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7 Digital Strategies of Top-Performing Companies

January 31, 2012
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Growing a multimillion dollar corporation during a recession is no small feat and it’s no accident. Companies that are swimming against the economic tide are doing things differently than those that are treading water, or worse, drowning. So, what exactly separates the best from the rest? In a world of tech-empowered consumers and employees, companies that are bucking the economic trend exhibit key behaviors that allow them to exploit technology and weave it into their ...

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Innovation for the Rest of Us (presentation)

March 9, 2010

I had the privilege today of sharing some ideas on innovation at the Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference.  The two points of my talk were: Companies should spend more time solving problems and less time coming up with brand new ideas.  There are plenty of good ideas already brewing in the minds of employees, customers, vendors and universities – it’s a matter of tapping into them. There are (at least) 4 things you have ...

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IT Czar – A New IT Leadership Role?

January 14, 2010

With the NFL playoffs in full swing*, most of the league’s teams are on the sidelines thinking about how to get better for next year. Most of the introspection involves evaluating coaches and players. One new front office hire that is particularly interesting is Cleveland’s recruiting of Mike Holmgren as its new president. He is known as the architect of very successful Green Bay Packers teams (75-37 record) and the cultivator of a high quality ...

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How to Fix IT Planning

December 17, 2009

In response to the last post on the sad state of IT planning, one commenter noted: This planning is deeply flawed, even if you “fix” it as described. An effective organization is not a collection of competing interests, and IT is not a resource to be divvied up. Where is the organization’s overall strategy and goals in this scenario? How will organization-wide improvement occur when projects are isolated into departmental silos? These are all good ...

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IT Planning is Broken

December 9, 2009

Think back a few months.  It’s August and you are starting to marshal the troops for the annual pilgrimage to the mecca known as the annual IT budget.  You arm each of the IT leaders with a template, spreadsheet, and other tools with which they will collect the requests from the various business areas – customer segments, product businesses and corporate functions.  Depending on your organization, you may also start collecting some sizing data for ...

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“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 ...

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Stop the Web 2.0 Flood

April 30, 2009

I recently spent a few days with several CIOs and IT leaders at an MIT Center for Information Systems Research briefing.  Prof. Wanda Orlikowski led a discussion around some early work exploring the uses and value of Web 2.o technologies in the enterprise.  For purposes of our conversation, we defined Web 2.0 technologies as those that enrich connections between people (a much simpler, but consistent take on Tim O’Reilly’s version).  Specifically, we discussed the use ...

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IT Governance: Does it Work?

April 14, 2009

My good friend Peter Weill, Chairman of MIT’s Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), defines IT governance as “specifying the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT.” In a perfect system, desirable behavior would be the norm and governance would deal with the exceptions. Unfortunately, in many organizations, the reverse is true. Consider the results of a question from Diamond’s most recent Digital IQ survey asking for indications ...

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Application Architecture’s Waxy Build-Up

April 1, 2009

Susan Cram’s article on the evolution of systems points to the “clean as you go” approach as the only workable way to reduce the application clutter built up over time.  I agree with her observations as surrounding the legacy systems doesn’t do anything to reduce the cost burden.  Also, the greenfield approach almost always creates a program too large and complex to complete. The next question is how to approach the cleanup – or application ...

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