Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »
Webcast: In the Google Apps Cloud: How to Achieve Your Business Objectives
Dec 3rd, '09, 1 - 2 pm US/Eastern (GMT-5)
Join Council member Brent Hoag, Director, Global IT, at JohnsonDiversey, as he discusses the adoption of Google Apps which has helped meet four corporate goals; sustainability, simplification, increased employee productivity and global collaboration.
Webcast: Collaboration Initiatives: Benchmarks & Best Practices
Dec 15th, '09, 4 - 5 pm US/Eastern (GMT-5)
Join Council members Ruth Thorpe, VP & CIO at the U.S. Pharmaceutical Operations of Sanofi-Aventis, and Gary Kuyper, CIO at Bethany Christian Services, as they speak about their collaboration initiatives and experiences in how and why they chose the social networking and collaboration tools they are using and their business goals for collaboration, and facing culture change challenges.
Data Overview: Collaboration Initiatives Field Guide: Benchmarks & Best Practices
This appendix to the Council Field Guide provides an analysis which discusses benchmarks for collaboration IT implementation costs, adoption rates and payoffs. The overview identifies top IT and business goals and satisfaction rates for collaboration initiatives as well as best practices and lessons learned for implementing collaboration IT.
Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »May 01, 2007 — CIO —
Motorola CIO Patty Morrison sleeps well at night. She takes real vacations. She has time to think. It doesn’t sound like the typical description of life as a CIO, particularly an IT leader at a $42 billion company in the midst of a major reorganization in the acutely competitive communications equipment market. Truth be told, there may be a little hyperbole in Morrison’s self portrayal. Her plate is full. She determines long-term IT strategy, works closely with executive peers to decide the right direction for the company, and travels the world to communicate the corporate mission to the enterprise and its customers.
But when it comes to the day-to-day operation and success of her 2,200-person technology department, Morrison’s concerns are few. She doesn’t get middle-of-the-night calls about network outages. She’s not putting out IT fires instead of eating lunch. When Motorola created a new integrated supply chain division that IT had to support, Morrison barely broke a sweat. She sought out Ones to Watch (OTW) winner Cathie Kozik, corporate VP of IT, supplied her with the necessary resources and watched her create an effective IT group from scratch.
Morrison’s not lucky. Like most successful CIOs today, the 25-year IT veteran makes a concerted effort to foster leadership at all levels of her IT organization. She knows that the benefits of pushing accountability for IT success further down the org chart go beyond personal perks like getting a good eight hours of sleep. And it’s not just succession planning we’re talking about. CIOs who want to succeed as business partners and strategists can’t do it alone.
“A CIO has a lot of priorities. As a general rule, they should spend at least half their time outside the four walls of their own organization,” says Susan Cramm, IT leadership expert and founder of Valuedance. “You start thinking about how that can happen and you realize, ‘Hey, wait a minute. CIOs need to think about how to drive accountability down.’ It’s a key issue.” Otherwise talented CIOs who don’t cultivate, empower and reward leadership in their departments risk creating a rocky relationship between IT and the business and dooming themselves. “A CIO who is not able to empower other leaders will have a difficult time fulfilling his role,” says Steven Agnoli, Ones to Watch judge and CIO of law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart. “The CIO is never the successful one. Your success is almost entirely related to the success of the people within your group.” Indeed, an employee’s leadership failure becomes yours as well. “There are some IT organizations where the business feels quite comfortable with the CIO and maybe even his or her immediate reports,” says Forrester VP Laurie Orlov. “But a level down, they’re not. That leads to concerns about the long-term direction of IT.”