Harwell Thrasher

Harwell Thrasher is an author, commentator, strategist and former IT executive who focuses on the human side of Information Technology (which is where things usually go wrong), helps businesses to better understand and communicate with their technology organizations, and helps IT people better align their work to business needs. Harwell founded MakingITclear, Inc. in 2002 after more than thirty years of previous experience in Information Technology.

Harwell is known for providing a unique perspective on the difficult problems confronting IT and business organizations. He often explains complicated issues using simple metaphors and parables. His non-technical explanations of technology make it easily apparent that IT is no different from any other organization staffed by humans – it just uses more expensive tools.

The word "magic" comes up a lot in Harwell's writing and speaking. He cites magic – an unreasonable expectation of illogical results – as the prime source of miscommunication between business and IT. Indeed, sometimes Harwell's purpose in life seems to be to destroy the inappropriate magic that leads to IT misperception and failure. By eliminating the magic, Harwell hopes to raise the overall reputation of IT people. (Read a book excerpt on magic.)

Harwell has written a newsletter and blog for CIO's since April, 2003. In 2007 Harwell published his book, Boiling the IT Frog: How to Make Your Business Information Technology Wildly Successful Without Having to Learn Anything Technical, which explains IT issues to a business audience, and gives business people advice on how to improve the effectiveness of their IT organizations.

Harwell is also a popular speaker for gatherings of current and future IT executives, and for groups of people who work closely with IT. He is able to describe the IT life experience with humor and from a fresh perspective, and the resulting insight helps the audience better cope with their situation at work.