When consulting on a recent corporate project I commented to someone that surely a firm of such size already had a “guerrilla” CMS in place and they replied that security would have a field day if true. One search on the intranet showed a couple of guerrilla instances already in use for several years. While the corporate-wide initiative is going back to the drawing board, the viability of the guerrilla platforms is completely ignored. Success factors to be captured are 1. In-house technology prowess with a specific platform, requiring minimal support and budget 2. Business need is being met where it previously was not 3. Chronic progress with the guerrilla platform.

What is your opinion on blanketed IT initiatives that are forced compared to those that are organic, or guerrilla-like? I am thinking in terms of cost, success, scale and total benefits derived. I know that this will vary taking into account the firm size and structure.

Now I am an IT manager for a Health plan and the idea of one of my current users doing what I did back then could keep me awake at night. However, the approach I like to take is to identify those users that show enthusiasm for technology and try bring them into a center of excellence like our BI power users’ group or the eHealth task force.

The truth is we probably don’t want to eliminate it entirely. As you point out they will often lead the way in terms of where the business needs to go.

Finally, as the risk of showing my age, I not only remember the Ghoul, I remember Ghoulardi who started it all. Check out this good Wikipedia article on him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoulardi