Yahoo, a one time technology giant, is going through changes... The business of technology is not discussed enough in terms of a "profession". Actually discussing business people in technology is not the problem, it's the work itself as a technology business professional that seem to be the culprit here. The technical aspect of technology has simply outpaced and ran over the business issues. There is not enough respect and balance to the none purely technical aspects. Because technology companies do not emphasize the areas which are not purely technical. When the business starts failing or simply starts slipping the technologists put in more effort and push the business people aside. This occurs even more in the planning and early stages of a product's market life. My observation over the years is that technology-business needs more professionalism. This means more training, more visibility, more tools, more standard processes, and more management. We simply do not know how to do things well enough and we are not able to convince anyone to give us the resources to develop our profession. So we need to do it ourselves "in our spare time".
You may want to disagree with me and say that there is plenty of "stuff" out there. There is plenty of material on finances (profits, investment), strategies (product position), and use of general business practices in the technology sector. But for all that technology business has done to our world there is very little specific work in writing, analysis, theories, practices, etc. JUST FOR TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS! Some of this can be attributed to the newness of the technology sector. But that could be said in other areas as well, such as international trade, travel, and leisure. The financial world has expanded for the most part due to the technological advanced in communication, data management, promotion, yet you can find many times more publications in that area than in the technology business world. I don't know why technologists do not want to invest in better business, but it seems to me that we simply need to sit down and roll up our sleeves. We know some things that are missing but we need to deeply study what has been done (both right and wrong), analyze what is going on today, and plan for the future. This is true on the micro scale with companies and trade organizations which represent a single product or a core technology. But more so in the macro scale in the way technology is influencing and shaping our social behavior, the economic state of our countries and regions, and finally the human experience both of the technology workers and the general population which uses technology.
I want to clarify a few things about my observation and the point I am making. There are many business fields which affect technology (specially in management). There are many books and theories about business and trends which are related to the technology world. The attention to change and the speed of diffusion of new ideas has interested business researchers and analysts for a long time. The same is true in project management and a new area of management of time and resources in small projects which is different from product management. There are many areas in finance which deal with resources and how to manage investments. But very few have researchers and practitioners have researched the actual work of technologists as "investors". Technologists control investments in product development, basic and applied technology research, marketing and promotion, and many other areas related to the product or service they product.
Let's get right to the issue. If we need to get business practices and tools developed for technology it will take resources and most of all time. Once we figure out what needs to be done and what can be done someone will have to put in some free time to get started. I am going to look at areas related to technology and see what we can buy, borrow, and steal. I also have interest in taking some technology management tools and practices and molding them to the business side. What has been done recently in project management is interesting. There is also a great deal of material in product management from recent work. Some material from what I have seen can be used as-is, maybe a few changes in terminology. But most material and tools I have seen needs to include more specific technology material.
Well, I hope this makes sense to some of you. Also, I hope some of you who are not as familiar with the great business starvation in the tech sector will come and read about it in the future.
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