Big data is on its way

By: Frank Buytendijk

 

The Great Philosophers on IT Governance I

By: Frank Buytendijk (@FrankBuytendijk), chief marketing officer

I've started a new series of articles, this time on
IT Governance.

Topics I cover in the first article include: Why is IT Governance such an important issue in most organizations? What is the task of senior management? How should budgets be managed? In fact, Plato commented elaborately on these issues.

Then, in the next article, we move to a second topic: Power. And who else to consult than Machiavelli? Decision-making is not always based on facts, and objective analysis. There are many more factors affecting strategic decisions. Why? How? Machiavelli contradicts Plato in a number of cases. The "kings" aren't philosophers at all... Machiavelli is supported by an even older philsopher and strategist: Sun Tzu. How is "The Art of War" related to governance?

In the third article, I'll reflect more on what Plato, Machiavelli and Sun Tzu had to say, and will relate governance to leadership and particularly organizational behavior. For those of you who know my work, you know this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I'll turn to Confucius for some wisdom, and will describe not only how to govern, but focus on a topic equally important: how to *be* governed. We arrive in the philosophical twentieth century, where I discovered a school of thought that I feel somewhat connected with: communitarianism. No, that is not like communism, but is in short a view on the world in which we don't look "up" for problems to be solved, but look at our
peer group. Enterprise 2.0!

Let me know what you think...