From the category archives:

Personal

Fits and starts: staying “tech savvy” as a CIO

November 9, 2009

Just a quick, personal post this time: I was recently interviewed by CIO Magazine on the topic of “How CIOs Can Stay Tech-Savvy“.  Since (as is normal) only a portion of my conversation with the reporter actually made it into the article, I thought I’d expand briefly on the topic here.
My remarks were two-fold, consistent [...]

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On Twitter, if you follow back reflexively, the spammers win

September 13, 2009

Are you among those who believe that if you don’t follow someone back on Twitter, you’re being snobby and arrogant?  Then this post is meant for you. My purpose here, quite candidly, is to persuade you that reflexively following someone back is not only a habit which encourages spam, but is in fact a major [...]

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“Getting” Twitter, from the technology executive’s perspective

April 7, 2009

I don’t want this to be just another post about Twitter, the current hot trend of the Internet.  Rather, I’d like to relate this new Twitter fad to a long-planned important topic here.
Specifically, what can we in technology do to keep current and stay up-to-speed on our various areas of interest and expertise? There’s more [...]

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Mantra for IT: “Participate in the process rather than confront results”

November 4, 2008

Let’s sail into a stretch of a metaphor this time. You probably know by now how much I embrace metaphors as a way to impart, often via a concrete example, ideas and concepts that are hard to grasp. So let’s go way back and talk about a metaphorical influence from long ago.
When I was in [...]

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More astounding IT utterances

August 15, 2008

A few months back, I wrote a post on various “Astounding Sayings” that I’ve encountered in my career in information technology.  It turns out that it’s been one of the more popular posts I’ve written, judging from page views, so in true Hollywood fashion, it must be time for a sequel.  I am retitling it [...]

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“Astounding IT sayings”: the inaugural post

May 5, 2008

I haven’t given myself the luxury of telling an IT anecdote or two here recently, so it’s about time: here are two, with moral-of-the-story observations for each.  Note: these are true stories.  I may have changed some of the facts, lightly, to make them less identifiable.  They’re also always at least several years in the [...]

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Climbing the ladder to CIO/CTO: a biographical sketch from eWeek

April 30, 2008

Another heads-up to readers: I was recently interviewed by eWeek for my thoughts on the difference between mid-market CIOs and enterprise CIOs.  As these things sometimes go, the interview turned into more of a discussion of career path and how you climb to executive ranks in IT.  I’ve written about this topic before, but if [...]

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CIO pet peeves: small drains on personal productivity

March 26, 2008

I promised a while back to write more about some of the pet peeves I’ve developed in the CIO/CTO role. So here are a few more.
We all have pet peeves. Working as an executive in IT seems to present a lot of opportunities to develop a long list of these. They’re minor grievances, to [...]

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