Brian P. Watson

I’m a firm believer that despite the recession, 2009 holds plenty of opportunities for CIOs. And conversations with dozens of CIOs in recent weeks have only strengthened that belief. Naysayers will claim I’m simply buying into the spin of corporate executives. Obviously, there are plenty of indicators suggesting 2009 will be nothing short of traumatic. […]

One of the biggest challenges for new CIOs is making sense of what the job actually entails. There’s no defined career track for IT leaders, and there are endless numbers of advisers and resources they can tap to help them along the way. Navigating these obstacles is imperative for all CIOs, and even more so […]

Ramon Baez is not hiding in the data center. “This is the time when you get out of the office,” says the Kimberly-Clark CIO. “Get into those conference rooms and meet with the business people on how you can help them through these difficult times. That’s when they see you as a true business partner.” […]

The heroic actions of pilot chesley “sully” sullenberger in guiding U.S. Airways flight 1549 to a safe landing in the Hudson River last month offer lessons in leadership for any executive. As businesses–and their CIOs–hope to make a safe landing post-recession, looking at the skills Sullenberger summoned is a good start. Sullenberger clearly isn’t your […]

Anyone involved with information technology suffers from buzzword fatigue, and the jargon keeps coming. IT transformation—more commonly known as digital transformation—has become a popular piece of the techie vernacular in the digital age, but its meaning is relatively subjective. Ask 10 CIOs or IT executives about the basic definition of transformation, and you’re likely to […]

Let’s face it, techies aren’t exactly known for their communication prowess. Unfortunately, the same goes for CIOs. For decades, IT leaders emerged from super-technical backgrounds to find a seat at the executive table. Many of those CIOs (or whichever title they held before “CIO” was popularized) struggled to communicate their goals and visions to their […]

It’s tough out there, huh? An uncertain economy swiftly turned into a ruinous recession, a climate some thought would send business executives of all stripes into a panic. Fear, uncertainty and doubt seemed primed for a comeback. But in 2009, at least in IT management, FUD is crud. The new year offers IT organizations a […]

President-Elect Barack Obama is reportedly close to naming a national technology chief, thus fulfilling a campaign promise that set off a storm of speculation throughout the IT industry. Bob Otto, who spent almost four decades in government IT management, most recently as CIO and CTO of the U.S. Postal Service, believes the national CTO must […]

Each year, the CIO Insight Vendor Value survey reveals some telling trends in the way businesses view their IT providers. One constant: Telecommunications firms typically rank far below their counterparts in hardware, software, networking and security. We rank IT firms based on an overall average of how customers score their value, reliability and loyalty. This […]

One of the few bright spots in these tough times has been the market for IT services. Amidst all the gloomy headlines–the talent shortage, the economic and financial crises, layoffs and lowered forecasts from the tech industry, rising unemployment in the broader economy–IT services employment has gone up. One byproduct of this countertrend is the […]

Information technology executives have a tendency to buy into–and subsequently overuse– buzzwords and conventional wisdom. This group of leaders seems to have an affinity for adopting an almost group-speak when it comes to vocally deliberating what the organizations they lead will look like in 2015, not to mention their own roles. So it came as […]