Doug Theis - Leave your comfort zone.

InformationWeek – Bridging the IT Talent Gap: Find Scarce Experts

When hiring gets tough, IT leaders get strategic. Here’s how successful organizations seize the experts their competitors’ only wish they could land.

The technology industry’s unemployment rate is well below the national average, forcing companies to compete aggressively for top talent. When presented with a range of recruitment strategies by a recent Robert Half Technology questionnaire — including using recruiters, providing job flexibility and offering more pay — most IT decision makers said they are likely to try all approaches in order to land the best job candidates for their teams.

More of the InformationWeek article from John Edwards

CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / Data Center / Data center compliance / IaaS / IT Governance / IT Security / IT Strategy / Technical Debt / Virtualization — Comments Off
16
Nov 18

ZDNet – Eight signs you could be automating more of your data center

From Doug – These same reasons may be used to consider outsourcing your data center infrastructure to an enterprise cloud provider.

Organizations with existing data centers can save time and money by adopting automation tools for data center management. Here are eight signs you can do more to lighten your day-to-day workload.

As commodity server hardware becomes more powerful, infrastructure cost (in raw performance terms, such as IOPS per dollar) continues to plummet. As a result, it has become substantially cheaper to largely automate the software side of data center administration. In essence, the era of coffee-fueled IT staff spending their days pushing around electrons in order to keep the lights on at a given organization has ended, as data centers can be automated to manage computational, storage, and networking resources, as well as programmatically handle software lifecycle management and security patches.

More of the ZDNet post from James Sanders

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15
Nov 18

The Register – I know what you’re thinking: Outsource or in-source IT security? I’ve worked both sides, so here’s my advice…

The pros and cons of using internal and external talent, or a mix of both

You’re a small or mid-sized business and have a growing sense of unease that you aren’t doing enough on cyber security. Must be all those headlines about ransomware infections and databases ransacked. Or – perhaps – you’re experiencing an upsurge in phishing attempts.

Congratulations – you’ve woken up to something that a surprising number of companies haven’t. But now you’ve patted yourself on the back, the big question is: what’s next?

SMBs spent on average 27 per cent more on security in 2017 than the year before according to a survey last year by Cyren and Osterman Research, yet less than half felt confident they could prevent a network intrusion. Half, 52 per cent, had an IT security staff of two or fewer people.

More of The Register article from Dave Cartwright

CIO Strategy / IT Governance / IT Leadership / IT Strategy — Comments Off
14
Nov 18

CIO.com – 13 Tips for Grooming IT Leaders

The ability to identify and train IT managers is a key factor in establishing productive IT teams. Here’s what to look for and how to hone leadership talent when promoting from within.

Newly forged IT managers face a daunting challenge: They need deep technical knowledge to oversee a technology team — along with a mix of specific soft skills that help them motivate their former peers.

With this in mind, how should you go about identifying IT staff who are ready to make the jump into their first management jobs? And what should their managers be prepared for, in terms of training them to lead, and providing what they need to be successful?

More of the CIO.com post from Paul Heltzel

CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / DevOps / IaaS / IT Governance / IT Strategy — Comments Off
13
Nov 18

Baseline – What Companies Expect from DevOps

The majority of IT professionals at organizations that have adopted DevOps are happy with the results, according to a recent survey from KMS Technology. Most of these companies, in fact, indicate that their DevOps initiatives have satisfied goals, which include the need to boost time-to-production for new software. Survey respondents also hope that DevOps will result in greater collaboration between IT and lines of business. To ensure success, they recommend clearly articulating goals and plans, while gaining management support. It’s also key to overcome challenges in the form of limited skillsets and knowledge about DevOps among internal tech staff members. “DevOps offers an opportunity for IT organizations to improve communication and collaboration with lines of business, and the ability to automate various software development processes,” said Josh Lieberman, president of KMS Technology.

More of the Baseline slideshow from Dennis McCafferty

CIO Strategy / IT Leadership / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy — Comments Off
12
Nov 18

CIO.com – How CIOs motivate their teams and foster productivity

Global IT leaders from Clemson University, Bayer Crop Science, American Academy of Family Physicians, PayPal, Marist College, and TIAA share strategies for motivating teams and keeping employees energized.

IT departments are comprised of individuals with their own unique talents, goals, and levels of emotional investment. Like a skillful conductor, the effective CIO must be a champion and mentor for these individual contributors, wedding their individual efforts and self-interest to a larger and harmonious whole. This effort is a strategic imperative and the ultimate test of leadership.

More of the CIO.com article from Brendan McGowan

Business Development / CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation — Comments Off
06
Nov 18

WSJ – It’s All About Business Model Innovation, not New Technology

New technology, no matter how transformative, is not enough to propel a business into the future.

To survive in today’s fast changing marketplace, every business–large or small, startup or long established–must be capable of a continual process of transformation and renewal. Surveys show that most executives agree, and in fact, many believe that business model innovation is even more important to their company’s success than product or service innovation. But other studies have determined that no more than 10% of innovation investments at established companies are focused on creating transformative business models.

More of the Wall Street Journal article from Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Business continuity / Disaster Recovery / IT Leadership — Comments Off
05
Nov 18

Continuity Central – The effects of stress on incident teams and how to counteract them

You know the feeling, you are told the incident you never wanted to happen has just occurred, which sets off the sinking feeling in your stomach, the clammy hands and the trickle of sweat down your back. Then the adrenaline kicks in and you are ready to respond. For some, this is their moment (think Mayor Giuliani after 9/11) and they thrive on high adrenaline incidents. All the mundane planning is over and this is their moment to respond and to lead or support their organization to survival, victory or even opportunity! Others run around in circles in panic not knowing where to start, or are paralysed ‘rabbits in the headlights’ doing nothing, knowing that all eyes are on them and the team are looking for leadership, the response plan to be activated and the fight back to begin.

In their classic paper ‘Designs for Crisis Decision Units’, Carolyne Smart and Ilan Vertinsky outline the characteristics of an incident, which are:

High level of emotional and physical stress;
Limited amount of time for response – leading to further pressure and stress;
Threat to high priority goals – which again leads to stress.

More of the Continuity Central post fro Charlie Maclean Bristol

CIO Strategy / IT Governance / IT Security / IT Strategy — Comments Off
02
Nov 18

TechRadar.pro – The true cost of a data breach

Falling victim to a data breach hurts your business’ bottom line as well as its reputation.

From the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) back in May, which fundamentally changed the rulebook for storing data of EU citizens at least to the Butlin’s hack, 2018 has been a very significant year for cybersecurity.

One of the biggest changes centred around transparency, specifically businesses being forced to reveal within 72 hours if they have suffered a breach. While the US has had this type of policy for a while, businesses in the EU were not required to publicly state when a breach occurred, leaving them free to keep significant news like this from their customers. But now that things have changed, and it’s starting to heat up in the EU.

More of the Techradar.pro post from Jason Hart

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01
Nov 18

CIO.com – The case against the ‘business-savvy CIO’

Being business-savvy isn’t a radical recommendation. It’s clichéd. These days, tech know-how and business smarts are inseparable when it comes to transformational CIOs.

Surely you saw the article. It’s the one that says CIOs should be business people, not technical people.

I’m pretty sure it’s the same article, printed over and over again with minor variations, rephrasings, changes of emphasis, and different bylines since I first read it in 1995, maybe earlier.

It’s time to put a stop to the reappearances. In case its absurdity isn’t obvious, replace the “I” with any other capitalized executive middle letter and see where the logic takes you: CFOs should, according to this logic, be business people, not financial people; COOs should be business people, not operations people; CMOs should be business people whose knowledge of marketing is optional.

More of the CIO.com article from Bob Lewis

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.