Evolved Technologist -

So much content is created about technology without any explanation of who is going to use a system or why it is being used at all. One of the fundamental principles of the Evolved Technologist is that a complete explanation of the context in which technology is going to be applied is crucial to a clear analysis of technology issues.

The perspective the Evolved Technologist starts with has been developed at Evolved Media through the creation of 16 books, many large scale wikis, and hundreds of shorter forms of content such as white papers, API documentation, user manuals, etc. (See www.EvolvedMedia.com for more detail.) Even so, until we test it out at Evolved Technologist, it will be a work in progress.

There are two aspects that will be covered at the beginning of every discussion on ET: Who and Why.

The Who Perspective

The "who perspective" consists of an explanation of who is using a technology and the environment they are using it in. Establishing this up front avoids misunderstandings and clears the way for a focus on fundamental issues. Our starting point is the following perspectives:

• Personal
• Departmental (Team)
• Divisional (Many teams)
• Corporate (Many divisions)
• Ecosystem (Many corporations)

We explain these in more detail in "The Who Perspective."

Many discussions of technology dive right into analysis of features without setting the context. At ET we hope to avoid that by always indicating the who perspective we are talking about.

The Why Perspective

The second part of setting a context involves explaining why you are using technology in the first place. Too often one set of raw functionality is asserted as better than another without reference to the question of "better for what?". In analyzing "The Why Perspective," we ask

• What are the goals?
• How will you measure success?
• How important is the business process supported by the technology to the health of the business?
• How important is the technology to the business process?

An important way we will measure our success at Evolved Technologist is to make sure that we stick with these principles as we do our work.