What kills me is that the reason why I have to study things that devour time is because it's useful to know what devours people's time from a business perspective. It's kind of like being an alchemist and testing your potions on yourself first.
@Nicole, thanks! @Mary -- it is, especially since I've developed a serious case of ADD since doing social media marketing. There's so much data flowing in, so much of it is important, and just so much time available.
@Mary -- I know I have. I started in pure I.T. but I've found my true calling is in using I.T. for business. It's still an uphill battle to get people to listen, so I've found I have to rely more and more on my marketing skills to sell an idea while still having to keep up to date on I.T. so we are aware of threats and opportunities. It's exhausting!
So it's time for executives and IT to realize that we're not in Kansas anymore. The role of IT has simply become more important than it was -- and more important than many other roles within the firm.
@hounhosp. Early days. How long has it been since everyone had a PC on his or her desk? How long has the Internet been important to commerce. It's all quite recent (if you're over 21, anyway).
@Mary -- that's what I was thinking... but then we go to the original point: it means CEO's need to learn some I.T., I.T. needs to learn some business.
@Kim -- maybe what we need are "translators", eh? People who speak enough I.T. and enough marketing and business to be able to quickly translate the demands of one into the requirements of the other.
More seriously, what we have is a hangover from tradition. Marketing has always been central to an enterprise. Legal and regulatory has been unavoidable for years. But IT has historically been something more like Facilities. Office management, factory maintenance. The transition into being a vital part of business planning is not going to be painless. I mean, the factory guy isn't at the C-level.
Right, to Kim's point, obviously we all agree that IT should operate out of an underwater cage and speak only in tongues and that CEOs have to learn tongues. Right?
Well, IT needs to communicate to the CEO that security is a priority. The CEO needs to see that he or she must decide to set policies that support that. The CEO must enlist IT in question and answer discussions to find out what policies need to be put in place.
don't know why it has to be an either or kind of deal. IT would benefit from learning to speak the language of ROI while the C-suite would learn about networks and the need for infrastructure investment, allowing more effective decision making. The line between geeks and business is not a productive one
I think it's mostly a mindset. People learn what they're interested in. So we need to learn how to teach business in a way that makes it interesting to I.T., and I.T. in a way that's interesting to people focused on business.
And I agree Mary -- the CEO should be prepared to learn whatever is needed to make the business succeed.
And some geeks don't understand that they can't change society. Not everyone has the time, energy or interest to be as educated in I.T. as they are. So yes, that makes them vulnerable to hackers... but that's like saying that we all need to know martial arts because otherwise we're vulnerable to being attacked on the street by those who know how to fight.
The other part of the problem is that not enough geeks can speak business. And it's also a required skill-set, because you get less problems when the people who do the work understand the purpose. I see some geeks who complain about the way things are done because the users don't understand enough I.T. -- but that is THEIR problem because from a business perspective it will cost too much to school everyone enough to use more complicated software.
@smk: And this is probably a generational thing. Companies appointing CEOs from an older age group aren't going to easily find that combination. Wait ten years.
Right, Kim. IT is becoming increasingly important and it's perilous for CEOs to maintain a hands-off/what-do-I-know approach. But the IT team needs to be competent enough to not rely on the CEO's quick understanding of IT and security for direction.
Or even better, "You know those stories about Anonymous? They could break into our database easily and if the data gets out we're facing a 4 million dollar lawsuit, about 6 months worth of PR work to help repair the damage, and an extra million to get the security upgraded fast. Here are the options to address it..."
@Mary: I want to belive a sure way forward is to get CIOs who are not computer geeks but also ones that get have complementary knowledge of the enterprise
I think we would all assume that the average CEO pays much more attention to Marketing (and Legal) than to IT. The world is changing, and CEOs will need to change with it.
@Paul: I think everyone's consciousness needs raising. CEOs need to realize the real role of IT; IT needs to realize it must make the corner office aware of what it does and what it's doing.
Let's use a really simple example of say... problems with privacy with the data stored. Saying "We have too much personal information that could identify people and it's not very secure" doesn't get people's attention.
Saying "We're risking a 4 million dollar lawsuit if anyone hacks through our poorly guarded back door" does.
I've worked in a litigation environment heavily dependent on IT (in fact more than one, here and in the UK). In my experience, IT reports to attorneys, attorneys then report to partners. IT rarely gets a seat in the meeting with the partner. Of course, this is a professional rather than commercial environment and more hidebound by tradition.
Chung realized that he needed to direct IT's activities. That they couldn't make the necessary decisions without him setting the policies. In some organizations, the CIO would set the policies, of course.
@Mary, I kind of see it from both angles, then. I do think the CEO should be on top of what's going on in IT, but my question is why their IT department would be making decisions and mistakes like that.
"IT has a responsibility to create efficiencies throughout the company, better leverage a company's investments in technology and business assets, and improve profitability by reducing costs. The CIO needs to create a working environment — and a working attitude — that encourages all employees to make good business decisions around IT investments."
@Nicole: Chung didn't blame IT. He blamed himself for not realizing that what they were doing at his behest -- creating too many applications, sacrificing security for response time, etc., was hindering IT's ability to secure the company's Web presence.
@Kim: but the first thing you will want to know is whether IT really understand the business and demonstrate the ability to make difficult business decisions
If you live in a silo or ivory tower, you are consciously or subconsciously trying to keep people out, and that turns out to work to your distinct disadvantage.
@smk: You must have come across this - the IT professionals who try to get a seat at the table by being the only person who knows and understands the issue. That can be frustrating.
@smkinoshita: What do you think of Paul Whyte's question as to what inhibits or enables IT to be a business partner? I'd say preserving a fiefdom mentality is the chief problem.
I guess, as a CEO, depending on the size of the enterprise, I'd be willing to set goals for the CIO in terms of setting security standards and policies; and I'd want to know about progress and systems for ongoing monitoring. I wouldn't (I hope) have time to review the policies line-by-line.
@Paul -- the fastest way to evoke change as far as I can tell is "One person does something different and becomes such a huge success that everyone else immediately tries to copy said individual"
My guess is that IT would be welcome at the C-level if it can speak the same language as the other executives and if it is fully engaged with the enterprise's broad strategy. Everyone has a contribution to make to this.
@Paul -- admitably, tech is moving so fast and it is hard. But it's the responsibility of the leader to either get familiar with the new environment or LISTEN to those who are.
This is something I've witnessed over the years. Highly competent IT professionals you'd never let into a meeting with clients, and highly presentable IT professionals you wouldn't trust to fix your PC.
@Paul -- look at how much I.T. there is. Everything's wired and connected. I.T. is part of marketing, it's part of transactions, sales, advertising, shipping, accounting....
It's clear that a CEO needs to have enough broadstroke familiarity with the issues that s/he can audit whether the CIO is addressing them. Few CEOs, unless they have an IT background, are going to want to sit on a committee drafting IT policies.
On the other end of the spectrum, some CEO's are so ignorant that the sell is really, really hard. It's like explaning the importance of red and green colour to someone colourblind.
@Mary -- actually Hounhosp's got the right approach. The CEO won't be as interested in making you happy as much as the CEO will be interested in protecting assets.
He says he realized that IT security requires policies that only the CEO can establish. For example, policies are the development of Web apps -- sometimes too many apps leave too many doors open to hackers.
Anyway, Ted Chung's firm wound up sending $100K to the hackers, and the money helped law enforcement track one group in S. Korea; but a second group involved was in the Philippines and outside the jurisdiction of S. Korea law enforcement officers.
Chung wound up being shocked when, on a business trip in Denmark this past April, he found out that a caller back at headquarters was holding his data for ransom.
Well, last week, the WSJ reported that Ted Chung, CEO of South Korea’s largest consumer finance company, Hyundai Capital Services, learned the hard way that he’d been neglecting his IT department.
FYI: We're just going to do this as text, no audio today. A bit of a technical problem on the BlogTalkRadio backend. MJ should be here with her intro any moment.
Here's where we'll be chatting Monday June 27 about the gap between IT and the CEO in enterprises -- a gap that can affect a company's security and success.
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The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
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