IT BS Watch

Will the CIO Role Disappear?

Monday, 1 February 2010 · Leave a Comment

I was recently asked if I thought the CIO role would disappear from most companies. My response:

In companies where the CIO is the “top techie” who considers their primary responsibility to be keeping the little green lights in the data center blinking we will see the CIO role disappear. IT is not as mysterious as it once was, and there is no longer the need for a C-level title for pure technology management.

If the CIO can evolve, and help the CEO execute his or her strategic vision then it will continue to exist. Just as the CFO doesn’t just shuffle debits and credits, but rather figures out how to best pay for the CEO’s strategy, the CIO needs to figure out what tools and emerging technologies will facilitate the business objectives of the company.

I would guess that around 20% of CIOs do this very well. They’re also the CIOs that are slated to move into a COO and potentially CEO role. A good “litmus test” is if you ask the CEO if he or she would consider letting the CIO take their position. If they laugh you out of the room, then the CIO is likely more oriented towards the tech management role.

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What would get you to buy the Apple tablet?

Wednesday, 27 January 2010 · 1 Comment

We’re a few hours away from Apple’s well-hyped event that many are speculating will result in the unveiling of an Apple tablet device. As an owner of an Amazon Kindle, a Microsoft Tablet-PC and general gadget person I thought I would speculate on what would get me to shell out for an Apple tablet:

  • Pricing around $500
  • A battery that will last through a 17 hour trans-pacific flight when reading books, and last through an 8 hour workday otherwise
  • Access to Apple’s app store, and iPod/iPhone apps
  • Easy access to new content (i.e. books, movies, video) irrespective of what country I am in, and without having to deal with iTunes
  • The ability to consolidate my iPod Touch and Kindle into one device that is a high-quality eBook reader, video/movie player, gaming device and music player
  • Very easy ability to transfer PDF files to the device (i.e. no strange email addresses or “processing delays” as with the Kindle. It would be great to have reams of work-related documents available to read on a lightweight tablet-type device

What would get you to shell out for Jobs’ latest tech toy?

→ 1 CommentCategories: Gadgets and Devices

Where Process-Improvement Projects go Wrong

Tuesday, 26 January 2010 · Leave a Comment

Yesterday’s WSJ has a great article on the failure of process improvement projects based on a study that was performed at an aerospace company. They basically concluded that these projects go through an initial period of great success, and then gradually revert to the same (or worse) performance than at the beginning of the project.

The big take away from my perspective is twofold:

  1. None of these “magic methodologies” will solve your problems in the long term if they are applied like pixie dust, then essentially left to wither. Just as major surgery might take a day or two, but require a year of physical therapy, your initial intervention, regardless of the methodology used, will likely need months or years of care and feeding for the changes to become permanent.
  2. Related to the above, you simply cannot continue compensating and evaluating your people in the same manner after launching a process improvement project or they will return to their old way of working. If I provide no incentive to embrace process change (either monetary, job advancement, a reporting change, or more time dedicated to the project) then any changes will gradually regress.

You can find the full text of the article here: WSJ Where Process-Improvement Projects go Wrong

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INFJLMNOP-what???!?!?

Thursday, 21 January 2010 · Leave a Comment

Perhaps one of the worst examples of academia/consulting gone wild is the notion of “personality typing.” The concept is simple: have employees take a twenty-odd question test, run it through some buzzword voodoo, and you can neatly compartmentalize everyone in your organization into their own little box. The gurus behind the various schemes will then tell you that an ABCD won’t play well with an EFGH, that an LMNOP is a born leader, and you should never have a PG13 and XXX in the same room.

This type of management hooey is the PhD version of epithets like “Oh, he’s <insert ethnicity here>, and you know they can’t drive!” Figuring out an individual’s capabilities, strengths and weaknesses is hard work, and while the idea that a multiple choice questionnaire can do the heavy lifting for you may seem like a godsend, it’s about as effective as the latest “as seen on TV” diet pill. As a leader, your job is to assess and manage each of the unique individuals that work for you, and put the structures in place to maximize their chances of success. If you feel that job is too difficult then you might be the wrong personality type for the job.

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Does the CIO Need to be a Visionary to be Successful?

Tuesday, 19 January 2010 · 1 Comment

At the risk of sounding like I’m playing word games, I would argue that a CIO should be innovative more than visionary. The CEO’s role is to set the “vision” of the company: which products it will offer, in which markets, to which customers. The other C-level positions are there to execute on that vision. A CIO could be completely bereft of vision, but I would argue could be extraordinarily successful if he or she can find innovative ways to effectively implement the CEO’s vision.

On the contrary, you could have an extremely visionary CIO, who can see IT trends ten years in advance, but if they lack the innovation and execution abilities to determine how to implement them to most successfully bring the CEO’s vision to fruition, then they will not be successful.

→ 1 CommentCategories: IT Management

Will China “take over the world?”

Friday, 15 January 2010 · Leave a Comment

I’m often asked if China will “take over the world” or “steal” the world’s manufacturing sector. While I don’t think we should abandon ship and prepare for “the Chinese century” I do see several factors contributing to China’s rise in global business and manufacturing in particular:

  • A cultural, governmental and historical emphasis on manufacturing. In many western societies “building” seems to be far lower on the societal pole than “thinking,” but in China they are far closer. I also think this makes the intellectual property concept less understood and respected in China.
  • An extremely (arguably to a fault) pro-manufacturing government. You can dump your waste into a river, work your people at unethical levels (to the point of indentured servitude or borderline slavery, and the oft-mentioned currency and tariff manipulations.
  • An ability to produce extremely high-quality products at amazingly compelling prices. The old stereotype of “everything from China is junk” is long dead. The iPhone, often cited as a pinnacle of industrial design and production is manufactured in China for example.

To a large extent, I think the Chinese society (government and citizenry) see manufacturing, industrialization and business in general as keys to their country becoming the de facto world superpower. While we’re bashing bankers and drooling over the next American Idol, China is trying to learn everything it can from the west, and diligently applying it with their own twists.

I wouldn’t yet write off India, the west or other Asian nations, but there are certainly interesting times ahead.

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Life Imitates Chinese Piracy

Monday, 11 January 2010 · Leave a Comment

I was a bit surprised to see the announcement from the Consumer Electronics Show that fashion designer Ed Hardy was going to begin offering mobile phone accessories. The rather garish-looking booth with scantily clad ladies adorned with Blackberries wasn’t the source of shock; rather the fact that I had assumed Ed Hardy had long been offering phone accessories already. Over the past year during my trips to China I would frequently see Ed Hardy phone accessories, generally replaceable covers for all manner of phones, and I assumed these were copies of a legitimate product already offered by the company.

I can only wonder if Ed Hardy got the idea from the pirates, or how a lawsuit in this case would look… Could pirates sue Ed Hardy for use of their proprietary cover design with “borrowed” artwork, or would Ed Hardy have to explain in court that it was suing for copying products that had copied their artwork? I guess life really is stranger than fiction!

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Best Viral Marketing Campaign of 2009?

Friday, 8 January 2010 · 2 Comments

You have to hand it to Google. In late 2009 and into the first week of 2010 they broke their “gentleman’s agreement” with their hardware partners, scored immeasurable free publicity for a fairly run-of-the-mill smartphone, and were lauded by the breathless press for doing so.

In case you missed the dramatic hype cycle of the Nexus One, aka the “Google Phone,” think back to the Segway. Remember the rumbles in the press of inventor Dean Kamen’s latest creation? The Segway was going to be a personal hovercraft, no wait, a levitation device… perhaps even an anti-gravity or perpetual energy machine! As speculation bordered on the inane, we were introduced to the underwhelming, albeit lovable electric scooter that was supposed to change the world, but ended up generating giggles as behelmeted police officers zoomed around airports across the globe trying to look imposing.

The Google phone’s introduction operated in much the same vein. Rumbles started with a Wall Street Journal article that predicted amazing hardware, and a “new business model” that would “revolutionize” the wireless industry. In a matter of days, pundits were predicting hardware that would make the iPhone look like a pocket calculator, provided to users free of charge, paid for by that magical yet never actually successful “ad sponsored” business model.

Google masterfully stoked the flames, remaining mum on the traditional PR channels, yet giving the phone to hundreds of employees who almost immediately leaked grainy pictures and hyperbole-laced postings to twitter. The new version of Google’s smartphone operating system Android would change the way we used phones, and some were even predicting Google would actually pay you to use the phone, or that it would run on some mythical wireless network Google had secretly created, free from any of the current cellular carriers.

If Al Gore could capture the hot air being generated 24 hours before the phone’s early January unveiling, energy independence would no longer be a distant dream. With nearly no money spent on advertising, save for a strategic leak to the Wall Street Journal, and some free phones for tweet-happy employees, the Nexus One had been the story in the tech and business press for weeks. Much like the Segway, when the phone was officially unveiled on 5 January, those not completely blinded by the hype were unimpressed. This mythical “Google Phone” was yet another device designed and co-branded by Taiwanese hardware manufacturer HTC (maker of devices for nearly every carrier) that was similar to an existing Windows Mobile phone in terms of its look and hardware.

The “amazing new business model” and rumors of “magical new wireless standards” you ask? Well, the phone will be initially available on T-Mobile, and like any other T-Mobile phone (or any carrier phone for that matter) you can buy it at a subsidized “locked” price, or a higher “unlocked” price. The big new business model: you can go to google.com/phone and buy the phone and T-Mobile contract there. Like nearly every other phone manufacturer on the planet, Google has promised to release slightly different versions for other carrier’s networks, and provide these phones through the carriers’ usual sales channels.

If this “revolutionary business model” sounds familiar, that’s probably because everyone from Amazon and Walmart to many of the device manufacturers including HTC themselves sell unlocked phones or phones with contracts on their website. For some reason since it has the Google brand, what is tried and true is somehow new and magical. Throw the Google mojo on a Walmart business process and it’s suddenly sexy.

I can’t help but wonder how much brand cachet Google will lose from the Nexus One. Just a few days after its release as I write this, hardware reviewers are discovering that this is yet another smartphone: evolutionary hardware and nice features, but nothing market-shattering. The amazing new version of Android? Surprisingly unchanged save for some eye-candy. While this “viral stuff” is all the rage with marketers as they attempt to reach an increasingly cynical target market, I can’t help but thing that stunts like the Nexus One only increase and entrench that cynicism.

While Google masterfully exploited the press and its reputation for revolution, I can only imagine that any company, no matter how “revolutionary” can only pull a Nexus One once or twice before becoming that little boy, constantly claiming wolves on the horizon.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Gadgets and Devices

Package Software’s Biggest Challenge

Wednesday, 6 January 2010 · Leave a Comment

Many companies struggle with implementing large software packages, from SAP to Oracle to Salesforce.com. Conventional wisdom advocates insuring that your business requirements are well-documented, and the any effort is tied to a business case with a well-vetted ROI prediction. Further, the package implementation should be regarded as part of a larger organizational change effort (not just implementing some technology), but there is one wrinkle many organizations miss with package software.

With these types of systems, you’re not buying software so much as you’re buying “canned” business processes. Many organizations get caught up in flashy screens or meeting a laundry list of features, and end up buying a package whose canned processes have little or no relation to their business. This scenario turns the project from a quick implementation to what essentially amounts to a custom development effort.

To get the maximum benefit from packaged software (lower cost of implementation and support) make sure your business dovetails nicely with the package’s canned processes, or seek to adopt as many of them as possible or you’ll end up buying a new development environment rather than a business software package.

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Death by PowerPoint

Wednesday, 30 December 2009 · Leave a Comment

Too often, PowerPoint serves as a crutch or poor substitute for speaker’s notes. We’ve all been through the painful hour of a dry speaker that reads each bullet point from his or her slide verbatim. Before double-clicking the PowerPoint icon, ask yourself a couple of questions:

  • If all you are doing is sending out a list of bullets and information around some topic, do you really need a full-scale meeting and presentation? Is a summary document followed by a group discussion enough?
  • PowerPoint and a speaker are a situation where 1 + 1 should equal three or more. Ask yourself what additional value PowerPoint will bring to the table in this particular situation. Are there compelling visuals or complex diagrams that can only be conveyed on the “big screen,” or are you just using PowerPoint “because everyone else does?” If you plus PowerPoint equals an even more tedious and boring presentation, leave the slides at home.

Presenting without PowerPoint is actually quite liberating, and will interest your audience immediately due to the simple fact it is so rare in a corporate environment. If you must use PowerPoint, make sure the slides augment and build interest in your talk. I like to use humor or a fun theme that keeps people interested. For example I’ve abandoned boring corporate templates and used clipart from the movie “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” to present around cost-benefit analysis, complete with cheeky movie sound effects. At the end of the day, unless PowerPoint adds to your presentation, follow Nancy Reagan’s advice and “just say no.”

→ Leave a CommentCategories: IT Management