December 2007

End-of-year Peterisms for the CTO/CIO

One habit I’ve picked up as a CTO/CIO, a habit that usually comes out in the many meetings that make up my work week, is that of leading through aphorism. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a number of pithy sayings that, like the proverbial picture being worth a thousand words, succinctly express key concepts and [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Avoiding the Rubber Stamp maintenance renewal syndrome

As I discussed last time, everything you add to your environment (hardware, software) costs money in recurring fees. Part of the job of the CTO/CIO is to sign dozens of invoices, each and every week, that approve payment for the various elements in your infrastructure that have come up for renewal. And hey, we’re all [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Budgeting maintenance and support for IT

What does IT do, anyway? Well, among other things, IT spends money. In many modern companies, the expenditures made through IT are among the highest in the company, second only to salaries and marketing. What does that mean? It often means that when cost-cutting time comes around (as it tends to do, in cycles, at [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

DWYSYWD: IT and the value of declaring victory

I saw a license plate recently that read DWYSYWD. I puzzled over it for a while (Google wasn’t handy), and then it suddenly flashed on me: Do What You Say You Will Do. I’ve since learned that this is a well-known phrase, used by people such as Colin Powell, among others. How does this relate [...]

3 comments Read the full article →