Jack Bergstrand, Peter Drucker and the Innovation of Information

In his February 24 opinion piece for CIO.com, Why New Technology Demands New Business Models, Jack Bergstrand writes that CIOs (Chief Information Officers) are in a perfect spot to identify and lead significant innovation in their organizations. Yet the from-all-corners and at-all-times demands of their jobs make this a difficult proposition.
The solution, Bergstrand believes, is to apply Peter Drucker’s work on innovation to the technology issues that were barely in existence when Drucker was writing, such as social media and cloud computing. “He had brilliant insights about innovation,” Bergstrand writes, “that can help CIOs take the right risks on new technologies and avoid the failures that ultimately sank so many dotcom companies.”
Bergstrand is founder and CEO of the consulting company Brand Velocity. He was a longtime Coca-Cola Company executive, including being its CIO. And he is quite knowledgeable about Drucker, whose ideas on knowledge work and knowledge worker productivity form the backbone of Bergstrand’s book Reinvent Your Enterprise Through Better Knowledge Work. I met Jack last November when we were both panelists for the Drucker Authors Festival on Drucker Centennial Day 2010, in Claremont, Cal. In talking to him and reading his book, I was impressed that he (like Drucker) was able to draw from many different sources to convey information in a serious, yet accessible way. Besides business and technology, Bergstrand also applies such areas as chess, cybernetics, sports and particularly psychology.
Drucker’s major work on innovation is the 1985 book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a classic that is not as dated as you might think a 26 year old book would be on these topics. The reason is that its principles can still be applied today, which gets back to Bergstrand’s argument. His CIO.com look at innovation and its problems is also applicable beyond the concerns of CIOs. How can we best innovate as people and within organizations, while making sure our daily work is done the best it can be? How can we discriminate among the countless technological tools that will not only enable but improve our life’s work? The people, and organizations, that find the right answers will help define the future in our uncertain world.