The CIO Assistant's Blog

Readers of this blog are now familiar with my stance on the Business-IT Alignment issue: that it would take an engagement from both sides and on a level-playing field. This is perhaps the biggest challenge facing the CIOs. Notwithstanding the constant struggle by the CIOs in the executive boardroom, the IT press coverage sometimes doesn’t help by portraying them as really out of touch with Business. Whether this type of reporting is done on purpose – for business reason – or not, I leave it to your judgment.

In the last post (Business-IT Alignment, A Twisted Tale), I’ve told you about an article by the CIO-UK magazine, reporting that Business should “Align with the IT, not the other way around“. This time, it’s about an article by Forrester Research, an influential technology and market research company that provides “pragmatic advice to global leaders in business and technology“.

The article was written by George F. Colony in his The Counterintuitive CEO Blog, with the title CIOs to CEOs: “Stay out of tech.” It was the results of a dinner discussion with 15 CIOs on the question of “How do you raise the tech IQ of your CEO?” You can read the entire article and the comments here, including mine which I reprint here:

“I find it unfortunate that your article raises some misinterpretations by a few. Your question was “How do you raise the tech IQ of your CEO?” (implying that it is a good thing to have).

The answer from the CIOs, and I quote here Bob Gregg, one of the participants, was “I recall our orientation was the CEO needs the ability to comprehend how IT can transform their business, make wise IT investment decisions, and drive business technology implementation.”

To me, that does not require a high Tech IQ, it required a high Business IQ. That also does not say “CEOs: stay out of tech.” as the title of the article suggested.

I would like to here from the other 14 CIOs. Otherwise, it looks like they are being used again as fodder for some controversial discussion, as suggested in my post at: http://tao-of-living.com/2009/07/business-it-alignment-a-twisted-tale/.”

I understand that it’s not easy to distil into less than 300 words the essence of 15 presumably opinionated voices, especially if expressed over a dinner party in Las Vegas. But to jump from a response that the CEOs don’t need to have a high Tech IQ to the conclusion that the CEOs should stay of Tech all together is a pretty strong leap to me.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have the highest respect for Forrester Research, and for George Colony. I don’t envy their difficult and sometimes ungrateful tasks of finding and reporting controversial subjects. However, I find the article title was just a bit too strong. Who in his/her right mind would suggest such a thing? It carries a connotation that CIOs are (again) a bunch of out-of-touch individuals. Maybe some are, I have encountered a few myself, but the majority are not. I presume that the 15 participants to the discussion form part of the latter.

The disquieting fact is that it’s now over a month since the time that the article was published (June 5, 2009), and there was only one “clarification” made by one participant. Where were the other 14? Did they agree with Forrester’s reported statement that CEO’s should “stay out of tech.”? Again, I hope that the explanation is nothing more than the fact that they have other battles to fight than spending time to write a clarification, albeit an important one in my opinion.

Postcripts.- To continue with my “balanced” view, I am happy to find an example of reporting about positive  IT Leadership. This time, it’s about Coca-Cola’s new Freestyle dispenser. I will write about it in an upcoming post.

Related Posts

• Business-IT Alignment, An Enlightened Tale
• Business-IT Alignment, A Twisted Tale
• Business-IT, Aligned?