2023 is a red letter year for Compact. This year Compact celebrates its 50th anniversary, just as the Van Gogh Museum and hip hop (and 1973 also marked the end of the Vietnam War and Monty Python’s Flying Circus). In 1973, Professor Dick Nolan from Harvard (and later KPMG Nolan Norton & Co) also published his famous article on IT maturity stages, which is referred to and extended in this edition of Compact.
Consequently, this edition travels back in time to reflect, relearn and renew from the past years. To celebrate this milestone, we held the successful Compact event “’50 years of (Digital) Trust’ celebration” in June 2023, of which the highlights have been captured in one of the articles of this edition.
This edition not only covers articles on how far Compact has come in the last fifty years, but also how far particular areas in technology like testing and databases have developed in this era. The choice for testing and databases is no coincidence, as fifty years ago, the first two articles elaborated on just these two subjects. Furthermore, the people aspect of change over the past years is captured in the changing role of CIOs in organizations over the years and in the transformation of the workplace articles.
We do not only look back, however; in the spirit of learning for the future we have included articles on ESG, the future of IT Auditing and a book review of the impact of AI in the future.
As this as a special anniversary edition, we interviewed the previous Editors-in-Chief of the Compact as they reminisce on the journey of Compact over the years and how they foresee the future of Compact.
We sincerely hope that you will enjoy reading this edition of Compact (and will do so the next fifty years). We invite you to contact us or any of the contributing authors in case you would like to dive into the presented ideas and concepts.
New Compact issuing process
Finally, this edition also marks the moment for more frequent information in the future on the latest developments. As a sneak peak, starting next edition, we will provide you with interesting, good practices on an ongoing basis (please check our website www.compact.nl for more information). The best articles published “online first” will be consolidated into a new edition every quarter.