An absolutely brilliant and on-the-money rant. The unwillingness of the business to consider replacing what exists - even when the IT function manages to screw up its courage to propose it - so as to create a platform that would allow for innovation is yet another side of this restriction of innovation. But, of course, IT fails to remember its own history. We used to rip up and replace applications with every system upgrade - S/360 put an end to the practice, and now we've forgotten that it's normal behaviour. EDS in its early days used to upgrade new customers - and existing ones - by improving the portfolio with better solutions from the next deal: no outsourcer today would even dare to consider making their customers' lives better. And so it goes. Meanwhile the business leadership is spineless: who amongst them would do as Sam Walton is reputed to have done, and given the go-ahead for his company building technologies in the face of results that didn't match the projections of the business case? No, today we'd analyse it to death rather than seize the advantage. All this is just to say there's plenty of blame to go around, and little expectation that many of these leaders are noticing how those who don't play the game this way are hollowing them out.

Now, hold on there a second, Chris. I neither said nor suggested that you think "CIOs are merely control freaks without an innovative bone in their bodies." (I know you don't think that.) What I said was that you, like Chris Anderson, believe that today "most CIOs serve mainly a control function rather than one of innovation." I apologize if that misstates your view, though in your comment on my post you seem to be saying pretty much what I said you said: "But even in the companies where CIOs report to the CEO--41 percent--the CIOs' hands are tied. In most companies today, existing systems and their maintenance swallow up anywhere from 80-95 percent of the typical IT budget and a good deal of the management attention of CIOs and their staffs. That doesn't leave a lot of room for innovation."

My point wasn't that you believe that CIOs are uncreative or that they don't deserve more innovative or strategic roles, but simply that the reality of the situation is that most CIOs today have mainly a control function. (Personally, as I also said, I don't think that's so bad. To be effective, particularly in larger companies, IT needs tight and smart managerial control.)

Nick

Good points. Virtually every aspect of a company is IT-infused. As each year goes by, corporate cultures, business processes, employees' and customers' self-identities and IT are rapidly intertwining. How each company knits itself together varies: it all depends on factors peculiar to the company. Companies and CIOs that don't find ways to knit themselves together at the highest possible value for the lowest possible buck will probably wind up in the M&A junk pile. Since markets are less forgiving now than thirty years ago with more companies dying sooner, those that conceptualize the CIO role as merely a control function and do not cleverly conceptualize how IT matters may suffer an all too common fate.

-Vince Kellen

Well said. In particular I think the argument about IT not being invited to the innovation table is especially poignant. I have never understood this phenomenon. I am frequently told that the only way to succeed is to be “Market Driven” and let the customers do the innovating. IT’s job is simply to materialize what the customer has envisioned. It is sales and marketing’s job to interpret the customer’s innovation and rely it to IT. Until all of those filtered requests have been completed, there is no time or money to spend on technology-based R & D. Personally I would like to see more discussion on the author’s call to action. Specifics of how we can unite to break this preconception. How do we get the CEOs understand that the Googles of the world are not just a fluke?