Transformation of HR management is underway

In 1966, British physicist-novelist-Cabinet officer Sir Charles P. Snow predicted information technology would represent the biggest technological revolution known to mankind. As the decades passed and the prediction proved to be accurate, there was tremendous excitement about the potential for once unimaginable productivity. By the 1990s, however, many experts were not talking about skyrocketing productivity. They were raising eyebrows and debating the "productivity paradox" and whether IT had actually improved productivity.

"If you're in business, you need to know the basics of technology," says Animesh Animesh, assistant professor of information systems at the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University. "That's what we're doing in our classes so that our students have the exposure to technology in their business classes they need for the new reality."

"We sometimes have a very romantic view of innovation, thinking of it as somebody waking up and saying, 'I have an idea!' " says Genevieve Bassellier, assistant professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management. "It doesn't happen like that. It's usually little pieces of ideas being put together by different people that over time become an interesting innovation, so you have to give time to your employees to go and put their ideas out there, and have others build on the ideas."

Read full article: Thefinancialpost.com, November 2, 2010