CIO Talk Network Podcast

Enterprise Cloud Services – Virtual Private Cloud is a flexible cloud computing infrastructure that enables the enterprise to transform and embrace new economics, improved business agility and secure systems at high levels of availability and responsiveness." Numerous small vendors already offer private clouds people can rely on, but now HP has thrown their hat into the ring. What makes their Virt...

Big Data may be the next big thing in healthcare delivery, but it seems as though the ideas are getting ahead of the reality. While the usage of electronic health records has gone up drastically, what is the state of related data management and integration? Are we truly ready to take on the unstructured clinical data, apply Big Data analytics and offer coveted insights to appropriate parties? Gues...

Intuitively, most financial services see the obvious use cases of Big Data: gaining consumer insight, responding to greater regulatory pressures, analyzing risk, and introducing operations efficiencies. Does big data seem to have the potential for this industry to deliver competitive advantage? If yes, then how? Guest: Tricia Blair, SVP, Chief Digital Officer and Head of Enterprise IT Services, Li...

The idea of "wellness care" is that of promoting not just a physically fit body but an all-around healthy lifestyle. Numerous industries from healthcare providers, insurance companies, government agencies and corporations touch a person's life in a variety of ways, and all are poised to help aid this person's lifestyle choices. Do advances in mobile solutions now make this more possible given how...

Big data has the potential to be used to speed up our response to health crises, provide our soldiers with superior information capabilities and enhance interagency intelligence. How are the different departments and agencies coordinating this cohesive effort to ensure the said end benefits are being realized? Guest 1: Ellis Burgoyne, Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President, USPS Gu...

Mobility has the potential for more than paying for itself by increasing the amount and quality of work employees can do in the field. It can reduce government task process time from weeks to days or hours, shortening response time to customers, cutting travel time, decreasing equipment expenses, and eliminating occupancy costs. So what's holding back some government CIOs from going full throttle?...

Utilities already have to focus on maintaining their resilience in the face of natural disasters and other threats to the grid. But now smart grid is posing cyber security threats that could further affect a utility's ability to recover. What sorts of new risk analysis and emergency framework policies need to be in place to prevent catastrophic damage to machinery, supply chain or the digital netw...

Any particular program or project that is coming to a close inevitably brings about a level of change that can be tumultuous. With a particularly long or popular program finally ending, any number of internal problems or opportunities for pushback can ensue. How does a good leader take everything in stride and get everything finished up appropriately? How does a leader alleviate internal stress as...

As an organization works through a new program, a number of unexpected circumstances could threaten to derail this new transition along with legacy programs. It could be scarce funding, a change of culture or of talent, too rapid growth or a shift in leadership and the respect, process and policies that go along with them. How can a leader work to keep a group stable through a period of organizati...

When starting any new program, there's a sense of uncertainty that comes with any disruption. Introducing something new to an existing, well-oiled workflow could throw a wrench into your people, process, policy or pocketbook components. What should a leader do to manage a new beginning as systems and relationships break down? How can a leader encourage a change? Guest 1: Susan Cramm, President Val...

At home, work, in the airport or in the air…an airline customer can be touched in many ways: Personalized offerings, frequent travel rewards, and last but by no means least, a pleasant in-flight experience. These are what the customer expects and their delivery directly impacts customer allegiance! Are airline carriers delivering on these things? Where are the shortfalls? To what degree can techno...

Utilities know that renewables are the future. Consumers want cleaner energy. The challenge is funding modernization and maintaining affordability. In this episode, CIO Dirk Mahling of Seattle City Light shares what it takes to improve grid resilience, integrate household solar and scale distributed energy without breaking budgets. Hear lessons from Germany's rapid push toward renewables and why S...

In the face of ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflicting demands, the most important thing that leaders do is make judgment calls. The decisions and judgment calls made in the people, strategy, and crisis domains have the most impact on the well-being and sustainability of an organization. How are we doing in this area? Must we rely on the innate strengths of who we hire or groom to become the leade...

In an organization's attempt to cut costs and meet business demands, there's a perceived notion that IT leaders are creating a ruthless environment in which workers are treated as cogs in a larger machine. But this culture, whether a myth or a tough reality, can ultimately undermine performance. How do we reduce the damage to our most precious human resources and still deliver profitability and sh...

The smart grid infrastructure will inevitably produce an explosion of data, and utility may need to have a comprehensive information management ability to handle it. While many organizations are still struggling to modernize their legacy infrastructure, isn't going digital too big a leap? What's the strategy to meet smart grid challenges and reach the end goal? Do they have the internal capability...

Building a smart city will take real effort by businesses to meet rising populations and industries with escalating needs. Utilities, IT and telecommunications need to collaborate to provide smart solutions for the community, anything from transportation, water, waste management and building systems to address new demands. How will so many elements related to technology, sustainability and even ci...

The Arkansas government recognized that students in their state were not finding easy ways to receive financial aid. The Department of Higher Education saw a public need and business value to boost engagement in their community. How did they use mobility to streamline the application process and make it more accessible and easier all around? Why is Arkansas' YOUniversal app transparent and useful...

Caring for a sick patient in a hospital is a long, delicate process. Physicians need to be informed of a patient's status such that they can make decisions about their care and provide steps to recovery. The Ottawa Hospital realized that this lifecycle needed to be less cumbersome and more focused on the patient. Introducing mobility to the hospital in targeted sectors was a way to provide patient...

What makes a leader "authentic"? It's a person who is understanding of the surrounding world, has true character, makes a difference, leads by example, sees the forest through the trees and inspires others to follow suit. This may be obvious to many business executives, but not everyone is seeing groundbreaking results. How do we know we're doing what we preach? Guest: Bob Kantor, Leadership Mento...

It is not uncommon to see enterprise transformations fail due to a lack of enthusiasm from your employees. But now imagine a strategy inspired by video games, one that uses technologies and techniques designed to motivate enterprise staff through feedback, measured achievements and incentives. It's called Gamification, and its claim to fame is that Gamification can not only improve workplace engag...

What are the hot topics in business today: Big Data, Cloud Computing, Social Media, CRM? These are all game changing technology innovations, and yet in increasing numbers of businesses, the adoption of this next wave of thinking is being pushed by the Marketing department, not IT. CIOs have a seat at the table, but have they been able to demonstrate the value of these technologies in the way that...

Metric identification, data collection, comparing and contrasting, focused action and sustained improvement… these are the elements needed for the sales function to be more effective and help individuals and organizations to make their sales numbers! Obviously, Sales can no longer depend solely on transactional data, since there is more to understanding how, why, and when people buy. Could Big Dat...

Increasingly, businesses are finding it necessary to challenge the status quo and explore new directions — not only for competitive advantage — but to stay relevant and prosperous! How can IT and business unite to be innovative and get new ideas to market first, embrace continuous change? …step away from past successes and focus on new ones? How can businesses create an environment where creativit...

Even the most successful global organizations struggle at effectively coordinating and controlling their operations. To do this, they need common processes across geographical regions to promote efficiency while also customizing products and services that match the needs of their local business units and functions. This also requires tailoring of their global IT in parallel, to accomodate their lo...

Despite the best intentions of an IT leader and his/her organization, efforts at change usually fail. A big announcement with lots of fanfare and a catchy slogan doesn't guarantee success… Rather, effective organizational change requires active, engaged participation by everyone affected. So, how does a leader go about enlisting the heads, hearts, and hopes of his/her people, in order to implement...