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For many years now it's been an accepted truism that technology is rarely the means of change in an organisation, it's merely an enabler. And yet despite this being common wisdom, organisations still tend to put a great deal more focus on changing technology than they do changing behaviours or culture. As Tom Peters puts it, … Continue reading CIO Priorities 27: Changing Culture

Organisations these days have a lot of information. But the truth is that whilst the virtual filing cabinets of the average organisation are filled to the brim with all manner of stuff, there's not much there of value. Certainly not in comparison to the information scale of the internet. In pure volume the data that … Continue reading CIO Priorities 26: Enabling search

For some years now I've had a fairly simple explanation of the impact of digital on established businesses. Primarily it's about how customer expectations are forcing organisations to make systems and processes that previously existed in the back office, hidden, exposed to the outside. This can be tortuous. Systems and processes that were designed with … Continue reading CIO Priorities 25: Enabling access to the back office

For many years our friends in the Finance team have been able to argue that a computer system is a tangible asset, something that has book value. It's meant that you've been able to treat computer systems as capital assets, amortising the cost of them over a number of years in that witchcraft that is … Continue reading CIO Priorities 24: Replatforming legacy

Security is a topic that seems to slip in and out of priority in organisations primarily based on experiences within (a hack) or without (a massive hack that gets publicity) but just too often in ways that are reactive. And there is inherent tension between getting stuff done and doing things securely because the only … Continue reading CIO Priorities 23 – Security

This used to be a really big thing, but the environmental agenda for greener IT seems to have dropped down the list for many in recent years. Indeed, every organisation that talks about doing things with Blockchain is taking the environmental technology stance of someone who buys a Porsche SUV. Cloud, however, is a really … Continue reading CIO Priorities 22 – Green IT

This specific priority, better integrating with the Facilities Management function has come from some of the many priorities I have observed that CIOs have at the moment. The world of property management is one that like so many has become increasingly technology-driven in recent years. The number of devices in buildings that have IP addresses … Continue reading CIO Priorities 21 – Integrating across the support silos

I've been lucky in the last few years to have had the opportunity to explore the world of technology startups, first in my short and somewhat underwhelming stint at Microsoft, and more recently through organisations like Digital Catapult and L Marks. There's a whole industry today that worships the idea of the startup, and encourages … Continue reading CIO Priorities 20 – Playing with startups

There is a weird dual-speed thing happening in organisations at the moment. The pace at which modern technology can be developed and deployed is running at a far faster pace than the speed at which we as humans can adapt. My favourite benchmark here is the gap between the invention of the internal combustion engine-powered … Continue reading CIO Priorities 19 – Speed of delivery