CIOs are calling me. A lot. Most of them are nervous and thinking about their next job. Most are set on another CIO role and some are ready to move into "the business"

Facing a potential onslaught of baby boomer retirements and a smaller pool of Generation X employees to replace them, IT managers who want to create or sustain a Best Place to Work environment will need the additional help of another group of professionals: Generation Y. Also known as Millennials, this group consists of nearly 80 million individuals born roughly between 1979 and 1999. They are the workforce of the future.

By taking common-sense steps, you can reduce the chances of career suicide

CIOs often yearn for new worlds to conquer. For many, the first step on that journey is to earn the right to manage a P&L. In order to achieve that goal, executives listen to their external customers, engage with the business, focus on innovation and look for new revenue opportunities. These CIOs build new business models and sell them to their CEOs. In return, they receive the keys to P&L management

Whenever a journalist asks whether or why women hate IT, grumps trot out the usual laundry list of cliches and stereotypes about women's supposed genetic disposition against maths and science, the lack of role models or the profession's geeky image. It is a problem that more women are not choosing technology careers, but I think we'll solve it only if we start asking the right question: Why should women want to be in IT?

"A CIO should be enabling the business to grow. If all the CIO does is oversee tech systems, he or she should be renamed 'tech manager'," declared Louis Ehrlich

It's amazing how often executives are stymied by their inability to influence others. The typical scenario involves a talented, change-oriented leader who gets a shot at a more visible role. In the process of getting stuff done, he steps on a few (very influential) toes. Over a couple of years, the executive racks up some impressive accomplishments but finds that his success is hindered by the organizational minefields his actions have sown over the years. As a result, the executive tires of the level of effort required to move things forward and decides that it's time to move on

Security and privacy are bad words with bad histories, evoking bad connotations with most enterprise stakeholders. For companies to succeed at safeguarding their data, these words must go away. Here's why

This is an amazing time to be a CIO. The integration between technology and a company's revenue stream is becoming so seamless that every company is (or will be) a technology company; and this provides enormous career opportunities for CIOs. Keep your focus on supporting the business through efficient internal processes and systems, and you will live a gratifying CIO life. But expand your focus to customer-facing product development, and you will set yourself up for a wealth of new roles

By now, one might assume that all of you senior IT execs out there know how to conduct a job interview

You would think that the executive who consumes, on average, nearly 50 percent of the capital invested by businesses would have a lot of power. You would be wrong