This got me to thinking about the topic I was speaking about at the conference: the way to bring about a culturally acceptable balance . That is, how could IT departments allow users to bring and use their own equipment in the work environment and still maintain a modicum of security and privacy?

Also see:

Why is this issue even a concern? In this cost-conscious environment where businesses are constantly being pressured to reduce expenses as much as possible, doesn't consumerized IT actually make sense?

In some ways, yes. The primary downside of this veritable technological tsunami is the impact it has had on the dynamic between the typical user and the IT department. The user demand (especially among C-level types) of bringing in a new , , , etc. that they got for Christmas and expecting it to be hooked up to the company network, inevitably highlights the tension and traditional IT resistance of allowing unknown/untrusted devices into the inner sanctum. The risks are obvious and myriad. These risks have led many organizations to firmly resist consumerization by restricting personal devices/consumer electronics into the workplace.

I argue that regardless of the formal or informal position of the IT department, or even the company policy in general, this faction of users is growing and is in fact disintermediating the IT department by working around them to get their devices to work at work. The "Just Say No" position of many IT departments is in fact making the company less secure overall as it is causing employees to circumvent the rules blockades put up and kept in place from years past.