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Faisal Hoque: Convergence Benefits the Bottom Line
This is from the June 12th update at EnterpriseLeadership.
Faisal Hoque
IT thought leader, author, and CEO of BTM Corporation
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Many CIOs grapple with how to align IT with the needs of their businesses. They have to demonstrate the value their role serves and to make sure technology works well within their businesses. Meanwhile, a mobile global workforce, the growing dependency on social media, and the push for more utility computing based on service-oriented architecture are driving businesses to converge their IT strategy with their business strategy. In a converged company, information, not the technology behind it, is what matters to all constituents the company serves. As a result, CIOs take on the new role of information officer not chief IT officer. They become more involve in strategy planning and in the governance process. Moreover, they look at how technology enables the business architecture and how the business manages the overall investment portfolio.
No one knows more about getting out of the alignment trap and moving toward convergence than Faisal Hoque, founder and CEO of BTM Corporation; founder of the BTM Institute, a not-for-profit IT think tank; and author of five books on business technology management. In fact, a decade ago, Hoque conceived and developed a unique holistic business model which looks at the relationship between business and technology in the following areas: governance, strategy and platform, enterprise architecture, investment management, and the maturity of the overall management structure. The result is a converged organization where business and technology come together to drive innovation, which, in turn, fuels growth and profitability.
In this podcast, Hoque provides an overview of the organizational and philosophy changes CIOs need to consider if they want to transition from alignment to convergence. He also talks about the BTM Institute's Business Technology Convergence Index, a five-year study that quantifies the relationship between the way global companies value their technology investments and the companies' revenues and profitability. He says, "Companies with mature converged business technology management practices, such as FedEx, UPS, and Procter & Gamble, have better financial performance than their competitors. Think about it. Today, both FedEx and UPS are information services companies, not just movers of packages and trucks."
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Robert Reeg: How IT Masters Global Credit Card Business
This is from the June 6th update at EnterpriseLeadership.
Robert Reeg
Interim President of Global Technology and Operations
MasterCard Worldwide
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Each year, MasterCard processes more than a trillion dollars' worth of credit card transactions between its 25,000,000 acceptance locations in 210 countries worldwide. Net revenues for 2007 were $4.1 billion, a 22-percent increase versus the same period in 2006. Information technology drives MasterCard's three card business services: franchiser of acceptance locations that are guaranteed through MasterCard's network; processor of all payment transactions through the network and the final settlement of dollars with the financial institutions; and consultant offering a data warehouse of intelligence to help customers, such as merchants and banks, to make the best use of payments.
Robert Reeg, interim president of global technology and operations at MasterCard Worldwide, says that he doesn't worry about aligning IT with the business. He says, "We're one and the same. IT and the business are completely connected." In fact, Reeg leverages IT talent around the world to build and to manage MasterCard's massive network. He has even created the role of the business technologist as a way to develop future IT leaders.
In this podcast, Reeg talks about how his organization has adapted to the current economy to maintain its position in the marketplace, what processes, best practices, and new technologies are in place to manage a global organization, what role outsourcing plays in the IT operations, and how leveraging diversity can improve the innovation process.
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You're Invited to Interactive Austin 2008!
I thought you might be interested in this event that I will be speaking at called Interactive Austin 2008: Putting Social Commerce to Work on June 19th at the JJ Pickle Center, located at 10100 Burnet Road at the corner of Braker Lane.
The goal of the one-day conference is to educate marketing professionals with solid strategies that help them incorporate social commerce (Web 2.0) initiatives into their marketing programs, and give them the opportunity to make some valuable connections.
If you (or anyone else from your organization) are interested in attending, I can extend to you a discounted rate $109 when you register before the event at www.InteractiveAustin2008.com and enter the following code: BD7632. Seating is very limited, and they anticipate it to sell out--so please don't wait to register!
The event is designed to provide high-impact strategies that will help you integrate social commerce initiatives into your marketing platforms. As thought-leaders in the field of digital marketing and social media, the panelists and speakers will bring this technology down-to-earth with compelling dialogues and case studies for companies looking to incorporate digital media and social commerce into their business and marketing initiatives.
Interactive Austin 2008 will feature a number of informative presentations including:
- The Role of Metrics in Driving Interactive Performance
- Integrating New Media into the Marketing Plan
- How the Convergence of Media Online Affects Marketing and PR
- Managing your Digital Landscape
- Trends and Technologies Driving Social Interaction
- Building a High-Impact User Experience
- and More...
The conference will feature two Keynotes, Brian K. Magierski, Co-Founder & Chief Development Officer at nGenera Corporation who will address "Social Commerce and Its Impact on Business"; and Pete Hayes, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Communications at AMD has a presentation entitled "Get into the Click-Stream: An Alternative to Driving Traffic to Your Site."
Interactive Austin promises to be the premier Interactive Marketing event in 2008, thanks to a number of supporting organizations that will be promoting the event through their networks. They include FG Squared, Live Oak 360, Apogee Search, The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, The Interactive Marketing Association, the Austin Technology Council, and Business District Magazine.
If you have questions about the event, feel free to contact Jason Myers, publisher of Business District Magazine at Jason@abdmag.com or (512) 919-4563
I hope to see you at the JJ Pickle Center on June 19th!
Tom
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BMCtv - new Player Test
Checking out the difference in player attributes in this blog.Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross: How C-level Executives Build Their Reputations
This is from the May 28th update at EnterpriseLeadership.
Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross
Chief Reputation Strategist at Weber Shandwick
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In 2007, a major company issued a statement saying that it had dismissed its CIO for violating an important corporate policy. The nature of the corporate policy wasn't revealed. Just about every IT publication carried news of the event. For weeks IT bloggers posted comments about what the CIO could have done to be let go. Eventually, the noise level around this executive's dismissal died down, and the executive took a new job in an area outside of IT.
In this podcast, enterpriseleadership.org asked one of the world's most sought-after authorities on executive reputation to talk about how C-level executives, especially CEOs, build their reputations based on their corporate strategies, what they need to do to maintain them, and what challenges they face in developing and executing their corporate strategies.
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Client - BMC - Creates Video Podcasts at their UserWorld Event in Spain
Here is an example of what BMC Software is doing around video podcasting. Looks like fun!Tom
Ask Allison: Are Middle-aged Women Embracing Social Media?
I was recently talking with Allison Allen, founder of WomenBloom, a community and resource for women in their 40s and beyond, about the desire/ability/courage/willingness of women over a certain age to take to social media. You know -- to use the computer for more than sending email or shopping online.
And as those of us who have blogs tend to do, Allison turned that conversation into the topic of her next blog article. Check it out!
Tom
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Dr. Art Boni: Entrepreneurial Leadership and Innovation
This is from the May 21st update at EnterpriseLeadership.
Dr. Art Boni
Professor at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University
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Because of the rapidly accelerating pace of change in global business today, C-level executives in all sizes of companies need to respond quickly to changes in their business climate. Thus, executives have to be aware, not only of their own external environment, but they have to immerse themselves in their industries, and to look at society -- both nationally and globally. By understanding where changes come from or what changes to make, executives can take advantage of new opportunities. Meanwhile, executives must also focus on innovation and entrepreneurship in order to be successful. In fact, the Carnegie Mellon MBA program looks at innovation in organizations, ranging from startups to the Fortune 500 companies.
In this podcast, Dr. Art Boni, the director of the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, talks about how entrepreneurial leadership and innovative drive corporate growth.
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Film Contest
Ever since I created a film about wind farms last year and submitted it to SXSW, I've been eager to get back behind the camera. Now Tom Parish Inc is entering a contest to edit a short film shot in 4k digital with RED cameras.
Here’s the deal from OpenCut.org:
OpenCut is a completely open-source film competition designed to encourage people to take professionally shot material and edit it in their own way. As there is no "one way" to tell a story, so too can stories benefit from being re-edited and re-told from many different vantage points and perspectives.
The winner of OpenCut 1.0 will receive a brand new AJA IO HD from Silverado. They will also be recognized as the "editor-of-record" at IMDB and will have their cut submitted to multiple film festivals.
Robert Shaver and I will co-edit the film with creative input on the story from Carolyn Baehr. Regardless of who wins, we'll get experience in using Final Cut Pro with RED 4k digital video, and we get to keep the results for our own use. Very exciting.
Tom
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W. Hord Tipton: Walking the Talk
This is from the May 19th update at EnterpriseLeadership.
W. Hord Tipton
Former CIO, U.S. Department of the Interior
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When Hord Tipton became CIO of the U.S. Dept. of Interior, he knew he would be wrestling with some daunting IT issues, especially in security. In fact, the Department was reeling from a December 2001 court order that disconnected all Interior systems from the Internet. That order resulted in a multi-million lawsuit brought by beneficiaries of Individual Indian Trust accounts held by the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, based in part on hackers burrowing into the Trust's accounts.
By making a good case for business systems security, Tipton managed to convince the Interior's officials to increase the $4 million annual IT network and security budget to $100 million. Tipton and his staff spent the next four years upgrading systems security and getting all of the Interior's systems reconnected to the Internet. Tipton even gave his IT staff one year to become certified in security. When he received a lot of staff resistance to his challenge, the 60-year-old Tipton did something unusual for a CIO: He became a Certified Information Systems Security Professional. This certification matched the job at hand.
Under Tipton's leadership, the U.S. Dept. of the Interior established sound IT security policies and guidelines, and initiated testing and IT security training programs throughout the agency. Now retired from government service, Tipton is a board member of ISC2, the organization that oversees the CISSP exam and maintains the credentialing process.
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Patrick Gray: How CIOs Can Supercharge Organizational Growth
This is from the May 8th update at EnterpriseLeadership.
Patrick Gray
Author and president
Prevoyance Group
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Today's CIOs come from many disciplines outside of IT, but they all face a similar challenge -- how to take their IT organization from being a cost-centric services provider to being perceived as a valuable business partner. That's the question Patrick Gray answers in his new book, Breakthrough IT: Supercharging Organizational Value through Technology. His book provides a necessary roadmap for shifting IT from an operational entity that simply manages technology, to a powerhouse that combines strategy and technology to deliver measurable business results and long-term value.
As principal and president of the Prevoyance Group, a strategic IT consulting firm, Gray has worked on this issue with clients ranging from OfficeMax to SAP. Prevoyance Group's strategic IT consulting combines applied strategy and process improvement to ensure large IT organizations measurable monetary returns.
In this podcast, Patrick Gray talks about why CIOs don't belong to the business strategy circle, how the CIO role has to change to accommodate breakthrough IT, and what CIOs should do to accelerate that change.
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Tony Velleca: The Best Practices for Making Good on a Customer-centric Engagement Model
This is from the May 2nd update at EnterpriseLeadership.
Tony Velleca
CIO of UST Global
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To provide end-to-end IT services and business processing outsourcing solutions for Global 2000 companies, UST Global uses a customer-centric global engagement model that combines local and off-sites resources with the cost, scale, and quality advantages of off-shore operations. This customer-centric model forms the core of the company's values of how it operates and how it serves customers.
Tony Velleca, UST Global's CIO says that the company strives to build a long-lasting strategic relationship with each customer. "We empower our employees to provide value beyond what's outlined in a customer contract."
A project portfolio management system provides the technology underpinning for the customer engagement model. Velleca says, "We can have as many as 660 projects going at the same time." The system Velleca deployed enables UST Global's personnel to prioritize company projects, and to improve the performance of those projects while reducing their costs.
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Future Thinking in Social Media Strategies
Let's start simple.When I'm working with a client, one of the key questions I ask is Where do you want to be 12 months from now?
It's a critical question to consider before embarking on all the effort and money that will be set in play. Remember, in a social media/marketing strategy you're not just paying Google for click-through ads each month. You're directly involving yourself, your time and your money by building an ongoing relationship with your web traffic.
For a very small business, it's usually more than enough to say we'll start blogging consistently, build an audience and focus on all the tasks necessary to build a workflow of content and enroll others in the company to help. The goal being to build traffic and learn the ropes of blogging and engaging in conversation with other bloggers and your audience. I've seen this process work so well that many smaller businesses, typically in the services area, no longer need to worry every month about expensive SEO efforts. Blogging done right (content, connections and conversation) brings about a change in the way you interact with your customers versus buying advertisement to throw at them, hoping something will stick.
Of course, this is a simple strategy for smaller businesses that everyone seems to be climbing on board with these days - as well they should, in my opinion. People expect more than 'billboard'-looking websites that haven't been updated in months (or years, in some cases).
But what about a larger business, especially in the enterprise class? How do you develop social media/marketing strategies that leverage your efforts into business growth and keep you ahead of the competition?
Or, what if you have an idea for a start-up business that is social media/community-related? How would you go about doing that in a way that is not simply 'yet another social network' site?
How do you keep your social media effort alive and encourage those you bring along to stay with your business?
We'll talk about these ideas in the next article. Stay tuned ...
Tom
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Dr. Robert Miles: A Successful Business Transformation Initiative Requires aSolid Framework
This is from the April 25th update at EnterpriseLeadership.
Dr. Robert Miles
Author and president of Corporate Transformation Resources
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To overcome stagnant revenues, Symantec embarked on a corporate transformation integrating disconnected business subsidiaries into one cohesive business, focused on customer needs. Symantec couldn't have done this initiative without the help of Dr. Robert H. Miles, who developed the accelerate corporate transformation, or ACT, framework to enable change. He has written many books on the subject and heads up a corporate transformation consulting practice and serves as chairman of two other consulting firms that use his ACT framework.
Dr. Miles developed the ACT framework for business transformation while he was carrying out executive leadership programs for CEOs at Harvard Business School. The first version of ACT emphasized focus and execution. After spending time in Silicon Valley, Dr. Miles expanded the ACT framework to include speed and engagement. He says, "These four competencies become the bedrock of an organization's management process."
In this podcast, Dr. Miles talks about how the ACT framework can help C-level executives to plan, to launch, and to refocus corporate transformation efforts, how companies have benefited from this framework, and why speed, not necessarily agility, is the new management discipline.
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Jim Buckmaster: The Lure of Craigslist -- Open Source Technology, a Simple Business Model, and Lots of Customer Feedback
This is from the April 22nd update at Enterprise Leadership.
Jim Buckmaster
CEO of Craigslist
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When it comes to looking for a job, an apartment, or even a good garage sale, more than 26 million unique visitors each month turn to a Craigslist.com site in one of 450 cities in 50 countries. No one can dispute the cult-like reputation that Craigslist, founded by Craig Newmark, has earned. As a company, Craigslist runs frugal with 25 employees working out of an old Victorian building in San Francisco. However, Craigslist has proven that even a well-meaning, grassroots bunch of nerds can put a big dent in the advertising profits earmarked for thousands of newspapers. Let's not forget how Craigslist, which is 25-percent owned by eBay, has changed the way many of us live and work.
So how did Craigslist, which started as Newmark's idea for a San Francisco events list 12 years, come this far? Why would a company that could be making hundreds of millions of dollars each year continue to offer a primarily free service? What drives Craigslist's quirky form of innovation and culture? These are some of the things enterpriseleadership.org asked Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist CEO. Since 2000, Buckmaster has led Craigslist to be the most-used classifieds in any medium, and one of the world's most popular Web sites.
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Jim Swartz: Greening the Enterprise Keeps Unnecessary IT Costs from Sprouting at Sybase
This is the April 4th update from EnterpriseLeadership.
Jim Swartz
CIO and vice president of Sybase
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Like many large companies, Sybase, with $1 billion in revenues, has eliminated millions of dollars of unnecessary IT costs in the past few years. This data company has gone from 30 global centers down to three consolidated data centers. Jim Swartz, Sybase's CIO and vice president, says, "Our mantra is to simplify, to standardize, and to consolidate." The primary data center now resides at the corporate headquarters.
However, Sybase has an aggressive plan to keep IT costs down by going green. In fact, Jim Swartz, CIO of Sybase, says that initiatives, such as server virtualization, service-oriented architecture, retiring and redeploying servers, temporary storage of the OS, and improved cooling could postpone the building of a new data center until 2017. Swartz says, "About a year ago, we realized that we were going to run out of power and cooling in the near future unless we did something. We looked for clever ways to solve the problem rather than to spend upwards of $10 million to retrofit or to build a brand new data center."
In this podcast, Jim Swartz, CIO and vice president of Sybase, describes his company's green program for the entire enterprise.
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Nicholas (Nick) Horney: In Search of IT Agility
This is the March 30th update from EnterpriseLeadership.
Dr. Nicholas (Nick) Horney
Founder and principal of Agility Consulting and Training
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Terrorist threats. Shareholder expectations. Shaky economy. Organizations have to be ready to move fast if they expect to survive disruptions such as these. In other words, they need to maintain agility throughout the organization.
No one knows more about strategic and organizational agility than Dr. Nicholas (Nick) Horney. Since 2001, his company, Agility Consulting and Training, has been helping organizations build the capability to create and execute adaptable strategies that respond to a continuously turbulent business environment.
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Mark Dixon: Perfecting Instant Office Space for Virtual Workers
This is from the March 19th update on EnterpriseLeadership.
Mark Dixon
Founder and CEO, The Regus Group
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Airport terminal. High-rise office building. Hotel room. As more and more mobile devices enable people to work efficiently wherever they are, companies of all sizes have started to rethink their need for pricey office space, or even if they need office space at all. However, many companies do need to maintain some sort of a physical office for customer visits or to attract venture capital. Employees, such as auditors working out of state, might need fully equipped, temporary office space for several weeks.
Enter instant office space brought to you by Mark Dixon, one of Europe's best-known innovative entrepreneurs. He has a knack for combining technology, people, and physical office space to give customers flexible options for working in the virtual world.
In this podcast, Mark Dixon, founder and CEO of The Regus Group, talks about how he drives leadership and innovation at Regus, what technology his instant office space offers customers, and what lessons he learned after spending time with Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric.
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Bernard (Bud) Mathaisel: Achievo's Outsourcing Model Offers the Best of Emerging Technology from China
This is from the March 12th update at EnterpriseLeadership.
Bernard (Bud) Mathaisel
CIO and Sr. Vice President
Achievo
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Bangalore, India has become the heart of IT outsourcing in Asia, especially for large ERP systems based on SAP and Oracle. China, however, has rapidly become the place to go for outsourcing requirements based on emerging technologies, such as Web services, service-oriented architecture, and business intelligence. In this podcast, Bud Mathaisel, chief information officer of Achievo, talks about the business model his IT services company has developed with a backend tie to China. He also provides an overview of the growth of IT outsourcing in China.
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