The New Normal In IT, How The Global Pandemic Changed Information Technology Forever, by Gregory S. Smith, Wiley 2022

When we first dialed up Zoom and clicked on the link, eager to see other human faces and hear their wi-fi voices, we did not know when we would - if ever - return to the hair-raising daily commute and coffee in the break room.  Everything was shut in the depth of the pandemic - our gym,  whose empty parking lot provided a perfect place to practice donuts, the mall that we never visited anyway (another boon for Amazon), the church where we loved to blast out hymns in between liturgical passages (our voice range has narrowed from lack of practice!).  While we shook off some pandemic losses - the mall, for example - others hurt the heart.   It was hard to lose friends and not be able to sit with them one last time, or hear the eulogies they were due; somehow when their much-delayed final service finally happened, we were still unprepared for the loss and grief.

And yet, from that first Zoom click, we and our IT leaders were pushed to learn new skills, realizing that some days the digital click was all we had.  Suddenly IT became more powerful for everyone than it had ever been before.  IT professionals took on bigger responsibilities to keep us up and running.  And the whole shift to remote work or hybrid workforces introduced yet another big question to business - would we end up with blocks of unused offices? Could students - and teachers - really pull off long-term remote learning to the degree that was needed?  All this happened while IT security issues raised their heads, stimulating a new awareness of the US' extreme web dependencies. 

The answers to all these questions are still not in.  Predicting the numbers of remote or hybrid workers is like picking the best stock late Sunday night - we might hit some right, but we know we are going to miss some as well.    And that's where this new title by Gregory Smith puts some perspective on the pandemic landscape while he delivers solid recommendations for whatever the new IT/hybrid work era will be.  

Author Smith looks at IT budgets as an indicator of recovery power, and the answer will help managers prepare for "the next big one:"

    "  organizations with a larger negative impact during Covid-19 had more pronounced effects on IT's budget compared to organizations that had low-impact scenarios... 29% of low-impact companies made    no change to their IT budget, and 18 percent actually increased it.  Only 8 percent of high-impact companies increased their IT budgets, further indicating a lack of understanding of technology's potential to    mitigate disruption impact."  source The Hackett Group

  Take another look at your short and long term business and IT technology goals, because they may in fact appear to be quite different.  In fact, Smith recommends that business priorities should be            viewed as short-term goals and technology goals should be viewed as medium or long-term  goals.  And because the nature of the workforce has changed permanently, CIOs should increase technology    investments that will better support and engage a hybrid workforce.  

    Data protection and security:  Here Smith advises organizations to look at systems with automated data protection software that easily integrates with public cloud services to meet on-premise, cloud and    other data protection needs.  

The New Normal in IT takes a detailed and in-depth look at the costs of meeting new technology needs during and post pandemic.  The recommendations are detailed and will require time and money to integrate into the upgraded IT strategy, but the author warns us that neglecting to address these security and IT issues will hurt "next time."

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers,  patriciaemoody@gmail.com