In one of the first few chapters, Dr. Kahneman describes the “invisible gorilla test” popularized by psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. The test consists of a team of 3 people dressed in black and a team of 3 people dressed in white passing a basketball to their teammates.

Watch for yourself…and really really focus on counting the passes between the white-shirts. (If you are reading this via RSS and don’t see a video, please click here to view it).

Did you get the number of passes correct? How about the gorilla…did you see the gorilla the first time?

Whether you saw the gorilla while watching the video or not…research shows that about half of the people that watch this video and focus on counting passes, do not see the gorilla. Pretty amazing huh? Half the people don’t see a gorrilla walk through the scene, pound its chest, turn and look at the camera, then stroll off.  Half the people.

From this test (and many other tests by other psychologists), we’ve learned that its very easy for us mere humans to get deceived, to miss things and/or just not pay attention that well. The ‘invisible gorilla’ phenomenon isn’t just some theoretical phenomena…Its something that happens in the real world every day. It happens to me and to you everyday.

The invisible gorilla shows up in many workplaces too.  With so many people and organizations focused on “doing more with less” (or whatever other buzzworthy terms you want to use here), we tend to miss some of the very important details that might change our outlook and approach towards those things we are so focused on.

Take a step back in your job/life and look for that invisible gorilla.  Maybe your gorilla won’t be as easy to see as the one in the video above…but i bet there’s one there…if you look hard enough.

PS: If you want to learn more about The Invisible Gorilla phenomenon, Simons and Chabris have written many papers on the subject and have even released a book titled The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us (amazon affiliate link). 

Image Credit: Gorilla By Kris Elshout on flickr

I don’t talk or write much about ‘data’…mostly because I’ve always taken it for granted as something that was always ‘there’.   If the data I needed wasn’t available in an easy to consume format, I’ve always found a way to get what I needed through data collection, data manipulation or by hacking together data to get what i needed.

To me, data has always been something that I’ve used to do my job. Data is something that I’ve used to help inform myself, my teams, my organizations and my clients.

I’ve often heard people and companies talk about being ‘data driven’ and have always felt like I was missing something as I never really understood what they meant by being ‘data driven’.

In my world, data has always been the building block of services and platforms but data isn’t driving me, my business or my teams. Data is the base level of the business. Data is the business in its rawest form…but its also meaningless without context  and meaning.

Most of my thinking towards ‘data’ comes from my systems thinking and knowledge management education and training in the form of the Russell Ackoff model. The Ackoff model claims that  there are five ‘buckets’ that content in the human mind can be classified into. These buckets are:

• Data
• Information
• Knowledge
• Understanding
• Wisdom

In the systems thinking and knowledge management world, the “Data -> Information -> Knowledge” model is quite prevalent…or maybe more accurately, its been the prevalent filter that i’ve used in my work.

So…from my filter, Data is the rawest level of ‘stuff’. Its the baseline that you build from.  Data leads to information, which leads to knowledge…but data is nothing until you build something on top of it…until you add some form of context or meaning.

Therefore, it was always hard for me to understand the ‘data driven’ people who’ve been popping up everywhere over the last few years.  I’ve never really given much credence to the ‘data driven’ mantra.

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw the The Myth of the “Data-Driven” Business headline in my RSS reader today.

In the article, Peterson makes a fairly convincing plea to stop using the term ‘data driven’…rather, he says, use something more like ‘data informed’.

Eric writes:

My concern arises from the idea that any business of even moderate size and complexity can be truly “driven” by data. I think the right word is “informed” and what we are collectively trying to create is “increasingly data-informed and data-aware businesses and business people” who integrate the wide array of knowledge we can generate about digital consumers into the traditional decisioning process. The end-goal of this integration is more agile, responsive, and intelligent businesses that are better able to compete in a rapidly changing business environment.

Emphasis Mine.

I can get behind ‘data informed’.

I can get behind using data to make better decisions. At the end of the data, thats why you collect data…to make better decisions.  But…you’ve got to put meaning, context and definition around that data to make it useful.

I’m keeping an eye on Eric’s post to see what discussions come out of it but I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you view ‘data driven’ vs ‘data informed’.

Image Credit: data slide By bionicteaching on flickr

I love seeing this….its time that IT, the CIO and IT professionals really understand that change is needed. I’ve been writing about the need for change for years in my The New CIO category…change is needed and necessary – and in fact…I believe change is coming.

That said…..there’s another side to the story.

We’ve been talking about the need for IT and the CIO to change.  But…there’s also a need for the entire organization to change.

We can’t ask our IT group to change if the rest of the organization isn’t willing to come along on the road to change.

For example – we want IT to be more flexible and responsive.  But…do we give the IT group the ability to be responsive? Do we allow them to have the flexibility to be flexible (redundant…I know)?

Has the organization told the IT group and the CIO that its OK….that its really OK to embrace change?

I ask these questions because I’ve just had and email conversation with a CIO of a fairly large organization.  He contacted me after reading many of my “The New CIO” posts and wanted some advice.

This CIO, I’ll call him “Mike”, wants to change. He wants his IT group to change.  In fact, Mike said that the people within his group are clamoring for change….but he and his team feel like their hands are tied by the organization.

Why?

Just a Tool

Its a simple answer…his team is viewed as a ‘tool’ of the organization.

They are the IT group. They keep servers running. They keep the lights on. They are an operational ‘tool’.   In fact- that’s the mission of the IT group as written in the strategic plan for the organization.  An excerpt from that plan (used with permission):

…we’ll accomplish these goals but using the operational strength of our information technology team with the tools and tactical skills that they offer…

Some interesting words there…tactical…operational…tools.

All fine words and necessary too. There’s definitely an operational component to every IT group…but there should also be a strategic component.

I asked Mike to explain his involvement in the strategic planning process. He said he was involved and actually helped chair the planning committee.  A CIO in a role doing more than just focusing on technology…awesome.

I asked Mike to help me understand how the IT group was relegated to being part of the toolbox rather than being one of the carpenters, especially given that he was involved in the strategic planning process.

His answer wasn’t surprising. Hhe said:

The CEO and COO think of my IT team as being a bunch of techies with little social skills and even less business accumen.  They feel like the IT group should be seen and not heard.  In fact, they believe that IT should ‘…just make sure the servers keep running’.

There ya have it folks.

You want to know why IT is the way it is?   Because that’s the way the organization wants them to be.

Mike has tried everything to ‘get a seat at the table’ and step into leadership roles within the organization. He’s had some success but at the end of the day, the organization sees him and his team has maintenance folks.

Can things change?  Yes.

Should they change? Yes.

Will they?  I believe so…but to what extent, I can’t really say.

The moral of this story is this – Yes…change  is necessary.  Change will happen…but its not just the IT group and the CIO that need to change. The entire organization must change.

Its a two-way street though.  The IT group & CIO must find demonstrable ways of showing value to the organization…and the organization must be willing to see the value within the IT group.

The IT group will never be more than the organization allows it to be.    The CIO can try to morph their IT group into something different…and lord knows every CIO should be trying…but until the organization allows the IT group to change we’ll be at an impasse.

Reminds me of the chicken and egg story: Which comes first…IT change or organizational change?

Image Credit: Change Jam Questions By love2dreamfish on flickr

Before I report on the results, let’s look at the survey itself. According to the article, the survey was:

a survey of 344 CFOs at North American companies involved in manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, energy, transportation and other fields. The survey, conducted by the professional organisation Financial Executives International in tandem with Gartner, sought to find out what CFOs think about use of information technology in their companies and the people who provide it. They weren’t that happy.

A few highlights (as reported in the article):

• About a quarter of the CFOs had confidence that their own IT organization
• 25% [of CFO's] see the CIO as a key player in determining the business strategy
• 18% of the CFOs said they thought “our IT service levels meet or exceed business expectations.”
• 42% of IT organisations now report directly to [the] CFO
• 35% of the CFOs viewed IT as being a strategic driver of business performance.

A few interesting results having to do with the authorization of IT investments:

• 29% of the respondents said it’s a steering committee of IT and business executives.
• 26% said it’s the CFO alone authorizing IT investment, up from 18% last year.
• 25% says it’s the CIO and CFO together.
• In 11% of organisations, it’s still the CIO alone.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little worried by all these results.  Only 25% of the respondents had confidence in their IT group?  Only 18% thought their IT group met or exceeded expectations?

Now…I’m not really worried that the CFO seems to be taking control of IT…but I am worried about the perception that the CFO’s have towards IT.  Note: I have no issue with the IT group reporting into the CFO – or COO – or CEO – doesn’t matter…what matters to me is that the CIO and IT groups are able to do their jobs and are appreciated for the work they do.

If I were a CIO today, I’d make a beeline to the CFO’s office and try to understand how the CFO of my organization views me and my team.    I’d also make sure everyone else in the organization knows what I and my team were doing today and planning for the future.

I’m looking for a copy of the full survey – but I doubt I can find it since I don’t have an account with Gartner…I’d love to see the questions and results to the entire survey. I’d like to be able to see how the questions were asked and answered.

Do these numbers jive with what you’re seeing in your company? Are you seeing CFO’s taking more control over IT?

Image Credit: My Spending Money By Jake Wasdin on flickr

The approach that many companies and consultants take with clients and potential clients is to ‘find the pain’ and provide services to fix this ‘pain’.

I’ve taken this approach many times myself with much success, but Ian makes a very valid point – solving the ‘pain points’ is really just the first step…and its also the easiest thing to do.  But easy is just that…easy.

Ian writes:

Problem solving to address clear areas of pain is something most organisations have got good at, and that a whole bunch of consultants and coaches can do pretty well.

Very true.  Many companies know what their pain points are and they have a good idea on how to solve those pains…or at least they know many companies / consultants they can reach out to so solve those pains.

Ian continues:

Sure, you might have to start by fixing some core problems – find the pain and stop the bleeding in medical terms. But you then have to move on to something much bigger.

Ian wrote his blog post from a consultant’s standpoint….but the idea can be applied to all areas of business…especially IT.

After reading the post, I shared the link on twitter. Almost simultaneously, I heard from two folks – Tom Catalini and Kelvin Lindley – who had the same thought.

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/KelvinLindley/status/74675652971855872"]

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/tomcatalini/status/74838478889824256"]

Both Tom and Kelvin are spot on when they said that ‘fixing the pain’ isn’t enough in IT any longer. We (in IT) can no longer look for the ‘pain’…there are too many easy ways for the organization to ‘fix the pain’ these days.  Its much too easy for a person or group to find a solution to their problem in the ‘cloud’.  Its much to easy these days to plunk down a credit card and buy a year of service from a SaaS vendor.

Finding the pain is a tactical approach to solving problems. Rather than look for the pain and try to fix it…we need to dive into the organization and really understand their needs and wants.

Whether you are an IT professional working inside an organization or a consultant like me, its time to step back and take a strategic approach to helping the organization.

Sure…fixing the pain is necessary but oftentimes that pain is a symptom of a larger problem.  The CIO’s, IT professionals and consultants that can help organizations solve those larger problems are the ones that will survive and thrive.

Image Credit: No pain By trees like lungs on flickr

The systems are complex.

The processes are complex.

The people are complex.

And…the business is complex….and its getting complexier (I just made that word up!)

Its tough enough for most IT organizations to keep the basic infrastructure running (i.e., ‘keeping the lights on’) and keeping data secure. Add to that the responsibility of CIO’s and IT for driving innovation and competitive advantage with technology and you’ve got a full plate for IT.

As I mentioned in Not What, but How – Connecting IT and the Business, CIO’s are starting to focus on driving innovation and competitive advantage with technology…but its extremely hard to do so with a cadre of IT professionals who’ve been trained over the years to shy away from innovation.

In that previous post, I mention the need to focus on the people in order to really deliver value in the future.   I definitely believe that without innovative people, you won’t get innovative ideas….and a good portion of IT professionals are paid not to be innovative…they are paid to keep servers running and data secure.  That’s not to say that these people can’t be innovative – they can – but they are paid to watch processes and control ‘things’….not deliver innovation to the business.

Rachel Dines had a good post over on the Forrester blog titled The Great Infrastructure And Operations Divide where she talks about the division between operations and the infrastructure teams. This division is a natural one – operations keeps things running while the infrastructure team designs new things.

I’d take that a step further and say that there’s a another, much larger split, coming to IT.

I see organization talking about, and moving to, a split between Operational IT and Strategic IT.  Most organizations have already done this to a point…but i see this split happening much more broadly in the near future.

• Operational IT contains much of what we see today with IT operations. Security, servers, infrastructure, Support and all those things that help ‘keep the lights on’ for organizations.
• Strategic IT contains the enterprise architects, business analysts and business technologists.   This is the team that drives innovation. This is the team where you hire extremely creative people and point them at the business problems and ask them to solve those problems.  Maybe the name of this team/group changes from Strategic IT to something more along the lines of Business Technology…because that’s what they need to focus on.

Some of you may be thinking that this type of split already exists…and it does….to an extent.  Most organizations have split IT into many different groups – operations, application development, product management, support, etc.  But…what I’m talking about is much more radical.

I’m talking about an actual split. A split in thinking and a split in teams.  I’m talking about two separate technology focused business units.

Operational IT will focus on the tactics necessary to keep the lights on and servers running. Strategic IT / Business Technology will focus on the strategy use of technology for the organization.   Both groups will co-mingle and work together of course…but the teams will have different goals and different types of people working within each.

I think one of the real leaders in thinking about this space is Gartner’s Mark McDonald.   Take a look at his post titled What is the difference between remaking and re-imagining IT? In that post, Mark writes:

…a remake of IT changes the IT environment but not the IT’s culture, momentum or direction.  An IT remake is often caused by major shifts in the technology infrastructure, like the cloud.  We are seeing this know when people are asking to hire ‘cloud’ architects, developers, etc.  That is a remake strategy in action, replicating the old structure with a new qualifier. The result is same basic IT organization, practices and players all working on a modern infrastructure and tools.  Just look at your organization today, how different is it structurally than the organization you had to support client/server or perhaps even the mainframe.

Emphasis mine.

The push to remake IT is just another attempt at putting lipstick on a pig.  It may look better, but that lipstick will rub off eventually…and you still have a pig. I probably just angered every IT professional there with that pig comment…but you know what i mean.

Let’s stop glossing over the issues and trying to remake IT…the people and culture just aren’t there to be able to turn on a dime for the changes that need to happen.. Today’s operationally focused IT departments will not be able to deliver innovation.

This new group looks nothing like yesterday’s IT.  Gone is the mindset of being process bound and being in control of everything related to technology.  The Strategic IT / Business Technology group has to focus on solving business problems with technology. The types of people that are hired for this team are creative technologists who understand how to apply technology to solve a problem while also maintaining proper security and infrastructure requirements.

Some may argue this is nothing new…and maybe it isn’t.  But…if its nothing new….then why are we all still talking about the need for IT and the CIO to drive innovation and deliver value?

Lets stop trying to remake the IT group and IT professionals into something they aren’t. Let’s let the operational side of IT do what it does best and start building the Strategic IT / Business Technology group to really drive innovation for the business.

Your thoughts?

Image Credit: Photo of the Anthony Family Carillon at Garvan Gardens Hot Springs Arkansas by Luxemod Photography, Dallas Wedding Photographer

If you can’t measure something, its very difficult to manage that ‘something’.  If you want your websites to load faster, you need to know what ‘fast’ means and have something to compare past, present and future measurements too.

You must measure to manage…but I”m not a proponent of measuring every little detail.  I only want to measure what i need to measure (there’s a catch-22 here…do you know what you need to measure?).

I’ve known people / companies to go overboard on their measurements.

Some believe they need to measure their employees time in order to manage their workload properly.  I’ve known companies that have implemented time-tracking projects that require every employee to input their time in 5 minute increments and assign each 5 minute segment to a project cost center.  Those same companies have a hard time getting anything done too.Now…I’m not saying every company that tracks time like this cannot accomplish anything, but i can tell you the ones I worked with didn’t accomplish much.

A recent example

This past week, I went in for a sleep study. My doctor told me that he thought I had sleep apnea due to the way my throat looked.  He said my Uvula looked like it had taken quite the beating…I believe his exact words were “your throat looks like someone uses your uvula for a punching bag”.    So…he setup a sleep study for me.

During one of these sleep studies, a contraption (that’s the scientific word for it I think) is placed on that measures all sorts of things. Heart rate, eye movement, breathing, leg movement, chin movement, etc etc.  Go read more about it here and see what the contraption looks like here after its been placed on you (note: if you can’t tell, that is not me in the photo!).

My sleep study appointment day arrives off I go the sleep center at the appointed time. When I arrive, I’m shown my room and told that the technician will be in shortly to get me all ready for the study.  After a few minutes, a nice tech walks in and begins hooking me up. This process takes about 30 minutes and I end up with wires connected all over my body.

I immediately realize that I’m going to have a tough time sleeping this contraption.  I’m told that I can sleep in whatever position I choose, but they need me to sleep part of the night on my back…which is good because once I got into bed i couldn’t move into any position except for laying flat on my back.

Now…I’m sure I got some sleep that night, but I don’t really feel like I did. I was uncomfortable with all the wires, I was in a strange room and I was being watched via video camera.  Not exactly the most fun I’ve ever had, especially when you have to get up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom (because you are an idiot and drank a bottle of water before bed).  Did I mention that in order to get out of bed you have to call for the tech to come unhook you from the machine and re-hook you when done?  fun times.

My point of all this?  This sleep study was intrusive.  I’m sure there is useful data gathered this way but is it truly the best way to measure the things that need to be measured while a person sleeps?  Perhaps with current technology it is.

But in my case, and in many other people’s cases, the very thing that this sleep study was attempting to measure (sleep) was disrupted.  Was the data gathered that night in the sleep study true data? Is it really an accurate picture of how I sleep?  I don’t know.

But…what I do know is that the process of gathering the data just about destroyed the data.  I barely slept. It took me two days to recover from that night.

Measure it, but don’t destroy it

So my story is just a simple word of caution to everyone.

Sure…measure what you need to measure (again…do you know what you need to measure?).  But don’t destroy what you are measuring by the process of measuring it.

Find the simplest, least intrusive method of measuring what you need and use it.

Do you think the employees entering their time in 5 minute increments like their work? If you need to track their time in five minute increments…perhaps something is wrong with the culture of the organization. If you need to know what your employees are doing all day, ask them.

To manage it, you do need to measure it…but don’t destroy it in the process.

Image Credit: Tape Measure By dirkjankraan on flickr

After my last post on the topic of Reinventing IT, I decided to think about the different aspects of actually reinventing IT and what it might actually look like in the ‘real world’.

I’ve talked about this subject before on this blog in posts like The diminishing role of IT and the CIO(?), Building Tomorrow’s Organization – without today’s IT? and What’s wrong with today’s IT? but I wanted to take a second to rethink the act of reinventing IT.

There’s quite a few articles out there on the interwebz about the need to reinvent IT with some dating back to 2007.

Most of these articles talk about a need to reinvent IT or re-imagine IT and most give excellent reasons for doing so. As you know, I’m all for the act of reinventing and changing IT’s focus and function.

What’s missing in most of the articles I’ve run across about reinventing IT or changing IT is the effect the business has had on IT.   You can’t really reinvent or change something unless you know the how and why behind the creation of that entity in the first place.

Why IT is what it is

I’m not going to go into a full history lesson on how IT came to be…but I do want to revisit the IT groups that I’ve worked with in the past…and I think they are representative of most IT shops.

Of all the IT groups I’ve worked with, all but 1 were setup to out-charge all work and the IT budget was set at the beginning of the year to cover maintenance and project work.  The budget ratios of maintenance to project work changed yearly but the maintenance budget grew year over year (mainly because the new projects were completed and added to the maintenance schedule / budget). The project work budget amount was set to ensure that the strategic projects of the organization were funded and could be completed in that year.

So…here we are. We have an organization that has assigned a set budget to the IT group based on strategic needs. We have an IT group that needs to out-charge their work to recover costs so their budget is met.

Let’s take a look at how this usually plays out…

Every IT group I’ve worked with has the same problem. They are asked to do some work by someone. That someone is then asked for a budget to bill the work to.  That’s the way they work…out-charge everything they can because that’s they way they are setup.

Many IT professionals will tell you that this out-charging method is necessary to control the work. They argue that its a way to prioritize what gets done.  They argue that if a person has money for a project, that project must be important enough to be funded.

But does that make sense?  Is the project really important or is it just a pet project of someone with the company?

What happens in the case where 10 people come at IT with 10 different projects and all are well-funded?  How are things prioritized then?  Project selection and portfolio management practices help in this instance but in some groups I’ve worked with, they don’t work that well.   I’m all for portfolio management in theory, but in practice, the person that screams the loudest (or has the CEO’s ear) gets their project done first.

At the end of the year, IT is ‘graded’ by their budget and their ability to get the job done.  Some of the strategic projects at the beginning of the year were completed and some weren’t.  A lot of projects were attacked but not finished.  Many projects were ‘inserted’ into the work schedule based on changing strategic objectives.

But…at the end of the year, the grades are handed out.  Sometimes IT fails. Sometimes IT over-achieves. But…most times, IT gets a barely passing grade.

Is this barely passing grade (or failing grade) due to incompetence or mismanagement? Most times its not…most times its due to changing priorities that aren’t clearly thought through and/or communicated throughout the organization.

Reinventing IT starts with rethinking the Business?

Let’s take a step back and think about why we all want to reinvent IT.  Is it because IT isn’t needed in today’s organizations? Is it because the people in IT aren’t good at what they do?  Is it because IT leadership is incapable of doing the right things?

No…its because IT needs to change to help today’s business (and tomorrow’s business).  I think everyone would agree with that.

But…is the business changing as well? Is the business undertaking a reinvention of itself too?

Rather than focusing strictly on the IT group, lets jump in a balloon and head up to the 30,000 foot level (make sure you take your oxygen mask!).

A lot of the problems with today’s IT can be traced back to the ‘business’.

The business sets the IT budget.

The business sets the strategic goals of the organization (hopefully with the CIO and IT groups input).

The business provides budget to non-IT groups for technology projects (again…hopefully with input from the CIO/IT group).

The IT group takes its orders from the business.

So…why are we just talking about reinventing IT? It might be time to reinvent the entire business.

Maybe its time to rethink how budgets are assigned and projects selected.

Maybe its time to rethink how strategic planning is done.

Maybe its time to rethink the business as a whole.

I’m all for rethinking and reinventing IT but let’s also take some time to rethink and reinvent the organization as a whole. IT is what it is today because of the business….if we want to change IT for the better, change the whole organization for the better.

Last week, in an article titled “CIO’s vs. CMO’s – what’s the real problem?“, I shared the following 2010 goals/projects that CIO’s and CMO’s are reportedly working on.   In that article I also promised a discussion of what the real issues between CIO’s and CMO’s are…but I wanted to get this little tidbit out of the way first. Come back next week for the deeper leadership/communication discussion I promised.

To reiterate, they top 5 goals/projects for CIO’s and CMO’s are:

CIO’s:

Improve end-user workforce productivity

Lower the company’s overall operating costs

Re-engineer core business processes

Improve quality of products and/or processes

Innovative new market offerings or business practices

CMO’s:

Digital marketing makeover – platforms, programs, people

Sales and marketing organization alignment

Customer data integration and analytics

Marketing performance measurement

Lead qualification and harvesting system

See anything there that jumps out at you to highlight the difference between a CIO and a CMO?

Anything at all?

I do….and it just hit me while thinking about this article.

The CIO’s goals/projects are very operationally focused.  Words like ‘improve’, ‘lower’, ‘re-engineer’ start the top 4 goals/projects.

The CMO’s goals/projects at first seem operational too.  Data integration. Performance measurement.  Systems. Platforms.

Interesting stuff….but after digging a little deeper into each goal and thinking about them for a few minutes, something jumped out at me.

It seems to me that the CIO is focused on deep organizational issues.  It seems that CIO’s are starting to focus on the business rather than technology.

What about the CMO?  I see a bunch of projects and goals focused on tactics.  I see a lot of projects focused on technology.

Is this a good thing?  Bad thing?

I can’t really say….but maybe we are seeing a shift towards the Marketing Technologist now.  Mitch Joel just pointed out that the time is ripe for the Chief Marketing Technologist and Scott Brinker has been talking about the marketing technologist and chief marketing technologist roles for year and is also talking about the role(s) of the CMO & CIO in the future organization.

I just hope the CMO and Marketing teams don’t focus too much on the technology and lose track of what that technology is to be used for.

That’s the reason CIO’s and IT groups have been in trouble over the last few years, isn’t it?

Back to my original question: What’s the difference between the CMO and the CIO?  In today’s world…not a whole heck of a lot….and that doesn’t bode well for the CIO of the future.  Makes me wonder how much a real CIO and IT group  matter to organizations.

In that survey, an interesting result was reported that shows a huge disconnect between the CIO and CMO when it comes to digital strategy.  A recap of the survey results:

• 58% of CIO’s / IT Executives said they were leading the digital agenda at their company.
• 19% of the CMO’s / Marketing Executives said that the CIO/IT Execs were leading the digital agenda.
• 69% of the CMO’s / Marketing Executives said that they were leading the digital agenda.

Take a second to think those numbers through.

Looks like have a disconnect, correct?

The CIO thinks they are leading the digital agenda.

The CMO thinks they are.

And we wonder why there’s so much discord between Marketing and IT.

What’s the real issue?

In trying to understand the issue at play here, I took a look at the goals/projects that most CIO’s & CMO’s have reported are on their plate for 2010…and was surprised to find that they are actually similar.

Take a look at the CIO.com 2010 State of the CIO survey (PDF).  Page 12 of that survey has a listing of project IT Accomplishments in the coming year…the top 5 are:

Improve end-user workforce productivity

Lower the company’s overall operating costs

Re-engineer core business processes

Improve quality of products and/or processes

Innovative new market offerings or business practices

Again…all good stuff.

Now…let’s take a look at what CMO’s see as their focus for the coming year.  The CMO Council reports in their Marketing Outlook for 2010 (link to PDF Executive Summary) that CMO’s are focusing on the projects for the coming year (top 5 reported):

Digital marketing makeover – platforms, programs people

Sales and marketing organization alignment

Customer data integration and analytics

Marketing performance measurement

Lead qualification and harvesting system

Pretty interesting projects. B to B Magazine reports on these survey results and quotes a member of the CMO Council as saying:

“This year, we will see a significant shift in how companies integrate, manage and run all of their digital marketing operations,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council.

I think we are all seeing this shift happening in most organizations this year.

Take a look at the CIO projects and compare them to the CMO’s list. They actually kind of match up, don’t they?

The CIO has a goal/project of reducing costs…which can be at odds with what marketing is trying to do…but I don’t think budgetary issues are driving the CIO vs CMO debates.

So…it seems that both groups are working on similar projects, no?

Since we know that the underlying goals are fairly similar, what’s the real issue at hand here?

I think it comes down to two major issues: Communication & Leadership. More on both of those issues next week.

After I published the The Relationship between the CIO & CMO? and shared it on twitter,  Zane Zafrit made an interesting comment when he retweeted the link (thanks Zane!). Zane said: “They Talk?”.

Zane hit it on the head…that’s exactly the problem.   CMO’s and CIO’s don’t talk in most organizations…and its a shame.

Join me me next week when I look at the communication and leadership issue.  I’ll also share a story about how poorly a CIO and a CMO communicated and worked together…and how their relationship caused a massive failure in the organizations abilities to achieve their goals.