InformationWeek

September 27, 1999

Secret CIO:
Squinting At The Horizon

By Herbert W. Lovelace

Herbert W. Lovelace rying to predict the future is like guessing where your car is headed by staring at the tire tracks behind you-in retrospect, everything is clear, but I'm not so sure what good it does you. Having comparable confidence in my own prognostication abilities, I was therefore rather flattered when InformationWeek asked me to add my opinions to its survey of what some top CIOs see as the most exciting IT products or services on the horizon. I hasten to add that I'm not being overly modest, just honest, about my skill at squinting bravely at the blurry future and forecasting it. After all, if I were good at this sort of stuff, I would have purchased a long time ago enough Cisco, Dell Computer, EMC, Intel, and Microsoft stock to have owned an island and the requisite private jet to allow me to bid adieu to my day job and write my columns in complete comfort.

With that minor caveat, let me proceed. Technology does more than provide us with devices; it makes changes in the structure of society. Where we work, how we raise our children, what we think, and who we are as individuals are very different because of the steam engine, electricity, the telephone, and the automobile.

As far as I can tell, we are undergoing a social revolution brought on by information technology that will rival, and probably surpass, the changes caused by the Industrial Revolution.

What's more important, I doubt that we have yet hit the period of maximum disruption (not necessarily the bad kind) to our way of living. And if I have to pick one technological advance that will make the most impact in the near future, it will be computerized learning. There's not a great deal of difference in today's teaching methods from those prevalent 100 years ago-before the computer, television, radio, and the airplane. Some teachers are very good-those are the ones you remember into adulthood. Others are best forgotten.

Computers can, and will, change that situation. The result will impact how we build the future and what it holds for us. The forces against change will be the same ones that rail against reengineering in business: tradition, fear, sloth, and indifference. Nevertheless, progressive educators will do everything in their power to improve the environment for developing the minds with which they are entrusted.

Computers in the classroom, from kindergarten to the university, can be used for three purposes: teaching the student, teaching the instructor how to teach, and lowering administrative costs-all worthwhile objectives.

While not all subjects lend themselves to such techniques, imagine a student having access to a CD-ROM or Web site on which time has been lavished by the best teachers possible, to learn mathematics,

the classics, or a foreign language. Consider what can be accomplished by supplementing such instruction with a qualified teacher to answer individual questions and lead discussions to enhance student knowledge and understanding.

The same concept applies to keeping the teachers who lead the classroom up to date on subject matter and teaching methods. The number of students who can be taught effectively by a single teacher has remained static while costs have increased. Some may dismiss a metric such as instructional productivity, arguing that instructors face challenges unknown to their predecessors, but the fact remains that many people are dissatisfied with the value received from the money spent on education. Computers, coupled with caring instruction by dedicated professionals, can make dramatic improvements.

Our future will be entrusted to the thoughts, values, and actions of our young people. The most exciting and important use of technology will be to unleash the intelligence that those minds hold.

Herbert W. Lovelace is the CIO at a multibillion-dollar international company. Herb practices his day job under an alias and has changed the names of colleagues to protect the guilty. Send him E-mail at lovelace@home.com. He will provide real answers-and whimsical comments-to your questions on InformationWeek Online at www.informationweek.com.

Back to Columnists