CIO Dashboard

CIO Careers

Will the CIO Lose the C?

April 1, 2010
CIO is Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

co-authored with John Sviokla There is some disturbing new data for the role of the CIO.  Thomas Wailgum of CIO.com says, “Given the… warning signs, it’s easy to speculate that the CIO’s role and the department’s sovereign power might be slip-sliding away.”  Half of our Diamond Digital IQ Survey respondents said that more than 30% of the dollars spent on IT is done outside of IT.  Power in any organization usually follows those who can ...

...

19 comments Read the full article →

CIO by Committee

November 23, 2009

We’ve had some good discussion on this blog, on LinkedIn IT Leadership groups and my CIO.com blog about the requisite skills and experience for a successful CIO. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to hear two talks at a CIO conference Diamond sponsored that I’d like to combine into some observations about building teams and specifically, the CIO’s leadership team. The first speaker was Bill Rollwitz, an organizational psychologist and leadership coach who spoke ...

...

14 comments Read the full article →

CIO Careers: Learning from System Quarterbacks

October 28, 2009

Kyle Field at Texas A&M Photo by StuSeeger After an embarrassing loss to Kansas State last weekend, my Texas A&M football team responded with a resounding whooping (that’s a Texas term) of the Texas Tech Red Raiders Saturday in Lubbock, racking up a 52-30 victory.  This is a big win for our program, for sure. Whenever the discussion involves Texas Tech, the idea of a “system quarterback” usually is in the mix.  The concept of ...

...

9 comments Read the full article →

“None” is Not a Social Media Strategy

July 22, 2009

Saying “No” to social media is a big mistake, especially if the decision was driven by the CIO.  Over the last few weeks, I have spoken to two CIOs, one in financial services and one in the public sector, who say their organizations have a “no social media” policy. I agree that there are many reasons to limit what your employees post on Facebook or LinkedIn.  That said, shutting off the spigot entirely misses out ...

...

14 comments Read the full article →

3 CIO Lessons from Obama’s First 100 Days

April 29, 2009

Today marks President Obama’s 100th day in office.  Gallup reports that Obama’s 63% approval rating is the best since Carter’s early approval rating in 1977 (the highest was JFK’s 74% in 1961; CNN’s take).   Americans have used the first 100 days as a predictor of Presidential success ever since FDR’s barrage of New Deal programs.  NPR even has an Obama Tracker that has been documenting domestic, economic and foreign policy milestones since the President ...

...

0 comments Read the full article →

CIO Tenure: What is Wrong (if Anything)?

April 22, 2009

Along with IT project failure rates, the average time a CIO stays with a company is one of the most often quoted metrics in our trade. Recent studies cite that 1 in 4 CIOs are fired for poor performance and CIO’s have an average tenure of 4.4 years. These don’t seem to bode well for the CIO. Why is the tenure so short?  And, is this seemingly short tenure really a bad thing? While certainly ...

...

11 comments Read the full article →