Cranky voice, scruffy face and a bitch
June 30, 2008
Last Saturday afternoon I had a wonderful conversation with Francine McKenna. Despite our backwards and forwardsing on blog posts, it was the first time we’d spoken. As seems to be the case these days, Francine is exactly as I imagined. Don’t ask me to describe but it was all good and left me with plnety to think about.
A big part of our conversation centred on the dreadful state of IT understanding among the Big 4 and the possible consequences when something goes wrong. Note - not if.
The part that really fascinated me was Francine’s assertion that a significant number of new entrants to the profession - Gen Y’ers if you will - are a ‘different’ breed. She believes there are those who are not only much more tech savvy than their predecessors but more likely to raise ‘Why are we doing this?’ type questions. I yo-yo on this because of what I see as ‘greasy pole’ syndrome. In other words, the ambitious ones are going to toe the institutional line because that’s what gets them on in their careers. Francine came back saying that some are viewing the profession with a more jaundiced eye and may bail out rather than sticking the course. Or come out to return later.
There will of course always be those disruptors who stick the course anyway and then go on to do great things. Francine thinks there are likely to be more of those in Gen Y than in the past. I don’t know though I live in hope.
On one thing we are 100% agreed. There is an opportunity right now for the profession to make a genuine difference across multiple dimensions. The whole governance, risk and compliance (GRC) area is one such where solid IT knowledge could be used in a positive way to help business do better. And I’m not thinking about jumping on the Green IT bandwagon but about using GRC as a springboard for doing business better and more profitably. There are others.
I sense that Francine and I will be having more conversations.
In the meantime, where does this post title fit in? Check here and here.
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Dennis, do you mean Governance, Risk and Compliance, by chance or something else?
What are the other things that would help people do business better more profitably?
Thanks
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Oh we have fun times asking the “why are doing this” questions at work sometimes.
Coincidentally, also getting in on the ground floor of the fledgling green side of things too…
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