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 »January 30, 2008 — CIO —
Think the generation gap went out with bell-bottoms and love beads?
Think again.
Take a good look around your IT department. Who’s that cohabiting in the cubes outside your door? Boomers and X-ers and Y-ers. Looks peaceful out there, doesn’t it? Don’t bet on it. What many CIOs fail to see are the generational tensions simmering among their employees that threaten to lower morale, increase turnover and hobble the IT department’s ability to produce wins for the business.
“One of the big struggles companies have is with people who are not playing well in the sandbox,” says Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing for Yoh, an IT talent and outsourcing services firm. “And it’s more pervasive when we talk about the situation we have between the generations.”
Relations among the generations seem to be at a low point. Gen Y (defined as people born after 1982) thinks Gen X (spawned between 1961 and 1981) is a bunch of whiners. Gen X sees Gen Y as arrogant and entitled. And everyone thinks the Baby Boomers (1943 to 1960) are self-absorbed workaholics.
None of this generational trash-talking surprises Linda Gravett and Robin Throckmorton, authors of Bridging the Generation Gap, which advises managers on how to minimize conflicts and miscommunication among the different age groups in order to get everyone working together.
“We had a sense that there was tension,” says Gravett, a human resources consultant. “This was confirmed in our research. We found there was a lot of generational tension around the use of technology and work ethics.”
Gravett says their research showed that 68 percent of Baby Boomers feel “younger people” do not have as strong a work ethic as they do and that makes doing their own work harder. Thirty-two percent of Gen X-ers believe the “younger generation” lacks a good work ethic and that this is a problem. And 13 percent of Gen Y-ers say the difference in work ethics across the generations causes friction. They believe they have a good work ethic for which they’re not given credit.
Technology is another flashpoint. In a survey conducted for job site CareerBuilder.com last year, nearly half the respondents noted Generation Y’s preference to communicate via blogs, IMs and text messages, rather than on the phone or face to face, methods preferred by Boomers and Generation X. Technologically facilitated communication can feel abrupt and easily be misunderstood by Boomers and Gen X-ers.