The CIO and integrity: this shouldn’t be hard, folks

Surprising and disturbing IT-related news crossed my Twitter feed last night: a well-known CIO is being sued for alleged fraud by his former firm. Allegations are that this senior executive received kickbacks from vendors that he helped connect to the company where he served as CIO and vice president.

My purpose here isn’t to comment on this individual case; it’s now in the courts, information is still sketchy about the details, and I feel that people are entitled to a presumption of innocence while the various legal actions run their course. As Forbes columnist Ben Kepes wrote, though, this is “one for the ‘we knew these things happened but tried not to know about it’ department.” Update as of December, 2021: a conviction and sentencing in the courts).

So let’s broaden the topic to the overall issue of CIO ethics and integrity, particularly with respect to financial matters. As I’ve written before, the head of technology for many companies (certainly all the firms I’ve worked for) stands at the rudder of a very large portion of the overall “spend” for that company. IT infrastructure and systems spending, taken broadly, is often the second-highest category, after salaries, for total annual outlay for a company. The responsibility involved for the senior IT executive cannot be overstated.

HT @marciamarcia

Often when I’ve come into a new CTO/CIO position, I’ve discovered, over the course of the natural “archaeology” that one performs in such a situation, highly questionable business deals cut by my predecessors with outside vendors. I’ve raised my eyebrows and, yes, even occasionally shouted a bit at the incomprehensibility of various vendor arrangements I’ve inherited.

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

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 with what I’ve written before on this all-important topic:

  • It’s critical for the IT executive to “keep his or her hand in” by doing some hands-on work and experimentation with new technologies
  • Your purpose in doing this hands-on work is not to become a viable technical resource in the area, but rather to get some deeper understanding than you’d obtain by just reading an article or two.

As mentioned in the article, I estimate that I spend 5-10 hours a month doing this kind of hands-on dabbling, sometimes with more success than others.  Let’s look at the kinds of things I do, large and small:

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

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 out there than any of us can learn, and new technologies come along all the time.  Truly staying current, at a reasonable depth level, would be a more-than-full-time job.

Here’s how I’ve come to grips with that basic reality. These remarks are most relevant to the executive level, but to some extent they apply across the spectrum of roles in IT.
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