revenue and cost. [...]

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Category: 2012 CIO Management Strategic planning Strategy Technology     Tags: , , , , , , ,

Does social media equal social unrest?

by Mark P. McDonald  |  January 4, 2012  |  1 Comment

Business Week, Wired and the Economist published articles in December about social media and its role in social unrest.  The articles described how social media has enabled everything from peaceful protests to looting via ‘flash robs’ that actively monitor and coordinate their actions around police movements. Executives reading these articles could understandably equate social media [...]

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Category: Innovation Social Media Social Organization Strategy Technology     Tags: , ,

You cannot separate mobility and consumerization

by Mark P. McDonald  |  December 14, 2011  |  6 Comments

I doubt that anyone has lugged their personal desktop computer into the office and demanded that it be connected to the network.  Equally I doubt anyone has brought in a pile of CD’s asking to load their own enterprise software on the network to run their part of the business in their own way, giving [...]

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Category: Applications Technology     Tags: , , ,

Mobile applications require re-imagining the ‘application’

by Mark P. McDonald  |  December 2, 2011  |  1 Comment

Strong interest in mobile technologies and the plethora of ‘apps’ available on smart phones is driving intense interest and demand for mobile applications.  Some of this demand is being driven by ‘fashion’ as having an iPad/Pod or Android application is the in thing to have. Separating the ‘glam’ from the genuine need for mobile applications [...]

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Category: Strategy Technology     Tags: , , , , ,

Has your IT Strategy become obscured by Clouds?

by Mark P. McDonald  |  November 28, 2011  |  3 Comments

Just about everyone is talking about or moving into the cloud and that is ok.  But when it comes to your IT strategy, the cloud is a red herring.  A red herring is distraction, something that deliberately draws attention away from things that are more important.  In the case of the cloud, it is taking [...]

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Category: 2012 Cloud Strategic planning Strategy Technology     Tags: , , , , , , ,