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Ticked Off at Tick the Box Mentality 04 February, 2008 13:01:15
Does your executive search firm know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients?Does your executive search firm know its MIS managers from its elbow? Does it even know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients? - +
How to Get Real About Strategic Planning 04 February, 2008 12:50:59
Everyone agrees that having a strategic plan for IT is a good thing but most CIOs approach the process with fear and loathing. In fact, the majority of CIOs (and the enterprises they work for) are faking it when it comes to strategic planning. Isn't it time we all got real?Oh, it must be nice to be the CIO of a FedEx or a GE or a Credit Suisse. Places where IT and the business are so tightly aligned you can barely tell the two apart. Where corporate leaders understand that IT is a strategic asset and support it as such - +
Strategies for Dealing With IT Complexity 24 December, 2007 10:30:47
Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business.Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business. - +
9 Paths to Higher Performance 10 December, 2007 14:09:23
When an organization brings together talented people in a creative, collaborative environment it fosters a culture of high performance, which in turn leads to superior business resultsLike high-achieving individuals, some organizations seem to have the Midas touch. Virtually every initiative they touch earns them gold and even those that fail never seem to cost them much of anything at all - +
Doing Your Sums on . . . Build, Buy or Rent 05 November, 2007 13:32:30
You’re trying to build a world-class IT team, but everyone’s going after the same talent pool. What mix works best? Should you grow your own, draft your players or barter your way to the line-up you want to field?CIOs should never forget that while new technologies have a maturity cycle, the maturity cycle for human beings in IT is even longer
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IS's technical prowess is no longer sufficient to contribute to the business. IS must also have business smarts.
There is a clear trend away from the view of in-house IT departments as populated by white-coated techies. There is nothing new in this trend; it's been going on since System 360 meant a mainframe computer not a new brand of videogame. What is new, however, is the importance of having a much wider range of skills as the role of IT itself continues to expand.
It's not unusual these days for the IT team to be called on to assist with business process design. IT people are ending up responsible for all manner of projects - many of them increasingly unrelated to IT. They are frequently asked to play an active role in post-merger integration. IT skills are also being used "pre-sales" to help integrate potential customers into supply chain management systems.
All of these additional skills require a lot more than just deep technical understanding. They require an appreciation of how business works and how to make things happen. In short, they need business smarts.
Business smarts comprise two components: skills and competencies. Both are necessary, but both require a different route for their development. But what is a skill, and what is a competency?
There have been many learned treaties written on what exactly a skill is, and how competences manifest themselves, and what the difference is between the two. One practical definition is to say a skill is know how. A competency is know what.
Any plan to build business smarts has to find a way of building both business skills and business competencies. The good news is that rarely will you be starting from scratch. Almost always, some of the skills and competencies that you need are waiting to be discovered within your own department.
The other piece of good news is that some roles in IS need a much higher level of business smarts than others. For example, technical support roles need only the basics in terms of business smarts, like how to communicate changes, apologize for outages and send out technical notices in ways that do not antagonize, confuse or frighten business users. On the other hand, business process groups need a much greater sense of business smarts, with a deep understanding of how the enterprise's business processes work and how to influence people.
Turning back to technical support people, however, it's important to remember that just because they are in a job that doesn't fully exploit their business smarts, doesn't mean that they don't have them. This is the first key to upping the business smarts of the entire IT organization: make better use of the business smarts you already have.
Discover how SOA can create smarter outcomes for your business.
Attend and learn:
- How SOA is helping leading companies to become more agile
- Where you should be applying SOA processes in your company
- The top SOA implementation mistakes to avoid
Click here for more information.
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CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II 05 October, 2007 06:00:00
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #78: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires 28 September, 2007 17:34:25
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #77: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part III 21 September, 2007 07:00:00
Part three in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance. - +
CIO Live Podcast #76: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part II 14 September, 2007 07:00:00
Part two in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance. - +
CIO Live Podcast #75: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part I 07 September, 2007 07:00:05
Part one in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
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Cutting Through the Spin of Recent Vulnerability Disclosures 13 October, 2008 10:53:00
The FUD surrounding the ClickJacking and TCP/IP vulnerabilities has the world seemingly frozen in fear. But once you cut through the spin, the vulnerabilities aren't all that they were made out to be.There are a few highly publicised vulnerabilities at the moment which haven't completely been disclosed and which, it is claimed, could threaten the whole Internet as-we-know-it. Only, when the vulnerabilities are finally disclosed, it seems that the whole incident has been somewhat Chicken Little. - +
PCI app security: Who's guarding the data bank? 13 October, 2008 11:09:00
Compliance strategies for PCI's new application security requirementsWhile Willy Sutton never really said it, the truth is that people rob banks because that is where the money is. Today's criminals don't walk into banks with loaded guns and get-away drivers. Rather they connect from a remote location using a browser and are armed with hacking tools and spyware. - +
Data-center security tools to not overlook 10 October, 2008 11:37:00
With the rise of security suites, it's time to consider some emerging security tools and rethink othersProtecting a corporate data center is like trying to keep an elephant safe from a swarm of flies. Despite your best efforts, bites happen. As the staples of security -- such as firewalls, antivirus software, spam and spyware filters -- come together in suites of products that allow for sophisticated management, there are other security tools either emerging or worth a rethink. - +
IBM, Secret Service, others study identity/cybercrime issues 09 October, 2008 10:09:00
Center for Applied Identity Management Research organization teams experts in criminal justice, financial crime, biometrics, cybercrime and cyberdefense, data protection, homeland security and national defense.IBM, LexisNexis and the Secret Service are among a group of corporations, government agencies and academic institutions that has formed to study and help solve identity management challenges around cybercrime, terrorism and narcotics trafficking. - +
Strange account management at Amazon 09 October, 2008 09:51:00
A careless login led to the discovery of some strange ccount management practices at one of the Internet's largest retailers.Via the RISKS mailing list comes an interesting tale of poor online account management at a major online retailer. According to Graham Bennett, accounts with Amazon display an odd behaviour that doesn't seem to have attracted much attention in the past.
NetStar Networks Calls Brisbane Home 13 October, 2008 12:01:00
New Verizon Business Managed Service Makes Collaboration Easier 13 October, 2008 10:06:00
F-Secure achieves excellent results in Internet security suite comparison 10 October, 2008 14:37:00
Lock It Up With Maxtor BlackArmour, Hardware Encrypted Storage Provides Government Grade Security For Consumers 10 October, 2008 09:04:00
Pitney Bowes MapInfo Launches New Version of AnySite 10 October, 2008 05:58:00
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Still Sneaking In: The Threats Your Security Tools Aren't Telling You About
Web 2.0 applications are all the rage, offering us tremendous value when it comes to collaboration and communication. They also open us up to new kinds of attacks however, and can cause problems in keeping systems and data secure. Read on to learn about the new attack methods and how you can defend yourself and your business.
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