Business alignment - a blog from computing.co.uk

18 January 2010

The curious CIO

My New Year’s resolution is to be more curious. Sounds simplistic, even frivolous, but let me explain a bit.

We are just over halfway into January. The first January of a new decade and one that promises to be an exciting, powerful and pivotal juncture in the progress of the world in general and technology in particular. And it’s that time of year again for new beginnings and a revival of both spirit and intention. We’ve all made resolutions and pledges to change or improve our lot in life, the more unrealistic of which may well have fallen by the wayside by now.

But, if we narrow the focus and just concentrate on the computing press, it's pretty obvious that the global CIO community shares similar desires, concerns and even strategies for 2010 and beyond. Our budgets may differ in value, our supported user bases may vary drastically, but in essence we plough a common furrow of business expectation and service delivery in a climate of financial constraint and global turmoil.

There is a torrent of discussion overlapping from 2009 about the cloud, optimised mobile architecture, outsourcing, SaaS, innovation, social networking and supplier management. Everybody is trying to sell us something or advising us what we should be doing, from huge struggling vendors trying to reinvent themselves in the wake of bottom line meltdown to boutique purveyors of the next best thing.

Notwithstanding all the above and more, we still face the same old challenges in terms of our legacy applications and infrastructure in ensuring we deliver and maintain technology platforms applicable to growth under the grey, leaden skies of the "New Normal"; all at a lower cost and with less headcount than last year.

So, where does curiosity come into this? Well, It's time to start asking questions. From a simple analysis and audit of software, hardware and competencies to a Socratic deconstruction of some of our most dearly held hypotheses on security, ownership, value and funding, to name a few.

The IT world as we knew it is changing, accelerating away from the internalised delivery of technical excellence and governance and opening a new wealth of opportunity for business initiated - and funded - projects that, among others, leverage "cloud" delivery of tools and services.

This can be either an entirely beneficial and supremely opportune moment for IT to step up and embed firmly within the business or signal the gradual, eroding, death of the influence and necessity for the internal Information Technology department as we know it today. It won’t happen overnight but the portents are already there with robust and compelling offerings from Google that completely trash what we knew to be true about a low cost model, to the reengineering of the Microsoft software blueprint to embrace cloud-based delivery. And that’s without Salesforce.com, Amazon EC2, S3 et al.

The concepts have been around for years but were just nibbling at the edges of universal acceptance and only the bravest, or the smallest, dared to embrace the subscriber template. No more – it's here and effectively consumer driven; increasingly overwhelming, pervasive and vociferously insistent.

We need to understand the new exemplar, and only by constant curiosity will we find the ways to enhance corporate performance and remove ourselves from a self-imposed backwater of purely technical delivery.

Understand everything about the business we work in by asking the right questions. There is no one better placed to do this because we touch every part of the organisation and every technologist worth his salt is driven by enquiry and fired by the unknown. We constantly explore, test and expand our horizons. We crave to make things work better and more intelligently. It’s why we embrace gadgets and new tech with such zeal and fervour. But, so does everyone else now; they are beginning to understand and they want more. They want it now. Why shouldn’t what they can do at home, quite naturally and fruitfully, not be available in the workplace?

How then do we make the most of our skill-sets, expertise and hard won experience in the tumult of our new decade?

We start by asking the questions. But as we do so, always remembering, that answers must drive actions for as Thoreau said, “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?“

Posted at 10:50 AM in innovation, Management, skills | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

10 November 2009

Nothing's rotten in the state of Denmark

A very interesting and important experiment is being carried out in Denmark at the moment.

Sixth-form students at 14 colleges are sitting their Danish language and literature finals while being allowed access to the Internet during the examination.

The primary concern for the authorities – quite reasonably - was that cheating would ensue. For context, some of us will vividly remember the giant leap of permissiveness in allowing calculators into the classroom, let alone the exam room. The worlds of education/mathematics/engineering/science were going to end … children would become stupid/lazy/disaffected and so on.

Well, they didn’t, and we’ve all seen the huge leaps in science and technology that have transpired from this facilitation and sharpening of our powers to calculate. There probably was some cheating but more power to industrious ingenuity in my mind, and those who are going to cheat are always going to cheat whatever tools they have at their disposal. Teachers just have to be much sharper and completely up to date which surely is a good thing in this rapidly changing world of ours.

The answer in Denmark has been remarkably simple - they educate the kids and identify very clearly what cheating is and what the consequences will be. They also spot check but, in essence, its pretty self governing; maturity and trust is key and the results will speak for themselves in any case.

The students can’t communicate directly with anyone but have access to research and online resources. The pupils are not being tested on pure facts and figures but on the ability to research, analyse and extrapolate the data they uncover and, latterly, on the way they present the results clearly and intelligently in response to the questions that have been formulated.

Quotable quote by an English professor of education polled for the article: "Why should children be capped on how far they can go? Why should they be capped on the breadth of what they can do..?" and thus: "Why shouldn't we prepare them for the 21st century ..? Right now we're preparing them for the 19th."

I can’t wait to see this proliferate and become an integral part of our academic portfolio. Let's prepare our children to ride the crest of the technology wave, not cloud their potential with our own inadequacies.

The internet and a readily accessible abundance of information is part of their everyday lives now. Just imagine, if you can, the benefits to future business of a fully engaged and technically astute workforce completely at home with the informatics based tools of their trade - and qualified to use them.

Let's open our minds to possibility and recall Michelangelo who said: "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free".

Posted at 03:40 PM in ecommerce, government, innovation, skills | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

10 July 2009

The wishful CIO – the further adventures of Bob

Like a phoenix, Bob has risen from the ashes of his once fast-tracked career. He is pursuing a green agenda as he toils to rebuild and recover the tattered shreds of his dignity and career.

Just the other day he was reviewing progress with the contractors assembling his new “green” datacentre when a clumsy fitter misjudged his distance and broke through a false wall to reveal a hitherto unknown compartment. Upon inspection this proved to contain a dilapidated rack with a single ancient server in situ.

Bob was astonished to find this secret place at the very heart of his high-tech core and found his one good eye drawn to the ”Netware 286 Rocks” stickers emblazoned across the faceplate. Then Bob noticed an even more amazing thing - the green light was on and flickering in the half gloom. Intrigued and remembering the legends of his early career he stumbled forward through the shattered panel, ignoring the shop steward’s cries of “asbestos, asbestos”, and with trembling fingers stroked out the old familiar key combinations on the dirt encrusted keyboard.

Nothing happened…. Of course it bl**dy didn’t, this isn’t a fairy tale.

In the peripheral vision of his injured eye (damaged in an unfortunate solvent accident, cleaning Wite-Out off the HR director’s monitor) he spotted the unmistakable shape of a very early Motorola mobile phone, the size of several house bricks. Bizarrely it began to ring and in a state of nervous apprehension Bob reached down and gingerly released the handset, lifting it to his ear.

A disembodied voice spoke up and said: “Hullo Bob, this is the internet speaking. You have discovered the secrets of the first node and to reward you I will gather together my enormous commercial power and the might of my connected brain, to grant you one wish. But be quick -. the battery life on these things is appalling.”

A lesser CIO than Bob would have been struck dumb at this point but hardened by years of opportunistic budget negotiations with a financially astute - tight-fisted – chief executive, he responded immediately: “ Build me a bypass that will allow me to travel all the way from my home in Slough to the corporate headquarters in Reading. Thus, allow me to avoid the dreadful motorway commute and enable me to lie in of a morning listening to career management podcasts.”

The phoned buzzed with static for a minute and the internet replied: “Two things, Bob. Firstly, your request is overtly materialistic. Think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required and the churning up of the shrinking countryside of the Thames Valley. Think of the concrete and steel it would take. It will nearly exhaust several natural resources and pollute the environment. I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for such selfish and damaging things given your newfound environmental awareness.”

The internet continued: “Second, you are failing to take into account Moore’s less well known 8th Law of Bandwidth and Capacity which states that no matter how much you increase capacity and/or space, a bunch of buffoons will very quickly clog it up with all sorts of rubbish. Take a little more time and think of something that could possibly help mankind and exemplify my ethical conscience and social responsibility.”

Bob thought about it for a long time while the internet became increasingly agitated. Finally, he said: “OK - I’d like you to explain the benefits and logic of Microsoft’s European pricing policy for upgrading to Windows 7 at this point in the global financial meltdown .”

The internet replied: “You want two lanes or four lanes on that bypass?”

Posted at 02:43 PM in green, innovation, software, strategy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

19 June 2009

The CIO and the iPhone

Once upon a time in a mist-shrouded and magical land there lived a wise old chief information officer (CIO) called Bob. Bob spent a great deal of time in deep thought about the mysteries of the business-aligned organisation. He was also much given to navel gazing on the possible future of information technology in the new Millennium (blaming Ginsters for the fact that his navel was so visible).

Earlier in his career Bob had posited the theory that by dint of sweat, labour and meticulous research he would uncover a marvellous and mysterious device that would draw together the fragmented and disparate strands of his technology-dependent enterprise. He dreamed of a day when the mighty corporate sales and marketing machine would discover the true potential of IT to bring home their bacon and boost their bottom line.

He tried many things, including a variation of Sugata Mitra’s Hole in the Wall experiment and he seeded a number of active terminals throughout the Reading HQ. He soon discovered, as the professor had, that: “The acquisition of basic computing skills by any set of business users can be achieved through incidental learning provided the learners are given access to a suitable computing facility, with entertaining and motivating content and some minimal (human) guidance.”

Within a matter of 36 hours:

Fourteen holidays had been booked, 173 songs were downloaded and 47 books and DVDs had been ordered on Amazon;
Boxes of “exotica” began arriving in plain wrappers and cut-price cases of wine were blocking reception;
Three moth-eaten sofas, five sets of garden furniture, two barbeques and a folding bike had bids placed for them on eBay;
Multiple accesses of EastEnders re-runs had collapsed the BBC iPlayer server;
Page3.com had blocked the IP addresses of every terminal in the building;
£78,000 had been transferred offshore by “lucky” Nigerian Lottery winners;
Thames Valley Police had raided the offices twice, investigating multiple online offences including online stalking, illicit gambling and the hosting of a pirate file sharing site;
The finance director had trousered in excess of £7850.28p after posing online as the Lithuanian teen-brides, Loli and Tchitchi;
A rogue systems analyst had installed keystroke loggers on all the terminals and was blackmailing three board members and the tea lady.

Unfortunately, though, no corporate systems were accessed, no databases or CRM systems were updated and calls to the helpdesk spiked by 78 per cent.

Disappointedly, Bob widened his intellectual net and joyfully discovered the BlackBerry. With amazing rapidity the gaps in the business narrowed as the uptake of the new technology rocketed. The enterprise became connected and available 24/7. Demands for connectivity and updated information soared and Bob was a happy fellow. The business was finally aligning with IT; albeit invisibly.

So he rested on his laurels a bit and all was happy in his little kingdom. The chief executive loved him and the board erected a bust in his likeness in the marbled lobby of head office. People in the company began calling him by his given name instead of “Oi!”, “you there” and “techie chap”.

And then one day, from out of nowhere, the iPhone was launched and the gaps between the CIO and the must-haves, the I-wants and the give-it-to-me-or-I’ll-tell-the-chief-executives widened into a veritable chasm. The helpdesk was inundated with petulant request forms, death threats began appearing on the intranet and he tired of telling the company how the iPhone didn’t cut and paste, didn’t support the email environment and wasn’t security aware enough.

Then, lo and behold, the 3G S model was launched and Bob can no longer be reached on his desk phone and the Samaritans have stopped taking his calls.

Shame Bob.

But - it is a thing of beauty and a joy to use. Mine arrives next week; although I have to say that new Nokia looks rather tasty.

Posted at 11:13 AM in communications, ecommerce, innovation, skills, software, strategy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

15 June 2009

CIOs - the value proposition

I have been conducting a bit of a survey. I haven’t polled thousands of CIOs or chief executives for answers, nor have I applied any real science or technology to the collection of my data.

What I have done is to talk to colleagues, fellow CIOs and heads of various technology functions; all of whom I count as personal friends and/or people who have opinions that I respect. Thus, completely slanted, subjective and with no analytical merit whatsoever.

Notwithstanding all the above, the fundamental question I have sought to answer was implanted in my brain by a quote by Albert Einstein in a book I was reading. He said: “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value”. This triggered a train of thought for me on how I could remove my ego from the equation of IT and business alignment and demonstrate value in our services, infrastructure and most of all our potential to add to the bottom line.

I have churned, extrapolated and crunched the 17 conversations I’ve had and the distillate that remains spans six core points:

Get the right people into the right jobs. Now more than ever before, talent will drive and deliver value. Motivate and reward them. Recognise they are the future and empower them.
Go to your customer. Don’t wait for them to come to you. Take them ideas and introduce them to your top talent.
Understand your customer and your customer’s customer. What does success look like for them? Can you measure and deliver in ways they understand and can absorb. What irritates and frustrates them about your service and delivery.
Look for new services and technologies and divert whatever effort and funding you can squeeze from the husk of your current budget and programmes of work into staying ahead of the game and in preparation for the eventual upturn.
Know yourself and know your infrastructure. Recognise the good and the bad and make sure you have the basics absolutely right. The delivery of the core services is what you will ultimately be judged upon and nobody is going to care how clever, innovative and futuristic you or your team are if the basics keep failing.
Go Guerrilla. Become less formal, more focused and operate “behind the lines”. What can you do better, for less cost and more quickly?

Job done, raging success and all that. Pukka!

Posted at 03:32 PM in innovation, skills, strategy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

01 May 2009

A message from the trenches

It’s been a while since I last dipped my metaphorical pen in the digital inkbottle. No excuses, but the last 6 weeks or so have literally disappeared as I have been sucked into the maelstrom of the global recession. It has been a time of ambushes, attacks, strategic withdrawals (euphemism for getting a good kicking) and small victories.

I’ve suffered consequential casualties and learned many lessons. Foremost amongst these is that we must throw away the accepted formats of business life and very quickly sharpen our survival instincts. For, to very briefly borrow from Sun Tzu “ Don’t depend on your enemy not coming, depend rather on being ready for him”.

I like to think I know what I’m doing and I'm trying, diligently, to retain the flexibility to respond to the markets; creating a sense of urgency and dealing in the present. Because the recession is here now, its not a downturn anymore, it’s a global economic train smash where we’ve discovered that Nick Leeson at Barings was less of a one off than a kind of John the Baptist precursor of fiduciary malpractice. So, now we know our budgets are going to be slashed, our headcount decimated and our confidence take a battering. Job done, move on.

Its time to pick ourselves up and stop whingeing about our lot in life. Then get really smart and take a lead position. Go Guerilla and skirmish, baby, skirmish.

I’m, personally, skirmishing like a giant purple skirmishing thing and implementing everything from draconian supplier management to streamlining processes, policies and SLAs and discarding the less than absolutely vital. I’m trying to find quick, simple and effective elements to benefit the business.

Tearing up job descriptions and looking at new ways to merge functional teams. I’m trying to get my data ducks in a row without descending into the mire of ‘super apps’ and turgid development cycles. I’m trying to understand everything the business is doing and asking questions of everybody I meet to identify the ‘sweetspots’ where business activity and technology conjoin into a market beating symbiosis.

It really is the best of times for Information Technology and technologists to show what they can do, with less formality, less money and more courage. Using our natural speed and responsiveness, our capability to assimilate huge chunks of information to good effect and our innate ability to deliver against the odds. Combine this with our natural good looks, wit and charm and we are unassailable.

Posted at 03:38 PM in innovation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

23 February 2009

Evolve or die

Have you guerilla’d yet. Are you dressed for success and does your EBITDA translate fluently into your Enterprise Multiple?

It really is time to be audacious and to step outside the comfortable norm and practices in the uncertain world that surrounds us. That doesn’t mean foregoing the business as usual activities that keep your infrastructure robust and resilient, but it does mean taking that platform and leveraging the hell out of it in new and cunning ways to the benefit of your organisation.

To do that requires adapting the technical nous which is a given in any IT professional and translating it, as a matter of urgency, into an ‘epitechnology’ that transcends the usual and coalesces into a meld of business and technology; which in true Lamarckian form ensures survival (and success) through acquired characteristics. We really don’t have time for a Darwinian evolution of our capabilities. We need to adapt and evolve today, now, this minute.

To become an epitechnologist ….. ’ ya gotta guerrilla’. Remember, intelligence-led mobility, speed of effective response to changing situations, and the ability to blend in with the environment.

Don’t become a Dodo …. Become a Do Do….!! (that hurt me more to say than it will hurt you to read it).

To close, a lesson. In war, successful commanders aren’t the ones who just understood the rules but those who through their genius create them.

Posted at 05:35 PM in innovation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

06 November 2008

An election lesson for business

The US elections are over. Thanks heavens for that. It will be quite exciting to discover what else is happening in the world.

I’ve lived the primaries, the campaigning and now the Big Day seemingly for months. I’ve heard the Palin drone, I know all about Joe the Plumber, I even know the voter turnout in Dixville Notch. Surely I’m at least entitled to a Green Card now.

What really fascinated me, though, was the extent to which technology influenced the whole Obama campaign and the way the President-elect used everything at his disposal in terms of social networking, databases, text messaging, email and online tools to help raise campaign funds (to the final extent of $650m) from three million networked donors and then continually motivated them to underpin his campaign and deliver his victory. The combination of his outstanding personal brand and the imaginative use of technology were unstoppable.

What a lesson this should be to business leaders around the world as we enter the dark days of recession and global uncertainty. Stop looking for reasons not to use technology. Get creative. Grab what technology can do for you with both hands.

Far, far more importantly, see what your IT staff can do WITH you to enhance your business processes, brand and service offerings; remembering always that it takes ‘two to tango’ and that it’s a joint responsibility led from the top to make this happen.

I saw a marvellous quote from Joe Trippi in an MIT campaign summary of these elections. He said: ” Even if you have all the smartest bottom-up, tech-savvy people working for you, if the candidate and the top of the campaign want to run a top-down campaign, there is nothing you can do. It will sit there and nothing will happen. That's kind of what happened with the Clinton campaign."

It seems appropriate to close with the Obama rallying call ‘YES WE CAN!’ (where have I heard that phrase before?)

Posted at 02:36 PM in innovation, strategy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

18 August 2008

So much to do, so little time...

Have you got a “technical” alignment strategy up your tightly-buttoned sleeve? Is it a biggie? Is it going to float that business boat? Or will it hole your reputation below the water.

I’ve got a score or more of them – software-as-a-service, business process outsourcing, innovation, service-oriented architecture, transformation, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social networking, consumer technology, offshoring, outsourcing, ERP, CRM, personalisation, “nowcasting”, real-time, green IT, mobile workforce, convergence, engagement, telepresence and so on. They sound lovely. They just roll off the tongue; almost mellifluous and filled with hidden promise (I really must medicate more regularly).

I am bombarded daily with what I should be doing with them. I should be doing all of these things, apparently, right now, or I should even have done them last year. Gartner, Forrester, Harvard, Wharton all tell me so - as do a thousand salesmen. A thousand analysts and a thousand blogs can’t be wrong, surely?

So questions, questions, questions first; even before we discover the budget cupboard is bare. Does it align with the strategy the business has defined going forward - always providing there is one. Will it give you a return on investment? Will it make the business stronger? Can the business absorb and, more importantly, use the technology as a differentiator and add to the bottom line? Is there an appetite to change or a truly justified need to force change? Or is it just another technology fad destined to be a millstone of legacy around your corporate neck in 2010?

Answers on a postcard, please or - do what I just did and break out your favourite lucky number. I just pressed 27 on the Random Aligment Strategy Tool and it says: “A chief executive is not just for Christmas”. Forget everything I just said because I’m going to love my chief exec. Not a bad alignment strategy at all. Not only does he hold the purse strings and the business strategy but he also controls the pathway to the main board and is the embodiment of the values and success of my company. If I can get close to him, understand what makes him tick and align my technology to his vision, then we’ll be an absolutely lethal combination.

Now if I can just find a way to sneak past his PA...

Posted at 04:40 PM in communications, ecommerce, hardware, innovation, security, skills, software, strategy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)