| sometimes used it to maintain control. This was the era of the IT specialist as "High Priest," managing rites of development and operations that rested on incantations about JCL, threaded lists, ABENDs, and hex. |
| Some ten years ago, the new issue for companies was managing the use of the technology. Office technology, personal computers, executive information systems, and the like began an organizational glasnost, where more and more people directly used computers on their desktops and in point-of-sale registers, as well as for making airline reservations, using automated teller machines, and effecting electronic funds transfers. These functions moved IT from the periphery of the organization and industry competition to its center. At that time, the language of IT primarily focused on a small subset of technical terms, such as DOS, e-mail, LANs, spreadsheets, and Windows. |
| Today the issue involves managing the technology, managing the use of the technology, and managing with technology. It is this last task that is the focus of Every Manager's Guide, Second Edition. IT is now a basic part of the fabric of everyday business and thus part of everyday business language. The challenge is to narrow a seemingly infinite set of terms to a manageable subset. In the first edition, that amounted to a little more than 150 terms. |
| This new edition updates and adds nearly 40 new terms, providing new examples and figures on costs, trends, and impacts. In both refreshing the original Glossary and adding new terms, I have addressed the competitive as well as the technical changes in IT. These changes have been astonishing, and business managers need to understand their key aspects because they open up major new opportunities and pose major new risks and pitfalls. In many instances, a business's choice of strategy in key areas of managing with technology rests at least as much on assessing competition, trends, and innovation among suppliers as on assessing technology. |
| In the area of technology, this new edition puts more emphasis on wireless communications. In the first edition I state, "There |
|
