Articles on Strategy

Build, buy, or wait? Most AI projects fail because teams pick technology before understanding the problem. Here's a framework for getting it right.

Companies poured $109B into AI in 2024, yet productivity stats haven't moved. Is this an infrastructure build-out or a sophisticated bubble?

Your LinkedIn feed isn't market intelligence — it's curated noise. How social media echo chambers distort executive decision-making.

Companies rush to implement AI without documenting institutional wisdom. The result: faster operations but weaker differentiation.

$2.3M spent, and nobody used the platform. Three strategic questions — skipped by most leaders — separate AI success from expensive experimentation.

AI is becoming a commodity. Your competitive advantage from 'having AI' expires fast. The real question: what do you do when everyone has the same tools?

Renaming your analytics dashboard to 'AI Insights Platform' isn't strategy — it's AI washing. Here's why that creates compounding strategic debt.

Companies racing to implement AI are making more decisions, but worse ones. Speed without direction just means reaching the wrong destination faster.

Start with business problems, not AI solutions. Here's how to separate real AI opportunities from expensive distractions — and when to wait.

AI moves fast, but strategic principles don't change. Here's how to apply timeless thinking to navigate the compressed AI hype cycle.

Viewing AI as just a cost-cutting tool is short-sighted. Its real power is freeing people to focus on creativity, strategy, and innovation.

The AIC Framework bridges the gap between ideas and execution. Here's how Action, Innovation, and Collaboration drive real business results.

AI is democratizing expertise and changing how companies compete. Here's how to rethink strategy when rare knowledge becomes widely accessible.

I spend a lot of time talking to companies about big data and data science. Many conversations are with people at the CxO level (CEO's, COO's, CFO's, etc

Are CEO's and CIO's aligned when it comes to digital transformation? based on an IDC survey, the answer may be no.

Focus on what the data tells you, not the data itself. If you cannot turn data into information and knowledge, your data initiatives will fail.

if you want a great data analytics culture, build a great communications culture. You can't have one without the other.

Best practices aren't enough. You need to have the smarts and creativity to know to better align yourself and your strategy with market conditions.

If you aren't familiar with the term "normalcy bias", here's a quick definition: Normalcy bias is...the phenomenon of disbelieving one's situation when

This won't surprise many people (at least I hope it doesn't)...there is a huge difference between "theory" and "practice". I'm an academic AND and

A nice short post over on Farnam Street today highlights the various traps that people and companies can find themselves in when they begin looking at

In a recent Harvard Business Review article titled “Don’t Ask for New Ideas If You’re Not Ready to Act on Them”, Ron Ashkenas provides an example of a

I just read "Businesses prefer to cut in-house costs than challenge providers of outsourced services, survey finds" and just had to write a bit about the

Do you want to be a supply chain CIO focused on operations or a Strategic CIO focus on adding business value?

With proper planning, the cloud brings ultimate mobility to an organization while providing data security and access from anywhere in the world.

A while back I wrote a piece titled The Strategy Disconnect where I wrote: Millions can be spent on the ‘perfect’ strategy, but if that strategy isn’t

Recently, my wife wanted to buy an item for her photography studio.  This particular item is something that you'd never think belonged in a studio...but

The cloud is quite hyped these days - and rightfully so. The cloud brings quite a bit of productivity and cost savings to organizations as well as a

I just finished reading Using an Internal Social Network to Solve Real Business Problems by Nichole Kelly over on Social Media Explorer. When I started

As a consultant, its my job to help my clients understand their options.  Its also my job to help them understand which of those options are best and

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP. Cloud computing is here to stay. Oh wait...I hate statements like that.  Sorry about that.

You've probably heard the old saying that "Hope isn't a strategy". I've written a few words on the topic of Strategy, Tactics and Hope in the past and

I'm a huge fan of Amazon. Over the years, more and more of my purchases have moved to Amazon. I've bought books, coffee, electronics, camera equipment and

Most businesses are chasing. They're chasing their competitors. Chasing their industries. Chasing their perceptions of their future as well as chasing

I heard a pretty good story recently.  It goes something like this: A new CIO joins the company. He's not completely new to the organization but he is new

Strategy...its a word that conjurs up a lot of images...some good and some bad. There are a lot of people writing and talking about strategy. There are

If you're organization is like most, you've got a lot of legacy IT systems.   Most of those legacy systems require a lot of maintenance. Most of those

I had a conversation two weeks ago with a colleague who was taking over the social media, marketing and PR responsibilities for a small but growing

Over on InfoBOOM yesterday I wrote a post titled The Cloud and The Silo where I discussed one of the current challenge of CIO's and IT groups today - that

I've been reading Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath & Dan Heath (amazon affiliate link).   If you haven't read the

I'm in a quandary these days. As some of you may know, I'm working on my Doctorate in Information Systems. In addition, I have a full-time gig in the

Improve end-user workforce productivityEarlier this week I wrote a post titled "The relationship between the CIO and CMO?" where I reported on a survey

CIO.com has an article titled "CMOs and CIOs: Can This Relationship Be Saved?" where they discuss surveys results released by the CMO Council and

If you don't know, my passion outside of technology, entrepreneurship and writing on this blog is photography.  I've recently been spending even more time

I've said before that people are more important that process. I've said it in many different ways and in many different articles.  After every article, I

A few weeks ago I wrote about The diminishing role of IT and the CIO.  That post struck a nerve with quite a few readers so I wanted to expand on the

In my article titled Technology Selection and Cultural Fit, I argue that cultural fit is an important aspect to consider when undertaking Technology

Did you know that technology selection is about much more than technology? Yep...its true.....but most people don't realize it. Many in the IT world love

Danny Brown recently wrote a post titled "Consider This" where he writes a Seth Godin type of post (that's a compliment by the way).  In the post, Danny

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post titled Open Source, The Enterprise and The Community where I wrote about embracing the community that exists within your

Image by holeymoon via Flickr CRM tools do not equal CRM (yes...I know...I've said it twice...but it IS important). For the geeks out there, let me spell

A simple question that can do so much. Whether hiring or choosing vendors, take a few seconds to ask: I can, but should I?

Competition is overrated by Chris Dixon on cdixon.org Quote: Startups are primarly competing against indifference, lack of awareness, and lack of

I really dislike it when I hear someone in IT say that its time 'run IT as a business'. Why? Because both terms normally convey a sense of importance upon

Strategy. That one word can send shudders through many folks.  That one word has made millions and millions for consulting companies and consultants. Can

Can all of the information technology assets within a small business be outsourced?  Could we see the IT desks within small businesses be as empty as

Over the last few weeks I've been conducting a very unscientific survey of small business CIO's, VP's and Directors of IT. Using LinkedIn, I gathered a

The future of the information technology group  has been determined...and it doesn't look good. See that bird over there? That's the Dodo.  He's extinct.

Silence is a Leadership Trait by Samuel Bacharach Quote: Between the words, between the actions, between the political strategies, leaders must create

Do you know Hutch Carpenter?  You should.  He write's some awesome stuff over at I'm Not Actually a Geek. Hutch recently wrote a post titled "Apple iPad

Are you innovating or imitating? Anywhere you go these days, you'll find someone talking or writing about Innovation.  Most of  the stuff I've been

I've been sitting at my computer staring at the screen for a few minutes trying to come up with a topic for my weekly "New CIO" article.   While waiting

George Bailey needed a guardian angel. CIOs don't — they just need to look at their own team. Lessons from It's a Wonderful Life for technology leaders.

Storytelling on the web by Rob Mills on Carsonified Long Tail Vs. The Blockbuster by Paul Barsch on Marketing Profs Daily Fix 5 strategies for a better

I ran across a press release from Progress Software, that I though worth sharing with my regular The New CIO series readers. Below, you'll find an excerpt

Early this week, I asked a question to my readers (and myself). The question was "What's your focus?" and immediately after publishing the post, I read a

Just finished reading Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges My review in two words: Excellent book! Whether

I've got a few pet peeves.  Linear Thinking is one of them.  Another one is talking about doing something but never doing it. I'm not talking about 'not

This is a short one....lots going on this week. I got a lot of great feedback on a post I wrote titled "Consultants - Do we need them?".  In that post I

In the world of  technology we tend to use either really big words, really small words and/or acronyms. What do you think of when you think of  'the

Last week I wrote about "Turbulence, IT & The New CIO" and discussed the need to embrace agility and speed in order to address the turbulence that we

What Human Business And the Social Web Are About by Chris Brogan on chrisbrogan.com The Insider Threat: What CIOs Need To Know by Dr. Jim Anderson on The

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. I just read a 'call

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. There's lots of

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. So you want to be a

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Do you know the full

I was lucky enough to receive a pre-release copy of Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. As a follow-up to my

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. It as if we're more

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Innovation. That's a

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Earlier this week, I

I just finished Toy Box Leadership: Leadership Lessons from the Toys You Loved as a Child...somewhat flawed but a good book nonetheless. Flawed may be a

“None” is Not a Social Media Strategy by Chris Curran on CIO Dashboard Web 3.0 Is Coming – Are CIOs Ready? bt Dr. Jim Anderson on The Accidental

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. We've all heard the

Image by Frédéric Harper via Flickr I'm coming up on 2 years of working with Sitecore, a .NET Content Management System (see my post titled "Some Thoughts

Get Ready As Corporate Sites and Social Networks Start To Connect by Jeremiah Owyang on Web Strategy Why Authenticity is More Important Than Ever by Aaron

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. I've seen many

Update - My original post was titled "A milestone - 4 years old". Apparently I can't count :)  I started the blog in 2006 so it's my blog's THIRD

Social change takes more than social media by Ivan Booth on the Rootwork Blog (via Beth Kanter's Blog) KISS: The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics -

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Today's CIO is

2009 is half over and its been a pretty good year so far. What's transpired this year? In February, I put my consulting practice on hold to join the Boy

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Ahhh...Social

I just read a great post by Jeffrey Phillips titled Intense Ambiguity that really brought into light what it's like working for a boss or organization

I was recently reading Dagmar Recklies' article titled What Makes a Good Change Agent? and started thinking about some of the people that I know who are

Why Your Corporate Message Isn’t Being Heard by Jason Falls on Social Media Explorer The 7 Sins of Customer Service by Valeria Maltoni on Conversation

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today's CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. It's fitting that my

I've been thinking about writing a weekly article and finally found a topic that I think lends itself well to this approach. I'm planning on writing about

One of the most visited posts on this blog is titled "The Problem(s) with Linear Thinking".   That one post makes up for a good amount of monthly visitors

Lots of great stuff out there this past week...can't share it all but will share some.  If you want to track all my shared stories from my google reader

What happens when you create the best strategic plan in the world but don't have a plan to implement it? Lots of wheel spinning and very little progress.

You're doing it wrong! I hate when people tell me that. Who are they to tell me how to do something? OK...OK...there are times when 'right' and 'wrong'

Can an organization be built on individuality with a focus on bringing humanity back to business? I think so. The modern day corporation was developed to

I had the pleasure of meeting some great folks at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Dallas.  I learned a lot and had a lot of the ideas that I already had

Image via Wikipedia Tracie and I spent Good Friday at the Dallas Arboretum (jump over to my photoblog - OneFour Photography - for some photos).  The trip

As part of a research project for my doctorate work I've been looking at the use of storytelling for knowledge sharing in project teams. I've found the

How your organization's IT department can help support your social media strategy by Beth Kanter Purpose First, Strategy Second, Structure Third by Mark

In my new role in the marketing department at the Boy Scouts of America I find myself in the middle of conversations about branding.  I find these

CIO Magazine ran a survey of 208 Chief Information Officers (CIO) and reported the results in an article titled "IT Budget & Staffing Survey Shows

Tom Parish has interviewed Nathan Langston, Chief Information Officer (CIO), of the Boy Scouts of America on Enterprise Leadership Online.   The

Oracle's Profit magazine has a nice article titled "The Go Betweens: Ten Tips for Connecting Information Technology with the Business" has some excellent

Bernard Golden has a two-part series on the IT Drilldown Virtualization section of CIO.com that is informative and interesting. The two-part series,

An article titled "How I Used Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Software to Prevent IT Staff Cuts" on CIO.com that describes using Project Portfolio

I've been lurking around the social web for quite some time experimenting with different systems and learning a tremendous amount from all of the

The opening paragraphs of the chapter titled '95 Theses' from The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual says (taken from this page): A

I ran across an absolutely amazing blog post from Mark Masterson titled 'The Enterprise Cloud' that really shed a lot of light on Cloud Computing in the

Positive Communication and Leadership by Stephen Smith on Slacker Manager A Lean, Scalable Requirements Information Model for the Agile Enterprise by Dean

The Cutter Consortium blog has an interesting post titled "IT Trends and Antitrends for 2009".   Some interesting items listed...I've reproduced

Mike has a great post (that also mentions me...shameless plug?) titled Selling Web 2.0 to IT (also on Forbes here) that expands on a previous post of mine

In the case of this Massachusetts State Trooper, a lot. In case you are to lazy to click over, the linked story is about a Massachusetts State Trooper who

Web 2.0.  A term that is overused and often misunderstood.  And one that has been touted for years by consultants as the 'next big thing' coming to

According to a research report released by The Hackett Group, and reported by Financial Week, they don't. The Financial Week article, titled "Customers

A recent article by J Schwan at The Technology Edge titled "Stop Hiding Behind your Role and Get it Done" has an interesting spin on the world of

Do you know who Tyler Durden is? (hint: Brad Pitt played him in Fight Club). Lateral Action posted Tyler Durden's 8 Rules of Innovation recently (hat tip

Would you rather have one great big idea or tons of little ideas? Me?  I'm fond of having a lot of little ideas. Why?  Little ideas are easier to

I asked the following question on LinkedIn earlier this week and received some very insightful responses: What are the top challenges in IT organization's

One thing that I've heard often is that a project manager role is a good thing for your career and will help your ascent up the ladder to more

The topic of Information Technology Strategy is one that is near and dear to my heart.  In fact, I've harped on this subject a few times (a few posts for

Discusses the need to lead information technology

I just finished reading The Strategic Project Leader: Mastering Service-Based Project Leadership by Jack Ferraro....not a bad book. In section two of his

Interesting study released by McKinsey has just been released titled "How companies respond to competitors: A McKinsey Global Survey." The study, which is

When did common sense get removed from the corporate technology selection process? For those that don't know what it is, technology selection is the

Scot Herrick over at CubeRules had a very interesting post today titled "Innovating Like Crazy; Executing Like Crap". Great title and great thoughts in

Diamond Consultants released the results of their Digital IQ Survey recently (download the full survey here) that provides some very interesting (and

Read an interesting article on GigaOm yesterday titled "Google’s Infrastructure is its Strategic Advantage" (go read it if you haven't). This post, and

Excerpt from a paper on Information Technology Human Capital as Competitive Advantage, covering IT-business alignment and human capital management.

I'm about half-way through an advance copy of David Maister's latest book titled Strategy and the Fat Smoker and I have to say I like what I've read so

I wanted to take some time to simplify my discussion of Resource Diversity and Resource Immobility from my post titled "Competitive Advantage and the

As a follow up to my previous post titled Competitive Advantage - The Human Capital Approach, I wanted to take a second to talk a little bit about the

I was asked recently to describe how an organization can use its human capital to create competitive advantage. I fell into the trap of using Porter's

A case study on using agile project management methods to deliver a software product in half the time at less than half the cost.

This definition is from Rob Millard at the Adventure of Strategy Blog in a recent post. Successful strategy is not about a grand plan. Rather, it is an

Mike Schaffner over at the "Beyond Blinking Lights" blog has an interesting post titled "Let's Get Strategic!" that discusses the need for IT groups to

I've recently decided to stop calling myself a Project Manager and start calling myself a Manager of Projects.There is a difference as I hope you will see

I was asked by a former professor to write a review of Peter Drucker's "They're not employees; they're people" article to provide as an example to his

Just finished reading an interesting article by Dragan Milosevic and Sabin Srivannaboon in the August 2006 edition of PMI's PM Journal titled "A

I just ran across a post by Michael Krigsman titled "Eight Causes of IT Project Failure". According to a recent report from the UK National Audit office

Prior to reading the new Businessweek (Dec 11th 2006), I ran across Web Worker Daily's (WWD) post about the article and the way in which Best Buy is

Was reading a post on David Maister's blog about the method in which Pfizer may or may not be using email to let their workforce know if they are part of

This is an excerpt of a paper I wrote while working on my MBA. One