SIDEBAR: Wisdom on Order

CIO Wisdom: Best Practices from Silicon Valley was the brainchild of senior director of IT at Symantec Corporation Dean Lane, who drew together Silicon Valley's leading IT experts in the guise of the Silicon Valley CIO Community to cover every facet of IT leadership including planning, budgeting, sourcing, architecture, strategy and, of course, marketing.

The genesis of the book was Lane's belief that IT departments do not sit as high on the corporate totem pole as other mission-critical departments, such as sales and marketing, finance, and engineering. This is unfortunate and unfair, Lane believes, and the blame lies entirely within the IT unit. "It's our fault," Lane says. "The IT profession does not do a good enough job of making people understand. They know IT is important - don't get me wrong - but they don't understand it."

"The concept or idea behind this written work began about a year ago, when I had cause to reflect on all of my experiences as a CIO (both good and bad)," Lane writes in the preface to the book. "What were my successes, failures, frustrations and accomplishments? One of my revelations was that we (the IT industry) had not communicated clearly enough what it is that we do. Quite to the contrary, many lower level IT professionals cause greater frustration by promoting the thought that they are magicians who work on black boxes.

"To help bridge the chasm, I decided that a book, of CIOs, by CIOs and for CIOs, was indicated," Lane says.

Lane explains all 18 members of the team collaborated on everything from the book's title to how the author's name would appear. That was only natural, since CIOs must be collaborative to do their job. Nevertheless, worldwide director of applications and director of the IT Program Management Office for Logitech Judy Armstrong and TiVo CIO Steve Zoppi - both experienced and enthusiastic self-marketers - deserve credit for taking the lead on the chapter on marketing.

"Dean Lane got this brilliant idea of pulling the book together and everybody writing a chapter about the things that they were passionate about," Armstrong says. "Steve and I piped up immediately and said: 'marketing IT'. We [CIOs] just don't do a good job of selling ourselves and our services, and therefore I think often we're maligned, often we're the most misunderstood department in the company; misunderstood because we consume a lot of resources, we spend a lot of money, and people just don't understand why."

SIDEBAR: Never Fail to Communicate

Effective communication is one of the top sales and marketing skills. To do it successfully, make communication a formal part of your job. Here's a tip sheet to get you started.

Assign resources. Responsibility for marketing IT and communicating value has to be someone's job (or at least part of it). Commit both personnel and financial resources.

Launch a catalogue of products and services. Make it clear what you do for the business and external partners.

Set up quarterly performance and progress reviews with individual business units.

Send out newsletters and hold user briefings or "town hall" meetings with business managers on a regular basis.

Create a customer value map. Who are your customers? What do they value? How do they measure IT success?

Write a mission statement. Express what you are doing, what you value and how you are aligned with the business.

Prepare quarterly business reviews. Evaluate each product and service area in terms of their internal performances.

Implement an integrated Balanced Scorecard. Use metrics to demonstrate IT's value internally.

Establish a communication continuum. From daily customer briefings to internal and external newsletters, town hall meetings, and value-focused quarterly and annual reviews.

SIDEBAR: The Customer Rules

According to worldwide director of applications and director of the IT Program Management Office for Logitech Judy Armstrong and TiVo CIO Steve Zoppi, in order to best achieve the goals of the marketing activity, it is imperative to understand the two basic rules governing circumstances under which the customer is always right.

Rule #1: The customer is always right if, and only if, the claim to being "right" is limited to business requirements. The customer's position is always defensible.

Rule #2: Regarding the ways in which the ultimate solution is delivered, the customer is seldom "right". The technological response to a customer's requirement lies solely with the IT solution provider - except . . .

Caveat to Rule #2: . . . when the solution supports a specific technical requirement better understood by the customer. Where this caveat applies, the IT organization must pay particular attention to detail, to ensure that it is not missing a future service opportunity or one in which it may add value.

SIDEBAR: Secrets to Successful PR

Tips to ensure your communications align, not alienate

Be ubiquitous. Make like Dick Smith and put your name and face on every internal and external communication. Once you start a brand you should promote it with a trademark, logo, colour or even a sound.

Make your business case. Use your communications to educate the rest of your company about what IS can do for them. Treat your internal customers just as your company treats its external ones.

Stay on target. Use internal surveys to gauge whether communications are hitting the mark. Keep an eye on the line between effective PR and a gimmick.

Say something. It's not the flash and sizzle of communication that will get attention as much as consistent and reliable substance.

Create value. If you can't deliver that, all the PR in the world won't help you.

SIDEBAR: Internal IT Marketing Resources

Washington State's Department of Information Services.

Washington State's Department of Information Services operates like a business that sells IT products and services to state agencies. The format is that of a mall - the Techmall, to be precise. Check out the Techmall, their rate card and online catalogue. www.dis.wa.gov

Smurfit-Stone's Annual Report

Smurfit-Stone's IT shop publishes an annual report that gives people an appreciation of the scope of IT's responsibilities and its performance level, as well as a quarterly IT newsletter. See samples of each in PDF format: The first 10 pages of the Smurfit-Stone IT Annual Report and a sample of Smurfit-Stone Container's quarterly IT newsletter. www.cio.comSmurfit-StoneAnnualReport

Smurfit-Stone's Internal IT Newsletter

In 2003, Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation's IT group began producing IT Focus, a quarterly online newsletter that focuses on the value derived from IT projects, such as the PC refresh program highlighted in this issue. But it also strives to provide practical guidance and useful features for the user community. The newsletter's table of contents goes to all employees, along with a link to view the PDF file. The first issue was downloaded 1454 times. The third issue topped 10,000 downloads. www.cio.comSmurfit-StoneNewsletter

Merrill Lynch's Services Catalogue

Though still relatively rare, internal IT catalogues that list services and products available to the enterprise are perhaps the best vehicle for achieving cost transparency and reinforcing IT as a business within a business. www.cio.commerrill Lynchcatalogue

GSI Commerce's Brochure

Brochures and newsletters are good vehicles for familiarizing executives with systems under development or technologies being explored. GSI Commerce creates brochures to raise internal awareness of the benefits of its proprietary technologies. Brochures give overviews of the system and associated processes, and outline its benefits and features. This sample brochure for GSI Commerce's in-store pickup technology is used to market technology capabilities to internal customers and to educate the sales organization. www.cio.comGSIbrochure