Me, Myself and I ⁵ 

What is striking in meetings with marketeers, customer relation managers and financials is that these people put applied IT and technology very high on their own business agenda. During their conferences and seminars IT is often the thread, while the CIO is unfortunately nowhere to be seen. IT is becoming more ans more of a business party, with the highest information chef literally downgraded to an obstacle you can better avoid.

The involvement of the CIO in managing IT and information flows is essential. Architecture thinking remains fundamentally concerning the interconnection of systems and data traffic - both inside and outside boundaries of the organization. That does not mean that the CIO can retreat into the role of cost-cutter and technological conscience of the company. He or she will have to think along with the business in their desire for quick wins, customer focus and time to market. To avoid the risk to be dismissed as a glorified IT manager.

Because ultimately the CIO has to create value for the organization, it is time that the CIO starts to think and operate from within himself, using his or her own knowledge, expertise, strength and leadership. Not only to help the business as an individual, but to make the entire company ready for the new time where intelligent use of information, inspiration, innovation and interaction are the important phenomena.

In that sense the CIO has a unique opportunity and momentum. Many colleagues are looking for opportunities to increase their profile within the organization and act as a valued and trusted business partner who can contribute significantly to the business' success. The value of information makes the CIO increasingly able to make this battle. The deployment of the IT executive is taking a bit wider than the old, reactive response to the demand from the finance function. CIO's have more influence on the profit and loss account than they think.

The theme of the CIO Day 2011 appeals to the new opportunities for the CIO. Under the motto ‘Me, Myself and I⁵ - Information, Intelligence, Inspiration, Innovation & Interaction' the CIO Day at 14 and 15 November this year will come with several practical tools, knowledge and inspiring thought leadership to win and gain inspiration to leverage the organization.

Meanwhile, the preliminaries the CIO of the Year Award 2011 already started. Personal leadership, vision and execution in respect of dealing with innovation and information will be highlighted during the election process. Potential winners have been warned!

What do over 100 round table sessions and personal talks with over 1,000 CIOs tell us about today's CIO agenda? That is the question to which Hotze Zijlstra (Editor-in-Chief of CIO Magazine) and Rob Beijleveld (Managing Director of ICT Media) wanted to find an answer. Together they tried to summarize all formal and informal meetings held during the past four years. What were they generally about? And what should they be about in the future?

Certain 'basic' subjects were found to crop up time and again during the talks and discussions. They are not highbrow matters, but items of daily business for most CIOs, such as standardization, centralization, applications rationalization, talent management, sustainability, capex & opex issues and flexibility. In other words: keeping the basic IT facilities going. From a purely CIO agenda-based point of view, these challenges always seem to be approached along two axes: personal (leadership, communication and creativity) and functional (position, level of maturity, knowledge and experience).

Triangle Relationships
A further conclusion was that lots of discussions in organizations are conducted within a kind of triangle relationship, i.e. based on the pillars of architecture (infrastructure and applications), innovation (transformation of IT and business) and sourcing. Furthermore, specific subjects, such as cloud computing, embracing social media or how to handle information, turn out not to be suited to one-dimensional discussions, but need to be discussed in conjunction with other subjects as adopting a technology or an approach often has consequences for the company's strategies in several fields. Furthermore it was found that, contrary to the functional matrix on the basis of which the ICT organization is set up, discussions are almost always defined by clear themes: information management, strategic sourcing, connected enterprise and innovation/transformation. Or in other words: beyond the borders of functional separation!

Complementary Activities
It is not surprising that the activities of ICT Media - a company whose main task is facilitating the CIO community and related professional fields - are completely in line with this classification into themes. In addition to organizing exclusive round-table sessions in ICT Media's own Bossche Boardroom, the annual congresses are programmed on the basis of these four themes. This is in order to go more deeply into the subjects and themes, based on the starting point that they have been identified as such from the demand side.

To optimize this envisaged in-depth approach, ICT Media is currently working on facilitating two content matrices: one on the basis of workshops (sharing knowledge) and one on the basis of master classes (certification). Both fully in line with subjects to be identified by the CIOs themselves, resulting from the round-table sessions. The meetings are also a part of the activities of ICT Media and in line with the objectives of the CIO Academy foundation: drawing up standards, certification and registration on the basis of the e-skills competencies matrix.

Personal Support
Further to the functional story, we provide a similar form of support to CIOs in their personal capacity, both with public events, such as the themed congresses, but, if so required, also in a closed setting, for instance the specific and exclusive ‘CIO only' round-table meetings. These are, of course, always fully supported by our CIO Magazine and CIO Portal publications. Not only that, but the CIO Day and CIO Academy also offer plenty of room for the functional and personal agendas of Chief Information Officers.