It’s only creative marketing really. To start calling out different sectors and varying platform strata of the IT landscape as specifically defined ‘lenses’ is really just another way of talking about integration.
No working enterprise organisation really steps back and says - start the blue lens: combined AI power with big data analytics engines engaged and a tier of Machine Learning powered operations support from MLOps… but hold Robotic Process Automation (RPA) bots for now, so this is light blue rather than deep navy.
Putting fanciful mission control spaceflight style instructions aside then, with key technology groups and platform sub-sectors now working inside co-related tightly integrated groups, can we work with the notion of colour-coded ‘lenses’ that help coalesce new and emerging tools to provide computing power through something more positive than rose-coloured glasses?
It’s a suggestion that comes out of software consultancy Thoughtworks. The company tendered its attempt to table a version of this idea as part of its The Looking Glass trends outlook report at the end of 2021. The intention was to try and map the change that enterprise leaders need to consider as they shape their business in 2022 and beyond.
Pantone for programmer platform procedures
Thoughtworks actually groups its lenses into a basic list without the colour chart. Hopefully, we have superceded even the marcoms directors’ most outlandish dreams and brought a Pantone scale effect into play. Who knows, it might stick and find its way onto the CIO’s next strategy planning document.
If there is a green lens, then it’s probably a green-means-go productivity filter. This works in line with Thoughtworks talking about the development of a so-called ‘apps culture’ inside contemporary organisations.
This is not to suggest that some strange form of business exists that had never previously used Excel spreadsheets and email; this is presumably the suggestion that enterprises now recognise the need to solve specific business problems and goals with custom-built precision-engineered applications that all stakeholders will use (possibly extending to partners and customers too) in order to engage in more tightly defined spaces with specific functionalities.
Of course, the green lens theory doesn’t work well, because green should stand for sustainable computing, carbon-neutral initiatives and all manner of ecologically aware IT initiatives.
Any colour you like
If there is a rainbow lens, then it’s the multicoloured world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) where computer brains see in an infinite spectrum of 1s and zeros. Where the rainbow lens has most impact is how we use it to engineer machine intelligence into human workflows and understand what other tasks we should be actually be focusing on.
“As AI-supported techniques become more mainstream, they can touch on more areas of our lives and their impacts need to be considered from an ethical perspective,” said Dr. Rebecca Parsons, chief technology officer at Thoughtworks.
Parsons says that it will be important for businesses to develop balanced and productive partnerships between their people and AI to extract maximum value from emerging technologies such as extended reality solutions, while also remaining mindful of the potential ethical implications.
“Understanding how AI systems work is key to perceiving and mitigating against unintended consequences,” added Parsons.
Of course, the rainbow lens doesn’t work well from a marketing perspective because it should be ascribed to computing initiatives that champion diversity, inclusion and belonging. This whole branding campaign is going to need some work.
Red or dead, or redemption
The red lens means danger, so does that play out a little better? Thoughtworks thinks it does in as much as it has extended the definition of security and malware protection to sit under the umbrella term of hostile tech, which is clearly a deep crimson-vermillion tone.
According to Thoughtworks, hostile technology is a term commonly associated with criminal activity, “However the landscape is evolving in a way that the definition of hostile tech should be broadened to include legal – even widely accepted – acts that threaten societal well-being,” notes the company, in a technical blog.
Naysaying and sarcasm notwithstanding, what Thoughtworks has tried to table with its lens theory isn’t necessarily that unreasonable or unfeasible.
We may well get to a new platform-play tier of IT deployment where applications and tools are tightly defined and refined in a way that enables us to ‘turn a colour filter dial’ on our management dashboard and engage a particular view when a specific type of business operations needs to be focused upon. Focus is what lenses do, after all.