Former CIO for Scott Paper, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and (briefly) the FBI, Darwin A. John is considered one of the first people ever to be called a CIO. It would be easy for me to trace the 38 years I’ve spent in the IT industry by talking about technology. After all, it’s been a remarkable four decades of innovation, filled with dozens of revolutions: from punch cards that stored bits of data per inch to 24/7 real-time computing capable of transmitting billions of bits in a second; from a computer that filled a room to an equally powerful one that fits in your shirt pocket; from accurately calculating sums to accurately modeling genes.But to focus on that would be to admire the frieze that adorns a great room and forget about the room. Far more fascinating to me than the change in technology is the change in us.We CIOs have evolved. Our job has always been to talk about what’s possible. But once upon a time, it was a bottom-up phenomenon, driven by users asking how to use the technology we provided them. Today, that has flipped to a top-down job wherein we counsel the executives above us who need to know, What’s possible with technology? You could argue either that we pushed this change along or that we got dragged. Most of us, I think, were dragged. But we’ve learned. CIOs have started looking at data in context, and asking, What’s the mission of the enterprise? What are the core processes? What’s in place to do that mission? And what are the metrics to show I’m successful?RELATED LINKS See more “What It’s Like To…” storiesWe are, in short, mostly aligned.But I see another change coming. For a long time, we thought that more information was inherently better. But some of us have gone too far. We spend too much time in front of the screen. Because a spreadsheet allows us to model a budget a million times before we make a decision, we assume that we should do that.This approach is flawed, and it will end. We are business executives now, not technologists.When I look at my 38 years in technology, I think that most of my successes ultimately came from two lessons I learned growing up on a farm: One, you contribute to make a difference in the world; and two, you continually learn and grow. There’s no such thing as a steady state with knowledge or with crops or humans. You are always either progressing or regressing.And then I think about IT. There is no profession in the last 40 years that has provided more opportunity to make a difference. No discipline that would have allowed me to learn more. It’s been a real ride.—As told to Scott Berinato Related content feature 4 remedies to avoid cloud app migration headaches The compelling benefits of using proprietary cloud-native services come at a price: vendor lock-in. Here are ways CIOs can effectively plan without getting stuck. By Robert Mitchell Nov 29, 2023 9 mins CIO CIO CIO case study Steps Gerresheimer takes to transform its IT CIO Zafer Nalbant explains what the medical packaging manufacturer does to modernize its IT through AI, automation, and hybrid cloud. By Jens Dose Nov 29, 2023 6 mins CIO SAP ServiceNow feature Per Scholas redefines IT hiring by diversifying the IT talent pipeline What started as a technology reclamation nonprofit has since transformed into a robust, tuition-free training program that seeks to redefine how companies fill tech skills gaps with rising talent. By Sarah K. White Nov 29, 2023 11 mins Diversity and Inclusion Hiring news Saudi Arabia will host the World Expo 2030 in Riyadh By Andrea Benito Nov 28, 2023 4 mins Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe