Is the IT infrastructure a strategic value for an organization, or these days, is it more of a basic commodity, like electricity? The May 2003 Harvard Business Review article, "IT Doesn't Matter," incited something like a riot among IT executives, as well as major computer vendors, and academics. Nicholas Carr, the Review's editor and the article's author, had sounded a wakeup call some people weren't ready to hear. Executives from major corporations pelted the Review with lengthy letters to the editor. Just about every business and computer trade publication took Carr to task on the subject.

Still, the bespeckled, soft-spoken Carr, now the Review's former editor, continued to fuel the controversy about the value of IT. His 2004 book, Does IT Matter? – Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Press), expanded the article's initial premise.

Whether you agree with him or not, Carr ranks as one most influential thinkers about IT technology, according to Optimize magazine. For the past three years, just about every business publication, every computer trade magazine, and dozens of industry, corporate, academic, and professional venues have been examining and re-examining Carr's plea to get people to reconsider their assumptions about the role of IT. Carr says that this exercise can help CIOs distinguish between the different roles that specific IT investments play in the organization. This knowledge can help CIOs to make sure the company gets the most value from IT, Carr says.

Carr definitely has his own insights about the future of IT and for CIOs. So, what do you think about the role and value of IT, and the future of the CIO? We invite you to listen to this insightful interview with the thoughtful and thought-provoking, Nick Carr, and maybe, formulate some conclusions of your own ...

Bio

A former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review (HBR), Nicholas Carr is an accomplished business writer and speaker whose work centers on strategy, innovation, and technology. His HBR article, "IT Doesn't Matter," in May 2003, and his 2004 book, Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage, published by Harvard Business School Press, set off a worldwide debate about the role of computers in business.

In addition to writing articles for HBR, Carr has also written for The New York Times, Financial Times, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Journal of Business Strategy. Articles edited by Carr have won McKinsey Awards as the best articles published in HRB. Carr writes a column on innovation for Strategy & Business, and a column about technology for BusinessWeek Online. Before joining HBR, he was a principal at Mercer Management Consulting. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College, and an M.A. from Harvard University.

Resources

Nicholas Carr's Web page about his book

CIO Magazine -- "The Argument Over IT"

Harvard Business Review -- "Spend Less on IT"

Computerworld -- "The End of Corporate IT"

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer

Have you ever heard the saying, it's not what you know, but  who you know? Do you, perhaps, have some experience that supports that  old saying?

Dr. Kathleen Carley at Carnegie Mellon University has dedicated a career to figuring out networks and the flow of knowledge -- not those neatly drawn solid and dotted lines connecting names and titles on the company org chart. No, she is interested in the shadow network behind the org chart, where and how the real work gets done. Who's the person in the group who really knows how to do that job? No, not the guy listed as the division chief -- you know -- the real expert. Who's the person who can direct you to that expert? It's probably not the VP. (I doubt anyone who's worked in the modern corporation doesn't know exactly what I'm talking about.)

The reasons for understanding an enterprise's social network are more practical than esoteric. A clear view of this shadow-network can help you to understand how your organization might respond to changes such as layoffs or a merger. Carley and her team use scientific methods and technological tools to deconstruct this complex web of interaction, including metrics, data analysis, and computer simulations that study interactions via email, phone exchanges, and more.

Join us for a conversation with a pioneer who tries to predict future behavior within entities from corporations to terrorist cells by using high-tech means to map the most fundamental of human structures.

Bio

Kathleen Carley is a professor at the Institute for Software Research International in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the director of the center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS), a university wide interdisciplinary center that brings together network analysis, computer science and organization science (www.casos.ece.cmu.edu) and has an associated NSF funded training program for Ph.D. students. She carries out research that combines cognitive science, dynamic social networks, text processing, organizations, social and computer science in a variety of theoretical and applied venues. Her specific research areas are computational social and organization theory; dynamic social networks; multi-agent network models; group, organizational, and social adaptation, and evolution; statistical models for dynamic network analysis and evolution, computational text analysis, and the impact of telecommunication technologies on communication and information diffusion within and among groups.

Resources

Center for  Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems  (CASOS)

Disconnect the Dots;  Maybe We Can't Cut Off Terror's Head, but We Can Take Out Its  Nodes

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities  Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show  Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development  Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer

Is the phrase "IT flexibility" an oxymoron -- a paradox in two words, like "jumbo shrimp" or "goverrnment organization"? It certainly can be. But Tim Jennings, research director for the UK's Butler Group, says that, not only is achieving flexibility and agility in IT possible, he is there to tell you how it can be done, and he's happy to talk about this. The devil is indeed in the details -- the architecture you set up, the infrastructure you utilize, and the governance and processes you implement.

"Too often," says Jennings, "IT is perceived as being a barrier to change, incapable of reacting quickly to meet new initiatives, and requiring additional investment for each new project. From IT's perspective, the changing nature of technology results in legacy architectures that are complex to integrate, and system "silos" that inhibit a more adaptable approach. In practice, it is this tension between business need and IT response that is largely responsible for a gap in business-IT alignment, as much as any problems of communication and understanding."

Jennings believes that an organization can overcome these issues by developing an approach to IT that incorporates flexibility in all aspects, from architectural design to models of delivery. From a strategic perspective, this will require choices on how IT investments are planned, prioritized, and measured; the development of new ways of pricing and billing IT services; the role of third-party services and how these should be integrated into IT delivery; and the incorporation of greater flexibility into IT resourcing.

Interested in hearing more? Tune in to this challenging and thought-provoking podcast interview on this very relevant subject with one of Europe's ace analysts.

Bio

Tim Jennings is one of Europe's most experienced IT analysts with expertise gained in a broad spectrum of technology areas working with both vendors and end-users in his 20-year career in IT. Tim joined Butler Group in 2000, specializing in Application Deployment and Integration. In 2001, Tim was appointed Research Production Director, and in 2004 joined the Butler Group board as Research Director. He works alongside Butler Group president Martin Butler, who continues to provide strategic advice and support.

Resources

Butler Group

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer

In 1998, a woman named Patricia Seybold authored a book,  customers.com, which crystallized the requisites for dot.com-era eBusiness into one, simple tenet: know who your customers are and make sure you have the products and services they want. She built on that theme a few years later with a second book, The Customer Revolution.

Seybold's refreshingly straightforward ideas about customer service, along with the compelling case histories she presented, had a powerful effect on the burgeoning arena of ecommerce. But when the dot.com bubble burst, what happened to that customer revolution?

In an exclusive interview with EnterpriseLeadership.org, Patricia Seybold talks about how the landscape of doing business via the Internet has changed in the seven years since her first book's publication -- and how it has not changed. (And a lot really has not changed, according to Seybold.)

The guidelines she offered for how to succeed in eBusiness -- build community, deliver personalized service, streamline processes, and more -- are as relevant today as they were in the 1990s. But back then, the business that a company did over the Internet was often just a small part of its profit base. Today, eCommerce is a growing priority for businesses, large or small, legacy or startup. And, consumer demands for excellence are only growing.

Today, Seybold and her group are focused on helping their clients prioritize their IT initiatives around customer issues, and bridging what she calls "The Business Schism," that great divide between IT and the business it supports. She offers solid advice, too, about ways to provide the service that customers want and expect, such as how to create solid, cross-channel customer experiences and how to avoid the trap of building bottlenecks into business processes.

All of this only drives home the point that the work of this eBusiness  revolutionary is far from done.

Bio

Patricia Seybold founded and leads the Patricia Seybold Group, is a respected IT consultant and speaker, and is a best-selling author. Her book, Customers.com, published in late 1998, provides insight into how 16 still-thriving companies designed their e-business strategies to improve revenues, increase profitability, and enhance customer loyalty. Seybold's latest book, The Customer Revolution, published in 2001, describes how 13 global businesses in a variety of industries manage by and for customer value while they continuously improve the quality of the customer experience they deliver. She is co-author of Brandchild, published in 2003. Her books have been translated into over 10 languages.

Resources

Patricia Seybold  Group

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities  Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show  Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development Manager