Richard Hunter

This is my first blog for Gartner. Anyone who’s read the books I co-wrote with George Westerman on Harvard Business Press, “IT Risk” and “The Real Business of IT,” knows that the issues that interest me most revolve around IT’s value to the enterprise. Since a blog is first and foremost a means of personal expression, I expect to write plenty here about IT value and its reflection in IT risk.

There’s plenty to write about in those terms. IT has become an essential lever for creating value in every enterprise of any size worldwide. As the importance of IT in creating value increases, so do the risks. This morning I was alerted by Paul Proctor, one of my colleagues, to a video of a fireworks show in San Diego on July 4th in which a purported computer glitch fired off 18 minutes worth of fireworks in about 30 seconds. (By the way, I found the 30-second version to be truly thrilling, to an extent far surpassing the usual fireworks show. Only the last 30 seconds are really exciting in most fireworks shows anyway.) When people lit fireworks by hand, you didn’t get that kind of outcome.

We are at the beginning of major platform and demographic changes in IT, and the role of IT organizations in the enterprise is changing even as the value they provide goes up and up. It’s an exciting time to be in IT, in fact the best time ever to be an IT professional, and I’m looking forward to writing about it. So stay tuned.

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Category: IT risk value     Tags: risk, value

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