Devil's Advocate: Why CRM has disappointed

Buying tech is easy - it's getting people to use it that's the hard part, says Martin Brampton. That's one reason CRM hasn't lived up to the expectations.

I am grateful to readers for an outstandingly interesting bunch of comments relating to my recent column on ageism in IT. All are perceptive; some prompt me to further thoughts. But first I am tempted to indulge my own ageist bias, as readers have clearly detected that I am not in the first flush of youth.

Last week, education watchdog Ofsted remarked that most schools now have 2Mbps broadband connections. It went on to say that "there have been generally limited levels of support for effective broadband use". In other words, it was easy to install the technology, but it is proving much harder to put it to good use.

Now if there is one thing that a few decades in IT teaches you, it is that simply buying technology achieves very little. It is an easy route for people who want to be seen to be doing something because it attracts headlines. Bringing about real change, though, involves changing behaviour and that is far harder to achieve.

It is not as though this insight has been kept secret. Yet we seem to be doomed to forever repeat the same mistakes. In the private sector, there is currently much handwringing over CRM projects that have cost a great deal of money without demonstrating any discernible benefits.

When CRM was a newly minted term, much was made of its importance as a concept and a way to think critically about an organisation. Things rapidly degenerated as it turned into a technology project, to be implemented with little thought about overall objectives. The fact that original thought about CRM could pay dividends was subverted to the notion that just any CRM project would pay off. Now, unsurprisingly, we know otherwise.

Getting back to ageism: Reading your comments, I was much challenged by Jane McCormick, who wanted to know what evidence was available to support my assertion that age dims intellect and vigour. A lot depends on what counts as a legitimate comparison. Certainly it is an established fact that scientists rarely make major discoveries except while young, although their fame may well increase thereafter. The same is even more true of mathematicians.

On the other hand, philosophers often seem to improve with age. Immanuel Kant started to think about some of the fundamental problems of philosophy in his early thirties. It took him more than twenty years to reach his conclusions, so he was 57 by the time The Critique of Pure Reason was published in 1781 and became one of the most influential philosophical works ever written.

The same is often true of creative artists of all kinds. Painters have often created masterpieces while quite elderly and many writers have produced their best works in old age. Musicians too have composed great works long after they would have found it difficult to secure a job in IT. So it does seem that radical intellectual innovation needs young people but people can still create much of great value into old age.

An anonymous contributor suggested that ageism was a result of short-sighted thinking, and only matched myopic views on profits. That does seem to open up a whole bunch of issues. Is our society only interested in short term gratification? We appear to be struggling to plan for the long term as we erect ever flimsier buildings, heat up the world and spread pollution far and wide. Is that a reflection of ageism or do they have a common cause?

Technogeek of Baltimore gave a spirited account of achievement by an older woman in IT. But perhaps the last word should go to another anonymous contributor who made a simple point. He said: "I didn't start in IT until I was 30. Ten years later I'm much better at it than I was then." What more need be said?

Editor's note: See our full coverage of ageism in IT. Have you been affected by ageism in the tech industry? Please email your stories to editorial@silicon.com.