I believe this very strongly, and I think it’s one of the most critical cultural changes that will determine which organizations thrive and which ones lose relevance.

Bill Ives echoes this point in his summary of J.P. Rangaswami’s presentation at the FASTForward ’08 conference. Rengaswami talked of the “new polarization” in organizations, or how the customer gains control.

The fights have traditionally been within the IT departments. Now they have moved outside.

The first polarization is expertise. People of his and my generation believe experience is necessary for real innovation. We need to stop rejecting youth.

The second is participation. Now people can participate in much more than possible. He gave as an example, the numerous donations in small amounts that Obama has raised for the US primary campaign through the web on his way to a record month for total contributions ever.

The third dimension is time. He quoted Rupert Murdoch that fast is the new good. Now we have stuff in Beta all the time. JP said that IT has to get over these three concepts to succeed. Now the users have already breached the IT wall and running around inside the fort. It is too late to keep them out.