IT Leaders and IT Managers

Dateline: August 14, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Leaders and managers - both are critical roles for successful IT organizations.  In my leadership development programs a must read is business guru John Kotter's classic HBR article on the topic.  But more recently, I noticed a popular blogpost on LinkedIn's Pulse site written … [Read more...]

The Delicate Path of Managing Legacy Systems

Dateline: August 7, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. 'Legacy systems' is not a dirty term, but it may seem so.  Recently, Michael Krigsman, a popular ZDNet blogger on IT Project Failures, wrote a thoughtful piece about how CIOs must lead their companies through the delicate path of managing legacy systems, since they get in the way … [Read more...]

Leading Digital Transformation

Dateline: July 24, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Our organizations are continually transforming, and today the catalyst is the digital opportunities that crop up daily in our world.  Recently the Sloan Management Review published research on Transforming the Digital Enterprise done by MIT researchers and Deloitte Digital.  The … [Read more...]

Civility and the CIO

Dateline: July 17, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. We spend lots of time with our workers, some of whom are a pleasure to work with, and others..well not so much.  Recently the New York Times published a thought provoking opinion from journalist Christine Porath titled No Time to be Nice at Work that explored this subject.  She … [Read more...]

CIO’s Role in Responding Instantly: The Remix Era

Dateline: July 10, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. The only certainty about the future is that it will be different than the present.  How good is your organization at responding to it's changing environment?  Historically, we've seen many examples of companies who notice a change but can't respond in time.  Or, as Professor Benn … [Read more...]

Provider, Promoter, Partner, or Peer

  Dateline: July 3, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Business relationship management has a critical role in helping IT leaders build the best capabilities possible for working with their business partners.   Recently, the CSC Leading Edge Forum published a blog titled, Why is Business Relationship Management so Important … [Read more...]

What CIOs can Learn From Nordstrom’s Digital Transformation

Dateline: June 19, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Retail giant Nordstrom's has undergoing a digital transformation.  Researchers Jeanne Ross, Cynthia Beath and Ina Sebastian from the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) published an article in the Harvard Business Review titled, Why Nordstrom's Digital Strategy … [Read more...]

The Brand of Your IT Department

Dateline: June 12, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. This week's idea is functional branding...the reputation your IT organization has in your business.  Doron Gordon, an entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Samanage, a provider of cloud-based IT service  management systems, wrote about functional branding in a blog at … [Read more...]

Bots or Humans?

Dateline: June 5, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. A recent article at Information Week, Bots Outpace Humans Online, reported on a study by Distil Networks that humans were responsible for only 41% of the traffic online.  Good bots, those who add value to the site, and bad bots make up the rest. In 2013, human beings were … [Read more...]

The Value of an Analytics Competency

Dateline: May 8, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Understanding the value your analytics investment bring to your organization is a complex matter.  Recently, I ran across a short summary at INFORMS of the different areas that might be included in the value calculation: Big data Finding hidden clues to improve customer … [Read more...]