Carl:

Saw your comments on the Forrester site and decided to look you up. I strongly reject George's notion of the CIO as teacher/mentor. Surely we are way beyond that in the evolution of the CIO. I was a CIO in the GE organization a while back. I think the CIO if he/she has the nerve and talent can absolutely drive innovation in the organization. He/she has an understanding of both business and technology. However, the key ingredient for the CIO or any C-level officer is credibility built on results and most importantly strong relationships with his/her peers on the senior exec team. Yes, technology fairs are useful and organizations have been doing this for years, but relaionship building trumps this approaqch in importance.This is especially true when things go wrong (outage of critical retail terminals/project delays etc).

So let's not go backwards. If there is an obvious opportunity for innovation there's no reason for the chief innovation officer (oops) to be shy. Step up and lead the charge.
Geoff Relph | Homepage | 03.19.07 - 2:20 am | #