From a personal perspective. . .
The jury is still out in my mind. Reason? There is so much information
available providing numerous links to related issues that I can not keep up
with what I can access. Even though I discriminate between the critical and
the "nice to know topics" and discussions and invest time only in the former, I
find it difficult to manage the amount of material, given the time constraints
I face.
One of the more time efficient ways people control their personal learning vis
a vis the info overload is to restrict their use to queries (such as yours) of
others with subject matter expertise and a willingness to share or help the
"researcher". When the requests are simple the help is usually given,
especially when the researcher offers to post or mail results to all interested
parties. (which I hope you do)
From a management perspective . . .
Has IT resulted in the business world being more demanding? Yes, in the sense
that it takes more time. Managers take care of almost all of their written
communications from their PC's. Information moves much more quickly that just a
few years ago. More can be 'managed', therefore, more responsibility (work) is
expected. Managers are involved with more teams than in the past, taking more
time and different skills.
Will managers look at PCs more than the faces of their people? It's faster to
e-mail people in the office than plan and run a productive meeting. If people
meet face to face less and less, decision quality goes down and relationships
necessary for collaborative efforts are not built or maintained. Like every
other (management) tool, electronic communication is a trade off and has the
potential for misuse. Are the people in the work place better off because of
informatin technology? It depends on how it is being used. The jury is still
out.
Nancy H. Haynes
New Horizons Consulting Group
Manjunath wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm a software engineer and have joined recently to this list. I think
> today's managers have to be more conversant with advances in the
> Information Technology alongwith their own area of specialization. My query
> to the fellow members of this listgroup is how do you think has the
> Information Technology aided todays managers? Has it resulted in the
> business world becoming more demanding from them? Is it making managers who
> see into a PC's face rather than into people's eyes?
> Thanks in advance for your views.
>
> Manjunath Balur