CIOs were invented because the boundless promise of IT generated an equally boundless swamp of confusion and technical perplexity. Ever since, CIOs have been by nature at least one part geek and proud of it—although that reputation sometimes has been a bit of a handicap when navigating the corporate ladder.

Several events on the horizon, however, suggest that the tone of the job may be changing. For better or worse, CIOs might be turning into people people. If so, their ladder skills might be in line for an upgrade.

Ironically, part of this trend is driven by the fact that networks are being transformed from systems with people at their nodes to systems whose primary role is the interconnection of physical devices, from locks and lights and cameras and motors to vehicles and bar-code readers and on and on. These new architectures are usually called device networks, or, in aggregate, "the Internet of things."

The attraction driving this reconstruction is the promise of a huge increase in the flexibility and productivity of operations. Security cameras are an example. Today, in most cases, a guard sits at a desk, casually watching a half-dozen monitors—and that’s it. Maybe once a month he sees something worth noting. Network the same feed, however, and sales can use it to assess the effectiveness of floor displays, personnel can monitor employee performance, facilities can watch the progress of cleaning and repair work, and so on. Suddenly, the system is contributing 7/52, if not 24/7. This point can be illustrated equally well with almost any other sensor or actuator, such as keycard readers, vibration sensors on motors, or motion detectors controlling the lighting and heating in bathrooms.

Of course, any CIO worth his reserved parking space will see an underside immediately. Device networking is not new. Twenty years ago people started hooking printers to the Net. What a nightmare that was. All the drivers had to be coded by hand. It took five years to get the technology in shape. Isn’t device networking going to be a thousand times worse? The devices will face the same authentication and security any human user would, plus they will need to be maintained. Given that physical access to a lot of these devices will range from limited right up to impossible, how are those issues going to be handled? Compatibility is sure to be another headache. Devices will come in dozens of kinds, with several manufacturers for each. All these varieties, together with their upgrades, plus all the new devices no one has thought of yet, are going to need to interact seamlessly. The network specs are not even the same: Humans like lots of bandwidth but usually can tolerate reasonable latency; devices generally require very little bandwidth (except for cameras) but do best with low latencies (since they are interacting with machines).