Out of the box: The perils of professionalism in the digital age

Abstract

In the first product announcement since the death of Steve Jobs, Apple has announced the iBook – designed to provide a 30 per cent margin to Apple and protect its proprietary sales of iPad. For the users this is a good move – the Apple promise is cost neutral but the offering is modern and digital. The gang of four (Apple with Google, Facebook and Amazon) are hungry for business and use the power of digital technology and the economics of global commodities to sustain their interests. New digital challenges to existing business models will be appearing across many sectors. When Google announced its corporate email service it was viewed as a ‘declaration of war’ for the internal IT groups. Competing against the Gang of Four is at best difficult but, using examples from IT, I will explain how our professionalism limits our ability to respond to new threats. For our companies, the better we develop our professionalism the more we constrain our organizations’ response to the digital tensions. Are you on the way to becoming a toxic professional?