Strategies and Trends for Information Technology Leaders
by Shawn Edmondson, VP of Product Strategy, rPath According to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, IT professionals have very little to worry about when it comes to job security. Aside from healthcare-related services, IT ranks at the very top of nearly every list with respect to long-term job prospects. Macro vs. micro – a…
For some, the role of CIO is the career peak; for others it’s just an outcropping on the side of the mountain. Career advancement for the one is a matter of holding and defending the position. For the other, it’s about anchoring a cam in the next crack of opportunity and muscling past icy obstacles….
Despite the changing role of CIO, one thing remains the same: the CIO is expected to be the king (or queen) of tech knowledge. It just will not do to be ignorant about a new technology the millennials are bringing to work, or slow to address the perennial “adopt or not to adopt” question in…
Nearly every CIO knows the build-a-business-case drill when it comes to validating a new tech buy. Few, however, are aware that they may need to build a business case to secure their job or to move ahead in a promotion. Many erroneously believe simply keeping IT running smoothly will win them recognition for a job…
Last week I spoke with Rich Esposito, IBM VP, IT Strategy and Architecture Services for IBM’s Global Technology Services, on how they were helping IT organizations better prepare to assimilate Cloud computing. In our discussion, I learned something that at first seemed shocking, then funny, then curiously relevant and then simply useful — all within…
It appears CIO jobs are the least satisfying―so sayeth leading surveys and the gossip around many a water cooler. As a result, and despite record unemployment, a large number of currently employed CIOs are out shopping for new opportunities. Since this is hardly a good time to go on a job hunt, what’s driving the…
Being the smartest one in the room is not easy position to be in. In IT you face this situation regularly; especially when you are in a roomful of non-IT people and you need to make progress on a discussion about technology. You know the answer. You get there before everyone else. It is frustrating…
The recession caused plenty of disruption in the overall U.S. workforce and the IT ranks were not an exception. According to a new survey by the Corporate Executive Board, the percentage of IT employees making “high discretionary effort” plummeted in the first half of 2009 to 4.6%, part of a longer-term downward spiral affecting the…
Recently, in speaking with a group of executives who are in transition, I asked a question about how each person approached networking. While there were many similarities, to my surprise there were also varying degrees of doubt about what worked and what didn’t. The conclusion was that networking is more of a learned skill than…
When VF Corp’s Martin Schneider took over as the company’s first global CIO in 2006, he wouldn’t say VF’s IT department was in disarray, but it certainly wasn’t the IT department the company needed. VF, the parent company of such familiar brands as Lee and Wrangler jeans, The North Face outerwear, Majestic (major league baseball…