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Spring 2011 edition of CIO Connect magazine

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Finding the right combination of skills, and a balance between IT and business, forms a key element of the forthcoming spring edition of CIO Connect magazine. The cover star is Catherine Doran, who is that rarest of breeds: a successful IT leader who has managed to leap beyond the confines of the CIO role and assume a business-focused position.

In an exclusive interview, the director of corporate development at Network Rail explains how CIOs can move beyond the confines of the IT leadership role. She has simple advice for executive peers wishing to make a similar move into a broader executive position: “If you’re already a CIO, and you’re only thinking now about how to get on the board, you’re too late – the desire to contribute to the business has to always be deep within you.”

The theme is continued later in the magazine, where three IT leaders explain how the CIO of tomorrow will have to take a broader view of internal demands and external trends. The pace of consumerisation has quickened considerably, meaning everyone has a view on IT capability and patience is a much more limited quality.

Technology is no longer just a key element of how a business runs, it is also an integral part of the products and services that an organisation offers to its customers. The CIO of tomorrow will have to behave more like a head of marketing than an introverted IT manager. And their leadership style will be challenged by the increasing globalisation of the world.

The magazine should be hitting desk in the next week. As ever, thanks to all interviewees and contributors. A full list of featured CIOs and business leaders is provided below:

  • Catherine Doran, director of corporate development at Network Rail
  • Colin Rees, IT director at Domino’s Pizza
  • Karl de Bruijn, IT director at Specsavers
  • Chris Farmer, group IT director at Halcrow Group
  • Mike Bell, group IT director at Kingfisher
  • Gerry Pennell, CIO at London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games
  • Patrick Adiba, chief executive for the Olympics and major events at Atos Origin
  • Stuart Hill, vice president of central government at BT Global Services
  • John Shaw, CIO of Mainstream Renewable Power
  • Andrew Turner, group IT director at Hiscox
  • Peter Breunig, general manager of technology management and architecture at Chevron IT
  • Ailsa Beaton, CIO at the Metropolitan Police
  • Clive Selley, CEO of BT Innovate and Design and group CIO at BT
  • John Lawlor, head of management information systems at Trinity College Dublin
  • Robert Thorogood, CTO at hurleyplamerflatt
  • Poornima Kirloskar-Saini, head of IT at Women Like Us
  • Karl Deacon, CTO of infrastructure services at Capgemini
  • David Chan, director for the Centre for Information Leadership at City University London
  • David Head, director at La Fosse Associates
  • Keith Collins, CTO at SAS
  • Kevin Streater, executive director for IT and telecoms at The Open University
  • Stephen Hand, former group IT director at Lloyd’s Register
  • Dominic Batchelor, partner at Ashurst LLP
  • Inbali Iserles, professional development lawyer at Ashurst LLP
  • Danièle Tyler, solicitor at Ashurst LLP

Creativity is only significant if it does not entail excessive risk

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Your working life should be a continual learning process, from your first day of employment to your inevitable promotion to the top table.

Any employee who makes the mistake of thinking they know everything is bound to fail. A good worker listens, talks and learns – and the same methods for success exist across every sector and individual business.

Take technology journalism, where novice business reporters are traditionally given the storage beat. It is a dry, technical area but any reporter who proves their worth in storage is likely to flourish at the front line of IT innovation and implementation.

The moral, I guess, is you need to do the right ground work. And the same principle holds true in the real – rather than reported – world of business technology, where CIOs are expected to put years of technical experience into practice for the benefit of the business.

Once at the top, it is easy to become sidetracked by ephemeral talk of alignment and agility – and to forget that lasting success is all about policy and process. A true technology leader recognises that the governance helping maintain day-to-day IT will not be forsaken for the more exciting areas of implementation and innovation.

The winter edition of CIO Connect magazine (from which this editorial is taken) shows that successful technology chiefs find a balance between creativity and risk-taking.

When it comes to how the CIO should develop novel techniques for intractable challenges, Marks & Spencer’s director of IT and logistics Darrell Stein says he only gets excited about business cases, sales and costs.

Change attempts are set by a business agenda, an approach echoed by Paul Forester – IT director at fashion retailer Monsoon Accessorize – who is looking to create an IT planning function to focus on innovation.

Creativity, it turns out, is only significant if it does not entail excessive risk. And that propensity for the business to cope with risk relies on the well-learned basics of policy and process.

With strong governance, CIOs are much more likely to see projects succeed. Like storage, governance has a reputation for being dry and staid. But it involves a learning process that must not be forgotten.

Tom Herbich, now director of business applications and information governance at Deutsche Bank, has spent three decades honing a unique and effective approach to compliance. In a special feature on the finance industry, Herbich offers advice which is true for CIOs across all sectors.

“You must implement solid business controls,” he concludes. “You need to know how to manage and you need to understand what is really important.” As ever, experience will see you right.

Cloud security: Why CIOs must tighten their grip

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Despite suggestions that the cloud would remove responsibilities from the shoulders of the CIO, the converse now looks to be true – here’s my latest article for silicon.com on the cloud:

“The CIO is dead,” screamed the headline to an article on silicon.com’s sister site, TechRepublic. The story suggested on-demand computing would quickly mean technology purchasing decisionscould be decentralised to line-of-business executives, rather than being made by a dedicated IT department.

Two years later, the cloud remains a work in progress and the management reality behind on-demand IT has hit home. Someone, somewhere simply must be responsible for the policies and strategies associated to the use of the cloud – and that person is still the CIO.

As the executive charged with making the most of internal and external technology resources, the IT chief has to steer the organisation towards secure on-demand computing. And that remains a tricky path.

To read the rest of the article, please click here.

Pterodactyl lost – please return to very loving owner

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There are, or were, five members in my family: me, my wife, our two daughters and a soft toy pterodatyl called Terrence. Sadly, Terrence is missing, presumed lost in action on Wanstead High Street.

For the last year-or-so, Terrence has been everywhere with the Samuels family. He’s been on holiday, to school, to London, to bed and on film (many, many times). Virtually every picture of my eldest during that period includes her holding tightly to Terrence.

But no more. Unfortunately, he wasn’t held tightly enough yesterday morning on Wanstead High Street and the little pterosaur slipped from my eldest’s grasp. We returned to the scene of the event but could find no sign of Terry.

The pterodacytl in question is available at the Natural History Museum in London, so all is not completely lost. But any replacement will not be ‘the’  Terry. Personally, I feel terrible. My eldest loved Terrence and I miss him being around. To anyone that lives in Wanstead and that might have been on the High Street yesterday (I have asked all the shopkeepers and market traders), here’s what Terry looks like:

If you see him, please let me know. We miss you, Terry!

Cloud security risks: Who should carry the can?

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The lure of cost savings may be pushing businesses towards the cloud, but who will ultimately balance the financial arguments with the risk factors? Here’s another feature I’ve put together about on-demand computing for silicon.com:

Pressure to look to the cloud, and its potential for cost-effective IT delivery, comes from all areas of the business. But who is more concerned about information security?

Is the CIO the executive who is most anxious about data moving beyond the corporate firewall and into the cloud, or is the finance director more worried about risk?

“There are multiple constituents,” suggests Rebecca Jacoby, global CIO at networking giant Cisco. “By nature, a big part of a CIO’s job is risk management and an understanding of specific security concerns. When it comes to the cloud, security is a real risk and the technology isn’t necessarily at the right level for most organisations at the moment.”

To read the rest of the feature, click here.

Do footballers actually like football?

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That might sound like an odd question, given that most football fans would give up just about anything to wear the shirt of their beloved club. But I have a theory. And it is one I regularly bring up with my mate and fellow Villa fan Steve Wilson, who thinks I’m talking rubbish.

My theory is as follows. Some people at school are good at English; others are good at maths. Whatever your specialism, you’ll probably take a career direction that follows the ability – I work in journalism; Steve works in finance. So, what of people who are good at football? If they’re lucky – and I mean really lucky – they’ll become professional footballers.

But just because they’re good at football, doesn’t necessarily mean they have to like it. I would have loved to have been a footballer because I love football. Yet some people must have a natural ability and not really like their profession. And there’s proof. Take this excerpt from a BBC interview with Tottenham player Benoit Assou-Ekotto:

“For me it is just a job. When I used to play in France I was near my home, my mum, my friends and everybody I know. So why would I come to England? I didn’t speak English or know anybody. It was just a job. I’m sure in every job everybody wants progression and it’s the same for me. But I understand when I go on the pitch I have to give the best of myself because the season ticket is very expensive.”

And he’s not alone. The Guardian collected evidence of stacks of players who took a similar stance to the game in 2007, including former Tottenham and Watford goalkeeper Espen Baardsen.

He became disillusioned with the game at 25, gave it up and completed an Open University degree, before becoming a financial analyst for London-based hedge fund Eclectica. ”It is a great myth that football is easy,” he insisted. “It’s quite miserable compared to what I have now.” Footballer-turned-boxer Curtis Woodhouse is another who disliked the game to such a extent. “Everyone loves football, but I didn’t. It felt like a job,” he said. “I felt empty playing, it got me angry. I could have carried on playing football until I was 35, making a nice wage and having a nice life, but that’s not what I wanted to do.”

So, what do you think? Do footballers actually like football?

Cloud security: Problems may lie closer to home

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Lock-in, data security, compliance and lack of control all feature on CIOs’ lists of cloud issues, but this feature by me for silicon.com shows how bigger problems may be sitting on the IT leader’s doorstep:

The biggest inhibitors to the cloud are well known and usually include issues such as data security, regulatory compliance and vendor lock-in. These barriers usually involve external factors, including the stability of suppliers and the influence of regulatory bodies.

Such concerns are crucial, but is there too much focus on external factors at the expense of internal processes? Are CIOs worrying too much about on-demand factors beyond their control and not paying enough attention to the last mile of the network?

IT leaders can spend time and money establishing strong partnerships with suppliers that meet tight demands on information security and data access. But any agreement with external partners, and the potential to use technology on demand, is only as valuable as the supporting internal structure.

To read the rest of the feature, click here.

Time smart CIOs moved beyond the confines of IT?

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With the rise of the cloud and stronger procurement functions, some organisations may ask whether they really need an IT function. The following feature by me for silicon.com explains why many CIOs think it’s vital they move beyond technology implementation and operation:

“CIOs now have a better opportunity than ever before to move beyond the confines of IT,” says Catherine Doran, director of corporate development for infrastructure specialist Network Rail.

She should know. Doran has followed 30 years’ experience in business technology, and CIO roles at BT and CapitalOne, with what is often seen as the apotheosis for IT leaders: a senior executive position around the boardroom table at a blue-chip organisation.

In Doran’s case, the old adage that CIO really stands for ‘career is over’ is redundant. She has used the CIO position as a means to demonstrate her broader business abilities. The result is that Doran is judged on her capability to lead transformation across the organisation and not just in the IT department. So, how has she managed to make the transition?

To read the rest of the feature, click here.

Millennials: Can CIOs win the generation game?

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And here’s another piece from mid-January for silicon.com, this time about a new set of customer-focused challenges for CIOs. Faced with a new wave of people and technology, how are IT leaders preparing the business for the next generation of customers and workers?

Young people are different. They live like cyborgs, collaborating and connecting online with multiple contacts across various forms of social technology. How they use IT will completely disrupt how your business engages with its employees and customers.

That, at least, is the popular myth. But generalisations are unhelpful, as was wonderfully exposed in a recent first-person account of millennials on silicon.com. Yes, millennials are enthusiastic, technology-literate multitaskers. They are also far from the clichéd media depiction of tech-savvy anarchists set to destroy established corporate hierarchies.

It is a viewpoint that resonates strongly with Keith Collins, CTO at technology specialist SAS and a business leader with 25 years’ experience of how IT is used and consumed. “Generation Y has grown up with technology but it’s rubbish to suggest that such individuals will only want to be independent and not have strong relationships with the company,” he says.

To read the rest of the feature, click here.

CIO priorities: What must we do better in 2011?

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Here’s another update – this time, it’s an article that was written by me and published in early January by silicon.com. Analysts are always telling CIOs what the priorities should be for the next 12 months. But what do CIOs themselves see as the main areas of focus?

The return to the office after the New Year holiday brings its own customs: the misery of the commute, a heaving inbox and a desire to do things better in 2011.

Such aims are accompanied by another tradition, one where analysts and consultants rush to tell you about the key technologies the business must purchase and implement during 2011.

But are these technology projects the real focus for CIOs? Here, IT leaders discuss their priorities for 2011. These discussions are grouped around five key themes. What seems apparent from such themes is that business leadership, not simply IT implementation, will be top of the CIO’s priority list for 2011.

To read the rest of the feature, click here.