This title brings me back to when I was a Master’s student. Nicholas Carr’s article had just come out and was causing some buzz. A decade past, the article is still worth reading.
The world has and is always changing and IT has indeed become increasingly embedded in our daily lives. The state of the matter today really makes me think of the Carr topic from a totally different perspective, worth considering.
In one perspective, IT is becoming a commodity. We can take water as an example. Clean water supplies matter, but we don’t usually think about it and its many applications.
IT is a lot like clean water; we need it but we take it for granted, so we just don’t think too much about it unless there’s a problem.
But IT is (or can be) so much more than a commodity. The simple reason why is that it can add real value to our lives and businesses. Systems designed to fulfill people’s needs can be a game changer. Unlike water, we can live without the added value – but the great thing is we don’t need to!
The world isn’t perfect and not all steps are consistently taken to achieve this, but now more than ever people are becoming the focus of IT solutions design, and from that, we can expect new solutions that will improve our lives and allow us to reach higher.
The sooner we don’t have to worry about some things (because IT takes care of it), the sooner we will be free to search for new ways to bring value to ourselves and to the societies we belong to.
My main point is, the real value IT creates is not in the software itself but in enabling us to focus on something new, where our humanity can truly make a difference.
Written ByCOO & Co-Founder @ Theros Digital Flávio Romão Costa
