Mark Samuels

CIOs talk a lot about innovation. Actually, it’s often all they talk about – along with a bunch of related concepts, such as value, efficiency, globalisation, leadership and partnership. But what is innovation?

It’s a question that’s being analysed in a number of ways by CIO Connect and I’m putting together a special feature, speaking to CIOs and senior researchers at blue-chip businesses. Early conclusions? CIOs – and other business executives, more generally – often wrongly focus on the ‘blue sky’ element of innovation.

‘Blue sky thinking’, as well as being a bloody awful phrase, is only one tenet of innovation. It covers the research and development part, the creativity. But there’s another area of innovation that is probably more important, especially in the current economic climate.

Innovation is not just about developing something ‘new’, it is also about the re-use of existing assets in different and exciting combinations. Basically, it’s about regeneration and making good with something bad – ‘brown-field site thinking’, if you will (to borrow and manipulate the phrasing of geography).

Now, which is better – ‘blue sky thinking’ or ‘brown-field site thinking’?

I’ll be starting to work on the following features for CIO Connect magazine in the next week-or-so. As usual, I’m looking for one-on-one interviews with IT leaders (CIOs, CTOs and IT directors) of big name organisations. The briefs cover the following areas:

• Environmental responsibility and carbon neutrality – We will look at how corporate social responsibility and carbon neutrality can help drive increased value and operational efficiency.
• Migration strategies – How should enterprise software be deployed? Potential areas include bespoke development, legacy retirement, porting applications and SOA.
• Next generation leaders – What strategies can help CIOs create top class, next generation leaders? And how can IT leaders create a strong framework for succession planning?
• C-Suite executives – I’ll also be looking for one-on-one interviews with CxOs (CEO, FD, HR director, etc.).

Mail me if you have any pitches. Thanks in advance.

What’s on my jukebox? Here’s my ‘January Sales’ tracklist – a lovely blend of post-rock, electronica and shoegaze:

1. Cradle (Kyte Remix) – The Joy Formidable: Shouty indie pop turned all fuzzy and layered by nu-gazers Kyte. 
2. Michael A Grammar – Broadcast: Angular pop by Brummie chaps Broadcast. My feet are dancing so much. 
3. Everything With You – The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: So infectious, the sound of C86 and shoegaze in a blender. 
4. My Own Strange Path – M83: French shoegazers go all electronic and produce a futuristic movie score.
5. Fire Flies And Empty Skies – God Is An Astronaut: Post-rock on a poppy jaunt, via a Jonny Marr-like suspended fourth.
6. I Know You So Well – Immanu El: Slow and lovely; belting post-rock from your new Scandinavian friends. 
7. Paint A Rainbow – My Bloody Valentine: Fast, choppy and poppy from the pre-’Isn’t Anything’ Valentines.
8. Linus And Lucy – Vince Guaraldi: Charlie Brown and the jazzy sound of summer holidays with my little sister.
9. A Year Without Summer – Epic45: The sad sound of autumn in the grey West Midlands.
10. Flood Out – Televise: Ex-Slowdive stalwart takes shoegaze to its post-rock coda.

There’s been a lot of guff about the carbon cost of Google searching during the last couple of days, with the debate prompted by research from a Harvard academic, which suggests two Google searches produces the equivalent C02 as boiling a kettle. If you’ve found this post through a Google search, I hope you’re enjoying your ‘equivalent’ of half a cup of tea.

The research doesn’t really tell us anything we don’t already know – in short, searching for stuff, using energy-hungry computers and data centres, eats a lot of power. So, I started thinking about stuff we’re doing that eats power – especially the stuff that is meant to be green.

Take Christmas cards, for example. No one posts Christmas cards anymore (except my wife and her Mum). People send emails, Facebook pokes and electronic cards – it’s meant to convey the same message and can be sent with a cheery: ‘I am saving the environment by not posting a paper card’.

Except you’re not, because all this electronic stuff eats carbon, too. And it’s rubbish anyway – cards are much nicer and much more personal. And I bet posting a card causes less of a drag on resources that all those tweets, emails and pokes. Long live the Christmas card!

Copyrighters and marketing dudes love to find a sales gimmick and flog it within an inch of its life. Take the seemingly straightforward ‘my first’ concept, which allows companies to tag products that are intrinsically linked to childhood, such as dolls and toy cars. The result should be a tug at parents’ heart strings and a consequential tug on the purse strings.

Except it’s not always as simple as that. M&S is tagging everything ‘my first’, from model steering wheels to polar bears. But perhaps the oddest is ‘My First Interactive Giraffe’:

Great, eh? I mean one thing’s for sure – you never forget your first interactive giraffe, do you? It’s like a rite of passage.

Sorry? What was that? You never had an interactive giraffe and, worse, you don’t even understand what an interactive giraffe is. Well, if the picture above doesn’t help, take a squizz at the description below from mydeco.com: “An exciting introduction to the world of playtime, this interactive toy will have them entertained for hours of fun”

Which – apart from the rubbish English and lack of clarity – explains absolutely everything. Ah, no. It doesn’t, actually. Apologies.

Hope you had a nice Christmas. Here are my ten New Year resolutions. I can’t keep number 10 – I just have to hope it is realised. Have a good one:

1. Tidy the house regularly. Rather than just when visitors are coming.
2. Stop using the internet so much. I spend a lot of time looking at rubbish.
3. And actually phone people.
4. Eat less yeast.
5. Try and enjoy fruit.
6. Keep my beard trim. Perhaps.
7. Encourage my daughter to wear a coat. And prepare to admit defeat.
8. Get fit, or something.
9. Complete Mario Galaxy.
10. Mid-May, celebrate the Villa winning the League.