Coming soon – The Chief Things Officer

Your organisation has someone responsible for people and someone for IT. But as the Internet of Things gets woven into the fabric of the organisation it is likely that there will be a need for someone to ensure that all these things talk (nicely) to each other, are as secure as they need to be and deliver the analytics necessary to enhance your customers’ experience.

So hospitals will have a CThO who will amongst other ‘things’ have ownership of the beds in respect of optimising their patient / societal value. In the retail sector the CThO will preside over the shopping trolleys and eventually the individual products.

It is likely that employee- adorned wearable devices will eventually fall into this category. And possibly even more mainstream devices such as smartphones.

The digital leadership landscape is already blurred. The arrival of the CThO could either add to the confusion or possibly become the de facto digital leadership role.

As the prescient nineties dance-pop group D:Ream once noted – “Things can only get better.” Let’s hope that applies to digital leadership.