Here’s an example of what we mean. Back in 2010, the Corporate Executive Board Co. (CEB) pulled out its crystal ball to summon a five-year forecast (it was the big crystal ball) for corporate IT. What it saw for 2015 was that IT organizations would be radically different from those at the dawn of the decade. Good for CEB: Those predictions were pretty right-on. Bad for those involved in tech hiring: They’re already coming to pass, whether you’re ready or not.  Here’s what CEB identified as “radical” shifts in IT way back then:

• Information over process: Information management skills will rise in importance as competitive advantage from IT shifts from process automation to customer experience, data analytics and knowledge worker enablement.
• IT embedded in business services: Centrally provided applications and infrastructure will be embedded in business services and delivered by a multifunctional shared services organization.
• Externalized service delivery: Delivery will be predominantly externalized as vendors expand service provision and internal resources become brokers instead of providers.
• Greater business partner responsibility: Business unit leaders and end users will play a greater role in obtaining and managing technology for themselves in areas where differentiation has more value than standardization.
• Unbundled IT: Some IT roles will be embedded in business services, evolve into business roles or be externalized. Remaining IT roles will be housed in a business shared services group, and IT staffing needs will change significantly.

With all this flux, it’s no wonder that, as CEB research director Shalini Das puts it, tech hiring “is like chasing a moving target.” IT is facing rising demand for business intelligence, mobility, and restructuring to deliver end-to-end services for higher speed and efficiency. And it must partner with increasingly tech-savvy business users willing to self-manage IT projects, she said.

So what to do? Leaving it up to HR doesn’t work; you have to do the opposite. As many of the experts we spoke with for our latest piece on help with tech hiring agreed, the CIO who wants the best people — the right people — must partner up with HR.

“CIOs must clarify and communicate new or changing definitions and skills requirements to hiring managers and recruiters so they can update job descriptions, résumé screening filters and interview questions as needed,” Das said. “In addition, they must work with their HR peers to correspondingly update staff competency models, training and development programs.”

Someone asked the panel what they thought about privacy on mobile devices. What if sharing information on mobile apps gets to the point where your insurance provider knows too much about you, for example?

As we reported in a past story on enterprises’ mobile app plans, some health care providers and pharmaceutical companies are considering apps that would tell patients when to take their medication.

One audience member pondered this question: What if a health care provider decides to sell that type of information, and the next thing you know, your insurance provider shuts off your prescription because you aren’t taking the pills as scheduled?

That’s a scary scenario, but given just how much information we are willing to share over mobile devices and on social media networks, it’s not an impossibility.

But as panel moderator and Gartner analyst Paul DeBeasi said, “Only old people care about privacy,” repeating something his teenage son had said to him. His response had been that his son would care when he’s older. (What had bothered DeBeasi more than the generation gap around privacy was the possibility that information is probably being collected about people that they don’t even know about.)

But is it true that older generations are more cautious and younger generations have no privacy boundaries? The panel thought so.

“Let’s face it, younger generations are more than willing to share personal information — they want to share personal information, said panel member Randy Nunez, advanced networks and mobility director at Ford Motor Co. “And until they run into situations of ‘How does my insurance company know what my medical practices are’, until [privacy issues] start impacting them personally, there’s going to be a lot we give up in terms of privacy and security.”

Does that mean that enterprises also will have to give up a lot in terms of privacy and security? Or will the right controls around an enterprise mobility strategy put a stop to “over-sharing?” Then again, how do you balance controls when personal information is mingled with corporate data on a mobile device? And what happens when you ask employees to buy their own devices?

Let us know what you think about this blog post; email Christina Torode, News Director.