| We have all witnessed the failure of major technology initiatives. We've seen efforts launched with a great deal of fanfare, only to fade back into silence, leaving nary a trace. We have also all witnessed successful technologies, some of which take hold and flourish without any apparent effort or fanfare. What distinguishes the successes from the failures?
What can we learn? And, as owners of technologies, how can we increase our probability of successful deployment while minimizing the cost and probability of failure? This presentation will describe approaches that the author's research has shown will maximize acceptance of new technology. It will also point out ways to identify technology initiatives that are likely to fail so that time can be better spent on potential winners.
Jordan Corn is a chemical engineer with over twenty years of process control and IT experience with Rohm and Haas Company, a specialty chemical manufacturer. He is currently part of their Corporate Information Technology Architecture and Planning group. He began his career in the mid-1980s as a plant production engineer where he was assigned to the then-groundbreaking project of automating a batch reactor. He found process control to be to his liking and spent the next decade in that field, holding several positions of increasing responsibility. In 1996, Jordan moved to an IT organization where he contributed to a reengineering effort. In that position he led an effort to implement a large database for the management of chemical plant design information. He was called back to process control for a two-year special assignment to manage the Y2K program for manufacturing systems worldwide. After Y2K slipped silently away, he built and managed a team responsible for knowledge management applications in the corporate Research and Engineering organizations. His work in this position led him to his current job in Architecture and Planning.
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