Imagine we're talking with a visitor from outer space, one sent to help us assess our situation and what's required for the future.

Our guest asks first about the big picture: Over time, what has most changed the human condition?

In exploring this, we soon agree that the big changes started with new knowledge. We learned about -- and then took advantage of -- bronze, coal, steel, antibiotics, hybrid corn, atomic energy, the net (TCP/IP) and the web (html).

Early learning was about how the world works: Will the wheel make it easier to move things? Will the bridge hold the weight? Will the engine pull the train? Will the code compile and compute?

We've long needed people good at such problems: puzzles with clear right or wrong answers. We usually recognize good puzzle solvers as "smart" when they are quite young. People smart in this way have tended to become mathematicians, scientists, engineers, computer programmers.

I see, says our guest. You need to be smart about things you can use -- tools -- as it is tools that let you expand your capabilities.

But is that the same kind of "smart" needed to apply those tools?

Well… No, not exactly. The problems and smarts to apply tools are not the same as those to build them.

In general, problems of application are social more than physical. New applications require people to change their behavior and division of labor. To fully apply plants, plows, and other tools of agriculture, we move from hunter-gatherers to farmers. To apply steel and steam engines, we produce at greater specialization and scale, organizing at the level of nation and even continent. Powerful new tools require people to change what they do and who they do it with.

These problems are not puzzles with provably right answers. They require deep involvement and judgment via interpersonal communication and negotiation. They require street smarts about people and politics -- a different kind of intelligence.

I see, says our guest. You need first to be smart about things -- to invent tools -- and then about people -- to apply tools successfully.

Well then, given where you are now, what is the right balance of smarts for the road ahead? Do you have what you need, or will you need a new balance?

Important questions, eh?

In a networked world, as we move beyond the delivery of online services to redesign and transform our globally interconnected value chains, what do we need in the way of smarts? Are we smart enough to know what we need and how to get it?

Let me know your answers.

We'll be exploring this and other questions at our Leadership and Strategic Management for Chief Information Officers Program (June 17-18 at Harvard). Here's where to learn more and apply. Hope to see you there.

Regards,

Jerry