I recently came across a fascinating working paper by John Hagel: From Push to Pull (2005). Hagel’s work focuses on emerging approaches for mobilizing resources. He states that we are living in a “push” world, whereas new business opportunities and technology innovation arise from “pull” models.
Push
Push resources to areas of highest anticipated need, e.g.
- in education: standardized curricula
- in business: highly automated plants and service platforms to deliver resources to the right place at pre-determined times
- in technology: massive enterprise applications to deliver IT resources and services at pre-determined times
- in media: traditional broadcast TV
Pull
On the contrary, pulling resources allows people to mobilize resources when they need them, e.g.
- in education: e-learning, virtual classrooms
- in the production industry: Toyota (lean production, JIT, etc.)
- in technology: community-driven OSS development
- in media: Blogs, collaborative media creation, VoD, etc.
Cloud Computing, i.e. on-demand, self-service IT technology (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, etc.), is the newest member in this concert of promising “pull” approaches. Similar to the other “pull” examples, Cloud Computing is a disruptive technology shift, driven by growing uncertainty, intense competition and the inability of “push” models to fulfill customized wishes in a timely manner.
