Technology Committee

[Vince Paske]

With the recent promotion of a fellow employee who no longer has the time to organize it, I've been asked to head-up my company's Technology Committee.

 

I'm looking for ideas of what has worked for people in medium sized AE firms, and some fresh ideas of what a "technology committee" could be.

 

In the past, the philosophy of the committee where I work was to have its members be liaisons to the rest of the firms technology needs, and then those needs would be brought up during meetings where the IT Admin, who has executive purchasing decision priviledge, would, with some influence of a few board members, say yay or nay. It was created so the IT Admin would get feedback and make purchasing decisions feel more democratic. That way, if a purchasing decisions was made, and the technology proved a failure, we would all share the blame.

 

The problem was, the IT Admin would make decisions often without involving the other members of the committee and things we thought we had agreed upon would change course with a snap of his fingers.

 

The members therefore lost interest, as no one thought there was any purpose to it. Purchasing decisions needed to be made faster than the members could organize a meeting. People who needed new technology, would just go to the IT Admin and try to get what they wanted with a department manager to back them up. Red tape everywhere you turn.

 

I think the underlying philosophy of our committee was flawed and I'm tasked to re-think it. Perhaps a "big-picture" discussion of emerging technology's possible influence on our company would be better, where each member is tasked with a little research to discuss is at quarterly meetings. I don't know...any ideas of what has worked for people in similar situations are appreciated.

 

Thanks!