Interop NYC’s CIO Boot Camp was a great source of insight for technologists and executives alike. Here are the highlights:
Cheryl Smith
CIO West Jet, CEO emeritus/CIO emeritus McKesson & Keyspan
Cheryl’s presentation, The First 90 Days, delivered insight into the process of getting started as a CIO. She stressed the importance of getting to know your your direct reports and writing down exactly what your boss expects from you.
Cheryl emphasized documenting the exact state of your new IT organization before developing a cohesive three-year plan. Her five point baseline included People, Processes, Plan, Budget, and Technology, all the while keeping track of lessons learned along the way.
She stressed the importance of staying on the antelope diet! The analogy of The Lion, the Chipmunk, and the Antelope taught us the lesson that, as “lions”, we must focus on large changes or we will starve to death (eating chipmunks and barely scraping by, rather than thriving on a more robust diet of antelope.)
Her 90-day plan outlined the importance of identifying specific destinations (goals) before one embarks upon a journey, carefully quantifying the organization and using the benchmark of hallmark Fortune 100 companies as a comparison.
My biggest takeaway was her concept of “IT Big Rules.” Instead of focusing on a multitude of certifications and a portfolio of best practices and methodologies, Cheryl encouraged the establishment of 7-10 Big Rules that are simple, easily implemented, and quickly incorporated into the organization’s culture.
Cheryl is a model leader, imparting both wisdom and experience. Here’s her profile.
Patrick Burton
Director, Enterprise IT, Washington Post Media
Patrick’s contribution to the program brought home the importance of technology leaders being involved in the Business, not just leading technology. As the core business of the Washington Post expands into both media and education, their Enterprise IT is growing to meet newly emerging needs. Patrick led us through the challenges brought-on by his organization’s move into digital media while maintaining a foothold in traditional print publishing.
The various strategic considerations of a Buy versus Build media delivery solutions illustrated how valuable an IT organization is to the business they support. He challenged us not only to lead and apply technology well, but also to be fully engaged with the business we support. Of course, his role as Director of IT at a national media organization positions him well to extoll the potential of social media in our interactive world.
Patrick articulated the need of our IT organizations to be nimble and fully engaged with the objectives of the business, balancing the support of traditional technology with the need to innovate.
Read more about Patrick.
Bruce Barnes
CIO Emeritus -Nationwide Financial Services
Vendor management strikes fear in the hearts of most CIOs . How does one maintain technology standards while encouraging innovation in a large organization? What order of magnitude cost is reasonable for outsourced services?
Bruce skillfully and boldly navigated this “minefield” topic. From the basics of supplier management strategy, metrics, and supplier relationship initiation and termination, we learned how to extract full value from our supplier community. We leaned that, as more budget is expended through suppliers than internal IT staff, a well-articulated strategy is a must.
It seems that few companies buy against their architecture standards because their standards are not detailed enough to guide buying decisions. Cowboys (maverick buyers) are expert at circumventing guidelines.
Bruce showed us that Vendor Management can be distilled into four primary questions: What do we keep? What do we send elsewhere? If elsewhere, where specifically? How do we manage the whole thing?
Bruce told several stories illustrating the value of superior vendor management, encouraging metrics that include outcomes versus deliverables, stressing a win-win with suppliers. I enjoyed the story of how he negotiated several analyst firms to work together in their agreed to respective strengths to benefit his organization. No doubt about it, Bruce has demonstrated strengths in vendor management!
Read more about Bruce.
Rob Rennie, PhD
VP & CIO Florida State College (FSC), Jacksonville
“Next” is the topic and jumping the change curve is the way forward! As old peaks and we are on the “edge of chaos” the time to catch the new curve is upon us. Failure to make the transition precipitates an organization’s demise.
Rob’s session made me think of Apple as the untimely death of Steve Jobs has propelled them “Now to Next.” I will be revisiting this topic in the coming months and years as we watch Apple execute its next curve.
Value creation for IT is the execution of leadership and innovation, and Rob’s organization has fully embraced the digital education age, moving toward direct cognitive enhancement. Rob’s strategic elements focus on experience, opposed to control in an “anything, anywhere, anytime device/platform-agnostic” environment.
I was impressed with FSC’s use of a digital content system enabling a rich collection of online education opportunities. I see a correlation between online education and the growth of online shopping. I wonder how brick & mortar schools and stores will ultimately evolve? If we don’t have stores, we can’t try on clothes and generate demand; so, if we move to online education how will we generate new content? Will educators take to building their own content and the degree institutions pick them up based upon demand, paying the creators for content? How will the balance evolve, this too is something of interest to watch.
Some of Rob’s rules were interesting to note, here’s my favorite three:
1.) Hire for pure intellectual horsepower
2.) Vacancy more valuable than average employee
3.) Learn to thrive on chaos
Read more about Rob.
