The New Year is Here…..So What’s Next?

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. 2010 is one that arrives with much anticipation and with hope that we will recover from the tough year that was. The coming year is one that we can expect to build on much of the work we did last year, but start to more fully leverage technology to help us achieve our goals. So what are the themes for 2010? Let’s take a look:

The first theme will be the more effective use of resources. In the past few years we have experienced downsizing and staff freezes, but somehow our workloads increased. This year we will look to ways to improve and optimize productivity. I expect that we will see a higher degree of automation in the area of data management. System and data administrators will need to better leverage the manageability components of their software. I expect to see more people move to proactive monitoring and use the capabilities that are provided in a Web 2.0 world. Now we are not looking for issues, we are preparing to avoid them.

Next, I expect a greater use of off-the-shelf solutions that will allow business to perform 95% of the tasks needed. I expect that the time of large customized solutions is limited. As you may see from Oracle’s Fusion direction we see that software solutions will provide significant process support and will require few customizations. The affect on the business intelligence world is one where most of the “standard” reporting that is needed will be provided and tightly linked to your applications and that the only customizations will be extending these capabilities to provide competitive advantage and reduce complexity and maintenance.  The age of custom applications is nearing a close.

The final theme for me today is one that is more a wish. I hope that 2010 will be the year where that Art of Networking is embraced. The new decade will be one where social networking will continue to evolve. I expect we will see greater use for personal and professional reasons of Facebook and LinkedIn. I am still not convinced that Tweets are the wave of the future, but it has been a game-changer. I am just not convinced that most things that are said in 140 characters is useful or important. Sometimes it seems like too much chatter. So my hope is that 2010 will be the year when Gen Y decides that in-person networking is like no other and of course the best place to see it and understand this is by attending COLLABORATE 10 in Las Vegas.

The year has just begun, but few have started with such great promise and need for change.