CIO: InformationWeek US Comments

I was delighted to receive some very positive feedback from Bob Evans, Senior VP, Global CIO, Information Week in the US. He has picked up on my recent Financial Times piece – 'A call to arms for a 21st century CIO'.

It riggered me to respond in turn:

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Thanks Bob. I really appreciate the kind comments.

BTW I did a guest keynote for Gartner this week in front of over 600 European IT leaders and took a potentially risky 'gloves off' approach. The subject being – 'Does the IT department have a future?'.

Rather than being insulted, the audience responded positively. So there is some hope. We now need some radical action!

In my opinion, the time has come for CIOs that are experiencing unrequited boardroom love to move to where they are appreciated. It's not as risky as it sounds. Employability wise given the drastic cost cutting, the CIO is likely to be the fall guy when the serious customer outage eventually occurs. So clinging to the current employer under such circumstances (the so called employment 'safe' option) despite the humiliating terms of engagement will ultimately end in tears. Better to pre-empt that and leave with some dignity.

The sooner technophobic/techno-indifferent CEOs end up with the CIOs they deserve the better. Then the market will start to see the link between organisational success and IT.

Keep up the good work.

Ade McCormack

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