CIO’s Role in Social Business-What you can do Today

Dateline: September 13, 2013

Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.

Social business is increasing, not decreasing, in importance for CIOs.  We’ve discussed the CIO’s role in social business in several blog posts (see here, here and here for some of this discussion).  Recently, the former editor of eWEEK and executive editorial manager of eWEEK Labs, Donna Donston-Miller, shared her thoughts on how CIOs can show social business mettle.  She suggested 5 very actionable things you can do now to support social business success in your organization:

1. Leverage Your Bird’s-Eye View… With their big-picture knowledge of the technology in the organization, CIOs and IT execs can work with the business side to implement social business tools in a flexible yet concerted and integrated way.

2.  Flex Your Marketing Muscle. (Go talk with your marketing colleagues, and open the door when they come to talk with you.)  Indeed, in many companies, marketing people are moving into IT and/or IT people are moving into marketing.

3.  Express Yourself….CIOs and tech executives are well-positioned to produce content that promotes the company’s effective use of technology, as well as to provide guidance on the technologies that are most meaningful to your industry.

4. Push Compliance Role. In highly regulated industries such as healthcare and finance, technology must be very thoughtfully considered. This is an area in which CIOs and IT executives can play an especially important role.

5.  Define Metrics of Success. There’s an old saying that goes, “What’s measured matters, and what matters is measured.” That makes sense, but it can be easier said than done when it comes to social business initiatives. CIOs and IT executives can play a huge role in helping the business define what matters and how to measure it, based on the technology being used and for what purposes.

How will you support the social business activities of your organization? What will you do today to help move the needle?

That’s a WRAP!  Have a nice weekend!

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