Blog Posts From Podcasts Tagged With social_networking

How CIOs can Reshape Their Company's Business Model: C.K. Prahalad, Best-selling Author and Academic

tom@tomparish.com — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:37:29 GMT

(23:08)

In this podcast, C.K. Prahalad, author of The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co-created Value through Global Networks, and Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits, talks about how CIOs can use innovative technology to reshape their company's business model, as well as drive new opportunities for poverty-stricken areas. (He calls the latter the bottom of the pyramid.)

Despite the downturn in the economy, this is a great time to be a CIO or CTO. That's the conclusion from C.K, Prahalad, the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Strategy and the author of best-selling management books such as The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co-created Value through Global Networks, and Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits. He says, "Because some CIOs must work under the pressure of shrinking budgets and don't have much time for innovation, this might be a tough concept for some CIOs to grasp."

Prahalad lists four fundamental drivers that can create new opportunities for all kinds of businesses - everything from retailing to financial services to manufacturing. These drivers include the convergence of technology, convergence of industry boundaries of technology, the emergence of social networking, and the globalization of things such as the global supply chain, global markets, and global research and development in third-world countries.

He says, "Convergence of technology is all around us. For example, the cell phone and the PC are now merging into one device. We're seeing a dramatic reduction in the cost of digital technology. Social networking sites such as Facebook didn't exist five years ago. Meanwhile, many companies have taken advantage of global opportunities by expanding to new markets in China and India."

In this podcast, Prahalad provides specific examples of how senior IT executives can address new business opportunities for their companies, how new technology initiatives can drive business opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid, why companies should embrace the concept of open innovation, and what the CIO role will be like 10 years from now.

Bio
C.K. Prahalad is the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Strategy at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and a globally recognized management thinker. He has consulted for the top management of many of the world's foremost companies, such as Ahlstrom, AT&T, Cargill, Citicorp, Eastman Chemical, Oracle, Phillips, Quantum, Revlon, Steelcase and Unilever. Prahalad serves on the board of directors of NCR Corporation, Hindustan Lever Limited, and the World Resources Institute.

His best-selling management books include The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co-created Value through Global Networks, Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits (rereleased in 2009), The Multinational Mission: Balancing Local Demands and Global Vision (co-authored), Competing for the Future, and The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers. He has authored numerous award-winning articles, several of which won Harvard Business Review McKinsey Prizes. Other prizes include European Foundation for Management Award in 1993, 1994 Maurice Holland Award as the Best Paper, and the 1997 ANBAR Electronic Citation of Excellence.

Resources
C. K. Prahalad Talks about How Changing Business Models in the New Age of Innovation Will Impact IT, Enterpriseleadership.org
http://www.enterpriseleadership.org/blogs/Articles/2008/07/23/c-k-prahalad-talks-about-how-changing-business-models-in-the-new-age-of-innovation-will-impact-it

C. K. Prahalad Talks about Business Models Driving the New Age of Innovation, BTM Institute
http://www.btminstitute.org/LeadershipInsight/CKPrahalad.html

How Strategy Guru C.K. Prahalad Is Changing the Way CEOs Think
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_04/b3968089.htm

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer

Audio Editing by Doug Marcis

Sponsored by BMC Software

We'd love to hear what you think. Send us your feedback.

Theresa Lanowitz, Former Gartner Consultant: Down-to-Earth Talk about Cloud Computing & Web 2.0

tom@tomparish.com — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:15:56 GMT

In this podcast, Theresa Lanowitz, former Gartner Group analyst, provides some down-to-earth discussion about cloud computing as a disruptive technology, moving one step closer to pervasive utility computing.

Every household doesn't need its own energy grid. If you follow this logic, then each enterprise does not need to be in the business of creating massive infrastructure. Why not take advantage of the some of the world's largest infrastructure offered to you by Amazon.com's Web Services or Google Apps Engine? That is the view of Theresa Lanowitz, a former Gartner Group research analyst and the founder of voke, a research firm focused on breakthrough technologies, such as cloud computing.

She says that while Salesforce.com has revolutionized customer relations marketing by elevating it as a platform as a service, Amazon.com and Google.com have the opportunity to share their knowledge and expertise with every enterprise. She adds, "By making their massively scalable, highly available, high-performance environment, and a solid security infrastructure available, both Amazon.com and Google.com have moved one step closer to software as a service and pervasive utility computing. As a result, companies will be able to lower the cost of doing business and to remain innovative, competitive, and profitable. Enterprises of all sizes need to focus on delivering value to the marketplace of their core competency, regardless of what it is."

In this podcast, Theresa Lanowitz discusses the following:

What type of impact Amazon.com Web Services and Google Apps Engine will have on cloud computing;
What other areas of cloud computing and Web 2.0 will prevail;
Why CIOs are hesitant to embrace cloud computing; and
What three cloud computing takeaways CIOs need to think about in making decisions about this app?

Bio
Theresa Lanowitz, is founder of founder of voke, inc., an industry research firm specializing in breakthrough technologies. From 1999 through 2006, she was a research analyst with Gartner, where she was the lead analyst for Mercury. At Gartner, Lanowitz was the founder, creator, and chairperson of the highly successful Application Development conference. She is the founding member of AppSIC (the Application Security Industry Consortium), a member of the German ComputerWoche.de "Expert Panel on Quality IT Practices" and a frequent guest on SD Times "Week in Review" podcast.

She began her professional career with McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) where she worked on the C-17 transport plane. While at Borland Software, she shipped the ground breaking Java development tool JBuilder. Lanowitz also played instrumental roles at Taligent in the areas of product management and international marketing. At Sun Microsystems, she was responsible for the strategic marketing of the Jini project – a precursor to emerging convergence market.

Lanowitz holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Resources
Theresa Lanowitz's Blog

http://voke.blogspot.com/

Ka-ching! Don't Sell Your Test Team Short, Software Test & Performance

http://www.stpcollaborative.com/users/195-theresa-lanowitz

N requirements.net, Exclusive Podcast: Theresa Lanowitz on the Economy and IT Spending

http://www.requirements.net/2008/12/04/exclusive-podcast-theresa-lanowitz-on-the-economy-and-it-spending/

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
Audio Editing by Doug Marcis

Sponsored by BMC Software

Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success by Lon Safko, co-author of The Social Media Bible

bmc-elo@bmc-elo.hosted.jivesoftware.com — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:24:46 GMT

In this podcast, Lon Safko, the author of The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success, talks about the social media choices companies wrestle with both for internal and external use, as well as social media trends.

Renaissance man best describes Lon Safko. He is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and executive coach. He created the first computer to save a human life. The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. houses that computer, 17 of Safko’s other inventions, and his more than 30,000 papers. Safko’s latest endeavor is social media. In fact, he co-authored The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success. This 844-page tome became the largest and most comprehensive publishing effort in John Wiley & Sons’ 202 year history.

Safko says The Social Media Bible came about because the business community wanted something more comprehensive than just another vertical business book. He says, “When we asked the business community what they wanted – they told us ‘a resource that explains all of this stuff that we've been hearing about, yeah, what are people talking about with their blogs and tweets anyway?’ They just wanted to be part of the conversation, and have someone explain it in their terms.”

Obviously with a topic as constantly moving as social media, no single person could be the expert on it all. Safko and his co-author David K. Brake determined the best way to become the definitive voice is to let others speak. Safko says, “We spent the better part of a year researching, interviewing, connecting and having conversations with 100 of experts from all aspects of the social media movement. We began the task of aggregating and editing thousands of blog posts, vlogs, podcasts, wikis, emails, interviews, presentations, and more – all with permission of course – and all from real life residents of this realm we call social media.” As a result, the book offers vignettes and essays from luminaries such as Biz Stone, co-founder of www.twitter.com; Vinton Cerf, father of the Internet and futurist; and Peter Booth Wiley, chairman of the board of John Wiley & Sons.

In this podcast, Safko talks about the social media choices companies wrestle with both for internal and external use, and social media trends, such as the friendly collision between customer relationship management and social media , and applications for mobile phones.

Bio

As an inventor, Lon Safko has created numerous hardware and software solutions for the physically challenged, developed the first CAD software for civil engineers, designed the archetypes for the Apple Newton & Microsoft’s Bob Operating Systems He created those handy little Tool-Tips help-balloon pop-ups! He even represented the Smithsonian at its annual conference called The American Inventor.

He has received numerous awards for his creativity, including The Westinghouse’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Arizona Innovation Network’s Innovator of the Year, along with other awards. Publications, such as Popular Sciences and Entrepreneur Magazine, have featured Safko in feature articles.

He has founded eight companies including Paper Models, Inc., which uses downloadable three-dimensional models in business advertising, promotions, and education.

Safko has either written or co-authored five books about how to think creatively. He does about 100 public speaking appearances a year, mostly for company training sessions. Some of his clients have included First American Title Insurance, Teledyne, and the United States Postal Service. Meanwhile, he privately coaches Fortune 500 companies on harnessing innovative thinking to create higher productivity and profits.

Resources
The 10 Commandments of Social Media - Fast Company
Google Unleashes Web App Tidalwave - Technewsworld.com
Social Media Good for Business - Miami Herald

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
Audio Editing by Doug Marcis

Sponsored by BMC Software

Expanding the Use of Web 2.0 Technologies to Drive Business Value: Paul Heller, Vanguard Group’s CIO

tom@tomparish.com — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:59:12 GMT

In this podcast, Heller talks about Vanguard’s initiatives to use Web 2.0 tools to empower both employees and to work more effectively with customers. He also talks about the challenge of dealing with compliance issues around social media, and the process for fielding new ideas to drive innovation.

The Vanguard Group, one of the largest mutual funds companies in the country, has managed to live up to its name for the past 35 years. Today, Vanguard manages about $1.1 trillion in assets with roughly the same amount of employees it has had for the past decade. Vanguard also differs greatly from its publicly traded competitors, such as Fidelity Investments. Vanguard’s customers – both retail and institutional -- literally own the company. Eighty percent of Vanguard’s business takes place through its various Web sites. The rest of the business occurs either via the telephone or mail. By leveraging its unique structure and technology prowess, Vanguard has some of the lowest management fees of any mutual fund company. Paul Heller, Vanguard’s CIO, says that technology enables the company to focus on its core mission – preserving and creating wealth for customers.

In 2007, Vanguard received an annual InformationWeek 500 award for being the third best and most innovative company in the country. At that time, the company unveiled its $10 million portal which gives employees better tools to facilitate communications with each other. Much has happened in the past two years. Heller says that the company has expanded its use of Web 2.0 tools both for employees and customers. He says, “For years, we have been hosting e-meetings with our institutional customers. We are now doing this on the retail side where we will invite 25,000 people to a meeting on a specific topic. They can see each others’ questions. “

Bio
Paul Heller is managing director and CIO, for Vanguard Group’s IT division. His team leads all aspects of the company’s use of technology to provide high quality, cost-effective services to the company’s shareholders. Heller has been with Vanguard since 1984. His experience over the prior two decades includes overseeing the core retail business, the institutional defined contribution business, the systems integration division of IT, and investment-only business. Before joining Vanguard, Heller worked for Mellon Bank in Philadelphia. He has a B.S. in engineering and economics from Tufts University and is a graduate of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program.

Resources
ResourcesCIO Values – Paul Heller - InformationWeek
How Multimedia Tools Make Vanguard a Better Company - CIO
At the Vanguard - Enterpriseleadership.org Podcast with Paul Heller – 2007

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
Audio Editing by Doug Marcis

Sponsored by BMC Software

A Tactical Plan for Deploying External Social Media:Dave Evans, Social Media Strategist & Author

tom@tomparish.com — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:05:40 GMT

In this podcast, Evans also talks about the relationship between social media and CRM, and the impact social media will have on wireless technology, known as the digital swarm.

Whether you are a chief information officer or a chief marketing officer, you need to know how to leverage technology, especially social media, to understand how customers perceive your brand both positively and negatively, and what changes you need to make to your products to get more positive responses. You have the challenge of influencing 1,000s of daily online conversations you can’t control. After all, these aren’t your conversations. Dave Evans, a social media strategist and author of Social Media Marketing – an Hour a Day, says that you need to create an external social media experience that your customers will talk about in a way that invokes others to buy your products. He adds, “This is a big change from asking your advertising agency to change the message because customers’ aren’t getting it."

Evans’s social media strategy firm, Digital Voodoo, has helped many well-known companies come to grips with the impact of social media, and to recommend changes to their brand, product, or service to position it for success using external social media. Take the work Evan’s firm did for Meredith Publishing, which produces well-known magazines such as Parents, Better Homes and Gardens, and More. His firm created a strong engagement between Meredith’s individual print and online subject subscribers via the content discussions which they engaged. He says, “We gauged success in terms of page views –the base line indicator for publishers– and the size of the community as it grew over time.”

Evan’s following as a social media marketing strategist caught the eye of John Wiley & Sons. He was asked to write a book to fit into Wiley’s An Hour a Day series. Unlike other social media marketing books, Evans’ book provides a daily plan for how you can approach social media both strategically and tactically. For example, in one exercise, he tells you to go to IBM’s blog and read about the policies for selecting bloggers. He says, “If you don’t have the right social media strategy, you’ll wander all over the place. On the other hand, having the strategy right doesn’t mean you can turn the job over to the operational side of your business and say, ‘Now go to do this.’ The book allows you to select the things you want to work on.”

Bio
As a strategy director for integrated communications for GSD&M, Dave Evans gained extensively advertising experience working with clients, such as Southwest Airlines, AARP, Wal-Mart, PGA TOUR, Dial, and Chili's. Before GSD&M, Evan worked with Progressive Insurance Company as a product manager, and a systems analyst for the Voyager deep space exploration program with Jet Propulsion Laboratories/NASA.

In 1994, he cofounded Digital Voodoo to provide strategic marketing services for clients wanting to tap the power of the social Web. In 2005, he cofounded HearThis.com, a podcasting service firm focused on social media and marketing.

He holds a BS in physics and mathematics from the State University of New York/College at Brockport. He has served on the Advisory Board with ad:tech and the Measurement and Metrics Council with WOMMA. He is a columnist for ClickZ, an e-zine about social media.

Resources
Social Media Marketing An Hour A Day: Dave Evans - Online Marketing Blog
socStardom2: Social Media Marketing with Dave Evans - SlideShare
Getting Started With Social Media - ClickZ

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
Audio Editing by Doug Marcis

Sponsored by BMC Software

EMC Takes an Inside-Out Approach to Corporate Social Media: Len Devanna, EMC’s Web Strategist

tom@tomparish.com — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:46:02 GMT

In this podcast, Len Devanna, Director of Web Strategy for EMC Corporation, gives CIOs a series of key takeaways about deploying social media both inside and outside a company’s firewall.

Devanna has spent the past ten years helping build out EMC’s online ecosystem, with responsibility for the global deployment of EMC’s intranet, extranet, and internet offerings. He also provides general web consulting across the $13+ billion enterprise, and guides selection and deployment of emerging Web 2.0 technologies for the company. Most recently, Devanna oversaw development of EMC ONE, an internal community designed to connect EMC’s global workforce and promote enterprise 2.0 techniques.

EMC ONE grew out of a 2007 effort to find ways social media could help a global workforce of 40,000 employees work more efficiently and become more closely engaged both in their own jobs and with the company as a whole. Devanna says EMC created EMC ONE “from the inside, because it was clear that we’d be better off first understanding how social media worked internally, and how we should participate in a Web 2.0 world. That prepared us to thrive in Web 2.0 outside EMC, because after all, our employees are the voice of our brand.”

Launched in October 2007, EMC ONE today has more than 12,000 active users, and about 10,000 lurkers who follow the conversations. The site includes 8,000 blogs, 10,000 wikis, and 6,000 discussions across 180 communities, as well as individual people pages. The discussions range from competitive intelligence to product marketing strategies to deep technical brainstorming. The site’s virtual water cooler provides a place where employees can speak about anything. EMC ONE generates about five million pages each month.

Devanna says that if he had to develop the site over again, he wouldn’t change a thing. He urges CIOs to start deploying social media inside the firewall. “Social tools are extremely easy to deploy,” says Devanna. “If IT organizations aren’t out in front of this, their user communities will take matters into their own hands, out of necessity. You’ll wind up with hundreds of inconsistent unstructured offerings with no ability to connect and realize the true value.”

EMC’s internal social media policy is relatively straight-forward. Devanna says, “Before we launched the site, we discussed how closely we should moderate the conversations and user content. We decided, instead, to let the community police itself. To date, we haven’t had one single incident of improper conduct.”

Devanna says that metrics for Web site usage, such as number of page accessed, don’t demonstrate the true value of social media. Metrics such as a decrease in travel or a reduction in e-mail traffic provide a more tangible indication of social media’s payoff, but quantifying the real value of social media precisely is difficult to do. According to Devanna, “I can fire up EMC ONE any time of the day and see hundreds of real-time conversations occurring on a global scale. People are coming together to exchange ideas and concepts across geographies, divisions and organizations. The real benefits are more qualitative than quantitative – and they’re preparing us to thrive in an E2.0 world.”

Interested in learning more about Len? Catch him at his blog http://len.devanna.com or Twitter at http://twitter.com/lendevanna

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
Audio Editing by Doug Marcis

Sponsored by BMC Software

Making Social Media the Corporate Norm for a Fortune 500 Company: Diane Bryant, Intel's CIO

tom@tomparish.com — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:38:14 GMT

In this podcast, Diane Bryant describes the benefits of Intel's various social media platforms, provides an overview of Intel's code of conduct for electronic communications, touches on Intel's cloud computing architecture within the firewall, as well as cloud computing product's Intel is developing, and discusses why women do a good job of driving social media.

With more than $30 billion in annual revenue, Intel Corporation both innovates and invents microprocessor technologies that reside at the heart of most of the PCs and servers. Likewise, Intel also innovates and invents when it comes to deploying social media, both within the company and with external customers. In fact, in 2003, instant messaging became the company's first collaboration method outside of email and audio conferencing. Diane Bryant, Intel's vice president and CIO, says, "Within less than three years, we went from not using instant messaging to a 90 percent adoption rate."

As a globally diverse company with more 83,000 employees, numerous suppliers, and millions of external customers, Intel has continued to keep pace with effective ways for all constituencies to collaborate effectively. In 2004, the company began internal blogging with the CEO leading the charge. Two years later, Intel opened up external blogging as a way to reach out and communicate directly with specific manufacturers that use Intel products, and with end users. Bryant says, "As the devices based on the Intel architecture have become more solutions-based and directed at end users around the world, we needed to have direct connection with these end users. Social media or social networking provided us access to this external community."

In 2008, Intel launched Open Port, a series of external communities for end users. Bryant says that today more than 75 percent of all the content on these communities comes from end users, not Intel. "We have seen a strong viral pick up on solutions. We have examples of customers coming together to solve their real problems." Intel also uses social media for software development. Some of these software development communities allow people to collaborate about how they have optimized their software suite for the Intel architecture."

While Intel has begun to reap the benefits of social media, this company knows that the pervasive nature of social media means that proper controls need to exist. Bryant says, "Most executives I talk to say that their social media initiatives tend to self-police themselves." Intel has adopted a code of conduct that defines how people must act when they engage in all forms of Intel electronic communications, both internally and externally. The code also has provisions for maintaining legal compliance.

Bio
Diane M. Bryant is vice president and CIO of Intel Corporation where she is responsible for Intel's IT organization of 5,700 employees. A 25-year veteran of Intel, Bryant has held several key general manager and director positions in various business units at Intel. She was general manager of the server platforms group, director of the corporate platform office, and general manager of the enterprise processor division. Before joining the enterprise group in 1998, Bryant was director of engineering of the mobile products groups. She received her B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Davis. She holds four U.S. patents.

Resources
Intel CIO Diane Bryant on IT's Enterprise Role in Innovation - Podtech
Intel and the Economic Environment - Intel Inc.
Diane Bryant on Empowering Entrepreneurial Women - Metacafe
New Intel CIO Plans Cloud Computing Trials - CIO

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
Audio Editing by Doug Marcis

IT Trends Could Payoff for Businesses Working with Sun: Bill Vass, Sun Microsystems Federal

tom@tomparish.com — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:23:17 GMT

In this podcast, Vass talks about technology trends in the federal government and the way Sun helps businesses market to the federal government.

Many IT leaders talk about the challenges of going from the private sector to the public sector. Bill Vass would prefer to dispute this. He has successfully fused experiences in both areas to become a key technology driver at Sun Microsystems. He joined Sun after holding several key IT positions in the Office of the CIO for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. At Sun, Vass quickly moved up the ranks to become the company’s CIO. In 2007, Vass became president and chief operating office of Sun Microsystems Federal. It is one of Sun’s fastest growing business units.

Vass consistently works with CIOs at the largest federal agencies to implement a wide variety of information technologies that will reduce costs and increase productivity. His staff of 800 works primarily with private sector systems integrators to provide the appropriate solutions. He says, “These people make a lot of the technical, product, and architectural decisions. Sun doesn’t compete with systems integrators such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Our federal business is based on partnerships. We partner with channel partners. We partner with all major systems integrators, as well as small systems integrators. We help everyone we work with to become successful.”

Under pressure to keep IT costs down, most federal government agencies have begun to focus on open source technologies. In fact, Sun Microsystems Federal has the goal of becoming the best highly scalable, low-cost open source software and hardware provider. Vass says, “We know we can support the federal government’s Web 2.0 deployments and the consolidations happening in the federal government.”

Because Sun is one of the largest contributors to the open source community, Vass and his team have worked hard to get that message out to the federal government. He says, “Everything we have is either open source or is in the process of going in that direction. Our products have the lowest power cost per thread. Our operating systems are the least expense to deploy and maintain. We even support and sell Windows and Linux products. We have enabled all of our development tools to support Web 2.0. Our role-based, visual Web services enable you to use open source technology to put together role-based portals, such as MySpace. We also provide delivery to mobile devices and centralized messaging. Sun gives the user the security of open source and the stability of knowing that they can get support from anyone.”

Bio
William (Bill) Vass is president and chief operating office for Sun Microsystems Federal. He formerly was chief information officer of Sun Microsystems, Inc., where he was responsible for all aspects of Sun's global IT infrastructure and line-of-business application development, support, and maintenance, including information service delivery and security. While at Sun, Vass also has served as chief security officer and vice president of corporate software services.

Before joining Sun, Vass worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the CIO, where he directed three large sectors of the Department of Defense's (DoD) IT infrastructure and represented DoD to Congress, the White House, and other nations. Before joining the Office of the CIO, Vass was chief technology officer and technical lead fir Army personnel systems.

Resources
Bill Vass on the Sun Microsystems You Thought You Knew - ExecutiveBiz
Top IT Issues - Bill Vass, President of Sun Microsystems Federal - Government Computer News
Bill Vass – Different Tasks, Different Chips - Government Computer News
Sun CIO Backs Blog Despite Lawyers’ Worries - ZDnet

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
Audio Editing by Doug Marcis

Nathan Langston, CIO for Boy Scouts of America: Achieving Business Impact

tom@tomparish.com — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:12:34 GMT

Nathan Langston knows what it takes for the almost 100-year old Boy Scouts of America to train five million youths in citizenship, character development, and self-reliance through participation in outdoor activities, educational programs, and career-oriented programs in partnership with community organizations. About 15 years ago, Langston, got into scouting as a volunteer leader and then served as a scoutmaster and a committee chairman. Today, Langston serves as the national director of the administration group at the Boy Scouts of America's Dallas headquarters. Langston wears many hats at the largest youth organization in the U.S. He not only serves as the CIO overseeing IT, but he manages the national service desk, portfolio management, properties and treasuries, and health and risk management. He says that his technology hat demands the most time and holds the most interest for him.

Like most organizations dealing with tight dollars, the Boy Scouts of America needs to make sure that its technology investments result in a business impact. Employees, however, don't drive business impact as much as the volunteers do. In fact, the Boy Scouts operates locally through units sponsored and operated by churches, clubs, and civic associations. Volunteers lead each unit. Local councils consist of some paid professionals and volunteers. Langston says, "Business impact for us is all about helping our volunteers to enjoy the programs and for our youth to progress on the path to eagle scout. We look at this benchmark in whatever decisions we make."

Langston says that these volunteers demand improvements in technology. "As their time gets squeezed and squeezed with our other things, they need to have the administrative side of scouting simplified so they provide the activities to our youths." One such technology investment includes the online reporting of all volunteers within each unit. This yearly task has always been a paper-based process. Within the first three months after the system went live, more than 100 councils adopted the process. Today, more than 80 percent of all scouting units, which represent three million youths, use this process.

A new social networking investment promises to have significant business impact for volunteers, scouts, and the paid staff. Langston says that you need to belong to a Boy Scout unit in order to participate in this social networking community. "The site assures everyone that you have a legitimate connection to the Boy Scouts of America. It's unique in that we're including paid staffers. For the first time, everyone will have the chance to gather around an electronic campfire to talk about how we can resolve issues. We can communicate best practices, not only to a unit, but across the U.S.

On the business side, Langston says the organization has made several IT investments to improve the staff's ability to get information from a system consolidation that occurred a decade ago. "Our people kept saying they couldn't get access to the information needed to help facilitate the volunteers. At first the CEO had some skepticism about how many staffers would use the internal, Web-based portal. We had some people who were adverse to technology. Today, everyone uses this portal to keep track of fund raising, membership, and other important information. It's the most widely tool we have."

In this podcast, Langston talks about how he works with the chief financial officer to make investment decisions, the business impact the move to open source will have on the Boy Scouts, and the job benefits he has gotten from being an active member of the Society of Information Management.

Bio
Nathan Langston joined the Boy Scouts of America in 2000 as the director of information systems. In 2006, he became the national director of the administration group, where he reports to the chief financial officer. He joined the organization after working for 16 years in IT at Conoco Oil, both in the U.S. and abroad. He also worked as a senior project director for Oracle. He has a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Oklahoma Christian University and a master's in computer science from Oklahoma State University.

Resources
Sitecore, Me, and the Boy Scouts - Eric Brown
Boy Scouts Go Digital

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
Doug Marcis - Audio Editing

Straight Talk about Key Technologies That Today's IT Talent Need to Master: Christina Hollingsworth

tom@tomparish.com — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:25:14 GMT

Despite the downturn in the economy, some financial services companies are holding their own and hiring people, especially in areas such as IT. Genworth Financial is one of those companies. Genworth Financial has more than $103 billion in assets and 15 million customers worldwide. Genworth has earned the highest company ratings in its industry. It is a leader in long-term care insurance and annuities.

Christina Hollingsworth will be the first one to tell you that IT resides at the core of Genworth Financial's business operations. As corporate IT director at Genworth Financial, she oversees the strategy, planning, and execution of the company's enterprise finance technology acquisition and integration. Hollingsworth has earned a stellar reputation for leading global teams and initiatives and partnering with multiple suppliers.

Like many IT executives, Hollingsworth has to be sure that she has a well-stocked pool of qualified personnel who are not only technically savvy but can lead IT projects. She says, "In the past, IT professionals have been very good about executing on initiatives, or basically carrying out what they were told to do. Today, things have changed. Given the speed at which technology is evolving, we need people who can develop strategy based upon trends in the industry, can translate those trends into action, and then can execute on those initiatives."

In fact, Genworth Financial has deployed new technologies such as desktop video and software as a service, which manages travel expenses and investment portfolio expenses. The company also has a social networking pilot underway that is similar to Facebook. In fact, they call it Spacebook. Hollingsworth says, "As a global company, we have both employees and contractors working at a variety of locations. The best way to get good ideas is to have many ideas coming from our global talent pool. Our Spacebook will make it very easy for people to tap into these resources."

In this podcast, Hollingsworth talks about what skills people in IT need today, how recent IT graduates can chart a course for leveraging their skills, and what unemployed IT professionals need to think about when looking for a job. In addition, she also talks about Genworth Financial's career development program and the company's green initiatives.

Bio

Christina Hollingsworth is the corporate information technology director at Genworth Financial, where she has worked for seven years. The company recognized Hollingsworth's leadership skills by awarding her the 2005 Platinum Compass Award for excellence in performance execution. Before coming to Genworth Financial, she held technology leadership positions at Minerals Technology and GE Financial, before it became Genworth Financial. She has a Masters in the Management of Technology from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Business School and Penn Engineering.

Resources

Kognitio and Genworth Financial migrate 12 million policies - Banking Technology

Production Credits

Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer

Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer

Doug Marcis - Audio and Music Editing

Three key trends CIOs can't afford to ignore: Podcast interview with Kishore Swaminathan

tom@tomparish.com — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:36:19 GMT

As chief scientist for Accenture, a $19 billion global management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing firm, Dr. Kishore Swaminathan tries to understand the major trends that will shape the technology landscape over a 3- to 5-year period. According to Swaminathan, CIOs can't afford to ignore three major trends: cloud computing, light systems, and analytics.

He defines cloud computing as the sourcing of some capability from somewhere out there, typically through the Internet, and you, as a user, neither know nor care where this capability is coming from. The four types of cloud computing include software clouds, such as software as a service; hardware clouds, such as data backup; desktop clouds, such as google applications, and business process clouds, such as PayPal. Swaminthan says he isn't sure where cloud computing is going because of the unresolved issues in areas such as data security and performance.

Swaminathan calls the second trend light systems because they allow the IT organization to use independent, but related technologies to push data from multiple streams so end users can manipulate it. Technologies such as the RESC protocol, mashups, and widgets free the IT organization of a lot of unnecessary work, especially having to build a new system or a new application.

In the last 18 months, major software companies such as IBM and Microsoft have acquired analytics companies. Swaminathan says that this third trend will take the drudgery of getting analytics out of backup systems, and build the analytics capability right into the technology platform, such as Oracle Enterprise suite or SAP. As a result, people won't have to depend on the IT organization or a small number of research gurus to get the analytics they need. They'll be able to access the analytics capability.

In this podcast, Swaminathan also talks about why CIOs have failed to contribute to the innovation process when it comes to pursuing new revenue sources.

Bio

Dr. Kishore Swaminathan is chief scientist at Accenture where he defines the company's technology vision and helps to set the company's research and development agenda. He also heads Accenture's Systems Integration research located in the United States, France, and India. Swaminathan joined Accenture in 1990, taking a position in Accenture's Center for Strategic Technology Research. He has a bachelor's degree in technology and aeronautical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras and holds a master's and Ph.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He was a Smithsonian Fellow. Media outlets ranging from the ABC Evening News to the The Wall Street Journal have featured his work.

Resources

Computerworld - The Grill: To Kishore Swaminathan, CIO means 'chief intelligence officer'

Enterprise 2.0: turning consumer-driven Web 2.0 technologies into business value, Kishore Swaminathan, Accenture

ZDNet - Accenture: Time is ripe to test cloud computing

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
Doug Marcis - Audio Editing

Social networking forces executives to weave transparency: Warren Bennis

tom@tomparish.com — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:38:46 GMT

In 2005, when Warren Bennis, the author of several best-selling management books and a professor at the University of Southern California, gave a talk at Harvard Business School, he asked the audience how many knew what the blogosphere was. One third of the audience raised their hands to acknowledge their familiarity with the term.

In his latest book, Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor, Bennis takes on the world of social networking and the world of transacting business across virtual borders. His premise is simple: if companies are going to succeed today, they must be as transparent as possible. Whether companies like it or not, blogging is here to stay. Bennis says that the CEO of Starbucks tunes into blogs to learn what employees in the company's 15,000 stores are feeling, thinking about, and doing. He says, "If companies can't handle transparency, then someone else will come out with the news ahead of them, or offend them, or surprise them."

He adds that there has to be enough trust in the organization with people working at distances from one another. He says, "The only way organizations can succeed in building alliances with other companies or having a geographical disperse workforce is to have crystal clear terms of engagement. The need for transparency is going to become more monumental than ever before." In this podcast, Bennis talks about the challenges C-level executives face today in a creating a culture of candor that must co-exist with social networks.

Bio
Warren Bennis is the Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California. He also serves as the chairman of the advisory board of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School and is the Thomas S. Murphy Distinguished Research Fellow at the Harvard Business School. He is Visiting Professor of Leadership at the University of Exeter and a senior fellow at UCLA's School of Public Policy and Social Research.

He has written or edited 26 books, including the best selling Leaders and On Becoming a Leader, both translated into 21 languages. The Financial Times named Leaders as one of the top 50 business books of all time. His book, An Inverted Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change, wasnominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His most recent books include Geeks & Geezers, Judgment, and Transparency.

Bennis has served on the faculty of MIT's Sloan School of Management where he was chairman of the Organizational Studies Department. He is a former faculty member of Harvard University and Boston University, former provost and executive vice president of State University of New York. He has received 12 honorary degrees and has served on numerous boards of advisers, including the Salk Institute. He has served on four US Presidential Advisory Boards and has consulted for many Fortune 500 companies, including G.E., Ford, and Starbucks.

The Wall Street Journal named him as one of the top ten speakers on management in 1993 and in 1996, Forbes magazine referred to him as the "Dean of Leadership Gurus."

Resources
Slacker Manager - Warren Bennis - Still Valid After All These Years
The Wall Street Journal - Judgment Trumps Experience

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
AlarmMusic.com Production Music Library for Broadcast, Film, Video & Post Production

Why we are smarter than me: Podcast interview with Barry Libert

tom@tomparish.com — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:15:02 GMT

Procter & Gamble turned to social media, not soap operas, to really connect to its customers. The Vocalpoint P&G community enlisted 850,000 stay-at-home moms to create new products and new services, such as Dawn Direct Foam.

Barry Libert, a social media visionary and the founder of Shared Insights (now Mzinga), knows how to use technology to harness the power of what he calls the crowd. Mzinga provides software as a service solutions for online communities. It currently manages about 14,000 communities, and services more than one billion monthly page requests from 27 million users in 160 countries worldwide. Libert is currently chairman of the board of Mzinga. He and his co-authors set up a community and enlisted members to contribute to a book called, We are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business. In fact, this is the first book on the subject that actually used an online community, based on a Web 2.0 technology from Mzinga, to help create the book. About 4,000 qualified members joined the online community and helped shape the final product. By using the same social networking tools and techniques that their book covers, Libert and his co-authors could provide practical and unique look at online community building.

He says that building communities isn't all about tools and technologies. "The task requires good facilitation, moderation, and services that go along with them. Remember, people at ebay and amazon make sure their respective communities work. You need a community manager. The same goes for customer communities and employee communities. Mzinga is the online equivalent to the community Sherpa."

In this podcast, Libert talks about the power of communities, the differences between the community and business, and the changes businesses must make if they want to build communities. Now let's join Barry Libert, author and chairman of the board of Mzinga.

Bio
Before founding Shared Insights, Libert was a senior partner at Arthur Andersen and John Hancock. He began his career with McKinsey & Company. He has also co-founded and sold two successful businesses. He graduated from Tufts University and has an MBA from Columbia University.

Resources
FT Press - If We Build It, We Will Come
Safari Books Online - Interview with Barry Libert
One Degree - Interview with Barry Libert

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
AlarmMusic.com Production Music Library for Broadcast, Film, Video & Post Production