Current News

Comment on Contact Me by E Authier, CTO 05/06/2008 - Just passing by..very interesting commentary. I have subscribed! Keep Blogging. Take care, Ed. - more

CIO blogs lift us up where we belong… 05/06/2008 - His blog, his about me page notes, covers “broad topics of interest to senior executives, giving the CTO/CIO perspective on such things as working as a member of a company’s executive team, how to focus product and application ... - more

“Astounding IT sayings”: the inaugural post 05/06/2008 - I haven't given myself the luxury of telling an IT anecdote or two here recently, so it's about time: here are two, with moral-of-the-story observations for each. Note: these are true stories. I may have changed some of the facts, ... - more

Climbing the ladder to CIO/CTO: a biographical sketch from eWeek 04/30/2008 - Another heads-up to readers: I was recently interviewed by eWeek for my thoughts on the difference between mid-market CIOs and enterprise CIOs. As these things sometimes go, the interview turned into more of a discussion of career path ... - more

Corporate CIO vs. Vendor CTO talent sourcing 04/30/2008 - In my presentation at Software 2008, I drew contrasts between talent pools corporate CIOs leverage versus those vendor CTOs do. If you would like a copy of my slides please email me at vmirchan AT att.net. - more

Nuts: the biggest trap of all for IT stakeholders 04/28/2008 - As I promised last time, there's one more key way, the biggest way of all, not to get what you want from your IT organization. This is, in fact, the trap I have seen virtually every entity I’ve ever worked for fall into to some degree, ... - more

How not to get what you want from IT 04/21/2008 - As much as any part of your company that supports the key prongs of the corporate mission (deliver product, sell the product, support the product), IT is constantly on the hook to deliver more and more. As I've written before, ... - more

Using feedback loops to improve IT department service 04/15/2008 - As I've written here before, I strongly advocate thinking of IT in general as a service organization to the rest of the business. Any service organization needs one or more forms of "feedback loop" to be able to gauge whether it is ... - more

Financial metrics for IT: the holy grail of ROI and how it misses ... 04/10/2008 - As I promised in my previous post on this, and along the lines of the “intensely practical” goal of this blog, we’ll now take a look at the financial cost analysis for a specific project. This is only an example, with details changed or ... - more

Thoughts on what it takes to be a good CIO/CTO 04/03/2008 - This is a hard one, because what I really mean if that a CTO/CIO needs to be able to predict the future -- the future of the company, the future of the market, and the future of the technological environment. Vision is 50% forsight and ... - more

CIO pet peeves: small drains on personal productivity 03/26/2008 - I promised a while back to write more about some of the pet peeves I’ve developed in the CIO/CTO role. So here are a few more. We all have pet peeves. Working as an executive in IT seems to present a lot of opportunities to develop a ... - more

Financial metrics for IT: the holy grail of ROI, and how it misses ... 03/19/2008 - Let's talk some more about one of my favorite topics, project portfolio management (PPM). A lot of literature on PPM tends to focus on evaluating risks and returns. An excellent article on IT governance last week in The Wall Street ... - more

“Channeling”: a technique for preparing IT presentations to management 03/14/2008 - The Skeptic's Dictionary tells us about a concept called channeling: "Channeling is a process whereby an individual (the "channeler") claims to have been invaded by a spirit entity which speaks through the channeler. ... - more

LVGI names new CTO, CIO 03/13/2008 - Britt will be joining the company as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Officer. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. ... - more

Technology Innovator Tim Britt Joins LVGI as CTO/CIO 03/12/2008 - ... innovator in server-based gaming application delivery through its award winning PlayerVision(R) system, announced today that Tim Britt will be joining the company as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Officer (CTO/CIO). ... - more

More Peterisms: lessons learned on IT practices 03/09/2008 - More pithy sayings that (at least in my view) I reuse in an attempt to succinctly express key concepts and lessons. Or, perhaps in many cases, to annoy my staff via tireless repetition. I have several dozen of these sayings, ... - more

The flip side of common myths: how some are perpetuated by IT 03/04/2008 - As promised, I'm going to follow up on my last post ("Optimism, resilience, stamina: the make-up of the CTO/CIO"), covering the myths IT deals with on a regular basis, by talking about its flip side: the ways that IT itself can ... - more

Our mention in CIO Magazine 02/29/2008 - Just a heads-up for readers: CTO/CIO Perspectives was mentioned this week in an interesting article in CIO Magazine, titled "20 Things You Can Do In 20 Minutes to Be More Successful at Work". Not all the tips are spot-on, ... - more

Optimism, resilience, stamina: the make-up of the CTO/CIO 02/24/2008 - Here's a disquieting little secret that few of us ever really acknowledge, maybe because it's rather painful and also an unavoidable part of the fabric of our existence in IT. I don't know how to say it more eloquently (or less bluntly) ... - more

Offshore development: aim for it, even if you never go there 02/19/2008 - As I wrote last time, a large part of my reason for opposing offshoring is because I've rarely, if ever, worked in a company where I felt the necessary prerequisites were in place to be able to even consider offshoring as a viable ... - more

Offshore software development: the reasons why not 02/14/2008 - Of all the numerous cold calls I get, inquiries from potential offshoring partners lead the pack. Their main pitch, of course, is that I can lower my development (or support, or QA) costs by leveraging offshore labor at a third or less ... - more

The pitfalls of the implicit “buy” bias for IT systems and services 02/05/2008 - I wrote last time about how there are twin truths to the buy vs. build dilemma: outsourcing can be a superb way to leverage external expertise and keep your own team focused on core functions; yet, outsourcing is not an easy or ... - more

Buy vs. build, and why Scott McNealy thinks the CIO doesn’t need a ... 01/30/2008 - I'm going to unabashedly steal someone else's anecdote for this post. I'll justify doing so on the grounds that the anecdote has stuck with me since I heard it; I'll talk about why, and why I tend to repeat it to my staff at opportune ... - more

Software companies looking to hire a CTO/CIO? 01/26/2008 - Are there any software companies out there out there looking to hire a CTO/CIO? My prior experience includes being information lead at Web 2.0 startup Crowdspirit.org, researcher for Techcrunch UK and Project Manager for Tesco.com ... - more

Cementing a formal work initiation process for IT projects 01/25/2008 - I've written before on how the most important thing that a CTO/CIO deals with is the proper allocation of resources. I've discussed how doing proper resource allocation isn't just a matter of deciding exactly what Sam or Mary will work ... - more