Philip Wen's //

Ready or not, here the world comes...

InformationWeek posted this entry:

The Value Of IT Investments survey, by ISACA, a nonprofit association of IT professionals, found that more than 25% of companies are increasing IT investments in 2009.

What does this tell me?  that 75% of the companies surveyed are not increasing their IT investments.

Maybe it’s because I breathe IT day in and day out, the value that IT adds is quite obvious to me.  My regular customers still all agree with this of course,  as the demand for Tekglo’s services has been increasing, even in this economic climate.

What is not evident though, is the reasons many reporters have cited in the media regarding companies cutting IT budgets in order to “stay competitive”. To stay afloat I can understand, but stay competitive??

As if the trend isn’t evident enough, regardless of the “economic conditions”, the general bearing of every industry, from transportation to fast food services,  is to take more and more business functions and transactions online– whether it is CRM, ERP, sales, marketing, corporate communications, etc.  If the business is to stay competitive, business leaders with any kind of foresight ought to be looking at getting additional value out of every dollar invested into the business (Return on investment, or ROI), and IT is the one arena that businesses CANNOT afford to skimp on.

As the society gears itself for instant, simultaneous communication  and transactions enabled by technological advances, those that do not keep up will eventually fall behind — and we all know what happens to the businesses that fall behind:  they “cut IT budgets to stay competitive”.

The swing of things is rather obvious, no?

No matter where you turn, you can’t escape the depressing mood that has all but permeated all of media.  Blogs, Destination sites, TV, Radio– even ads have started using “The Downturn” to start their segment or its headlines.  For people that are constantly soaking in business news, I can’t see how there is any bit of ray of optimism left.

Then just a few minutes ago, I hit this blurb.

Downright discouraging, isn’t it?

So what is going to happening to the millions that have or about to lose their jobs?  With the job market shrinking rapidly, will these people just sit at home and hang their heads in despair?

Nope.  That’s not how the economy works.

For the fortunate few that have what it takes to immediately re-enter the workforce, things will immediately go back to normal.  Out of those that are not as lucky?  What will happen to them?

Of course, some (perhaps many) will suffer through some pretty rough times.  But as long as people are willing to fight and plow ahead, I have yet to hear that people can die from economic depressions.  Emotional depression can be deadly, but people do not die from the lack of money.

In this Land of Opportunity, it means a big chunk of these folks are actually enterprising enough, and will try to use this “down time” to try their luck at entrepreneurship.  After all, isn’t that how the Economy usually pulls itself back on its feet?

See this post here.  And if you are too lazy to, let me just spit out a quote from it here:

“Students are increasingly open to taking entrepreneurial risks now that the economy doesn’t exactly guarantee a dream job anyway” – Peter Winicov

So while we are only at the beginning of this downturn, and it may seem like the rain is really pouring down hard, the lesson here is – Don’t let it get you down.

Why?  Because!  Just because everyone is jumping off that bridge, doesn’t mean you have to.  The herding pattern is what got us here in the first place.  To quote that famous Apple marketing campaign: “Think Different.”

For some perspective on why there is never a better opportunity, let me quote our great friend Al:

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” – Albert Einstein

Paul Graham also wrote about this subject here.  And since he may be infinitely more successful than I ever will be, perhaps you will listen to him.

If you’re too lazy again, here’s the gist: “Fortunately it has gotten very cheap to run a startup, and a recession will if anything make it cheaper still.”

Let me put it this way – You have to take risks to succeed, and if you don’t have a job anyway, you really aren’t risking much.   With the cost of running businesses being so low nowadays, you really don’t lose much even if you fail anyway.

So what are you waiting for?

Update: This topic seems to be the subject du jour.  See articles here.

For those to you who are Blackberry AND Google fans like myself – We have just gotten an early Christmas present.

Google’s Mobile Team just released a new version of Sync which will now also synchronize your Contacts as well as Calendar between your BB and Google account.

Go learn more and grab it from this link.  The new version is 0.5.9.

Thanks to the guys at the Google Mobile team.  More and more each day, you guys are making the blackberry experience inch closer to that of a mini netbook.

It’s too bad they have not released the Voice Search feature that is now in the iPhone version.

For those of you with a smartphone but don’t know what the fart I am talking about – Go to this link and enjoy productivity bliss.

A list of services in Google Mobile Apps