A conversation with Shankar

Asst. Professor Ganesan Shankaranarayanan from the IS department (affectionately known as Shanky to his students) was very kind to give me a few minutes of his busy time to speak on the subject of seamless mobility, always-on connectivity and his take on technology trends.

A little background on Prof. Shankar - along with being one of the most accessible professors on campus, Shankar holds his own in the tech arena. He has a PhD from the University of Arizona and is very active in publishing articles and papers on data management (among others). See his profile to learn more.

According to Prof. S., the over-arching question for today's competition is whether technology drives business or if business drives technology. Many businesses force technology to change and adapt it to their needs and conversely, many businesses have taken the opposite tack with adapting themselves to better use technology to their advantage. In his opinion, the team that does a better job of justifying what drives what will prevail in today's competition.

I asked Prof. Shankar how connected he was given his background, his work and his disposition and he said he wasn't very connected - and I think he likes it that way. Even though he's a techie, he hates technology. Now before you gasp in horror, read on. He hates the kind of technology that is invasive and takes away from the time that he needs to sometimes just be alone to do his work. Having his email ping every 3 seconds is prohibitive to his working process and even though he finds that in this day and age, it is almost impossible to do work without having access to the Internet, on occasion he just wants to be left alone to be able to think. He points out, and quite rightly, that sometimes people stop thinking and start looking for solutions online - has this problem been solved before? Can I find it? Can I download a report on it? Can I use it?

While all this access to information can be useful, there is a certain balance that needs to be maintained by us as consumers of information - what is original thought and what is the remnant of some snippet of information you read online?

In Prof. Shankar's view, the majority of the population wants this dichotomy. There is a sense of existence that evolves by being stayed-connected to the rest of the world. I suggested that unlike in the past where the line between the techies and the non-techies was fairly well defined, today that is not the case. People today are not afraid to go buy themselves the latest mobile phone gadget but they do it mostly for the features it brings rather than the fact that it may be a superior telephony device. One of the consequences of how pervasive technology has become today is that everybody is turning into a closet techie.

When asked whether he thought that the world as a whole is becoming more productive, if we as a community, as a nation, as a race are bringing more to the table, our discussion took an interesting turn - one that I think is vital in trying to understand this shift in the way we do business today. People today can do whatever they want, mostly whenever they want it. On the commuter rail, in airports, on the bus, even during the morning jog, people are getting things done. Crosswords and Sudoku have been replaced with Blackberrys, laptops and Bluetooth. The concept of stepping away from your desk to relax has gone away. With seamless, pervasive connectivity, people are more productive at times when they normally wouldn't be in the past. But is this "extra" productivity taking a toll on us? Are we burning out sooner? Are people not people anymore?

In our (mine and Prof. S's) view, popular media would like us to think so. However, consider this - one of the consequences of seamless mobility is that we know we can work from anywhere at anytime. Our days are longer. 24 hours stretch into 36. We are ok with wasting time during normal business hours because we know this. We are comfortable with it. We (and our bosses) have made our peace with it. So when you see people working when they normally don't, why do we automatically assume that they're getting more done?

One of our topics of discussion extended into the realm of what makes a good technology strategist. Prof. Shankar is of the view that it is not the breadth and depth of our understanding of technology that is to our benefit. The secret lies in being able to out think the technology.

We also spoke about how increased, enhanced and pervasive connectivity increases the onus on producers of content and entertainment to keep media interesting for the consumers. This increased burden has led to the advent of the age of consumer-generated content. I asked Prof. Shankar if he thought that all this increased access to information took the excitement away from the media we consume - if you already knew what the results of tonight's American Idol are going to be, would you still watch it? You could search for websites that will monitor the voting and provide you with statistics that will tell you who is in the bottom two hours before the show airs. Does that take away from the edge-of-seat-ness you experience when you tune into the show? Of course it does. But this doesn't mean that people will consume less entertainment and process more information - it just means that increased connectedness will increase your awareness of what you are consuming. Producers of content (traditional and consumer-generated) now will have to deal with this shift as well. Make entertainment more entertaining. Sort through the noise for us. Make extra efforts to show us that shadow on the lake or the wind in the trees or the actor emoting on screen. The competition is going to get tougher and tighter and in a way, the teams today have to capture the business model associated with that.

Prof. Shankar ended by saying that right now people are still enjoying the noise and the excitement around being connected. It is this blogger's view that this is a wave and we as CTOs, CEOs, teachers, researchers, technologists and students have to figure out the best way to stay on the crest of that wave. There will be some that will lose balance and momentum along the way and drop off but the ones that can stay on top and ride that wave to the shore ready to get back out to catch the next one, will prevail.

Thank you Prof. Shankar for your valuable minutes and your even more valuable insight. Readers, if you would like to join this discussion please feel free to comment on this blog.