Thank you Andrew.

Andrew McAfee has a thoughtful post (“It’s Not Not About the Technology”) on a topic I’ve often bitten my tongue about, i.e., the (often smugly delivered) phrase “It’s not about the technology”. And of course the context is a discussion about applying technology to a business application, which should by definition, imply that both technology capabilities and business requirements need to be part of the “about”.

It is common for one or the other to be overly emphasized to ill effect. Perhaps because of my technical background, I am more sensitive to the use of this phrase in situations where the utterer is covering up for a lack of knowledge or fear of technology or change.

You simply can’t make good business decisions that involve technology without understanding what the technology can and can’t effectively do – business requirements need to be expanded or contracted based on what is possible and feasible if you want your IT investments to be successful and competitive.

Often the largest benefit of a piece of software is a little known (even to the vendor) feature that happens to allow for, e.g., a process improvement that would be a requirement if you knew it was possible. See what Andrew has to say.