App Think Tank: The skills the CIO of the future needs

April 24, 2014

This is last video on the topic of CIO and IT skills needed for success.  It, like the previous two, was taken from the think tank Dell Services hosted earlier this year in Silicon Valley.  It  features Jay Ferro, CIO, American Cancer Society and Barry Libenson, SVP and CIO,  Safeway.

Both Jay and Barry agree that the CIO of the future will need very different  skills than today but they differ on how much technical knowledge he or she will need.  As Jay says, “I don’t need to understand the nuance of the digestive system to know how to eat.”  Take a listen.

Business first

I would say that now, as in the future, the CIO and IT in general need to be business people first, and technologists second.  And the same goes for other functions as well whether you’re marketing or finance or HR, you need to be business people first.

Stay tuned

Next week I will have five videos from the think tank that all focus on software and applications.

The Think Tank, Sessions one and two

  • Think Tank Session 1– Welcome to the application-centric world – best practices in the ‘greenfield’
  • Think tank Session 2– Nexus of forces – CIOs under pressure and the rise of the enterprise developer

Extra-credit reading (previous videos)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: The skills and people IT needs most

April 22, 2014

Yesterday I featured the first of three videos that tackle the topic — the skills CIOs and IT need for success.  Today’s video features Ranga Jayaraman, Associate Dean and CIO of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford.

Ranga responds to the question, how would you set up your IT environment today if you had the luxury of starting completely afresh.  With regards to the people and skills he would assemble, Ranga talks about the importance of IT people who understand the business and can act quickly.  He also discusses the difference between developers in an IT shop and those in a product shop and how open source and reusable frameworks have served to make the IT developer much more powerful.  Take a listen.

Ranga’s right

I would say whether your starting from a greenfield environment or improving on your current set up that Ranga is right, you need IT people who understand the business and not just the technology.   Its no longer ok to simply be a tech expert, its about what’s most important for the customer and business and being able to move and adapt quickly.  These messages will continue to crop up as we go through the rest of videos.

These videos were taken from a think tank Dell Services held back in January in Silicon Valley which featured a panel representative of old school and new school companies, big and small.

Still to come

Later this week, I will have the last video on this initial topic, What the CIO of the future must do.  Next weeks’ series will focus on the topic Applications and software strategy and the week after that I will conclude with Cloud and Infrastructure thoughts.

The Think Tank, Sessions one and two

  • Think Tank Session 1– Welcome to the application-centric world – best practices in the ‘greenfield’
  • Think tank Session 2– Nexus of forces – CIOs under pressure and the rise of the enterprise developer

Extra-credit reading (previous videos)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: IT is facing competition for the first time ever

February 4, 2014

Here is the second video snippet from the Think Tank that Dell Services held the week before last.  At the event we assembled 10 panelists representing both old school and new school organizations and discussed the challenges of the new app-centric world.

The short clip below features Barry Libenson, CIO of Safeway, Luke Kanies, CEO of Puppet Labs and Jay Ferro, CIO of the American Cancer Society.  The three men talk about the pressure IT is under these days as consumerization drives up expectations and shadow IT has crept in.

Videos still to come

  •  The persistently, ubiquitously connected to the network era
  •  The web of C level relationships

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Consumerization: setting the bar for IT

January 28, 2014

Mark Stouse of BMC has asked various people in the industry to answer seven short questions for his series Marking Predictions for 14.  The questions are around Cloud Computing, Big Data and Consumerization.

To give you a taste of what I was thinking about, here is my response to the second question and why I think Consumerization is a big deal:

Cloud Computing, Big Data or Consumerization: which trend do you feel is having the most impact on IT today and why?

Consumerization, because it sets the bar for how technology should look and be designed.  Workers want technology in the workplace that is as easy to use and intuitive as the consumer applications and tech products they use at home.  Consumerization has set a high bar for IT but one that I believe will ultimately benefit all involved through greater adoption, satisfaction and productivity.

You can see my complete responses on Mark’s blog and learn, among other things, why I think Tony Stark is like big data.

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George