CIO role

Features

• Five things CIOs should know about big data

  By Joab Jackson | 15 May, 2012 01:56

  Five key points CIOs should know when considering big data

• Top CIOs predict future of the CIO role

  By Kim S. Nash | 24 April, 2012 00:32

  Five years from now, the CIO will be a better, faster, stronger version of today's top IT leader, practically running the company single-handedly. Or maybe other business executives will become more educated about IT and decide to hire cloud companies to do it all, leaving the poor CIO to wither, enforcing service-level agreements for a living. For almost as long as there have been CIOs, we've heard breathless speculation about whether the position will last, and if so, in what form.

• Working with HR - Part 2

  By Tim Mendham | 18 August, 2011 11:37

  Stephanie Christopher, national director of SHL Australia New Zealand, a company which assists companies — including recruitment firms — in their recruitment activities, says that for the more technical positions HR has to fill, “it would lean toward the line manager for advice; it would be the line manager who would have final say”.

• Working with HR - Part 1

  By Tim Mendham | 17 August, 2011 13:50

  Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: “Managers aspire to be strategic, but they are required to fulfil their duties as a functional expert.”

• The leadership formula: IQ + EQ +SQ - EGO - Part 3

  By Darren Horrigan | 04 July, 2011 10:14

  Yvette Vignando has been working for 11 years as an executive coach specialising in emotional intelligence. She describes EI as her soapbox issue. Vignando says people often arrive to executive management after many years in a technical or semi-technical role, but rarely with any management or leadership training.

• The leadership formula: IQ + EQ +SQ - EGO

  By Darren Horrigan | 23 June, 2011 12:34

  Imagine your four-year-old self in a room with an adult who offers you a marshmallow. As you reach for the sweet, she says if you wait while she runs an errand, you can have two when she returns. She departs, and leaves behind the marshmallow. Do you weaken, or hold out for double the treat? Psychologists would have us believe that the children who sit tight are showing early signs of high achievement in later life. They say the ability to delay gratification is a master skill; a triumph of reason over impulse. Some claim such self-control is one of the five elements of superior emotional intelligence, a main ingredient of leadership.

• UWS farewells public service veteran

  By James Hutchinson | 15 March, 2011 17:08

  After 20 years at the helm of information systems at the University of Western Sydney, IT director Mick Houlahan will retire this week. The trials of the past two decades, however, are likely to retain their mark on his for some time.

• With thick skin, Google CIO finds job rewarding

  By Juan Carlos Perez | 14 January, 2011 05:25

  When Ben Fried left his post as IT managing director at Morgan Stanley and took over as Google's CIO in May 2008, he knew what he was getting into: supporting a user base full of technology experts and computer industry stars, like co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, CEO Eric Schmidt and Vice President Vint Cerf. In a recent interview with IDG News Service, Fried spoke candidly about his job and shared tips and advice for fellow CIOs, including the urgent need for tablet device strategies. An edited transcript of the interview follows.

• Five Advantages of Unified Information Access (UIA)

  By Sid Probstein | 09 August, 2010 05:12

  The first wave of enterprise search helped companies tap into the world of text+, sometimes referred to as "unstructured" or "semi-structured" information. Primary drivers included the need to monetize digital content, reduce risk through compliance, or increase employee, customer and partner productivity. These early implementations provided significant value and solved important problems; they also demonstrated limitations that have lead to demand for the next generation -- Unified Information Access (UIA).

• CIOs talk about staying strategic

  By Georgina Swan | 08 August, 2010 09:00

  It’s the bête noire of C-level managers the world over — too often, it’s easy to be pulled into the morass of day-to-day issues at the expense of strategy. If the role is predominantly operational, fair enough, but being forced into operations when you were hired to be strategic (or vice versa) is frustrating for everybody involved. So how do CIOs balance operations and strategy? Aligning the departmental business plan with the organisation’s strategic plan is an obvious starting point. Beyond that, however, CIOs have developed their own methods of staying strategic.

• Your Leadership Portfolio: The View from C-level

  By Steve Kelner and Chris Patrick | 24 July, 2010 07:45

  Former senior IT leaders who rise to head of the function are often surprised by the competencies that they are expected to have at the C-level.

• Bringing IT and the Business Together

  By Martha Heller | 22 July, 2010 23:48

  Funny thing about the word "and." You would think it would function as a connector, a word that implies the togetherness of two entities, like "stars and stripes" or "franks and beans." Yet the phrase "IT and the business" does not work that way. Rather, it connotes separateness and difference, creating an "us and them" perception that belies the actual embedded condition of IT.

• Take On Leadership Challenges For a CIO Role

  By Stephanie Overby | 07 May, 2010 06:06

  Ask Paul J. Capizzi about his career plans and he'll tell you, "I'm taking the stairs, not the elevator." It's an unlikely admission from the fast-talking New Yorker, who, at 36, has already risen to the number-two spot in IT at insurer SBLI USA.

• The great universal truths of IT

  By Darren Horrigan | 01 February, 2010 09:24

  Our panel of Australian CIOs weigh-in with some fundamental realities about IT that have stood the test of time.

• Q&A: IDC Forecast for Management 2009

  By Matt Rodgers | 17 December, 2009 09:10

  Thanks to the global financial crisis, IDC’s Forecast for Management Survey 2009 covers a year in IT unlike any other -- and the economic turbulence is reflected in the results.