CIO Talk Network Podcast

Business knows clients and generally tells IT what the client wants. IT is strategic, and understands how to make Innovation happen. Since innovation is what the customer really wants, shouldn't IT be invited to the table to work in tandem with business to better create the Innovation that business wants to deliver to the customer? Guest 1: Brian Simmermon, Vice President and Chief Information Off...

Some organizations have been nursing legacy IT systems and applications along for decades in the belief they are squeezing the maximum value out of them. At what point do you decide you've gotten your money's worth? When do you let go of obsolete technologies to utilize newer, better technologies? What's the least painful way to end them? Guest 1: Michael L. Capone, Corporate Vice President and CI...

In order to remain globally competitive and develop a workforce of appropriate number and quality, the national leadership has made promises to provide support for the next US technology revolution. However, haven't the budget allocations and endorsements for the required programs and initiatives been disappointing and inadequate? With the new incoming national leadership, can both corporate and o...

Should you assume that creating an IT PMO will automatically create business value? During an economic downturn anything that impacts IT costs has to be evaluated carefully. Bottom line: you need to be sure the number, complexity, and scale of IT projects will justify the effort and cost of creating a PMO and that the cost of the deliverables, including intangibles, will be justifiable to all stak...

Despite the global wide financial meltdown, businesses still need to keep running, and Data Centers are the very soul of most businesses. The need to accommodate continually accumulating data and ongoing computing growth doesn't stop, even during an economic slow down. Obvious strategies to handling things include virtualization or consolidation, but those are also expensive. Are there any other s...

Indian enterprises ballooned rapidly and Indian IT leaders rushed to manage the growth by leveraging the latest technologies. Now the global economic crisis has abruptly put the breaks on IT initiatives worldwide. Suddenly everything IT has gone from boom to bust everywhere, including in India. How well has Indian IT handled this wild roller coaster ride? Guest 1: Partha lyengar, VP distinguished...

In the interest of achieving scalability, are we moving too quickly to cloud computing? What about data/email security issues? Once Cloud Computing becomes the de facto standard, there will be no turning back. Is our act together? Guest: Howard A. Schmidt, President & CEO, Professor of Practice, Former White House Cyber-Security Advisor Distinguished Fellow, Professor of Research, , The London bas...

There is a huge opportunity cost, when IT resource needs cannot be met quickly and cost effectively. Some problems include: an IT that is unaware of budget constraints or corporate cultural criteria, or a non-technical HR that can become a bottleneck. How can HR and IT become a true marriage, where both parties work together? Guest 1: John P. Gillispie, COO, Iowa's Information Technology Enterpris...

IT that merely maintains the status quo doesn't attract substantial funding. OTH, IT that helps the business innovate and operate more efficiently has the power to profoundly improve business processes, save money, and help the organization leap global competition in a single bound! How does IT become a value driver? Guest 1: Don Sharp Title: Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Navistar...

IT leaders must structure their organization to take full advantage of new and changing technologies. They must ensure that every team member contributes to the success of the business as IT grows and changes around them. Roles must change too, and so should the staffing levels and skills/experience mix. How do we handle this moving target to ensure that people are not the weakest link? Guest 1: S...

While versatility may be the key to a successful IT career path, as a CIO, are you ready to put your job on the line by delegating tasks to team members that may not always be up to it? Guest 1: Kevin Walker, SVP and CIO, American Electric Power Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/kevin-walker/ Guest 2: Ken G. Fulmer, Chief Technology Officer, Sunoco, Inc. Guest Bio: https://www....

Isn't IT supposed to be strategic? If so, can an IT leader do any special realigning of IT resources to help his/her company not only survive the downturn but be in a better position strategically once things improve, to ensure a quick return to robust topline growth? Guest 1: Patricia A. Coffey, Executive Board member, SIM Advanced Practices Council member, SIM Vice President, Distribution Market...

In 2009, IT may be used as a driver and sandbox to deliver innovation and competitive advantage to businesses worldwide. At the same time, worldwide labor arbitrage, looming baby boomer exodus, and other economic imbalances may introduce fear uncertainty, and doubt (F.U.D.). How is 2009 expected to turn out for IT? Guest 1: Casey Coleman, Chief Information Officer, U.S. General Services Administra...

While IT has allowed some industries to cut labor, paradoxically, IT is having problems finding skilled people! Two trends are responsible: the boomer generation of experienced technology workers is approaching retirement and some valuable IT resources are just scarce. So what about a new 20 hour-a-week free agent work force to meet future IT needs? Will this kind of work force be able to handle t...

For some not so obvious reasons, the Quality Assurance function in IT is treated as a step child! While there are costs related to implementing quality in terms of appraisal and prevention, are these costs really exceeding that of failure? Implementing a successful IT QA function is in fact, a change management challenge. How well are we doing on this front? Guest 1: John Von Stein, Executive Vice...

At one time, VoIP was just a way to cut down on phone bills. With the convergence of audio and data streams, VoIP is now a serious communication tool millions of businesses depend on every day. But cheap phone service is only one aspect. What strategic advantages will VoIP offer in the future, as the technologies involved mature further? Guest 1: Phil Edholm, Enterprise CTO and VP Network Architec...

A CIO's job tenure is fraught with deadlines, RIF's, job changes, and other stress, and a tough job can take its toll. Is there a better way to do a much better job? ...perhaps by using positive thinking or changing our thoughts to affect outcomes? Can we change our outer world by getting "into the groove", internally? Guest 1: Larry S. Thomas, VP and CIO , Landstar, Inc. Guest Bio: https://www.ci...

When it comes to hot new technologies that are still immature or just challengingly complex, how can an internal IT department develop the necessary criteria to avoid being taken for a ride by a vendor? How does IT Leadership keep a healthy skepticism about what a vendor is doing, when they themselves may have only a tenuous grip on the technology? Guest 1: Mark Katz, VP Global IT and Chief Inform...

While there are obvious incentives for an IT executive to opt for the title of CIO in a small firm, what about accepting a position in a much larger firm where he/she reports to another CIO? For the ultimate IT leader, a CIO, what are the career advantages? How easy is it to adapt to being second banana in a larger organization, after having been the top banana elsewhere? Guest 1: Shawn Banerji, C...

IT Services Management (ITSM) started as a set of best practices to deliver better IT. However, the execution touches almost every area of business. Isn't it time that we exploit ITSM's potential beyond IT? Guest 1: David Cannon, President, itSMF USA Board. Co-author, Service Operation book for ITIL v3. ITSM Practice Principal, HP Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/david-cannon/...

Today's IT security is only as effective as the human beings who implement and monitor it. Technology may promise self healing, intelligent, automated systems that will proactively respond to threats. How soon will this be a reality? Will this be state of the art IT security ...IN THE YEAR 2050? Guest 1: Carey Nachenberg, Chief Architect and Symantec Fellow, Security Technology and Response, Syman...

With the economic explosion in India has come challenges of managing growth and competitive pressures. Changing from the relatively insignificant business function of keeping computers running to becoming a mission critical backbone of an organization, enterprise IT's role requires a complete transformation in terms of people, processes, and technology. How are IT leaders in India coping? Guest: C...

Consolidation of IT infrastructure, applications, and data is the logical way to control costs, but how much consolidation is practical? Too much and the end result may be a lethargic monolithic IT with a lot of inertia and intertwined critical parts requiring meticulous synchronization. Given the speed of technology change, is this approach practical? Guest 1: John Conley, Deputy CIO, Governor's...

It wasn't long ago when using office productivity applications online were considered a fad. Enterprise applications are already running in (software as a service) SaaS and/or are internally hosted and used over a browser. A perceived inconvenience held us to the desktop. With web2.0 applications for office productivity gaining ground, can we safely say good-bye to desktops? Are we there yet? Gues...

Organizations have long been using Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a PR tool and/or cost of doing business. IT facilitates organizational changes such as those related to CSR, through communication and collaboration. So, are organization empowering IT leadership to take an active part in genuine CSR vs. just being a business enabler? And, since IT is also a source of environmental damage...