"I don't want 10 developers. I want 3 great ones", is what a client told me when I asked him how his company was responding to the economic crisis. Of course, I think this is good advice even in good times and I think we have gotten away from this is recent years. Why? I think there are couple of reasons:

1. Outsourcing changed the focus from finding great developers to hiring large numbers of developers.
2. Project managers and business analysts worked their darndest to separate developers from the business problems that develoeprs need to solve. Agile has mitigated this a bit, but treating developers like machines on an assembly has been in fashion for years now.
3. There are fewer great developers because back in the day people passionate about software development gravitated towards a career in application development. Now it is a career choice for many and percentage of great developers has been diluted and thus they are harder to find.

I am asking every application development professional I talk to, including you, the following questions:

One week ago, I reached out to Max J. Pucher, founder of ISIS Payprus Software, to find out how he thought Technology Populism affected companies. Not only did he respond quickly, but he took the time to write an extensive blog post about his thoughts on the topic. Here are some of the highlights of his post.

First, let me tell you what Forrester defines as Technology Populism:

Forrester uses the term Technology Populism to convey that, essentially, today's software implementation inside an organization is driven by employees' individual preferences rather than that of IT departments. While this may not please IT managers, Forrester believes that instead of trying to block users, they should embrace both the rewards and the risks of Web 2.0 in the enterprise.

Although Max agrees that it is time for a change, he does not agree that this change should be called Technology Populism. He suggests that we use the term “IT User Rebellion,” which he explains to be the “dynamic, user oriented, freely customizable interfaces and functions that people find today on the Internet and in Web 2.0 applications.”