CIO Talk Network Podcast

Many organizations require virtually 100% uptime. This means more than just implementing internal or vendor SLA's. How exactly do you train people and develop a 100% uptime culture? What kind of technologies and processes do you have to put in place? Guest 1: Steven Rubinow Title: Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer, NYSE EURONEXT Guest 2: Imad Mouline Title: Chief Technology Offi...

A CIO needs to keep his/her IT organization agile to handle uncertainty, rapid business changes, disruptive innovations, and cater to management that may not have the patience to wait for long term IT projects. On the other hand, careful strategy, consistency of effort, and an eye focused firmly on future goals are also needed. What should a CIO train for? Becoming a sprinter or marathon runner? G...

Most innovations including virtualization, SOA, and Web 2.0 are still not fully cooked and have security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, there are more new innovations in the pipeline. How does an enterprise secure anything when everything is in flux? Guest: John Pescatore, Vice president and Research Fellow, Gartner Research Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/john-pescatore/ More...

Organizations are adopting ECM (Enterprise Content Management) systems to handle the deluge of different types of content coming from many different sources. How successful are they at getting a handle on all that content, and when successful, have they figured out ways of leveraging it all as an asset to increase ROI instead of just passively storing it? Guest 1: Melissa Webster, Program Vice Pre...

Is being a creative CIO based on natural talent alone? ....Or can critical skills like thinking "outside the box" (OTB) be learned? What balance of innate and acquired skills make the difference between a merely good CIO and a truly creative IT leader? Guest 1: Calvin S. Sihilling, Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President, Nash Finch Co. Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/cont...

A fresh graduate (even with MIS as a major) usually has little clue about how real world IT works. If ongoing education programs are ineffective in retooling or improving worker value, can IT and academia come together to create an ongoing certification program, to keep track of an IT graduate's training and career advancement, from college throughout his career? Guest 1: Harry R. Lewis, Gordon Mc...

While there's a lot of emphasis on IT Governance, organizations have been building silo IT governance mechanisms to solve problems in isolation. This is a reactionary and prevents IT from making a strategic impact. How about proactively designing IT governance around an organization's overall objectives and performance goals and continually redesigning whenever these objectives and goals change? G...

What would it be like if an end user could be offered real flexibility in the way they use technology? This would include maintaining central control with respect to security and who gets what, as well as an almost self-healing desktop environment less dependent on support personnel. Are we there yet? Guest 1: Ben Grimes, CTO, Avocent Co. Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/ben-g...

There have been multiple best practices and methodologies proposed to minimize the risk related to software projects (iterative, agile, etc.). With stakes so high, organizations are open to any and all suggestions and deploy internal/external resources to help select the right software project methodology and manage execution. Still we can count more failures than success. Are we missing something...

We've virtualized servers, networks, storage, applications, and I/O, and reduced the physical infrastructure footprint. The next step is to maximize performance. What avenues are being explored and what benchmarks can we reach or exceed? Guest 1: Simon Crosby, Chief Technology Officer, The Virtualization and Management Division of Citrix (formerly CTO of XenSource) Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalkne...

Whether it's used for security surveillance or as a resource for an enterprise, Video over IP has penetrated the enterprise. What used to be an operations issue is now one more headache for the IT leader. What does getting Video over IP buy us? While it's a bandwidth hog, could there be benefits worth the investment? Guest: CIO Talk Network, Host & CEO, CIO Talk Radio Guest Bio: https://www.ciotal...

Most IT leaders don't take much needed long vacations. The fears are that on one hand, if something happens, they'll have a mess to fix. On the other hand, if everything works smoothly in their absence, corporate management may wonder if they are worth the pay. Should/Can a CIO enjoy a long vacation? Guest 1: Mark Tonnesen, VP IT, CIO, Logitech Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor...

SaaS promises big relief while causing new headaches such as: Identity Management challenges, difficulties in moving quickly and seamlessly from one SaaS offering to another, and greater difficulty in isolating issues within the brave new world of mashups. Guest 1: John Rowell, CTO, Opsource Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/john-rowell/ Guest 2: Joe Burton, CTO, CISCO-Unified...

With stakes continually rising, maximizing the use of IT talent and resources can become so demanding, it becomes counter productive. Burnt out and struggling with grueling hours toiling over ever growing task lists, IT soldiers suffer from battle fatigue with negative results ranging from acute productivity loss to resignation resulting in loss to an organization of valuable system/business knowl...

Business growth brings its own challenges. With organizations delivering large web applications and content across the globe to multi-platform desktops and mobile devices, there are 2 delivery problems: 1) Scale (number of users and devices) and 2) The flexibility needed to support any device. These problems could create a bottleneck, but just adding more hardware is not the best solution. What ca...

If being a CIO is a very demanding role that requires taking control of the IT function to reduce cost and get things done whatever it takes, are you in danger of being seen by your own crew as well as other business users, as an oppressor, control freak, and an alien who is making their life miserable? Guest 1: Susan Cramm, President Valuedance and Former CIO, Taco Bell Corporation Guest Bio: htt...

Organizations are facing a problem: They don't have a unified view of the data spread across departments. Expensive technology tools claiming to magically solve this problem have not helped. Is this a problem with creating or sharing data? Is it an IT or a business problem? Guest 1: Robert Friedrich, VP, Enterprise Data Architecture, Equifax Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/ro...

Beyond the cool technology factor, can social network tools (networking sites, Internet communities, blogging software, et al) be adopted by enterprises to facilitate learning, internal and external communication, and improve productivity within the IT department and organization as a whole? Guest 1: Mark P. McDonald, Chief Information Officer, City of Vancouver Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwo...

Green IT initiatives are primarily to help improve the global environment rather than our balance sheets. While organizations may join the bandwagon for visibility, do they really care about it given that there is not a significant tangible ROI on related investments? Guest 1: Molly A. O'NeiII, Assistant Administrator and Chief Information Officer, Office of Environmental Information U.S. Environm...

Effective communication with internal/external constituents and customers is key to achieving success in business and IT. How well are we doing on that front? What does it take for an IT leader to become a maestro and conduct a communications orchestra where the right messages are getting conveyed, timely, to the right people and nothing gets lost in translation? Guest 1: Stephen C. Savage, Senior...

When faced with a car skid, experts teach that you should "steer into the skid", despite an instinctual urge to do the opposite. Similarly, when it comes to IT investment and its impact upon business performance, management reacts the same way. Just at the point of crisis, when companies should be investing more in technology, to drive business performance, management's reflex is to cut spending....

There are numerous examples of failed IT initiatives and related analysis of why the failure happened. What can be done to proactively raise the flag? At what point, do we cut our losses vs. trying to save a sinking ship? Guest 1: Jane Landon, CIO, NYC Department Of Finance, NY, NY Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/jane-landon/ Guest 2: Charles Hunsinger, Vice President, Chief...

The IT helpdesk operation in most organization has mostly been ad hoc and reactionary. It has also been given the glamorous title, "service desk" with "ITIL" expected to provide a virtual weapon and the department to become a proactive army that anticipates and annihilates enterprise wide IT problems. Is that truly the case? Guest 1: Barry Carter, Corporate Information Officer (CIO), Alliance Data...

Technology allows today's IT work force the convenience of working from anywhere, untethered from each other or a physical location. But what happens to the team, when the players are in virtual rather than physical proximity? What's lost, and how do we get it back? Guest 1: Barry Vandevier, CTO, Travelocity.com L.P. Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/barry-vandevier/ Guest 2: D...

While each new IT innovation is expected to bring value, it also tends to bring complexity. How quickly can you digest the changes required by one innovation, before being able to swallow more from the next one? Are we at peril of choking on too much of a good thing, or should we welcome any and all innovation as it comes? Guest 1: Brian Shield, CIO, The Weather Channel Companies Guest Bio: https:...