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 »December 01, 2003 — CIO —
What gets your goat the most? How about the rejection of vital IT funding requests for no good reason that you can discern? Maybe the doomed proposal was a crucial systems infrastructure upgrade. Or a much-needed, next-generation transaction processing system. How can executive decision-makers reach the pinnacle of power and still not "get it" when it comes to IT? What can be done to help them see the light?
It turns out the answer is: a lot. What follows are ways to recognize symptoms of IT value blindness, explanations of why the problem occurs and suggestions for fixing it. The trick is not to try to change the decision-makers?but rather to change the way you and your team are delivering your message.
Warning signs of executive IT value blindness are easy to spot. Start with the age and background of the decision-makers. If these execs are eligible for senior citizen discounts at movies and restaurants, and have spent most of their careers in capital-intensive environments (for example, manufacturing, transportation, utilities), they may not "get" IT because they have never experienced the transformational power of technology at a deep, personal level. Another signal of possible IT prejudice is a fanatical insistence that benefits must always be tangible to "count." This attitude often reflects an insecurity about things that can’t be seen or touched. A third alert is the lack of understanding of how and why IT investment selections are made. Murky methods may cover up foggy ways of thinking about technology value.
Once we’ve spotted symptoms, it’s time to drill down to the real causes of the problem, such as:
"I don’t believe it" (rejection of fundamental assumptions). Too often, what we believe are shared givens between us and investment approvers are not. For example, a CRM project request may assume that everyone agrees that sales-force productivity increases are critical to the company’s future success. But such an appeal can fail with nonsales executives. For instance, a key manufacturing-oriented decision-maker may believe that sales depend on adequate production capacity, not better-informed salespeople.
"I don’t see it" (weak data-to-decisions explanations). Just because you and I know that better data is fundamental to nourishing business success, doesn’t mean others do. People tend to rely for future successes on what worked in the past. Action-oriented executives (doers, not thinkers) are especially prone to this. They often boast about the depth of their experience and success of their gut-feel decisions. But, they may not intuitively understand how they or their subordinates need faster, better data in today’s more complex, rapidly changing world.