Innovation and the rise of the citizen developer

The term “citizen developer” arises from the democratization of IT, coding and engineering skills. Cloud services, the API economy, and the readily available tools that come with curated examples and guidance built-in, are opening up a new world where anyone can start to bring their ideas to life. For example, Slack and Facebook Workplace allow individuals to create “bots” that can join and empower their channels, automate actions and even improve collaboration and reporting. There is a healthy community that supports innovators and tinkerers who want to change the way they work.

The tools are there for experimentation. Now add in the desire. These citizen developers, no matter what department they work in, are close to business needs and therefore in a good position to experiment with the capabilities of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI).

While AI is both over-hyped (it is considered the answer to everything) and under-hyped (its potential is not fully understood because useful real-world applications are in their infancy), the nascent tools available have piqued people’s interest. Citizen developers will embrace AI and apply it to their local environment. This will shape a unique vision of the modern workplace, born from their knowledge of the business problem, specific to their organization and strategy, and factoring in existing technologies.

We’ve seen this before with Excel macros, and to a degree with websites and mobile apps. Now AI will be the target of those inquisitive, frustrated users who just want to do more — and more efficiently.

Continue reading the position paper, Redefine your digital workplace as an innovation center.