IEEE Potentials Magazine - May/June 2018 - 15

©iStockphoto.com/enisaksoy

Careers and Grad Ed

CreativITy:
Using IT to create
radical new solutions
Kai A. Olsen

A

©iStockphoto.com/bowie15

painter standing before a
white canvas with brushes
and a palette has the free-
dom to express anything-
a landscape, a bowl of
fruit, or a portrait. For creative paint-
ers, such as Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Picasso,
and Munch, it seemed that the can-
vas offered no limitations as to what
could be expressed.
As information technology (IT)
consultants, programmers, or sys-
tem developers, we are in a different
league. However, our tools offer us
some of the same freedom as paint-
ers. Instead of replicating the solu-
tions of yesterday, we have the option
of introducing more disruptive sys-
tems. Rather than improving efficien-
cy by a few percentage points, we can
offer radical new processes-perhaps
solutions-that can cut costs in half
or more, handle greater complexity, or
offer new products.
To achieve these results, one needs
to listen to customers and work hard
to understand their real problems.
This is difficult. Customers are often
strongly entrenched in their existing
processes. Furthermore, they may
suggest solutions based on their lim-
ited understanding of what is possi-
ble to achieve with IT, in many cases
influenced by the systems that they
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPOT.2017.2744675
Date of publication: 2 May 2018

0278-6648/18©2018IEEE

IEEE PotEntIals

May/June 2018

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15


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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Potentials Magazine - May/June 2018

Contents
IEEE Potentials Magazine - May/June 2018 - Cover1
IEEE Potentials Magazine - May/June 2018 - Cover2
IEEE Potentials Magazine - May/June 2018 - Contents
IEEE Potentials Magazine - May/June 2018 - 2
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