Its fun to talk to new people…especially when they are receptive to the story you are telling and when that story is authentic.

When the story is real and right, people listen. When the story has holes or isn’t backed up by facts and experience, people tend to stop listening – or worse – never start to listen.

I sat through quite a few meetings this week and it was clear after about 30 seconds that the story that we were telling was interesting.  We were peppered with questions. We were asked about deliverables, schedules and processes.

Contrast that with other meetings where the story isn’t heard.  You spill out your story to blank faces and glazed-over eyes.  You try to connect with the people in the room but nothing works.  You continue talking but never connect. Why? Well…it could be that you suck at storytelling and presentations…or your story sucks.   Or…you are presenting to a room full of mannequins.

How can you know that your story is right?  How will you be sure people will listen?

You can’t be sure…but with practice and refinement, you can get close. Ask for feedback from friends, neighbors, colleagues and clients.   You’ve also got to take the time to make sure that you story is worth telling.

That said, I think most stories have an audience. One of the hardest things to do is find that audience…but once you do, practice the story.  Get the story right and people will  listen.

But…be careful to not take advantage of that audience. Make sure you can deliver on that story. Make sure you don’t change the story in mid-stream either.  There’s nothing worse than believing in a story (or person) and then finding out half-way toward the destination that it was a big fat lie.    Remember…you want to tell a story of truth…not one of fiction.

Once people listen, watch out…because things will start lining up in your favor then. Whether you;re selling SEO services, photography, technology consulting or widgets…get the story right and people will listen.

Image Credit: listen closely By twenty_questions on flickr

…except…they aren’t in the same bar.

They made plans to meet at Good Time Charlies on Monday.   You know – the CMO and CIO are best friends now so its time to go have a few drinks together, right?

They agree on a time and day and schedule the happy hour together in their calendar.

On Monday, the CIO leaves the office and drives over to Good Time Charlies on the east side of town.

The CMO leaves a few minutes after the CIO and heads off to to Good Time Charlies as well. Except…she goes to the new Good Time Charlies on the West side of town.

Kind of sounds like most organizations today, no?  Lots of talk about where they are going, but no real planning or clear communications about the actual destination.

The CIO and CMO want to be friends. They want to work together. They want to do the right thing.

But…are they on the same ‘page’ when it comes what needs to be done?   If not, you’ll end up just like our CIO and CMO above – in different places waiting for the other.

Are the goals of the CIO and CMO well articulated and understood?  Sure…each person understands their own goals, but does the CIO understand the goals of the CMO and vice versa?

Do the CIO and CMO communicate regularly? Do they meet regularly one-on-one?

CIO’s – do you know what the goals of the CMO and marketing group are?  Do you understand them? Do you understand how the IT group can help with those goals?

CMO’s – do you understand the goals of the CIO and IT group?  Do you understand how your team can work together with IT go ensure your goals and their goals are met?

Its very easy to say that the CIO and CMO are working closer together and will be doing so for years to come…but without clear goals and an agreed upon strategy, they may not actually be doing the best work possible.

Forget whether the work is the best possible work…without clear goals, strategy and regular communications, the CIO and CMO may end up at completely different destinations.

Image Credit: direction signs By emreterok on flickr

I think this is a good thing…as long as this is ‘true love’ and not just infatuation between two groups that are starting to have to work closer together to get things done.

As many of my regular readers may recall, I’ve written about the CMO and CIO working closely together in the past.. for a few examples – see here, here, here and here.

Recently, other’s have been picking up the cheer for a closer relationship between marketing and IT.    A few examples:

• A recent Adage article titled Friends With (Digital) Benefits: CMOs Link With CIOs
• A CMO.com article titled ‘We’re All CMOs And CIOs’: CMO.com Speaks With Aprimo CMO Lisa Arthur’
• A Forbes article titled CIO & CMO: Driving Business Value in the Age of the Customer
• And of course…the godfather of of the space – Scott Brinker…who’s been writing about the topic just about as long as anyone else out there.  Scott writes a good piece titled The new three-way: CIO, CMO & Agency.

The above articles are great…Jump over and read ‘em.

But.  (there’s always a but!)

In order to make this new love affair between IT and Marketing work long term, there needs to be some serious buy-in from the other senior leaders. Without a clear agenda being set for the CIO and IT to outlines their role as the organization’s technology consultants and governance professionals AND a clear agenda set as to the role of the CMO and the Marketing team in these technology projects, this love affair is doomed to failure.

Think back in time to other relationships between IT and other parts of the business.  Think HR technology, finance technology, ecommerce projects…etc etc etc.

What’s generallly occured in these projects?  Have they all be successfull or have the generally failed?  What’s happened to the relationships between IT, HR and Finance after a PeopleSoft implementation or a large ecommerce rollout?

Generally…and I’m speaking from experience here….these relationships sour quickly once the projects kick off.

Why?

Because the IT group begins to feel like their ‘turf’ is being taken away from them. And….the other team (be it HR, Finance or Marketing) begins to feel like they are being constrained by all the “processes” being enforced by IT.

Will CIO’s start to feel like the CMO is usurping their ‘control’ of enterprise IT? Will the CMO feel like the CIO is trying to ‘own’ all technology without input and feedback from marketing?

A Love Affair….or puppy Love?

Anecdotal evidence of some cracks starting to show in this CIO / CMO love affair can be found in a blog post titled Irreparable Cracks in the CMO-CIO Relationship? where the author reports on feedback received at the recent Dreamforce ’11 conference.  That feedback doesn’t bode well…CIO’s are feeling threatened by the CMO – and vice versa.

So…is this new-found love real or just puppy love? Are the CIO and CMO really in it for the long haul, or are they just feeling the same infatuation that teenagers feel during their formative years?

In order for this new-found love yo grow into something real, there must be a true level of trust built between the two people and teams.  Both teams need to understand the roles and responsibilities of the other teams and people.

In addition, the CEO needs to clearly define the roles of the CIO and CMO in this new digital marketing world. If the CMO is to be responsible for portions of their own technology roadmap, that needs to be outlined and worked out so that the CIO and IT staff understand this and can provide the appropriate guidance and consulting to make these marketing technology projects successful.

We can talk about the rise of the CMO and Marketing Technology professionals all day…but without proper guidance and buy-in from the CIO, CEO and CMO, this love won’t last…and may turn to downright hatred.

CIO’s and CMO’s – if you want your love to move from the ‘puppy love’ stage of infatuation to a real, long term, love – make sure you work on the soft-skills. Work on the trust between yourselves and your teams. Work on roles and responsibilities. Work on the core competencies of each team.

Right now, the CIO and CMO are holding hands walking down the hall way just like two teenagers in love. But real love takes hard work….let’s hope the IT and Marketing teams are up to the effort to turn this new-found puppy love into a real, long term relationship.

Image Credit: Love ? I love love love you. By doug88888 on flickr

Initially, I wanted to believe the author was asking whether the CIO should head up marketing technology, but I  don’t think that’s what the author was asking. I really do believe he was proposing that the the CIO lead marketing. In other words…should the CIO also be the CMO.  Note: a thought has crossed my mind that the article was written as link bait…and it worked.

Even thought marketers use technology a great deal today, marketing is about much more than technology.  We talk a lot about the CIO and the IT group being more business focused, but this is more than business focused…this is the CIO taking over a completely new function.

Now….I come from the world of IT. I grew up in telecom and IT and am a technologist….but I know enough to know that there are very few CIO’s who would want the role of CMO. Even more, I don’t know many CIO’s that have the skill-set to be a CMO.

The marketing group in most organizations is a technology driven organization.  The CIO and the CMO should be close…but I think the two roles and groups are just too different to say that a CIO should also be the CMO…or vice versa…the CMO take on the role of the CIO.

How many IT professionals would be happy with the news that the CMO was taking on the role of the CIO?   Very very few. There would probably be a mutiny if that were to happen. So why, then, would an IT professional think the CIO should take over the marketing group and functions?

IT and Marketing are different functions with different foci.  Sure…marketing teams are becoming more technology-centric, but that doesn’t mean that marketing does what IT does nor vice versa. Just because a CIO and the IT team helps marketing with their technology and technology efforts, that doesn’t make the CIO a marketer.

The CIO has as much business being in charge of the marketing group as the head of the facilities team has being in charge of the finance group.

Think of it this way – you helped the local hospital implement a technology system for the Operating Room.  You spend days, weeks and months working on that system.  You know it inside and out….you are the expert at the system that the doctors and nurses use while the OR. In your time working on the system, you’ve picked up some terminology from the doctors/nurses and you’ve even watched a few surgeries.    You become very comfortable talking about the OR, surgeries and the OR technology platform.  But….does that mean you should declare yourself a doctor and start operating? No.  You’d be laughed at, fired and perhaps even put in jail.

So…the answer to the question Should the CIO lead Marketing? is a resounding NO.

Image Credit: no By the|G|™ on flickr

A new CIO joins the company. He’s not completely new to the organization but he is new to the role and a new employee. Previously, he’d been running a couple of projects for an outsourced ‘partner’ within the organization and had ingratiated himself with the leadership team. They liked what he did and offered him the role of CIO.

The new CIO started reaching out to the organization to see how he could help. One of the first groups he spoke to was the marketing group.

A meeting was set between the CIO and the main people within marketing.  The CIO told the marketing group that he’d loved to work with them and do whatever was needed.  They mentioned the various changes and development efforts they’d been trying to get done within their content management system and were told he’d absolutely support them with as many resources as needed.

In addition to promising support and offering resources,  he cautioned against doing things outside the process.  He cautioned the marketing group on following the proper processes to get new websites and new technology implemented.  He cautioned against trying to lead the way with their own technology.

He used the line that we’ve all heard (and some of us have said)…he said “IT is hear to help, but remember – IT owns the technology, Marketing owns the content“.

The meeting ended well. The marketing group felt like they’d be able to work with this CIO and the CIO felt like he’d made real progress.

Fast forward a few weeks.

The marketing group needed to get a new website live.  They reached out to the IT group to get a resource assigned to build out the necessary containers for the new website in the content management system.

They were told that no resources were available now but that they should be able to get to the project in the next month.   A month delay in the project wasn’t necessarily that bad so they waited.

And waited.

The next month arrived and the marketing team was told that there were still no resources. And there wouldn’t be any for a few months.

So…what did the marketing team do?

The marketing group leadership went to the CIO to ask for help.  He wasn’t available to meet but promised resources asap.

But no resources were assigned.

So…the marketing group did what they had to do.  They had a deadline that they had to meet. They setup a website on their own using an externally hosted web server using open source software. They designed the site, filled it with content and turned it live within 2 weeks.

From all accounts, the new website was a hit…it did what the marketing group (and their target clients) needed it to do. And it was done without the promised help of the CIO & IT.

Fast forward a few weeks.

The CIO called another meeting with the marketing group.

This time the CIO wasn’t cordial. This time he was confrontational.  He was angry that the marketing group ‘went around’ IT. He was angry that they didn’t use the organization’s content management system for the new website.  He was angry that marketing rolled out a new project technology and his IT group wasn’t leading the charge.

The CIO talked about the need to standardize technologies. He talked about the need to follow process. He talked about the need to let IT lead technology initiatives.

The marketing team responded to the angry CIO in a like manner.  They talked about the lack of support and lack of resources. They shared the timelines and requests for IT support and the lack of that support.  They shared their frustration and feelings of no support from IT.

The CIO agreed that things could have been done better and he promised to improve things in the future. He talked about improving the processes in place to ensure marketing is supported.  He mentioned hiring additional resources too.

And the CIO reiterated the need for Marketing to let the IT group run and manage technology.  He reiterated the mantra of “IT owns the technology, Marketing owns the content.”

Fast forward a few more weeks.

The marketing group needed to make some changes to one of their major websites.  They needed some major functional changes and needed IT support.   This new project needed to be a quick turn too as the new functionality needed to be released within a month to coincide with a new marketing campaign.

They went to the IT group and followed the process outlined by the CIO but were told it would be 2 months before IT resources could be freed up for their new project.

The marketing team was furious.  They had to have this new functionality live in a month.  What did they do?

They did what they had to do….they hired an outside consultant to come in and make the necessary changes to the website.  They had to sneak these changes around the IT group’s production code change process – but that wasn’t hard to do.

They got their needed changes made and were happy.

Fast forward to the present

The CIO is still promising to help marketing…but he’s unable to deliver.  He’s unable to deliver the project resources needed by the marketing group.

The marketing group has completely stopped talking to the IT group about any new technology projects. They’ve hired their own agency to act as their development arm.

The CIO and IT group are furious at the marketing group and are trying to get the CEO to ‘force’ marketing to come back in-house and use IT for all technology initiatives.

Both teams are at an impasse. They can’t understand the other’s needs.  They can’t understand how to work together.  They are now fighting against each other for resources and ‘control’.

I’m not sure how the story will play out in the end, but I suspect the marketing team will come out ahead since the future of this organization is squarely on the shoulders of their marketing efforts.

Great story, right?

I thought it was.

Stories like this play out every day between IT and Marketing. There are many reasons for these types of events, but the main reasons can be summed up with the following points.

1. Committing before understanding.  The CIO completely over-committed to the marketing group without really taking the time to understand their needs.
2. Failing to plan.  Neither the CIO nor the marketing team did much real planning. The marketing group didn’t provide =enough time for the IT group to bring the marketing projects into the IT project portfolio to ensure proper planning.  The CIO failed to ensure that his promises to the IT group were considered and included in IT project plans.
3. Failure to communicate. The CIO and Marketing leadership stopped talking.  Communication is key.
4. I vs You / IT vs Marketing.   The CIO led the relationship off with the “I own the technology, you own the content” mentality.  This immediately puts people into the mode of picking a ‘side’…maybe its subconscious, but it happens.  No longer is there and “I” and a “you”…there’s only room for ‘we’ within today’s organizations.
5. Confronting rather than Understanding.  Once the CIO heard about the marketing group going ‘rogue’, he confronted them.  He then promised to solve the problem (and failed).   Rather than confronting, try understanding.

Next time you find yourself working with another group, think about this story and the issues I outlined above.  Can you find ways to work better with your coworkers and colleagues?  Can you communicate better? Perhaps understand the needs of the IT group better?

What can IT and Marketing do to work better together?  What changes can IT make to better support marketing? What changes can marketing make to work better with IT?

These are questions that face every company today…what are we doing to answer them?

Image Credit: Versus 2004 By magnacasta on flickr

Those eight words are shared every single day between an IT professional and a Marketing professional. Some conversation occurs and the CIO tells the CMO “I own the technology, you own the content”.

What the CIO means is fairly simple..and understandable too. The IT group ‘owns’ the technology. They ‘own’ the security and they ‘own’ the data.  That’s the fact of life…and, in fact, that’s the way it should be.   Does any marketing professional out there really want to find themselves at the center of a data breach like what’s been reported at Epsilon recently? I doubt it.

Let’s leave the ‘ownership’ of security, privacy, data and technology in the hands of the IT professionals where it belongs.  That’s their job…that’s their livelihood.

But…let’s make sure that ‘ownership’ doesn’t hinder the ability of the marketing group to do their job. Let’s make sure that the ‘ownership’ doesn’t mean ‘hands off’.

When a marketing professional hears “I own the technology, you own the content”, what they’re really hearing is “let me worry about how it is going to work, you just make it pretty and add the words“.  Now…nothing wrong with that, per se, but I can tell from my many years of working within Marketing teams/groups, that the comment is pretty condescending.

Why condescending? Simple….it makes it seem like a marketing professional can’t understand technology. It also makes it clear that they aren’t capable of managing technology nor should they try.

For you IT pro’s out there…think of it this way:

How would you feel if you were told by the marketing team that you could no longer write your own emails?  You own the technology, Marketing owns the content…right?  From now on…you can only open your email message but you cannot type anything….you’ve got to wait for the marketing team to add your new email text to their busy schedule. They’ll write it for you and once ‘approved’, you can hit ‘send’.

Pretty ridiculous, wouldn’t you say?   Maybe…but think about it. How long would you have to wait to get someone from your marketing team to write each email for you?  How much would that slow you down in your daily activities? It would slow you down quite a bit, no?

If your job depended on your responding to email – and we all know IT professionals spend a considerable amount of time in their email – wouldn’t you do whatever you need to do to get your email ‘typed’?  Maybe find an outside email writer? Maybe just do it yourself?

Sure…this is a silly way to look at things…but it really is a good example of what marketing professionals (and other non-IT professionals) put up with daily…they have a job to do and, if they can’t get their IT staff to help, they’ll look elsewhere (or do it themselves). While marketing waits for new features and functionality from IT, they may just be unable to do their job.  Perhaps they start looking for other approaches. Perhaps they start reaching out to cloud services to get their job done. Perhaps they start their own Shadow IT initiatives. Perhaps the marketing group outsources the entire marketing technology platform.

And it all starts with a simple, statement of “I own the technology, you own the content”.

Next time, rather than using “I” and “You” next time…how about using “we”?

How about changing the statement to be more along the lines of  “we’d love to help…let’s figure out how to put the right technology in place to meet your needs”…or ‘we have the technology in place, let’s figure out how to get the marketing team up to speed on using it”.

Marketing is much more than just throwing words on a webpage…there’s data, there’s video, there’s technology embedded in technology embedded in marketing.   Technology is enabling marketing, which is enabling more technology.  Get where I’m going here? (hint:  more technology = more opportunities for technology professionals)

Stop using ‘I’ and ‘You”.  Stop thinking in terms of “us” versus “them”….IT and marketing are linked at the hip these days so we better start thinking about ‘we’ more when talking to marketing.

Image Credit: Working Together Teamwork Puzzle Concept By lumaxart on flickr

One key area that interests me is around content management and content management systems. I’ve worked with a lot of them in the past and my two favorites right now are WordPress and Sitecore.  WordPress is a no-brainer for individuals, small businesses and is a very good platform for medium / large businesses with a bent toward open source software / LAMP.

For those organizations that have a .NET focus, Sitecore has done well for itself over the last few years and is great for those businesses some money to spend for Sitecore licenses and development efforts.

Lately, I’ve been hearing from friends and colleagues that Sharepoint 2010 is being hailed as the next great content management system (and/or collaboration platform and/or search platform and/or …). Of course, those touting that are Microsoft and their sales / partnership channel for the most part.  I say that partly in jest, but also because I haven’t found many developers, content specialist or marketing person to echo that statement…none have been impressed with Sharepoint as a pure Content Management System (CMS). Does this mean Sharepoint as a CMS is bad? No…just means that its features haven’t been enjoyed by end-users.

For those of you out there with any history in IT, you’ll know that Sharepoint has been around for quite some time and there have been many iterations and foci of this platform. Its a document management system, a work-flow system, intranet system, security management system and has been used for much more.  The new 2010 version is being touted as “collaboration software for the enterprise” by Microsoft….which isn’t a bad marketing approach.

Sharepoint is a great platform for collaboration and community. I’ve seen some wonderful systems built for those functions….but is it a great content management system? Can it really compete with pure CMS platforms like Sitecore?

Sharepoint 2010′s new content management features are impressive, but anyone with experience can see these new features for what they are – a classic Sharepoint reorganization and reuse of functionality plus some new features to bring out this ‘new’ CMS  functionality.  I don’t mean this in a bad way…this is one of the strengths of Sharepoint…it can do most anything.

Sitecore, on the other hand, is built to be a CMS from the ground up. There’s no pretense that Sitecore is anything more than a CMS.  That’s why I like it so much. Is the product perfect? Nope…but no product is.

So…which is better as a CMS….Sitecore or Sharepoint?

For a pure content management system, I’d pick Sitecore hands down. The system is built to be a Content Management System and has a focus on communications & marketing.  Sitecore is focused on delivering content to external audiences and improving insight into website visitors and user experience via new products like the Sitecore Online Marketing Suite.

Of course, Sharepoint can be used as a CMS and is now being touted as one, but I currently find it hard to recommend Sharepoint solely on its CMS capabilities alone.  Of course, very few IT shops are going to look at Sharepoint for a CMS only…most are already using Sharepoint for other functionality like internal collaboration, document management, security, etc and their focus may soon move to using Sharepoint for external focused content delivery.

I’ve implemented Sitecore and Sharepoint and used both products.  I like some things about Sharepoint and some things about Sitecore.

So…how do you choose between the two?  I’ll never tell a client or company that one technology or platform is better than another…but I do like to point out differences.  Here’s a quick list of things that I would think about when choosing between the two products:

• For an external content focus, choose Sitecore.
• For a marketing driven platform, choose Sitecore.
• For a platform to customize the web user experience based on non-authenticated users, choose Sitecore (and the Sitecore OMS)
• For an internal content focus with enterprise level security requirements,  choose Sharepoint
• For a collaboration platform, choose Sharepoint
• For an IT driven platform, choose Sharepoint

Some IT shops will argue Sharepoint should be chosen over Sitecore for some of the above reasons (namely security for content delivery, etc) – but those arguments can be countered easily with Sitecore’s extensibility and features.  I can plug modules in that allow me to use the same security systems that Sharepoint uses.  Of course, there are modules that can be plugged into Sharepoint to get different/more functionality as well

At the end of the day, comparing Sitecore and Sharepoint as CMS platforms is like comparing apples and oranges – they are different products targeted at different uses.  Sharepoint can (and is) used as a CMS – but Sitecore has a more robust CMS feature set for marketers.

If you are looking for a .NET based CMS, either product will work – but right now, I would lean toward  Sitecore when looking for a pure CMS that provides fast development times, stable platform and ease of use for non-technical content creators.

Of course, each organization is different…don’t take my word for it…check out both products and run them through your technology selection process to determine which is best for you.

Image Credit: Apples & Oranges – They Don’t Compare By TheBusyBrain on flickr

In CIO’s vs CMO’s – what’s the real problem?, I looked at some of the issues that exist between CIO’s and CMO’s and wondered what could be causing the problems that have existed between the IT group and Marketing. In that article, I came to the conclusion that everything can be boiled down to two main areas that are currently lacking: Communications  & Leadership.

Why these two areas?

Well…based on survey results of CIO’s and CMO’s where both believe they own and drive digital strategy.  For a recap, those results, as shared previously, are:

58% of CIO’s / IT Executives said they were leading the digital agenda at their company.

69% of the CMO’s / Marketing Executives said that they were leading the digital agenda.

Bit of an issue with those numbers, don’t you think?

So…why would the majority of CIO’s and CMO’s believe they owned the ‘digital agenda’?  In the previous article, I looked at the goals / projects for each role and saw that, for the most part, they augment each other nicely.

That being the case, there can be only two reasons for this disconnect.  The lack of communications between the CMO, CIO and other management and the lack of leadership at the CMO, CIO, COO and/or CEO level.

Think about it…if everyone was communicating…you wouldn’t have the diametric positions above where CIO’s and CMO’s both believe they are leading the digital agenda.

Same can be said of leadership.  Somebody within these organizations has to be setting goals and direction for the organization. Part of the responsibility of leadership is to ensure everyone knows their role and responsibilities.

How do you fix the issue though?

I wish it was as simple sitting both people and their teams in a room and saying ‘discuss’….but obviously, it isn’t.

Why is that?  Well..from my experiences…its because both the CIO and CMO (and to some extent the CEO/COO) talk completely different languages.  Some have said that its the responsibility of the CIO / IT group to learn to communicate with the business.  While I agree, I also think that the ‘business’ should take some time to learn to communicate with IT.

The leadership problem is a much larger one to solve because it touches on many different issues, such as culture, leadership styles and organizational strategy…but it must be addressed.

While I don’t necessarily have answers to how to fix these missing links between the CMO and CIO, I do have some experience first-hand…and maybe from my experiences, a few nuggets of knowledge can be gleaned.

Read on for an example of how poor leadership and lack of communication caused a major project to fail, wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted, and created an environment that stopped any form of social media projects from occurring for years to come.

Building a Private Social Network – learning from mistakes

Before we continue with this example, it should be stated that no one person was responsible for the mistakes outlined…these mistakes and failures were born out of poor organizational culture.

On with the example.

While working on a CMS Implementation project for a large non-profit, I was asked if I’d be interested in helping out on a new project to build a social networking platform for this non-profit.  I was intrigued with the idea and agreed to help out.

My initial thought was that the marketing group had kicked this project off….but I soon realized it was strictly an IT project being spearheaded by the CIO.  Fair enough…perhaps the Marketing team was involved in the planning.

We have our first project meeting and I soon realize that the project is much further along that I had originally thought.   Interface designs had been approved. Vendors had been selected.  Project plans had been created.  Contracts signed.

Oh boy.  What did I get myself into?

During the kick-off call with the vendor, it became apparent to me that this vendor wasn’t the right one for the job, but the contract had been signed.  It also became apparent that the CIO was driving this project forward with zero input from the marketing team. Oh…and I also learned that the CIO had no idea what HTML or CSS was.  Fair enough…he doesn’t really need to know that but a knowledge of the concept would have been nice.

So..the project is kicked off and we start down the path of implementing private social network.   The app would be a SaaS platform hosted by the vendor and integrated with the organization’s security system for authorization and authentication.  Easy enough.

Technically speaking, the project was fine.  People had thought through the technical challenges.  But…there had been no real thought put into what this new private social network would be used for.  Imagine my surprise when I heard the CIO say he was going to build it and then figure out what to use it for. Egads!

I then had to ask the next important question…why are we building something when our users can get the same thing from Facebook?  The answer?  Security and privacy for our users.  Ok…I can see that…this non-profit dealt with children so security was a major concern.

To make a long story short…this private social network was built and released.  After 3 months of working with the original vendor, the contract was canceled and another platform was used to build the social platform.    Great idea to cancel the contract with the original vendor because they didn’t really understand the security concerns of the organization.

When the platform was released, there was a lot of crickets chirping inside that social network.  Many people within the ranks of the non-profit’s volunteer ranks didn’t know about it (and still don’t) and very little could actually be done within the social network.

Most within the organization considered the project a failure, and many predicted it would fail.  There was nothing within this social network that would draw people in from other more open networking platforms.   There was no real engagement within this platform either.

No matter how you look at it…it was a failure…but why?

What lessons can be learned from this project?

A few that are relevant to the communications / leadership discussion.

First…the CIO took it upon himself to build this social network without any discussion with the marketing department or CMO.   Poor communication and leadership there.

Second…the CMO, upon hearing about this project, should have stepped up to assert himself.  The project, which is clearly something that the marketing team should be a part of , should have been driven with more business requirements than technical requirements.  Poor communication and leadership again.

Third…The senior leadership of this organization sat back and let this happen.  At one point, people in the very senior levels were asking about the validity and usefulness of this platform…to which all I can say is this: if you don’t understand a project, don’t believe in the project and aren’t sure it will succeed…stop the project.  Poor communication and leadership yet again.

There are a lot of things that could have been done differently, but the main lesson learned here is this:  The CIO should not have been driving a social networking project.   That’s the realm of the marketing / PR department.   Sure…the CIO and IT group should be involved if a new technology is being implemented, they shouldn’t necessarily own the project.

Now…if there had been better communication and leadership occurring during this project, would it have succeeded?  Maybe…maybe not.  But it would have had a better chance at success.

The missing links – leadership and communication

Back to the premise of this article…better communication and stronger leadership from CIO’s and CMO’s are necessary to make things operate more smoothly in the future.  Marketing departments are involved in more technology projects and will continue to be involved in these types of projects in the future.

Its time for the CIO and CMO to truly understand each others goals and projects so they can both provide leadership to those projects.  Without communication between these two people and leadership from them, things will continue to be murky in the work of IT and Marketing.

Hopefully, results from next year’s survey will show a much clearer understanding of who’s driving the digital agenda within organizations.

The survey, titled The Future of IT (pdf download), basically argues that the role of IT will diminish in the future.  The survey argues that the IT group will move away from a large centralized function and transition into a shared services model with smaller IT teams sprinkled within business units.  The role of the CIO will also change quite dramatically moving from that of Technology leader to that of either leader of a shared services group or a much more transactionally focus role in charge of IT procurement and integration.

Does that mean IT and the role of the CIO is going away?  Like I said in the previous article, no…I don’t think either role is going away completely but I do believe the CIO role and the IT group must change in order to remain relevant in tomorrow’s organization.

The Diminishing Role of IT and the CIO?

The The Future of IT (pdf download) survey is an eye opener if you take the time to read it.  Once you do, then go read the great stuff that Scott Brinker is putting out today…especially his article titled Rise of the Marketing Technologist.

Scott’s been advocating about the need for marketing organizations to own and manage the technology within the marketing group. Scott writes:

As marketers, you’re already responsible for the outcomes based on such technology. The accountability so widely promoted in digital marketing has you in the hot seat for results. It’s only sensible that you should have full control over the means and mechanisms to deliver those results.

You must be the driver of marketing technology, not merely a concerned passenger. But if you don’t have technical depth, who can help you navigate?

Scott argues for a need for a Marketing Chief Technology Officer (CTO) reporting into the Chief Marketing Officer with strategic technology initiatives for the marketing organization as well as acts as the liaison with the IT group and product marketing teams.

Scott writes the following to highlight the role of the Marketing CTO:

….I am suggesting that technology become one of the vertical pillars of the marketing function — with the marketing CTO as its head.

Resources that used to be begged, borrowed, or bought would instead become a native part of the marketing organization.

Pretty powerful argument for the need to have a strong technology leader within the marketing group.  Scott puts together a very (very) compelling argument for why marketing organizations need to be growing a technical skill set to own and manage their own technology initiatives.

Scott’s article is also an extremely good example of how the idea of IT services are changing within organizations.  Business functions are looking for ways to no longer be beholden to the IT group for all technology needs.  Business groups, like marketing, are needing to find ways to be more agile, more flexible and have more ownership in the technology they use.

Why is that?

Some would argue that the IT group has trouble getting things done.    Some might argue that IT isn’t aligned with the business and describes methods and processes to help IT align better while others argue that it isn’t alignment that is the problem…its the ability for the IT group to be agile and synchronized with the organization.

At the end of the day, the CIO role and the IT group are diminishing in many organizations because they haven’t been able to provide what the organization needs.  It’s as simple as that.

Take a look at Scott’s article again….would the idea of a self-contained technology organization within marketing be necessary if IT were delivering what the marketing group needs?  Maybe…maybe not.

I’m 100% behind the idea of the marketing CTO and have even delivered consulting services as a marketing technologist…but I think there’s a lot of room for the CIO to take a leadership role in this area if they can change the direction and values of the IT organization.

What’s next for the IT group and the CIO?

The diminishing role of IT the CIO has been discussed for many years.

Nicholas Carr wrote a post titled Twilight of the CIO in 2007 that discusses the topic. Harvard Business Review had a similar post in 2002 titled Should you fire your CIO? arguing similar points. More recently, Surendra Reddy is rethinking the role of the CIO in the aptly titled Re-thinking: CIO Role in a 21st Century Corporation. In the The Future of IT (pdf download) survey, the future of the IT group and the CIO is definitely highlighted and discussed.

So…what’s next for IT and the CIO?

Continue to focus on doing business the old way and try to own everything around technology and the business will continue to move past you.  Shadow IT will proliferate.

But…what if you take a different approach?   What if you reach out today to the business to deliver the services they need tomorrow, today.  Reach out and recognize the people and processes that are creating Shadow IT within the organization and start making changes to formalize that shadow function into an IT supported function. Mind you…I’m not arguing that you take over the Shadow IT function…just provide support.

Instead of holding corporate data close to your vest, why not build an Open API to allow everyone within the organization to use data for whatever purpose they need.  Build standards and open access methods to allow technology initiatives to be owned by other groups.

Rather than be the technology police, be the technology ambassadors to the organization. Spend time with each group and understand their needs. Truly understand their needs and goals.

Embrace ideas like Scott’s Marketing CTO.  Reach out to the marketing team and find out what they truly need to get their job done.  If these non-IT teams are looking at growing their technology skill-set, find out why. Find how what you can do to help.

The future of IT is dependent on its ability to be agile, flexible and open. If you can create an IT team that embraces these values, you’ll find that your role as CIO and the IT team’s importance to the organization will grow rather than diminish.

The ability to turn on a dime to deliver what your organization needs is the key to ensuring a strong, useful IT group for the future. You’ll be much more than a the “IT group”…you’ll be the group that allows the organization to grow, innovate and succeed.

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Have you ever thought about how much the information technology and marketing organizations are like a PB&J samich? Yes…I said samich….been wondering how to work it into a post forever. Never worry…I use sandwich from here on out…maybe.

Think about IT as the peanut butter in a PB&J sandwich.

Peanut Butter, much like IT, is the glue that keeps things together.  While Peanut Butter can be found in a few different varieties…its pretty much the same everywhere.   it may have a different taste if you try different types / brands of PB but you pretty much know what you’re getting when you ask for peanut butter, you get peanut butter.  Kind of like IT…you know IT is pretty much the same regardless of where you go.

Now…the marketing team is the jelly.   It can come in many varieties.  Grape. Strawberry. Kiwi.  Cactus.  Squash?  Yep…Squash Jelly.

Just like real jelly, there are different varieties…different companies need different approaches to marketing.  The problem…when you ask for jelly, you really don’t know exactly what type of jelly you are going to get…unless you are very specific (squash jelly please). The same can be said for marketing….unless you are extremely specific, you may get something other than what you asked for.

So….when you put the PB (IT) and Jelly (Marketing) together, you get something delicious right?  Sometimes. But sometimes you end up with a Peanut Butter and Squash Jelly Sandwich.

You got what you asked for, but maybe not what you expected.

Marketing Technologists – Helping IT and Marketing work together (or…how to make the sandwich)

I’ve started describing a portion of my consulting practice as that of marketing technologist.

Why?

Because I’ve spent a good portion of the last few years working with and for marketing organizations as their technology strategist, manager and liaison with the information technology organization. In this role, I’ve leveraged my technology background along with my marketing experience to form a bridge between IT and Marketing and, for the most part, I’ve been very successful in getting things done.

I’ve found this role is one that most organizations haven’t figured out yet. Many companies have IT groups who feel as though they must own and manage all technology within the organization. Most marketing groups need technology to do their job but have a hard time interacting with IT.

These types of situations lead to the rise of Shadow IT throughout organizations. Most companies fight Shadow IT with arguments about security, platform stability, technology platform integration and budgets…and normally these fights are won by the IT group and the CIO. Usually, the IT group within an organization owns, manages and leads all technology efforts and their happy to do it.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The IT group has the technology expertise and should be involved in any technology decisions and, in fact, should manage the operational aspects of any technology platforms within the organization. .

That said….there are many times when it makes sense for areas like marketing, HR and Finance to step into a leadership role to ensure they have the necessary technology to move forward.

Note that I said leadership role. I’m not arguing that non-IT groups should go out and find their own vendor/technology, purchase it, implement and manage it. I prefer to see the IT function remain in the middle of all technology decisions but I do see a role for technologists within these non-IT functions.

Think of the marketing technologist as the sandwich maker.

As I’ve said, the marketing technologist is someone with a technology and marketing background. This person can easily interact with both IT and Marketing to ensure that everyone understands exactly what is needed, what the goals are and why the request is being made.  This person can also help to lead the IT developers and architects down the right path when developing functionality / websites for the marketing team.  This person is also in a perfect spot to lead branding and usability of new technology platforms.

The Marketing Technologist is the one that figures out what type of bread you want, just how much peanut butter you need, what type of jelly is wanted and how to combine them to form the sandwich.  The marketing technologist is also in a place to spread the peanut butter and jelly on the bread, makes sure everything fits nicely together, works well and looks nice.

Jump over to the signup process that Scott Brinker mentions in his Shadow IT vs. Shadow Marketing article (awesome post BTW)….he had to go through five or six screens to download a white paper.  I’m sure someone within the organization asked for a website for users to register and download whitepapers. While the website works, the registration process, usability and usefulness of the website are downright bad.

Would it have been better with someone acting as a liaison between IT and Marketing?  Who knows…maybe yes…maybe no.   But…in most instances, these types of fiasco’s can be avoided.

Making the IT & Marketing Functions work better (or…making a great PB&J sandiwich)

Here’s my Five Steps for helping IT and marketing work better together.

• Step 1 – move away from the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality.    You can’t have marketing today without IT…and IT won’t have a reason to exist within most organizations without a good marketing function.  Just like you can’t have a PB&J without both the PB and the J.
• Step 2 – Agree that IT owns and controls technology, but Marketing lead its own initiatives.  While its true that peanut butter is usually more noticeable on a PB&J sandwich than the jelly, you can’t have one without the other.  The Jelly adds just as much to the taste equation.  Stop worrying about who controls technology and ‘who does what’ and focus on getting your projects done.
• Step 3 – Agree that Marketing owns branding and usability. Remember that Squash Jelly?  You don’t want that do you? If you want to make sure your organization gets the right jelly, you’ve got to make sure the Marketing team is leading and owning the look/feel, usability and branding of all projects that have any ability to interact with clients, employees and partners.
• Step 4 – Engage with each other – IT and Marketing need to engage. Let the technology savvy folks in marketing lead some technology projects.  Let some IT folks into the marketing projects.  Get to know each other.  You’re going to be on the same bread together…might as well know each other right?
• Step 5 – Promote marketing technology as an area for growth. Find those folks that have an interest in both IT and marketing and put them into the marketing technologist role.   You’ve got to have someone who knows how to make the PB&J sandwich.

While these five steps aren’t guaranteed to create a successful relationship between Marketing and IT, they’ll go a long way to making it easier to get marketing technology projects initiated and completed.  Who knows…if you work hard enough, you might just make the perfect PB&J samich too.