Summary Bullets:

• After the mass adoption of computing, the IT department dominated as the final arbiter of every technology decision.

• Technology decisions are now driven by business needs but it isn’t armageddon for IT nerds. They can use their skills to solve problems related to enabling technical solutions.

When computing began and when it hit critical mass, technical knowledge, know-how, and experience was king. The IT department ruled the roost. Products and solutions suggested by other departments to solve their business problems were put under the microscope by the IT department and if they didn’t follow its operational or brand-loyalty/preferred vendor standards they were rejected. IT nerds (that is written with affection – I was one of them) used to pore over specifications such as speeds, feeds, frequencies, security, and storage. Vendors used to sell products, or an array of products in families, based on different technical specifications, and their messages were explicitly for the IT nerd. Overuse of ITIL and a certain level of technological arrogance meant that project implementation was very slow. Even updates were slow. IT nerds picked out products and solutions based almost solely on their technology use case.

Then it happened – the cloud era began, much to the IT nerd’s open-mouthed horror. Any business manager with a credit card could procure compute power and SaaS services from AWS and soon other cloud computing vendors. Servers could be provisioned in minutes rather than in months. The IT department and its slow deployment and insistence on getting things their own way was cut out of the process.

As the years went by, most of the cloud and *aaS buying was moved back to IT. The chaos of zero standards, especially for information security, got technology approvals moved back to IT. But IT’s grip on technology and being the final arbiter of technology was gone. The cloud had shattered it. Smart vendors and telcos are selling solutions rather than point products – but the message is about fulfilling business needs and sales pitches are around business enablement. The IT department still has a great deal of input with its technical expertise and knowledge of best practices. But they no longer had the final say. The C-suite had learned that their business could run faster and ultimately better if these technology solution decisions were far more collaborative and focused on solving business problems. Even budgets for business unit technological solutions have shifted to the business unit.

Some IT veterans grouse about how things have changed. But this change was inevitable. Certain functions have commoditized, and others it makes sense to get as a managed service. For example, most companies do not run their own email servers anymore. Why? Because the functionality of SaaS email functionality from the likes of Google and Microsoft has all the features needed and it is a waste of time and money to make skilled IT internal practitioners deal with the mundanities of email server maintenance.

In the post-IT nerd era, there are still a ton of opportunities for IT professionals. IT practitioners can take the invaluable institutional knowledge and technology implementation experience they have at the company and apply it directly to business problems. As enablers of business use cases, IT practitioners can work on problems that are actually interesting and challenging using and expanding their skill set. Simultaneously automation, solutions as a service, and AI are coming to bring efficiency and reduce the day-to-day drudgery of the IT equivalent of keeping the lights on. In the end, it’s a bit sad to see the IT nerd era end. But IT professionals have a lot to look forward to and can find renewed purpose and put those hard earned technology skills to use.