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Archive for the 'CIO Boot Camp' Category

Oct 9th, 2009 | Lenny Heymann

Indian CIOs On Global CIO 50 Celebrated At Interop Mumbai

Lenny Heymann

India’s in-country IT prowess has long been overshadowed by the country’s strength in outsourcing. But the internal market and its leaders were front and center this week at the first edition of Interop Mumbai. At the Bombay Exhibition Center – a former textile mill – 75 exhibitors and several thousand attendees and counting (the show ends Friday), shared a coming out regarding their joint accomplishments in business technology. Continue Reading »

Sep 29th, 2009 | Brian Chee

Business continuity: aka yes we just had a tsunami watch

Brian Chee

So Hawaii just went through a tense couple of hours as we waited on the data to come in off the mid pacific buoys in regards to a possible tsunami from the 8.3 earthquake in Samoa. What this really started me thinking about was business continuity and just how would my school, my lab or my home recover from a natural disaster? Well no tsunami, but lots of folks were thinking about “what if”.

Continue Reading »

May 20th, 2009 | Curt Franklin

Interop for CIOs

Curt Franklin

While much of Interop is aimed at administrators and managers, there’s also a solid piece of the conference (and, of course, the expo) aimed at current and future CIOs. One of the most visible is the CIO Bootcamp that’s part of every Interop, but the Bootcamp is far from the only thing that will interest C-level executives.

Bob Evans has been doing a great job blogging about the aspects of the CIO-class information available at Interop on his Global CIO Blog at InformationWeek. If you’re interested in learning about the strategic side of IT, I highly recommend his writing on all kinds of topics. If you’re looking to get started with Interop coverage, then you should check out these posts:

Interop CIO Boot Camp: CIO Jiu Jitsu And Centers Of Excellence

Interop CIO Boot Camp: How CIOs Can Drive Innovation

Should Google’s Outage Scare CIOs From Cloud Computing?

CIOs Seek Answers To Top Technology Questions At Interop

Bloggers are covering Interop in a big way — take advantage of the information by following @interop_events on Twitter or searching for the #interop hash tag.

Sep 16th, 2008 | David Spark

VIDEO: CIO Boot Camp @ Interop_NY: CIOs must be seen as a credible business player

David Spark

I spoke with Bruce Barnes of Bold Vision about the new role of the CIO. Barnes said CIOs need to lose the shroud of the technologists to be seen as credible as a business player.

In the glory days of IT people came to him, and he didn’t have to worry about business functions. That’s no longer the case. CIOs today need to understand the mindset of all the people involved with creating a solution.

Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from Interop NY.

Sep 16th, 2008 | David Spark

VIDEO: CIO Boot Camp @ Interop_NY: Tell me what you’re going to do for my company and deliver

David Spark

Michael Hyatt, CEO and cofounder of BlueCat Networks offered a room of would-be CIOs the following advice for CIOs and what to do during the process of interviewing.

  • A players bring in A players. B players bring D players.
  • Leaders bring armies. When leaders leave a company they bring tons of people with them.
  • When you go into an interview, don’t tell me what you’ve done, tell me what you know about my company and what you’re going to do for my company and deliver.
  • CIOs lack trench warfare. They’re not in the trenches enough. Make yourself more accessible to your staff.
  • Go to lunch with people in the lowest ranks in the company and ask them how can we make this company better.
  • CIOs and cops are similar. People are scared of them and they lie to them constantly. Don’t intimidate. The trick is how do you get people to tell you the truth and how they can perform you.

When I interviewed Michael, he repeated much of this advice and offered a little bit more.

Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from Interop NY.

Sep 16th, 2008 | David Spark

CIO Boot Camp @ Interop_NY: Top issues

David Spark

“It’s like being a rookie quarterback and listening to Brett Farve give you advice on how to be a quarterback.”

That was the quote from one conference goer who described the value he was got out of CIO Boot Camp, the two day “how to be a CIO” workshop conference for current CIOs and “wanna-be CIO” IT professionals. Everyone in the room was soaking up advice from CIO professionals with 15+ years of experience.

CIO Boot Camp @ Interop

Here’s a summary of some of the top issues addressed at the conference:

  • If you want to be a great CIO you need to align the IT department’s interests with the interests of the business.
  • Get out of the “engine room” and start rolling with the C-level executives.
  • Concern yourself with revenue growth and customer relations.
  • If unit costs for IT go down, but demand goes up, then the overall costs of your wide area network will go up even though local area network’s costs have gone down. This is not IT’s fault, it’s the business’ fault, but it may not necessarily be a problem. An increase in utilization may be in line with the business goals.
  • It was only about three years ago when there was a shift of the CIO’s responsibilities to be more business focused.
  • Even though CIOs must know and understand the business, their first responsibility is to build the data center/IT network. Their second responsibility is to manage the “engine room.” After you’ve accomplished those two tasks you can then begin your role as a business professional.
  • Aligning your role with the business means developing tools to create opportunities to act as a catalyst for change.
  • If your company is dysfunctional about IT you’re going to have to act as the ambassador of change.

Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from Interop NY.

Sep 16th, 2008 | David Spark

CIO Boot Camp @ Interop_NY: Managing the people of IT

David Spark

At CIO Boot Camp @ Interop_NY, Thornton May led a panel discussion with some veteran IT leaders about managing the people of IT.

Moderator:
Thornton May, Futurist, Executive Director and Dean, IT Leadership Academy

Panelists:
Karlin Sue Bohnert, Chief Development Officer, VP Emeritus - Abercrombie & Fitch
Bruce Barnes, CIO Emeritus, Nationwide Financial Services
Louis Gutierrez, CIO Emeritus - Commonwealth of Massachusetts; CIO Emeritus Harvard-Pilgrim Healthcare
Joe Puglisi, Vice President and CIO, EMCOR Group, Inc.

Panelists at CIO Boot Camp
Here’s a summary of some of the ideas and issues that came up in the discussion:

  • It’s important to take responsibility. People appreciate someone taking responsibility. - Gutierrez
  • Treat your employees the way you want to be treated. Treat your employees like you treat your children. - Puglisi
  • I never ask anyone anything that I’m not willing to do myself. So don’t make people work late if you’re not willing to work late. - Puglisi
  • People have stayed the same for years. Toughest thing to overcome is to get people to come on board of what the company is trying to do. - Bohnert
  • Issue of millenials - young people who have adopted Web 2.0 communications and have a different view of how they want to work in a business. They don’t want to work in a very corporate environment. They like the vision of what Silicon Valley is selling. That’s what you’re faced with when you’re trying to bring in young talent. A Silicon Valley company will be managed very differently than an insurance company. - Bohnert
  • Make it clear to your employees aware that you care about results. I did away with timesheets. All I care is you deliver and you’re there when I need you to be there. - Puglisi
  • IT people are paid more because of the 24/7 availability even though they’re not working them 24/7. Make sure you thank them. Have a slush fund to give thanks with dinners or a movie. Recognize people at a group meeting so everyone knows. Thank them for the little thing they did three weeks ago. That goes a long way getting people to work for you. - Bohnert
  • If you’re not in the mental minds of all your IT employees then you’re at risk. They could slurp all your employees up on an iPod. - May
  • People want to be proud to do something. They need to know why the company and project are important. - Gutierrez
  • The annual review should not be a surprise. You don’t want a situation where they say, “I thought you loved me.” - May
  • One person asked what do you do when someone says they want an executive position or a promotion and you kind of cringe realizing they’re not right for the position. ANSWER: Ask them what do you think it’s going to take to help you get there? What do you think the qualifications are? What can we do together to help you get to that role? Get them bought in and speaking the words of the role. - Barnes
  • The average 34 year old has changed jobs nine times. - U.S. Department of Labor

Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from Interop NY.

Sep 16th, 2008 | David Spark

CIO Boot Camp @ Interop_NY: Defining personal/social networks in the workforce

David Spark

Thornton May is a futurist, an amazingly smart guy, and talks a million miles an hour. In my fastest typing skills I tried to capture as much wisdom as possible. He begins by explaining that the CIO needs these following qualities:

  • Sensemaking - the ability to make situation of ambiguous situations
  • Relating - Inquiry, the ability to listen and understand what others are thinking and feeling. Be able to suspend judgment and understand how others moved from data to opinions.
  • Advocacy - Championing your decisions.
  • Visioning - Create compelling visions of the future.

Thornton May and Panel at CIO Boot Camp

The organizational chart are the “rules” of the enterprise. Social networking are the ropes of the organization. It’s how things actually happen says Karen Stephensonof of Harvard School of Design and Imperial College’s School of Management at the University of London. She defined the three different roles of social networking in the enterprise as hubs, pulsetakers, and gatekeepers.

As we all left for lunch, Thornton May asked everyone the following question, “Does disruptive change happen because of new technology in place or do people cause social change which causes the technology to change?” I thought it was such a good question that I asked Thornton to answer it on camera.

Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from Interop NY.

Sep 16th, 2008 | David Spark

VIDEO: CIO Boot Camp @ Interop: Thornton May answers the chicken and egg question regarding change within the workplace

David Spark

As we broke for lunch, I ran up to Thornton May and asked him the question he asked all of us to discuss: “Does disruptive change happen because of new technology in place or do people cause social change which causes the technology to change?” Give a listen to his answer and make sure you read his discussion about the definition of personal/social networks in the workforce.

Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from Interop NY.

Sep 16th, 2008 | David Spark

VIDEO: CIO Boot Camp @ Interop_NY: Why do IT professionals demand such a high salary?

David Spark

At the CIO Boot Camp @ Interop_NY, I sat down at a table during lunch for a lively discussion about the high salaries of executives and IT professionals. Are you paying them for the time they did something or are you paying them the value that solution means to your business?

At the table were Thornton May (glasses), Ilene Neumansky of OTR Global, Jay Plotkin at RLCA (not on camera), Joe Campanella of Teamworld (rust shirt), and infrastructure architect Steven M (striped shirt).

It’s a fantastic and lively discussion. Watch all 17 minutes. And Thornton May is quite the ham.

Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from Interop NY.