An article from John Hagel III and John Seely Brown on the growing capability of information technlogy to take us from productivity enhancement to innovation enhancement: The Innovation/Productivity Quotient from Optimize Magazine, Feburary 2004.
It's time to shift the debate and analysis. Instead of asking how IT improves productivity, we should ask how IT can enhance business innovation. That's the missing step to achieving higher levels of productivity. Without it, we're limited to applying IT to achieve narrow cost-reduction or automation goals-efforts that, by their very nature, have diminishing returns.
[via elearnspace blog]
While the authors acknowledge the "old" saw that technology isn't the saving grace of the industry, they remind readers that technology has certainly helped when appropriately applied to business. This article is heavily technology-centric, and the idea is that new architectures (grid computing, service-oriented architectures) are enabling other new technologies that have some powerful promise:
Three categories of technology are converging to make it easier to leverage human resources: social software, E-learning tools, and new access devices. In fact, without focusing on enhancing the ability to "collaborate on demand," much of the hype about business on demand will remain meaningless.