David Henderson, is IT director of Northcliffe Media. He heads up the IT for one of Britain's largest local newspaper groups, providing not only IT services to the business processes of a major publishing group, but also developing the rapidly changing face of local news as it moves away from printed newspapers and towards online delivery.

For Henderson the speed of change that IT has enabled, coupled with an industry that harbours many "old fashioned attitudes" means the CIO's ability to communicate, as well as the communication skills of the IT department are constantly being challenged. In particular, the local media has seen its business change from one of a single product to many products, coupled to a 24 hour a day, seven day a week operation from once daily or weekly.

"IT people have a communications challenge, we don't help ourselves with too much use of jargon and acronyms. We see our role as being technically focused, rather than commercially focused, so there some education needed." Henderson advocates IT people using business language and gives the example of data recovery. "It needs to be talked about as service recovery and what business impact it will have." He also highlights how to get an understanding of what is expected from each line manager. "I ask my business managers what is their measure of success from IT. The measure is different from each, for some it is about quality, for some it is speed; for others it's about cost. Each stake holder has needs and it is about making sure that this is understood."

Nic Bellenberg, is IT director of Hachette Filipacchi UK. Like Henderson at Northcliffe, Nic Bellenberg is overseeing IT in a media company that is reacting to changing market needs, and in the case of Hachette Filipacchi, growing rapidly. The company is well known for its glossy women's magazines Elle and Red.

Bellenberg agrees with many of the sentiments expressed by his peer at Northcliffe. "On both sides, the business and IT, it is an issue of understanding what IT is doing and what it can be asked for." Poor communications, not just from IT, exacerbates the situation. "IT people are often not good at communicating to the business, and business people are also not good at communicating with IT. They are involved in their world of chasing profit and they do not always take the time to explain what they need.

"It is about levelling the playing field and making sure everyone is talking about common issues, which is about the business and how they move it forwards, rather than getting hung up on particular elements of IT, technology or systems."

Bellenberg believes the forces of change are also about timing, with some parts of the organisation remaining the same for long periods of time, while others are dramatically different from just 12 months ago. "Sharing the same goals and making sure it is clear to everyone that we are all on the same side," he advises for avoiding problems. "There must be conversations, because it takes two to communicate and it takes two to turn their backs on an opportunity."