Blogs

Microsoft hosts midmarket CIOs – Vote for the biggest CIO challenge

A midmarket CIO’s challenges are many, and I’m always amazed by the stories I hear when I’m out on the road meeting many of you.

This week I touched down in Redmond for Microsoft’s US Midsize Business CIO Summit, an invitation-only event for about 400 midmarket CIOs. It’s a press-free conference, but I was privileged to be a speaker and thus join the technology glitterati on site.

My conversations covered a lot of topics, but what I’ll share with you here is a sampling of the folks I met. If you think your job is tough, consider those of these CIOs – then I’ll ask you to vote or share your story of trying circumstances.

- The CIO for a firm that conducts clinical trials. He has five staff in the U.S. and 25 in Europe. Based on the West Coast, he had just spent over a week on the road, first in London and then in Russia, then came directly to the conference. At home he’s on calls early in the morning and late in the evening, syncing up with staff around the world. Challenges? Language, culture. … He absolutely wasn’t griping about the travel or the hours (he didn’t even look tired!) and I know he’s hardly alone in living such a global lifestyle. But to me that seemed the most challenging part.

- The CIO who was hired to bring a food distributor into the 21st century. The company had all sorts of aging or aged systems – but the hard part was when this maverick CIO announced capabilities he wanted to roll out to the employee base. The CEO told him that sales reps were not going to use computers. Period.

- The CIO who had endured several offshoring contracts (some negotiated by his parent company), all with ill effects. In one case, employees at a provider hacked into his systems; in another, a key offshore contact left for another firm just after completing his Oracle training in the U.S. Meanwhile, he grappled with undeveloped infrastructure – he couldn’t get a switch for a new plant he was building — and bureaucrats who promised fixes and then didn’t deliver.

Do you relate to any of these experiences or have your own story of obstacles to share? Vote below for the one that seems most challenging and feel free to offer advice to the CIOs in question.

Be kind to your blogger

Bloggers are showing up everywhere now. Every event, every topic, everything is being blogged about. BlogWorld reports over 57 million Americans read blogs and 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs. That’s a lot of blogging.

Politicians are tapping into the power of the blog by inviting bloggers to their big events – and treating them very well once they’re there. During the Democratic National Convention (DNC), bloggers got respect , great seats (as well as a “bloggers lounge”) and a chance to have their voices heard… or rather, read.

CNN recently reported on the appearance and importance of bloggers at the DNC in Denver, stating, “…there’s a hunger for personalized information tailored to specific audiences.” Obviously the Democrats noticed this too because they issued 120 credentials for bloggers at the event. Especially when it comes to voting for the next president, people want to feel a connection to the cause. And comfortable. Reading a blog post that interests you (if done correctly) kind of makes you feel like you’re catching up with a witty, knowledgeable friend. It’s like a conversation, in some ways.

OK, I know what you’re thinking: blogs are important to relay news and current events, but why should blogs matter to me?

As you probably know, business blogs are popping up everywhere. Companies of all shapes and sizes have started blogging. From Microsoft to Kodak, from large corporations to small businesses — they’ve become an important part of the business landscape.

Why?

Well, aside from reaching out to millions of readers around the world, business blogs do a lot of good for the company. You have the opportunity to build customer relationships, test out new ideas and products, promote these new products and share your “guru-like” company knowledge. And, blogs also provide a little bit of healthy competition amongst your employees (Who has the best blog? Who looks the most knowledgeable? You get the picture…)

On top of all that, it seems blogs are here to stay. We were first introduced to blogs in 2005 and in three years they’ve gone from personal to professional. We’ve been able to weave them into practically every facet of our lives (go to Google and search for just about any topic and I can almost guarantee there’s a blog for it). From a business perspective, they’re a way to reach out from within the company without necessarily involving marketing or public relations. And they allow a little bit of your personality to shine through – a valuable aspect as human interaction falls to the wayside in our total techno-world.

It’s a good time to blog. Don’t have your own blog? Try your hand at one and let me know how it goes (may I recommend IT Knowledge Exchange (ITKE)?)

Questions/comments on it? Let me know! I’m always looking for something to blog about…

Will a Chief Blogging Officer get a Golden Parachute?

 Excellent little news blurb on HealthLeaders Media this morning: “Chief Blogging Officer title catching on with corporations.”

Chief Blogging Officer.

Ok, one more time: Chief Blogging Officer.

The press release notes that more than 11 percent of Fortune 500 companies have blogs. Some of those Fortune 500s – Coca-Cola, Marriott and Kodak are those mentioned by name – have chief bloggers. The main role of the King of The Blog (my name, not theirs) is to promote a brand voice and engage customers.

I have a couple questions for these companies, though: Is this a legit C-level job? How far would the parking spot be from the door? What’s the number on the golden parachute you’re prepared to offer? And, most importantly, are you using WordPress or Blogger?

What kind of negotiation leverage does a potential Chief Blogging Officer have at a company like Coca-Cola? Would the number of days he or she be allowed to wear sandals and shorts in the office have to be predetermined? Would there be a discount on Coke bottle glasses? How would Coke feel about the copious amounts of Mountain Dew the King of the Blog would likely drink?

And what about Kodak? Would the KotB’s Flikr stream or Photobucket account have to be shut down? And, besides, who uses film anymore these days? I certainly wouldn’t trade in my point-and-shoot digital for film. Please. I don’t care if I’m capturing the Moments of Your Life if I have to wait for them to be developed – I’m the King of the Blog; I’ve got a deadline to meet. And the only thing that is going to bring this Kodak-branded blogpost together is a picture of a monkey smoking a cigarette!

Marriott. Oh, Marriott. You might have the biggest bargaining chip on the table:

Marriot: We’re a hotel chain, you know.

Potential King of the Blog: OK. So you want to know about my experience with hotels?

M: No. What we’re offering you is a place to live for free that isn’t in your parents’ basement.

PKotB: Deal!

In the interest of journalistic integrity, I decided to check out these corporate-sponsored blogs. The Coca-Cola blog’s latest story focuses on finding the Coke logo on postcards. Gee, all this logo hunting sure is making me thirsty…

The Kodak blog isn’t quite as straightforward in pushing its agenda. One of the most recent posts is a story written by Steve DiLullo, and he chats about a recent cruise he took. Throughout, there are some pretty sharp-looking images that Steve, apparently, took on his own. But, lo and behold, the digital camera Steve brought is pretty “hydrophobic.” Fortunately, Kodak makes a waterproof disposable!

Bill Marriott himself wrote the most recent post for the hotel chain. Bill Marriot? CEO and KoTB? There’s got to be some sort of conflict of interest going on there. His May 1 post talks about how awesome the Marriott hotels are because of the history that’s occurred in them. Well, FDR didn’t actually have his inaugural ball in a Marriott in the 1930s, but the company did purchase the hotel that happened in. That’s got to count for something, right?

These blogs are accomplishing the goals they set out with: promote the brand, establish a voice and engage customers. In fact, Mr. Marriott’s blog (that’s how the commenters address Bill) garners between three and five thoughts and comments per post. Not bad, especially when you consider that all of them talk about how great his hotels are.

(Apparently the people who frequent these sites don’t realize that comments on blogs are supposed to be inflammatory and debasing. But that’d never happen on a huge corporation’s site since everyone in the world loves big companies.)

What Coca-Cola, Kodak and Marriott are failing to realize – or maybe they realize it and just plow on ahead anyway – is that these posts are as transparent as my ex-girlfriend. When you’re trying to establish yourself in a Web 2.0 or social networking environment, the question readers and users are first going to ask is: What is this new person bringing to the table? If you’ve got an idea to share, a story to tell or an insightful comment to make, chances are good you’ll be accepted there. But if the aim is to pushing a product or mine users for market research, you’ll get sniffed out pretty quickly.

That is, of course, the exact opposite from our mission here at CIO Symmetry. (By the way, for the latest news and trends happening in the midmarket, check out SearchCIO-Midmarket.com!)

CIO blogs lift us up where we belong…

We often kick around the idea here whether or not CIOs are reading blogs. It’s a friendly argument, but we haven’t been able to come to a conclusive decision yet. So, as I surf through my Google News updates and through my RSS readers, I always keep looking for those elusive CIO blogs that’ll prove the point that, yes, you are reading – and even writing – blogs.

This morning I happened onto a real gem. CTO/CIO perspectives is written by Peter Kretzman. Kretzman describes himself as an information technology and online industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience in the business.

His blog, his about me page notes, covers “broad topics of interest to senior executives, giving the CTO/CIO perspective on such things as working as a member of a company’s executive team, how to focus product and application development, enhance and maintain world-class operations, and the care and feeding of technical staff.”

Yesterday as I was surfing the vast Interwebs for any and everything CIO related, I came across Joel Dehlin’s blog. Dehlin is the CIO for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also maintains, what seems to be, an active and popular blog. While Dehlin doesn’t confine his blog space to just the latest and greatest CIO news – he does tell personal anecdotes, but I haven’t found any pictures of his pets on the site, yet – he does touch on CIO issues from time to time.

What most interests me about Dehlin’s and Kretzman’s writing is that both obviously have technical experience and could easily get mired down by the nuts-and-bolts type of discussions that may be relevant to only a handful of people. Instead, both made the conscious decision to write about common information technology issues and offer real-life antecdotes to make the whole a little easier to swallow and have a more general appeal. Their writing styles are straightforward and charming in their desire to help their fellow readers.

So, at least for today, I win this argument. CIOs are writing blogs. And you’re reading them, too, as the comments on these blogs can attest. Well done, my midmarket CIOs. It’s like an unexpected gift or a lollypop at the end of a doctor’s appointment.

Since you’ve exceeded my expectations today, I give you Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes: