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 »
Public Council Teleconference: Application Rationalization — Hidden Costs and Smart Decisions
November 17 at 11:00 am US/Eastern (GMT-5)
Join Honorio Padrón, of The Hackett Group, who will share the drivers for companies to tackle application rationalization and the results of research that define the hidden cost of complexity. Additionally, we will discuss key decision milestones—to start or not, holding the course steady and fulfilling expectations.
Virtual Desktop Cost-Benefit Analysis — Michael Jacobs, Catlin Group
The analysis contained in this presentation measures the cost of everything from the machines and licenses to the infrastructure for virtual vs. traditional desktop environments.
Honor your best senior team members - Apply for the CIO Ones to Watch Award
Get well-earned public recognition for your top up-and-coming team members, your IT organization and your enterprise. Award winners will be announced, publicized and feted in May 2010, great timing to help attract new IT recruits to your company.
Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »April 08, 2008 — CIO —
Innovative communication techniques grouped together and interchangeably labeled social computing, social software, social media, Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0), need to shape the way companies do business. (For more, see An Introduction to Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Crucial to New Information Workplace.)
Senior managers who learn to let E2.0 concepts have a life of their own will benefit from enhanced knowledge sharing and stronger communities within their companies. These communities reinforce interactions within work groups and support collaboration and innovation.
Increased Collaboration
People form communities based on shared interests. Once the
community is in place, it becomes a greenhouse for the
development of ideas and the distribution of information,
attracting all those who wish to participate.
The collaborative exchange of ideas is essential to the success of difficult initiatives, including software architecture and design, project management and organizational transformation. Tools such as social networking sites, discussion groups and wikis enable people to connect with one another virtually while enhancing and extending face-to-face interaction. Using these tools, traditional hierarchies and structures in the company move into the background as the community emerges, removing many of the inhibitors of information exchange.
Companies are seeing improved collaboration surrounding creation of user groups (around development languages) and complex design (in globally distributed teams). In each case, participants from otherwise isolated parts of the company share problems and solutions, reducing redundancy and increasing common functionality.
Enhanced Innovation
Peter Drucker writes extensively about innovation as a subtle
reexamination of context rather than mountaintop epiphanies.
Most companies that take an innovative turn spot
something—an opportunity—that offers a natural
extension of the status quo.
Chris Zook recommends searching for "undeveloped adjacencies," or unexploited capabilities in the organization that can be developed into new, repeatable processes. Successful corporate innovation capitalizes on existing assets and ideas combined in new ways. Use of social computing creates a new stage for innovation, where ideas are more easily exposed and patterns spotted. As communities work out the kinks of new ideas in public forums, innovative thinking coalesces and ownership/leadership emerges. Amazon uses social computing (especially wikis) extensively in the development of new features for Amazon.com. Virtual teams form around seeds of ideas, take ownership and drive the idea into a product enhancement.
Increased Productivity
Increased productivity is usually the result of more efficient
access to correct information. This reduces the time needed
during discovery phases and troubleshooting. For software
development, access to shared solutions and knowledgeable
people speeds time to delivery. For call-center environments,
the ability to find information and communicate in real time
with coworkers shortens call time. For design scenarios,
collaborative work on shared artifacts accelerates the early
stages of a project and simplifies future iterations.
In all scenarios, the collective intelligence of the community leads to answers more quickly. As more questions are answered, repeatability increases. As new workers enter the company, there is a baseline of knowledge to get them ramped up more effectively. Much of that knowledge is available as content within the social computing infrastructure.