Brett Colbert's Blog

What the Board of Directors Wants to Know About IT – Tina Nunno (Tina reviews board presos from CIOs) On average, the board is made up of 60-70 yrs old. Varying comfort with technology. #1 request from Boards is someone who has technology knowledge The average CIO only attend the Board meetings about 7% of the time. This says that the Board is interested in tech but doesn’t want to ask the CIO. CIO needs to focus on relevancy of information Tips on presenting: Be brief – concise Openness – the board wants to know about risks Accurate – board mtgs can be public record Relevant Diplomatic The mess you are trying to clean up was probably caused by someone in the room! Be careful. The Board wants to know if the CIO is a business or a technology leader? Think about the language you use. The Board wants to know that the proper controls are in place. Unfortunately this is where the CIO conversation stops. Boards bring people back to the table base

Step 1 – embrace power politics; people with power generally don’t talk about it; masters only use coercive power rarely Step 2 – leverage enterprise power; read the environment to use the correct bag of tricks Step 3 – gain personal power Step 4 – use power wisely; hang onto it Coalition power is most critical to CIO Success – CIO must be able to build strong coalitions. CIO often has to deal with more senior executives to them. How political is your organization? Average 7 out of 10 (most political) Top most political were government entities but most political were family-owned companies. Where are the circles of power in your enterprise? Seat of power – makes key decisions Inner circle – influences Outer circle – informs Peripheral circle – executes Outside the circle – wonders what's going on What are the sources of power? Revenue Tenure Position Charisma Relationships Perception Expert How do you build your power as a CIO? "I

Leveraging a "Pace-Layered" Approach to Accelerating Innovation – Jim Shepard Focus on how companies are using this strategy to drive differentiation – the conversation between biz and IT leaders is not working Most orgs have a heterogeneous portfolio of apps – legacy, main-frame and new – support huge range of mission critical to low-used, non-critical. Varying rates of change across apps – pace layering – 1994 "How buildings learn" by Stewart Brand – different parts of building change at different rates Systems of Innovation – new processes and information (not talking about technology); emerging processes; skunk-works or under-ground typically; couldn’t wait for typical time-frame; experimentation; you should encourage innovation; do it as orderly as possible; very short change cycles; many don't last very long; "light" app development; can't be a complex IT process; some may work out to become enterprise --> rewrite to more enterpr

Masters of Innovation – What CIO's can Learn from the World's Best Innovators Pete Goss – 4 trans-atlantic and 2 round-the-world yacht races new learnings about sleep patterns, new clothing, new designs, eating patterns Always leads with clear values 4 key success factors in innovation (Master Innovators) Focus – focus on single driver; figure out the next step as you go Encourage ambiguity in the process but not in the purpose Time – spend more time on understanding the components of the problem; less time on designing the solution Starting point- start with "What do we want to achieve?"; start with outcome; don’t start with "Here's what we've got" Master Innovators exhibit behaviors that all can adopt In hindsight, it may look like master innovators had unusual advantages; in actuality they leverage their advantages to drive to success Many of the master innovator behaviors are learnable Common CIO Advantages constraints drive cre

Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends Bigger Trends 1) Connectedness 2) Digitization of everything Techonology Trends 1) media tablets and beyond 2) mobile-centric apps and interfaces - gestures, touch, voice; significant change in interface; Apple, MS and Google will battle for leadership; multi-platform is inevitable; HTML5 helps but not a panacea; new UI design skills needed 3) contextual and social user experience - targeted content eg mobile + social; GPS, NFC, bar code and image recognition; ensemble interactions; habits, needs, behaviors 4) internet of things - non-people connections; everything has a URL; example video cameras; remote sensors; eg - open parking space sensor; CIO as an orchestrator - they will not own everything; start now and start simple; ask what if 5) app stores and marketplaces - emerging model for sourcing and governance; app store as central place to drive some light governance; potential new entrants = MS, CA, IBM and vmware (marketplaces); earl

- digitalization - using IT to drive the business - IT-enabled business transformation is accelerating - IT costs will be flat to down for 3+ yrs; complexity and demand growing -- Early estimates indicate that 2012 budgets will be flat to up 2% -- IT budget will come directly from biz or find it within existing IT budget -- 11th straight year in a row of generally flat IT budgets (sub 3% increase) - IT orgs need to focus on: -- enterprise enablement - Real GDP growth - US 1.4% Europe .5% will have a direct effect on IT spend Top CIO inquiries (sample size 22k inquiries) 1) IT Mgmt 2) Strategic Planning 3) Biz Value of IT 4) IT org design Growth, revenue growth, organic revenue growth Need to take calculated risks, drive new ideas and new approaches Recommendation - create CIO growth strategies - identify top biz priorities for next year - determine how to devote more than 505 of IT project money to revenue-generating activities - leverage social avenues -

Keynote Cloud, Collaboration, Mobile Concept of one EDW is dead - multiple data repositories interconnected will be the norm - big data Pattern-based architecture Mobile - phones and tablets; by 2016 about 1B tablets will be sold - big shift is towards mobile OS instead of PC OS - require IT to re-imagine how they design/deploy mobile apps - context aware computing Architectures of the last 20 years will be obsolete Risk-adjusted value indicators - new framework from gartner Budgets will be impacted in 2012 b/c of economy 1) invest in strategic initiatives 2) ride out the economic storm; trim 3) restructure CIOs must build a realistic budget now to lead from the front The incumbent suppliers (IBM, HP, Cisco, etc) will start selling directly to the business Challengers include Apple and Google By 2014 CIOs will have lost control of 25% of their spending re-imagine IT - simplicity - simple tools to enable the business - post-modern business - rethinks status-quo -