Sound like fun? Well…it does to me…and I plunked down more than 1800 words on it so be prepared to read

My “what if” scenario revolves around tomorrow’s organization…and whether it can be built without today’s IT. Here’s the premise:

What if you could build your organization from scratch.  No legacy systems.  No sacred cows.   What would the IT group look like?

Interesting question right?   While its not likely that anyone would scratch their legacy systems and start over, it still might be a fun mind game to see if IT matters or not.

The basis for this “what if” scenario is built upon the Future of IT survey report by the Executive IT Board – read more about that survey in my article titled The Future of IT & the CIO – Redux of the Dodo.

Tomorrow’s Organization

What would your organization look like if you could start over?  Would you have the same physical space and layout?  Same overhead?  Or…would you try a more radical approach and go with telecommuting, remote working and outsourcing?

Since we all have different ideas of what an organization is…let’s set some ground rules.  Let’s assume the following:

• You have 500 employees
• Customers are spread across North America (US & Canada)
• Your company provides services (rather than make/sell products)
• Due to customer demands, you need to have some employees in a different areas of the country.

So…how would you design your organization to handle the demands of the business?

Open up four offices in the four largest cities in the country?  Open offices in geographically important areas?  Let’s say you want to have a presence in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas.  Not bad locations…but expensive too.

Each business is different of course, but let’s say that we need to have physical presences in this four cities because customers demand it.  Fine…let’s open up some offices.

Now.  You’ve got your physical space figured out. How about your technology?

Remember…you can start from scratch.  No legacy systems to think about. But…you do need to think about whether today’s IT will work in tomorrow’s organization.

What would you do?

What I’m going to do in this post is show how tomorrow’s organization can be built with absolutely zero professional IT staff.

Building Tomorrow’s Organization

What are the basics needed for running your business?  What systems do you need?   I’ll go with these as my absolute  must haves:

Basics

• Computers / Workstations (not servers…they will be included in Systems)
• Printers
• Copiers / Scanners / Fax (anyone use fax anymore??)
• Phones

Systems

• Email
• Web
• Collaboration
• Financial
• Sales/Pipeline Management
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• HR / Payroll

I’m sure there are others but this covers the basics.

The basics are no-brainers. Find a reputable company / vendor and order some hardware.

But…before you take this first step, how will you organize your business?  Will you hire IT staff to implement and manage this hardware or will you outsource it?

Me?  Nothing on this basics list brings me an advantage in the marketplace.    I’d outsource the whole kit and kaboodle.  I’d find a company (or companies) that could manage the roll-out, maintenance, support and hardware/software refresh needed to support and maintain this equipment.   Of course…you’d need to make sure the company(s) that you outsource this to is credible and dependable…but that’s easy enough to do right?

If you wanted to try an even more radical approach, you could let each employee manage their own computer, printer, phone combination.  Might be a support nightmare here but you could give each employee a stipend upon hiring and tell them to ‘buy their own system’.  Kraft is already trying this approach.  Looks like Citrix is trying it out as well.  You’d have to build some detailed guidelines to provide some direction on systems, software, and specifications, but I think it could be done.

Regardless of which approach you take, we’ve now found a way to get the basics for our 500 employees and we’ve not hired 1 IT employee yet.  Should we think about bringing on an IT pro?  Maybe…but do I need an IT professional?  I need someone to manage the vendors, the process and the relationship….so maybe I bring a procurement / vendor management / contract management professional with experience in the IT space. With 500 employees focused on providing services, I probably already have someone perfectly suited for this role. If not, +1 on the employee side…but we haven’t hired an IT employee yet.

We’ve got the basics down…let’s dive into the systems.

Outsource, in-house or the cloud?

Based on the necessary systems listed above, we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to handle seven different systems. Do we build out a datacenter and pack it full of servers and then start hiring employees to support these systems?  We could take that route…or….we could outsource it all to third-party vendors to manage for us. Or….we can look to the cloud for all these systems.

Let’s look at a few different options.

• Option 1 – All systems in-house in a standard datacenter
• Option 2- Some systems on-house staffed by employees with others outsourced (via cloud or standard datacenter)
• Option 3 – All systems outsourced (via cloud or standard datacenter)
• Option 4 – Some Critical Systems in-house with others outsourced (via cloud or standard datacenter)

There are many combinations to look at…but these are 4 options to consider.

Which option do we take?

Do we hire a full IT team and build out our own datacenter?  In my experience, there’s an awful lot of overhead, staffing and headaches involved in building and managing your own datacenter …way too much for very little real value.

Do we hire a partial IT team to manage in-house systems and outsource the rest?  I’m learning towards this approach. Personally, I’d suggest putting critical systems in-house and outsourcing the rest.

So..let’s figure out what our critical systems are.  Is an HR / Payroll system critical? What about email?  Financial Systems? That’s a call that each organization has to make…but here’s how I’d break them down for this particular excercise:

• Critical: Web, Financial, Email
• Non-Critical: Collaboration, HR/Payroll, Sales/Pipelne, CRM

Critical Systems – In-house or Outsource?

I’ve said before that email can easily be outsourced and/or moved to the cloud and I still believe that.  Email, although a critical app, can be moved to the cloud via either Google Apps, Hosted Exchange or some other form of outsourced email arrangement.   In today’s world, I wouldn’t  even think about staffing up to manage and maintain an email platform.  I’d outsource it.

What about the Web function / systems?   It sort of depends on what you want / need to do I think.  Will there be an ecommerce function?  What about the need to capture sensitive customer information?   Those questions play a key-role in the decision.

Let’s assume our website requirements are like other similar businesses…we need a website that looks good, is easy to change/update, has a client portal, can collect new lead, etc etc etc.  Do we need to build an entire group within IT to manage / maintain the web?

A good portion of what needs to be done on the web can easily be moved onto the cloud….see the write-up by Scott Brinker in his post titled The Age of Disposable Software and his Marketing in the Cloud slides for an overview of many of the cloud solutions available for web/marketing.

I’m going to go with outsourcing my web system(s).  There’s absolutely nothing I can do in-house that can’t be done by plugging several systems together using the cloud or a managed server (or servers) with a company like Peer1 or Rackspace. Why hire a staff of IT professionals to manage servers when I can offload this to professionals at another company for much less money?

That said, I do think there’s a need for someone in the organization to architect and manage the web presence…is that an IT person? Or…can a Marketing Technologist do that? For the sake of argument here, I’m going to say that I’d hire a technologist and place them in my marketing department.  This person (or persons)  can provide strategic direction for all things web and manage the vendors & technology used on the web. +1 on the employee side…but still no IT staff.

Now…how about the Financial System?  Since this business is a services business, we really don’t need anything major…we just need a financial and accounting system to run the business.  What does that entail? I have no idea to be honest…I’ve never done finance / accounting IT systems. Because I don’t understand them, I’m going to outsource the system implementation & maintenance but will require the systems be in-house. Do I hire an IT person to oversee this platform?  I don’t see why I would…my outsourced vendor would handle all technical details and I would pay them for it.  I would hire someone to oversee this critical application though…+1 on the employee side…but still no IT staff.

Non-Critical Systems

The decisions for our non-critical systems are a bit simpler than our critical systems.  These types of systems are well understood in the world of the cloud and outsourcing I’m going to look to outsourcing and the cloud for my non-critical systems. Salesforce.com for Sales/Pipeline & CRM, SocialText for collaboration and a company like Paychex for HR / Payroll / Employee adminstration.

Perhaps there’s a need to have a person (or two) to manage the relationships, contracts and procurement…but no technical staff. Perhaps a +1 or +2 for employees…but yet again, no IT staff.

Tomorrow’s Organization without Today’s IT?

Did I just design an organization without a single professional IT employee?  I sure did.

Is it realistic to do this?  Maybe…maybe not.  Is there ways to argue against everything I’ve done here? Absolutely…there are tons of holes in this new organization.  That said…I do think a company could easily outsource most of their IT infrastructure…if not all of it.

Do I really think that tomorrow’s organization will be built without IT? Not really…I think there will always be some form of IT but the status of the IT group (and the CIO) will change if we keep going down the road we’ve been traveling on for the last umpteen years.

The history of unfinished & unsuccessful projects is leading to a dead-end for most IT groups.  The mentality of process over people has lead most organizations to despise IT and everything IT stands for.  I can’t tell you how many organizations I’ve talk to where the IT group is looked at as the ‘enemy’ rather than as a friend.

Don’t get me wrong here though….I truly believe there are good IT groups and good CIO’s out there…but the majority are just average.  And today’s average isn’t good enough for tomorrow.

Don’t let tomorrow’s organization be built without having a role in building it.   IT Professionals, Leaders and Managers….what can you do today to make sure you’re delivering the value that tomorrow’s organization will need?

Here’s a hint:

Start looking at bringing humanity back to IT.  Focus on your people, their skills and the human side of IT and start focusing on what those people can do for the organization. Do this and you might have a chance in the future.  Don’t do it and you’ll find yourself stuck in yesterday.

Building Tomorrow’s Organization – without today’s IT? is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Defining "Right" – The New CIO Series
2. Values and The New CIO
3. Small Business IT Outsourcing – don’t go too far
4. The diminishing role of IT and the CIO (?)
5. Leading by saying No – The New CIO Series

I’m all for backing up claims with evidence. I mean I am working on my doctorate you know…nothing like a doctorate program to teach you how to base theories on evidence right?

So…let’s take a second to revisit my theory that cultural fit is important to technology selection projects. We’ll start by taking a second to review the idea of Technology Acceptance.

To get started, let’s take a second to review a highlight from my previous article:

…failure to consider organizational culture prior to or during a technology selection project can be disastrous…

Now…the rest of this article dives into why I think culture is a key component of technology acceptance.

Technology Acceptance within Organizations

The Technology Acceptance Model (which I linked to in my previous post but didn’t really discuss) was introduced and popularized by Davis and Bagozzi in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s.  You can find a brief discussion of the model on Wikipedia or you can dig through the following papers:

• Davis, F.D., Bagozzi, Richard P., & Warshaw, P.R.. (1989). User Acceptance Of Computer Technology: A Comparison Of Two Theoretical Models. Management Science, 35(8), 982.
• Bagozzi, R. P., Davis, F. D., & Warshaw, P. R. (1992). Development and test of a theory of technological learning and usage. Human Relations, 45(7), 660-686.
• Adams, D. A., Nelson, R. R., & Todd, P. A. (1992). Perceived usefulness, ease of use, and usage of information technology: A replication. MIS Quarterly, 16, 227-247.

All are great papers and provide a good introduction to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM for short) and how it can be used in organizations.

The model boils down to two major points for consideration during technology selection. A quick discussion of these points follows.

1. Perceived Usefulness -The understanding / belief by a user that by using a new technology they will be able to do their job better / faster / more effectively.
2. Perceived Ease of Use – The understanding / belief by a user that a new technology will be easy to learn and use and will require little effort to use on a regular basis.

Notice that the model uses the word “perceived” for both major issues affecting technology acceptance.  Perception is key….if the users perceive that something is difficult to use or that it will not make their job easier, they will not use it to its full potential…if they use it at all.

The TAM has been built upon many research projects, all of which are very rigorous and the model has been the basis of a ton of other research projects with similar results.

Based on my research and my experience, I believe the Technology Acceptance Model is a fairly good model to use as a rule-of-thumb while looking at an organization’s ability to accept a new technology.  In fact, in most of my technology selection projects, I’ve used the TAM as a starting point when surveying organizations to help determine a baseline for the organizations willingness to accept new technology.

Acceptance is an important aspect to technology selection wouldn’t you agree?  Without acceptance, technology is useless.

Technology Selection, Acceptance & Culture

Now that we all have a baseline understanding of one theory around technology acceptance (there are other more complicated theories than the TAM), let’s take a second to look at how culture plays into this and how it can greatly affect technology selection.

I think we can all agree that acceptance of any new technology is important.  The perception of the usefulness and ease of use of any new platform is extremely important.  Definitely something to consider during technology selection projects, no? I believe these two areas (usefulness and ease of use) are considered during selection projects, but I don’t think the real underlying cultural aspects are well understood.   What do I mean by the ‘underlying cultural aspects’ behind ease of use and usefulness?

Organizational culture plays a large role in creating the concept of ease of use and usefulness to an individual.  Think about it this way…ease of use and usefulness is a factor of how a person perceives technology as a whole and for the most part, that perception is shaped and driven by the underlying organizational culture. While the TAM is a bit too simplistic to model every individual’s reaction to new technology, it can be used as a baseline heuristic for how well the organization will accept new technology.

The culture of an organization plays a large part in the individual’s reaction to new technology and platforms. Before undertaking a technology selection project, if you can take some time to understand the the cultural proclivity towards acceptance of technology, the selection project might be more successful.    With the culture of the organization better understood, you can add some additional filters a more robust selection criteria.

Have I provided “proof” that my idea of culture playing a large part in technology selection project outcomes? Nope…but I might find a way to do so in the future  Sometimes you need proof…sometimes you can just go with faith that something feels ‘right’ and you should go with it. With this particular issue, I feel that organizational culture has played such a large role in the success and failure of technology selection projects that it feels ‘right’ to say culture and technology selection are intertwined.

Stay tuned for more on this topic…I’m hoping to put together another post with some actionable items for use in your next technology selection project.

Technology Selection, Acceptance & Culture is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Technology Selection and Cultural Fit
2. Technology Selection Revisted
3. Culture and the CIO
4. Common Sense and Technology Selection
5. Information Technology Strategy

• Social Software Needs to Be a Layer, Not a Feature, In the Enterprise by Eugene Lee on Enterprise Social Software Blog | Socialtext

  Quote: We believe we can avoid the fate of information silos by building a “Social Layer” in the enterprise architecture. The social layer will span all employees across all organizational boundaries, and connect them to key enterprise applications beneath it in the architectural stack. We recently introduced Socialtext Connect, which is the beginning of our approach to enabling this Social Layer.

• Enterprise Social Media & SMB – One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other by Matt Ridings on techguerilla talk

  Quote: No one will dispute that there are huge differences between the way a large enterprise business operates versus that of a SMB (small or medium business).  All of the cliche’s about a large, plodding, politically motivated behemoth or a small, naive, financially handcuffed operation exist for a reason.  They all contain a grain of truth to varying degrees.  Yet, for all of their differences they share the same basic strategies when it comes to leveraging various mediums for the most part, just at different scales.  And that’s how it should be.

• Beyond Social CRM: The Open Innovation Revolution by Hutch Carpenter on I’m Not Actually a Geek

  Quote: The idea of bringing customers into the process of defining the products and service of your organization is one that is gaining a lot of steam. One manifestation of that is the increased interest in Social CRM. In this scenario, companies engage their social customers for feedback and marketing purposes. Taking it a step further, Mark Tamis and Esteban Kolsky see the higher purpose as organizing the business around the newly social customers

• The “Social” in Social Media by Skip Cohen on Marketing Essentials International

  Quote: I’ve spent so much time talking about social media as a marketing tool over the last year, that I honestly forgot about the word “social” in its name!   If you want to have some fun today, track down an old friend – there are few activities that could make your day richer

• The Age of Disposable Software by Scott Brinker on Chief Marketing Technologist

  Quote: The market is evolving at breakneck pace, with new competitors springing out of bed every morning, with zero legacy hang-ups, eager to snap up your audience. The power of SaaS — and the age of disposable software — is that it makes it easier for you to harness the leading edge of innovation. But SaaS just helps with the plumbing and the economics — you still need to provide the activation energy to break free from the past and embrace the new.

Links for August 29 2010 is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Links for August 22 2010
2. Links for August 1 2010
3. Links for August 8 2010
4. Links for April 11 2010
5. Links for August 15 2010

Captured with Canon 5D and Canon 17-40 L sitting on my Induro CT 314 tripod.

Foto Friday – Sands of Time is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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3. Foto Friday – Musckovy Duck
4. Foto Friday: Mom & Baby Big Horn Sheep
5. Foto Friday – Barn Owl

Well…I should clarify…I love the self-hosted version of found at WordPress.org).   The WordPress.com version is quite good but you lose the ability to do some customization over there (unless you’re on the VIP platform…and you’re still limited in what you can do there).

Why do I love WordPress?

It’s so much more than a blogging platform.  It’s really a framework.  It’s a framework for building websites.

Take a look at my site.  It’s built on WP using the Genesis Theme Framework (affiliate link) which I’ve customized to meet my needs. I added a customized version of the WP Featured Articles Slider to the front page to highlight previous articles.

Could I have done this with other platforms?  Sure.  Would it have been free? Perhaps.  Would it have been easy (given you know a little web design/development)?  Maybe.

But…every other platform I’ve used in the past would have required much more development to get the basic structure built.  I could have used Drupal or Joomla but neither of them are as easy and straightforward as WordPress is for me.

The real strength comes from the Theme developers like StudioPress (the folks behind Genesis), Thesis or Headway. With these frameworks, you can really extend the power of WordPress as a platform.

Personally, I’m a fan of Genesis due to the ability to build child themes for customization. These child themes allow the core Genesis framework to be upgraded without affecting the custom design / functionality.    I love the genesis framework so much I decided to customize one of the child themes to rebuild my Photography Minute photo blog.

WordPress…for more than just blogs

But…WordPress can be used for more than just an individual’s blog / website.

For example…take a look at the Boy Scouts of America’s Boys’ Life website.  It’s built on WordPress and hosted with the VIP program.  I’m happy to say that I was a part of the team that built the site last year….it was quite a learning experience for me and an eye opener to the power of the WordPress platform.

On first glance, that doesn’t look like much like a blog does it?  Doesn’t to me.   Lots of really cool stuff happening over there with a mixture of PHP, Flash, jQuery and Javascript…really cool stuff for us tech geeks

In addition to my own blogs and the work on the Boys’ Life website, I’ve been working on building a new website for Silicon Valley Expert Witness Group using WP as a Content Management Systems (CMS) for the underlying technology to run the website.  That site (planned go- live in early Sept 2010) is using a ton of custom development and Custom Post Types to handle the hundreds of Expert Witnesses and litigation consultants listed on the website as well marketing and corporate information.

I’ve got another stealth project going right now that uses WordPress, a Custom Theme and the PHPurchase shopping cart plugin to manage sales and subscriptions. Still putting the finishing touches on that project…maybe I’ll talk about it more in the future.

I’m finding WordPress to be an extremely flexible and wonderful framework to build websites with.  Not only do you get WP and themes, but a ton of developers and help from other WP developers and users. The power of Open Source in action.

PS – If you’re looking for a WordPress Developer or Designer, let me know … I’ll be happy to recommend a designer to you and might be able to take on the development efforts myself … if I can’t help, I know a few folks who can.

I. Love. WordPress. is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. New Theme & Design
2. Just in case…
3. Some thoughts on Sitecore CMS
4. Blog Updates – Theme Change & IntenseDebate
5. Website Updates

Yep…its true…..but most people don’t realize it.

Many in the IT world love to get asked to be a part of a technology selection project. These types of projects usually provide a learning opportunity for everyone on the team and an chance to really help drive the platforms used within the enterprise.

The basic question at hand for most technology selection projects really comes down to “‘what do we need and how much is it?”

With that question in mind, most IT professionals approach technology selection with the following three questions in mind:

• What are the functional requirements?
• What are the non-functional requirements?
• What is the selection criteria?

These three questions definitely cover a great deal of requirements….but one major area is missing.  I’d add the following:

Does the technology fit the culture?

Pretty broad question but one that’s extremely important to answer.

Now…one could argue that cultural fit should fit into the non-functional requirements or selection criteria selection questions…and I’d agree. That said, very few people really consider organizational culture when choosing technology.

Cultural Fit – why worry?

Why should we worry about cultural fit when selecting technology?

Simple…organizational culture is a key driver of technology acceptance and adoption.

Company culture will dictate how much support for a new technology is required. It will make a difference whether your users will take it upon themselves to learn a new technology or expect to have their hands through detailed training classes.

Culture will also determine how technology is used. Will the technology you select and implement by used in some new, innovative way or will it barely be used for its intended purpose?

Cultural fit is just as important to an organization as functional requirements but its an often overlooked  step in technology selection.

A Case Study in Cultural Fit and Technology Selection

I was hired by a large organization a few years ago to implement and manage development and customization for Sitecore CMS.  The project was an interesting one…the organization hadn’t used a content management system prior to their selection of Sitecore and had been building all websites using HTML and flat-file databases through a two person web team.

The team responsible for the selection and implementation of Sitecore CMS had assumed that the platform could be rolled out and anyone / everyone in the organization would be allowed into the system to input and manage their own content.

Now…with the proper people and culture, this might not have been a bad idea.  But the culture of this organization at the time was top-down command and control where everyone had been conditioned to do as they were told.  At the time there was even a paper based communication approval process that required at least 5 signatures (sometimes more) before anything was allowed to be published to the web (this process has since changed for the better).

Can you imagine implementing a technology like Sitecore with built in workflow processes, approval processes and publishing capabilities and to not really use those processes because a paper-based approval system existed?  I will note that the Sitecore driven workflow processes were considered as a replacement for the paper-based system but never properly embraced or used.

With a culture built around waiting for your boss to tell you what to do, do you think the CMS platform was accepted and embraced by the users?

Another issue that was obvious from the beginning of this project was the complete lack of understanding of everything ‘web’ within this organization.  This was very much an organization with a “print” mentality and modern digital communications and marketing concepts weren’t well understood by most.

Needless to say, the plans to roll out Sitecore to the entire organization never really panned out. There were pockets of people and teams within the organization that were chomping at the bit to get into Sitecore but that was the exception rather than the rule.

Technology Selection – Lessons learned

What can we learn from this example?  The strategic objective behind selecting and implementing Sitecore was sound.  So were the functional requirements…the platform is an excellent platform and fit into the organization’s overall technology architecture and roadmap.

A failure occurred when the technology met the culture of the organization.   The culture was rooted in ‘do nothing wrong’ and ‘receive approval for everything’.  This culture let the inability for the people within the organization to understand, embrace and use a technology that allowed individual achievement, initiative and innovation.

If the real goal of this organization was to put the power of digital communications and marketing technology in the hands of individuals (with proper workflow processes of course), a first step should have been to take on some form of organizational readiness study prior to technology selection.  If this had been done, perhaps a different technology would have been selected or at least a different plan for rolling out the selected technology could have been created.  Perhaps some organizational & cultural changes could have been implemented to allow this technology to better serve the needs of the company & people.

Regardless of what could have been done differently, the basic lesson is this: failure to consider organizational culture prior to or during a technology selection project can be disastrous.  Next time you take on a selection project, add the ‘cultural fit’ question to your list of things to consider…you may just be surprised at how differently your selection criteria and project turn out with this in mind.

Technology Selection and Cultural Fit is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Technology Selection, Acceptance & Culture
2. Common Sense and Technology Selection
3. Technology Selection Revisted
4. Information Technology Strategy
5. Do you have a technology strategy?

• The New New CIO Role: Big Changes Ahead By Thomas Wailgum on CIO.com

  Quote: CIOs themselves are in the midst of a make-or-break personal change-management project: CIOs who can only take orders, who can’t speak the language of the business, who can’t step out of the proverbial back-office and into the front lines of customer service, social media or supply chain management will soon go the way of ancient tech gear—remembered fondly on occasion but sidelined in the future.

• Being “most things to most people” isn’t innovation by Jeffrey Phillips on Innovate on Purpose

  Quote: What kills innovation at the start, in the middle and at the end is the lack of a clearly defined, articulated and executed strategy.  The reason is simple.  If your firm can’t concisely define and communicate what it offers, and why it is different, than other firms, differentiation is almost impossible, and in some cases perhaps undesired.  If it can’t define it’s position in the market, as a product innovator, or a service leader, or the operational excellence leader, then it isn’t a leader at all

• CIO Career Development – A Learning Plan by Chris Curran on CIO Dashboard

  Quote: CIOs and senior IT leaders spend so much time thinking about skills, training, recruiting, organization structure, 3rd party resources, etc. for their organizations and staff that they often neglect their own learning and development.  Luckily, the CIO and CTO of one of our health care clients recently asked us to help them sort through all of the opportunities they’ve been presented – conferences, workshops, councils and many others – which has given me an opportunity to focus on this subject more lately.

• Why You Shouldn’t Hire An Ostrich To Do Customer Service by Simon Sinek on Re:Focus

  Quote: Perhaps we should change the term “customer service representative” to “people service representative” just to remind everyone that customers are people too.

Links for August 22 2010 is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Links for August 8 2010
2. Links for August 29 2010
3. Links for August 1 2010
4. Links for Feb 20 2010
5. Links for August 15 2010

I liked this composition…different than most others you see of the Watchman. Captured with Canon 5D and Canon 17-40 L.

Foto Friday – The Watchman is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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3. Foto Friday – Kolob Canyon, Zion National Park
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Normally, I get less than one request a month for reviewing books but over the last month I’ve received quite a few more….five to be exact.

Its usually pretty easy for me to read through one additional book per month on top of all the other reading I do but lots of things got in the way over the last few months, so and I wasn’t able to get to all the books as fast as I would have liked.

That said, I finally go through all five books and, rather then write up five different posts reviewing each book, I decided to put them all together here. So…here goes…

Oh…and cover of the last book is awesome…enjoy

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter {affiliate link}

This is a pretty good book  by Liz Wiseman with Greg McKeown that describes the difference between two leadership styles that the authors call Multipliers and Diminshers.

A Multipler is a leader who is able to extract so much value from their direct reports, colleagues and coworkers while a Diminisher is a leader who tends to suck the energy, excitement and passion out of their direct reports and coworkers. Multipliers enhance the abilities of others while diminishers degrade the abilities of others.

While I thought the book was quite good, I found parts of it difficult to pay attention. I kept having to put it down and pick it up a day or two later.  This was due mostly to my inability to focus in sections of the book because I felt like some of the material was repetitive.

That said, this is a well written book. There are quite a few real world examples provided and some excellent discussion of leadership styles…well worth the read if you are into leadership books.

Lead Like Ike: Ten Business Strategies from the CEO of D-Day {affiliate link}

Written by Geoff Loftus. I liked this book….but not necessarily because it offered great, actionable, ideas for leadership. I loved this book because it takes a look at the historical context around Eisenhower’s leadership styles and decisions he made.

I love history and history books and this one doesn’t disappoint.  That said, there’s not really a lot of actionable information in this book that you can’t find in every other leadership book out there.

Like I said..great book…if you like history.  If you’re a student of military history, military leadership or leadership in general, you’ll probably like this book.  If you’re looking for leadership and strategy advice I’d say find another book.

Leading at Light Speed: Build Trust, Spark Innovation, and Create a High-Performing Organization {affiliate link}

Written by Eric F. Douglas.  According to the PR release, this book is a leadership book for anyone wanting to build organizations that perform at high levels.

Now…I think everyone wants to build organizations that perform at high levels. So..this book is for everyone right?

The book goes into the fundamentals of leadership and then describes ten ‘quantum leaps’ to take to become a better leader. Sounds awesome right?  Quantum leaps makes you think of physics…or that television show with Scott Bakula.

Douglas’ ten quantum leaps are nothing new really.  Things like ‘align the core values’, ‘lead through others’, ‘manage decisions well’ and ‘stimulate the creative flow’ along with others.

Like I said…the ideas aren’t anything new but they are delivered in a way that’s at least interested to read.  This book is well written and, although it uses some corny terms and doesn’t really market itself well, its not a bad book.   I can’t really recommend it though…while I liked the book, I didn’t find much in it that made me think or gave me new insights.

Be Bodacious: Put Life in Your Leadership {affiliate link}

Written by Steven D. Wood. When I first received an email about reviewing this book, I took a look at the title and was intrigued. I said yes and I’m glad I did.

I expected this book to be similar to those written by Patrick Lencioni and others…it was a bit different. The author uses stories to highlight various topics…and he does a pretty good job at it.

I loved this book…very very straightforward, honest and it definitely makes you take a second to think about your leadership style and your life.

While not a perfect book, I did enjoy it immensely and I think you would too.

Now…on to the last one.

Welcome to the Company (or what it’s really like working here) {affiliate link}

Dear lord…I love the cover of this book. I love that suit.

Written by Eileen McVety, this book probably has the best cover ever.

This book was actually sent along with Leading at Light Speed as a ‘bonus’ and boy was it a bonus.

I have to say this is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s not a prize winner, but for shear enjoyment and, at times, I found myself laughing out loud at what Eileen writes.

The book is based on a fictional company and is written to mimic a new employee on-boarding & procedures book.   Funny stuff…and for the most part its extremely true.

I’ll leave you with this quote from the flap of the book:

We’re confident you’ll find your employment experience at The Gordon Wiggins Group to be a richly satisfying one. Not overly confident, mind you. Like we wouldn’t lay money on it…but hey, it’s a job, right? So quit your griping.

Great stuff.  Highly Recommended.

A Plethora of Book Reviews is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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The survey, titled The Future of IT (pdf download), basically argues that the role of IT will diminish in the future.  The survey argues that the IT group will move away from a large centralized function and transition into a shared services model with smaller IT teams sprinkled within business units.  The role of the CIO will also change quite dramatically moving from that of Technology leader to that of either leader of a shared services group or a much more transactionally focus role in charge of IT procurement and integration.

Does that mean IT and the role of the CIO is going away?  Like I said in the previous article, no…I don’t think either role is going away completely but I do believe the CIO role and the IT group must change in order to remain relevant in tomorrow’s organization.

The Diminishing Role of IT and the CIO?

The The Future of IT (pdf download) survey is an eye opener if you take the time to read it.  Once you do, then go read the great stuff that Scott Brinker is putting out today…especially his article titled Rise of the Marketing Technologist.

Scott’s been advocating about the need for marketing organizations to own and manage the technology within the marketing group. Scott writes:

As marketers, you’re already responsible for the outcomes based on such technology. The accountability so widely promoted in digital marketing has you in the hot seat for results. It’s only sensible that you should have full control over the means and mechanisms to deliver those results.

You must be the driver of marketing technology, not merely a concerned passenger. But if you don’t have technical depth, who can help you navigate?

Scott argues for a need for a Marketing Chief Technology Officer (CTO) reporting into the Chief Marketing Officer with strategic technology initiatives for the marketing organization as well as acts as the liaison with the IT group and product marketing teams.

Scott writes the following to highlight the role of the Marketing CTO:

….I am suggesting that technology become one of the vertical pillars of the marketing function — with the marketing CTO as its head.

Resources that used to be begged, borrowed, or bought would instead become a native part of the marketing organization.

Pretty powerful argument for the need to have a strong technology leader within the marketing group.  Scott puts together a very (very) compelling argument for why marketing organizations need to be growing a technical skill set to own and manage their own technology initiatives.

Scott’s article is also an extremely good example of how the idea of IT services are changing within organizations.  Business functions are looking for ways to no longer be beholden to the IT group for all technology needs.  Business groups, like marketing, are needing to find ways to be more agile, more flexible and have more ownership in the technology they use.

Why is that?

Some would argue that the IT group has trouble getting things done.    Some might argue that IT isn’t aligned with the business and describes methods and processes to help IT align better while others argue that it isn’t alignment that is the problem…its the ability for the IT group to be agile and synchronized with the organization.

At the end of the day, the CIO role and the IT group are diminishing in many organizations because they haven’t been able to provide what the organization needs.  It’s as simple as that.

Take a look at Scott’s article again….would the idea of a self-contained technology organization within marketing be necessary if IT were delivering what the marketing group needs?  Maybe…maybe not.

I’m 100% behind the idea of the marketing CTO and have even delivered consulting services as a marketing technologist…but I think there’s a lot of room for the CIO to take a leadership role in this area if they can change the direction and values of the IT organization.

What’s next for the IT group and the CIO?

The diminishing role of IT the CIO has been discussed for many years.

Nicholas Carr wrote a post titled Twilight of the CIO in 2007 that discusses the topic. Harvard Business Review had a similar post in 2002 titled Should you fire your CIO? arguing similar points. More recently, Surendra Reddy is rethinking the role of the CIO in the aptly titled Re-thinking: CIO Role in a 21st Century Corporation. In the The Future of IT (pdf download) survey, the future of the IT group and the CIO is definitely highlighted and discussed.

So…what’s next for IT and the CIO?

Continue to focus on doing business the old way and try to own everything around technology and the business will continue to move past you.  Shadow IT will proliferate.

But…what if you take a different approach?   What if you reach out today to the business to deliver the services they need tomorrow, today.  Reach out and recognize the people and processes that are creating Shadow IT within the organization and start making changes to formalize that shadow function into an IT supported function. Mind you…I’m not arguing that you take over the Shadow IT function…just provide support.

Instead of holding corporate data close to your vest, why not build an Open API to allow everyone within the organization to use data for whatever purpose they need.  Build standards and open access methods to allow technology initiatives to be owned by other groups.

Rather than be the technology police, be the technology ambassadors to the organization. Spend time with each group and understand their needs. Truly understand their needs and goals.

Embrace ideas like Scott’s Marketing CTO.  Reach out to the marketing team and find out what they truly need to get their job done.  If these non-IT teams are looking at growing their technology skill-set, find out why. Find how what you can do to help.

The future of IT is dependent on its ability to be agile, flexible and open. If you can create an IT team that embraces these values, you’ll find that your role as CIO and the IT team’s importance to the organization will grow rather than diminish.

The ability to turn on a dime to deliver what your organization needs is the key to ensuring a strong, useful IT group for the future. You’ll be much more than a the “IT group”…you’ll be the group that allows the organization to grow, innovate and succeed.

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The diminishing role of IT and the CIO (?) is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. The role of CIO going away?
2. Building Tomorrow’s Organization – without today’s IT?
3. Innovation and The New CIO
4. The New CIO – An Introduction
5. The Future of IT & the CIO – Redux of the Dodo?