So You Want To Get Into CIO…

You know, I’ve done a lot of things right since I started the job of Editor-In-Chief of CIO UK nigh on two years ago. My tea making wins universal approbation; I am a generous contributor to leaving-this-place/birthday/anniversary/I’ve-just-replicated card collections; I am a courteous colleague with a winning, lopsided grin for all; contributors often get paid in a timely manner; and I pay close attention to my personal hygiene (aside from in the case of the ‘lucky’ pullover I wear every day).

In only a few areas could you fail to grade me in the A++ to C– window and I’m big enough to name them. My spelling is failing with age (‘Veitch’ is a very tricky surname that breaks the convention of ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’); I have an unfortunate tendency to repeat unfunny jokes in questionable taste; I sometimes overcook my social life, and my desk and working area resemble a battle scene from War and Peace. Without the dead bodies, obviously.

Worse than any of these from a PR point of view, I gently bat off requests for forward-features lists by promising imminent delivery. I’ll say “it will be on the site/email/scroll tomorrow”, but tomorrow never comes because Something Else gets in the way.

This is what experts on media matters refer to as A Bad Thing because unless I tell people what’s coming up in the magazine, how can they help me get stuff in it, thereby leaving me more time to pontificate and lunch? So I thought I’d write this piece as a general pointer as to How To Get Into CIO UK.

First of all, if you’re a CIO or similar, we’d love to hear from you because if you don’t have an idea on what CIOs should be reading about we’re all in a pickle, aren’t we? Just call me, email me or pop around to my house.

Second, if you want to do something that refers specifically to our website, do the same thing to CIO Online Editor Mark ‘The Big Chill’ Chillingworth. He knows all about this stuff and has carte blanche in these matters, even though he’s from Cambridgeshire and not even French.

Third, if you’re in PR, I’ve put a few pointers below as to what’s coming up imminently and I mean to update it on a regular basis. Think of it as a rough and ready guide because print publishing flatplans and runlists depend inevitably on how many advertisers want to cream the opposition and create unfair competitive differentiation by appearing on the pages of our sector-leading publication. But hopefully it’s a first clue as to what’s going on in our office overlooking the British Library on the beautiful Euston Road, London.

Note this well: our main aim is to profile interesting CIOs. They might well work at large companies with a large British presence but many of them work for smaller concerns. Ideally, they’re all interesting people doing interesting things. If you’re one of them or represent a client that sells stuff to them and you can get them to talk to us, get in touch. If you can supply high-quality photography, so much the better. You can’t see the article before it’s published. Sorry.

We do accept contributions from the supply side, so long as we think they’re not biased or veiled ads. In particular, if you work for a consulting firm, law firm or some other such services group, tell us why we should care about your experiences in dealing with business and CIOs. Obviously, we’ll edit your copy but we won’t butcher it without warning you.

If you’re in PR you might well be interested in touting your clients for technology articles that will probably be either features about hot categories or interviews with big cheeses. These will be aimed at CIOs and still be business-y but they may go a little bit techie. If you’re Bill Gates, John Chambers or Steve Jobs, of course we’d like to chow down. We’ll even pick up the tab. (Not – Marcus Wilkinson, Publisher, CIO.)

You might also want to get in touch with our superb roster of columnists — just email me if that’s the case — and we carry reviews of books, so send them over because you can’t win it if you’re not in it.

The only real thing to remember when you pitch CIO is to say why on earth a CIO would give a darn about your radio mouse/ERP/universal panacea.

So here’s a tiny bit about what’s coming up. Note: we’re not listing the CIOs profiled because that’s TOP SECRET.

March

Towards a government policy for IT strategy Implications of the EDS v BSkyB outsourcing case What does the the iPad mean for business Managing an IT maturity portfolio Building A Fast-Track IT Architecture IT at the Turin Underground The growth of video on the CIO agenda

April General election special: What will happen in public-sector IT if Dave/Gord/Cleggy gets in and why you should care Interviews with key party spokesfolks Expert commentary on re-energising public-sector IT (it’s more than half of all UK IT spend you know)