Computerworld: Thornton A. May

Thornton May: The time is now for information governance. But do you even know what it is?

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 10:30:00 GMT

Information governance covers the entire spectrum of information management, but most people have a fuzzy notion of what it is. This must change, because the real value of information can't be fully realized unless it is properly governed.

Thornton May: Renaissance lessons for modern CIOs

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 05 May 2014 10:30:00 GMT

The Renaissance has relevance to IT, and not just because IT is constantly being reborn.

Thornton May: Your privacy map is probably wrong

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 10:30:00 GMT

The privacy maps being created today are primarily designed to avoid lawsuits.

Thornton May: Reflections on inflections

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 10:30:00 GMT

Every day, contemporary executives confront a series of inflection points, where received wisdom is no longer adequate.

Thornton May: The path to big data mastery

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 11:30:00 GMT

While the path-to-mastery pattern is conceptually simple, successfully executing it requires courage, perseverance and patience.

Thornton A. May: IT for the whole brain and the whole organization

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 11:30:00 GMT

Futurist Thornton A. May foresees bright futures for IT professionals who strive to integrate value-creating IT behaviors into every nook and cranny of the enterprise.

Thornton May: Caught between mobility's rock and hard place

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 11:30:00 GMT

The rock: Users want to use their smartphones for work. The hard place: Security is deficient. All CIOs are caught between the two.

Thornton May: The future will need CIOs

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 10:00:00 GMT

For the CIO job, things are going to get bigger, better and different on a massive scale.

Thornton A. May: Fed up with blowhards, IT will fight back in 2014

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Columnist Thornton A. May says in 2014, IT leaders will need to have regularly scheduled meetings that actively and aggressively seek to make sense of the changing world around them.

Thornton May: The one thing we know about the future is that it's coming

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 10:00:00 GMT

In the history of computing, enterprise IT has rarely ever been prepared for the future. But we can't go on that way.

Thornton May: Why would IT want to be a 'device Santa Claus'?

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Evolving technology buying behaviors deserve much more rigorous management attention than they have been getting.

Thornton May: IT cost management doesn't mean cost reduction

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:00:00 GMT

When CEOs talk about IT cost management, they don't mean they want to spend less on IT. They just want to spend smarter.

Thornton May: Stalking the elusive data scientist

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 06 May 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Since it is virtually impossible to find all needed analytical skills resident in the same human being, it might be wise to adopt an 'ensemble' approach to your organization's deficit in those skills. Insider (registration required)

Thornton A. May: Is the future knowable?

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Knowing the future is a big part of the new IT skill set. But if you are going to find the future, you have to know where to look for it.

Thornton May: IT's epic challenges

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:00:00 GMT

For IT leaders, the two biggest looming challenges are learning to think outrageously and to be brutally honest. Insider (registration required)

Thornton May: IT and the Internet of Things

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:00:00 GMT

In an era when any real-world object can be IP-addressable, connectedness will become an important metric.

Thornton A. May: Why the word 'career' has become obsolete

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 11:00:00 GMT

The iconic 'gold watch' career path, in which people stay with the same employers for their entire working lives, has become anachronistic, says Thornton A. May. Today, the most important skill is the ability to acquire new skills. Insider (registration required)

Thornton A. May: Can infosec cure stupid?

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 11:00:00 GMT

The 'stupid' in question involves our living in a technologically complex world where only a tiny fraction of us actually understands how any of this stuff works. Insider (registration required)

Thornton May: 3 questions every CIO must answer

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 10:00:00 GMT

What business is IT in today? What business should it be in tomorrow? What should the 'I' in 'CIO' signify?

Thornton A. May: A year for stories and storytellers

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:00:00 GMT

2013 will be the year technologists rediscover storytelling, crafting scenarios of what the future might look like and envisioning worlds that take full advantage of the technology wonders available to us, says futurist Thornton A. May.

Thornton May: Futuring should be job No. 1 for IT

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 10:00:00 GMT

Futuring is not what you do when you are finished with the imagined real work of operations.

Thornton May: 'Future' as a verb

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 10:00:00 GMT

The organizations that will prosper in the future are those led by people who have imagined a future they want to live in.

Thornton May: The caveman in the executive suite

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 10:00:00 GMT

Thornton May's thinking about executive identity has meandered as far back as our hunter-gatherer forebears.

Thornton May: IT needs to aspire and really make a difference

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:00:00 GMT

IT leaders deploying today's transformational technologies can do so resignedly or aspirationally. Only one approach can really make a difference for the business.

Thornton May: The CIO enters the era of disruption

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:00:00 GMT

New C-level positions are being created to perform tasks perceived as not being adequately addressed by incumbent CIOs and CMOs.

Thornton A. May: What you need to know about enterprise content management

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:00:00 GMT

ECM matters because information's 'findability' will be a big part of CIO success in the years ahead. Insider (registration required)

Thornton A. May: New kind of IT hero needed for new kind of world

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:00:00 GMT

If you don't become the new type of IT leader, all you will lead is the herd that's heading toward the cliff.

Thornton A. May: Sustaining your career during unsettled times

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Columnist Thornton A. May sees an evolving world of IT work, where what you did and what you learned isnt the career decision point. These days, what you can do and what value you can create is where the new action is.

Thornton May: Let's keep the board of directors in the loop

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:00:00 GMT

We in IT have thought very little about what boards of directors know about IT, what they should know about IT and what they should do about IT. Insider (registration required)

Thornton May: Managing the fears that define the information age

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:00:00 GMT

One big fear is that the volume of information that must be known is growing far faster than organizations' capacity to know. Insider (registration required)

Thornton A. May: Four learning curves that may jostle your 2012 agenda

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:00:00 GMT

Columnist Thornton A. May says IT executives have four critically important technology learning curves in 2012: big data, social media, mobility and the cloud.

Thornton May: It's time for IT to go beyond efficiency, to innovation

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:00:00 GMT

IT has always been hitched to the wagon of efficiency, but today efficiency is just one part of the total value equation.

Thornton May: Is every worker a knight in digital armor?

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:00:00 GMT

When IT provisions employees these days, it has to consider that just about anyone of reasonable means and modest technological acumen can go to a Best Buy and digitally suit up.

Thornton May: IT has to set the record on itself straight

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:00:00 GMT

Somehow, it has been branded as an out-of-control spendthrift that has made huge mistakes costing money and competitive advantage.

Thornton May: It's the data, stupid

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 09 May 2011 10:00:00 GMT

Today, it's inexcusable -- if not anachronistic -- for CEOs to make decisions without data.

Thornton May: IT needs to plan for what comes between now and later

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:35:00 GMT

That middle time period, the meso-future, is too often ignored by management teams.

Thornton May: Boundless praise for some of IT's very best

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:00:00 GMT

IT doesn't celebrate its heroes enough. To rectify that, Thornton May is bestowing what he calls the OC-DASS Awards.

Thornton May: Tom Brady, the Patriots and IT expectations

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 11:00:00 GMT

The Patriots are a team with great promise that has been lavished with money, but they failed to perform -- again. Does that remind you of something else?

Thornton May: Peering at the new world of IT work

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:00:00 GMT

The vast majority of executives have never pictured themselves becoming the boss. What does that tell us about today's workplace?

Thornton May: For IT, it's all going to be about processes

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 11:00:00 GMT

IT leaders are expected to anticipate the business's needs, but recent events suggest we often don't know what is actually going on.

Mobility will be massive -- and massively disruptive

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:48:00 GMT

And your response to it will be career-defining.

Get ready for the evolution of IT excellence

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:00:00 GMT

The data we manage is growing far faster than the resources to manage it. That means we have to get an order of magnitude better at what we do.

Why IT planning is broken, and what to do about it

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 20:39:00 GMT

Thornton May laments the state of IT planning today, but he has a plan of his own.

The shape of the IT workforce in 2020

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:00:00 GMT

By the year 2020, says columnist Thornton May, the IT workforce will be drastically altered by cloud labor. Just as servers, storage and desktops have been virtualized, so too will the labor component of IT.

IT's new competency: Getting to 'next'

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:00:00 GMT

IT's view of the future is compressing, and still we're having a hard time planning.

It's past time to drop the CIO stereotypes

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:00:00 GMT

Thornton A. May comes to the defense of CIOs.

IT's human energy crisis

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:00:00 GMT

Thornton May sees a systemic problem in IT: Everyone is exhausted.

Don't underestimate government IT

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:00:00 GMT

Thornton May thinks government IT and the men and women who deliver it have been undervalued for too long.

Opinion: What will post-cloud IT look like?

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 10:00:00 GMT

Thornton May wonders why no one is thinking ahead to the shape of the IT landscape once cloud computing becomes the norm.

Opinion: Are you paying your vendors enough?

thornton@thorntonamay.com (Thornton A. May) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Thornton May thinks a focus on low costs skews our relationships with vendors.