My Friday Post: Geek and Poke

It’s Friday. As CIOs clear down their inboxes and tie up loose ends before the weekend, it is time to take a break…

I came across this site by accident. After all these years you can still find jewels on the Internet.

“Geek and Poke” is a daily cartoon by Oliver Widder, an IT guy in Hamburg, Germany. It is a humorous look at information technology. Enjoy…

http://geekandpoke.typepad.com

A CIO’s Leadership Philosophy

Being an effective CIO means being a leader. Unlike the military where there are programs to train soldiers on how to effectively lead, corporations do not have such programs.  Many corporate leaders learn to be leaders through trial and error. Whether or not they are effective leaders is another question.

A CIO’s leadership philosophy should have three components: motivating staff, guiding the organization to common goals and decision-making.

• Motivation – Motivating your staff is an important component of leadership because it challenges your staff to expand their comfort zones and achieve goals. CIOs must motivate different people differently. This requires the CIO to know his/her people and organizational culture intimately.
• Guidance – Guidance is the combination of setting goals and charting the roadmap to achieve those goals. Remember, “You cannot get there, if you do not know where there is.” Setting a proper course and knowing how to get there is an important component of any leadership thinking.
• Decision-making – As CIO you are expected you to make decisions each and every day. There are no perfect decisions. There will be times when you will make wrong decisions. Learn from your decisions.

CIO and the Art of Decision Making

The word “Decision” originated from the Latin “Decidere”, which means to “To Cut” (Decide is inferred to be constructed from a combination of “de : off, from” + “caedere : to cut” ) . The word Caedere also means Kill, Strike, Beat etc.

The origin of the word “Decide” means the consequences of taking a “Decision”. It automatically means that “Cutting off”, eliminates many options, and leaves a well-defined outcome in front of the decision maker. The decision “kills” options and represents conclusive Purpose and Action .

Leading an IT department is a daunting task. It does not matter if your group is small, large, global, regional, or a one-man shop. You are tasked with making decisions each and everyday. As CIOs we make decisions, but how do we know which one is correct and which one is wrong? We don’t. Making the right decisions is an art. It comes only after years of experience and making incorrect decisions that we can learn from.

There are some basic principles we can follow in our critical thinking to help make decisions:

1. Define the problem first, and then look for the solution.
2. Gather all the information possible.
3. Take the time to find out the information, do not assume anything.
4. Ask for advice.

Being a CIO is a daily challenge.  Use your experience and gut instinct to help guide you through tough decision-making.

My Friday Post: Is The Technology Behind CSI Real?

It’s Friday. As CIOs clear down their inboxes and tie up loose ends before the weekend, it is time to take a break…

I have always been fascinated with CBS’s CSI franchise: CSI Las Vegas, CSI Miami, and CSI New York. All the shows can stand on their own with different styles and substance or lack there off depending on whom you talk with.

Since I am not a forensic scientist I will not discuss if the science is real or not. I did meet a real forensic scientist at a party once and she admittedly said the science behind the show is not really what happens in the lab. She said it is pretty mundane and not as glitzy as the shows make it out to be. Oh Hollywood…the mundane is never as interesting.

I am however fascinated with the technology of the shows. Some shows rely on it more than others to solve their homicide cases in one hour. For example, CSI New York uses modified surface computers to recreate crime scenes and the stars carrying tablet PCs and UMPCs instead of notepads. Whatever the latest coolest technology is at the time is on theses shows. It makes any tech enthusiast jealous.

However, other uses really do not make sense to me. The most obvious is to be able to zoom into photographs to see tiny details such a license plate from 3000 feet. I wish iPhoto could do that. The three-dimensional human body that they can operate on which looks like something from Star Trek. What supercomuter are are they using? To be able to do reverse telephone number lookups across every database in law enforcement and to be able to go back several months. Is there really such a program to do this?

Regardless if the technology is exaggerated on these shows or not it does make it fun to watch. CSI is highly contagious. If you are a technologist just watch one of the shows and let me know what you think about the tech behind the shows?

THE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

Who I am.

Leader

Politician

Visionary

Businessperson

Engineer

Teacher

Pragmatist

Motivator

Just your everyday kind of leader.

I put out fires.

I am an agent of change.

I increase productivity.

I plan capital investment.

I lead my company through the technological wilderness keeping it competitive in today’s marketplace.

Do You Have A Pandemic Plan?

The flu season is upon us and news reports are stating that H1N1 will be wide spread this season. IT executives should review and update their disaster recovery/BCP plans and if they do not have one, develop a pandemic plan.

As part of your pandemic planning the following points should be reviewed:

1. If you do not have a plan you should develop one. All businesses, no matter how small, should have some type of plan in place to deal with operational disruptions.
2. If you have a plan, review and update. Make sure your communication plan is also up-to-date.
3. Have a staffing plan to deal with situations when 30-40% of your staff are out at any one time.
4. Work with management to develop an action plan for critical actions you need to take within your company to continue to provide core services.
5. Keep informed on local and national news about increase cases.
6. Create a decision-making protocol for how and when you will ramp up your response when needed.
7. Ensure that staff, especially executive staff, know what their roles will be.
8. Encourage clear communications across you business units.

My Friday Post: What Happens In Vegas…

It’s Friday. As CIOs clear down their inboxes and tie up loose ends before the weekend, it is time to take a break…

Last week my wife and I went to Las Vegas for a mini vacation/anniversary. It was my wife’s first time to Sin City and my second. I was there in 1999; right before the mega hotels were built. The skyline has totally changed. Unlike other cities like New York or London, Las Vegas is constantly reinventing itself. It truly is an amusement park for adults.

While there we stayed at the Bellagio Hotel. It was an amazing hotel with great food and plenty to do. There really was no reason for us to leave the hotel. I guess that is the point of these mega resorts. We caught the Cirque du Soleil ‘O’ show which merged performer with water and air.

One show that surprised us was Lance Burton’s Magic Show. I am not big fan of prestidigitation but Lance put on an amazing show for the audience. There was plenty of audience interaction and tricks that amazed everyone. The show was a throw back to the old days of Las Vegas when performers would engage with the audience.

Overall we had a great time in Vegas. We gambled a little, lost a little, ate a lot and had a true Vegas experience. It was good to get away from life even if it was for a few days. Back to life now…

Trouble in the Clouds

I was reading an article in Macworld (see Gmail outage caused by overloaded servers) about the recent outage of Google’s Gmail. The outage, which lasted for 100 minutes, was a result of changes on request routers that overloaded the system after workers took some Gmail servers offline to perform routine upgrades.

Outages such as this will cast doubts on the reliability of Cloud computing. As more and more companies move into the Cloud there will be increase demand to maintain 24×7 uptime. As any first year sys admin knows, networks need to be maintained and they can only be maintained during off-peak hours. If you are running a global 24×7 operation there really is no off-peak window to perform maintenance.

Some critics say that a business should have multiple geographic redundant load balanced data-centers spread out all over the world. The cost to do such a solution will be out of scope for most businesses. Management and coordination of maintenance and upgrades will be a nightmare. If the big-boy on the  block, Google,  has periodic issues maintaining their level of service what chance does the business down the street have in maintaining uptime in the Cloud?

This we know as a fact – hardware will always fail. It is the nature of the beast. Traffic patterns will always increase beyond estimated projections. There will always be bottlenecks in every network no matter how much you try to compensate for it. How you plan your Cloud solution will determine if you can maintain a 24×7 operation or suffer sporadic outages such as Google. My advice to those of you out there is to plan on how to deal with outages when they occur and they will occur more frequently as more and more businesses move into the clouds.

Brothers and Sisters: When Our Peers Need Help

There is no doubt that this last year has been hard on us all. Unemployment is still at an all time high. Companies are still in a “wait-n-see” mode. The future still looks bleak.

Over the course of writing this blog, I have been in contact with at least 25 IT people who have been out of work. Some have been out work for 3 or more months while others, like myself, have been out of work for a year. Some were former CIOs, CTOs, MDs, SVPs, managers, and administrators. All lost their jobs through downsizing and cost cutting.

I had a recent conversation with a manager who was let go 6 months ago and was struggling to pay his bills and support his family. I wish I were in a position to offer him a job. Instead, I offered him access to my network on LinkedIn and other peer networking groups I am affiliated with. I hope things work out for him.

As IT professionals it is our responsibility and duty to look after each other. If you are in a position to help others please do so. Your kindness will go a long way in helping others.

Blogs for October 2009

Here are some blog postings that I found interesting this month:

Managing Tough Times in 2009 – Grinding it out by Lui Sieh

Risk in IT by Mark Brewer

Conventional wisdom that fails for IT by Peter Kretzman

Good Service vs. Bad Service–A Lesson for IT by Don Lewis

Poisonous Snakes, Sharp Knives, And Angry Natives – How Much Risk Can You Handle? by Jim Anderson