ARE NEW TECHNOLOGIES ADDING BUSINESS VALUE? - CIOs take pride
in their willingness to investigate and deploy new technologies. More than 20% of the
more than 500 technology executives who responded to a recent CIO InSight
technology adoption survey characterized their companies as "early adopters," and a
surprising three quarters (73%) called their companies "innovative." But times are
tough, IT executives (65%) concede that the slow economy has had an adverse effect
on their efforts to adopt new technology, and most of them (40%) say their primary
goal in deploying new systems these days is to save money. Still, adopting new
technologies remains critical to meeting strategic goals, and the companies that say
they're good at it (41%) devote a larger part of their IT budgets to investigating new
technologies and are significantly more likely (53%) to involve business executives
in the process than those that admit to being less successful. Expensive as the
process can be, it's clearly worth the effort. See:
http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,3959,1125400,00.asp

YOUTH AT THE GATE - In late July, CIO InSight convened a roundtable on youth
and the future of the workplace to discuss how the Net Generation is starting to
reshape the workplace and challenge the CIOs. The ten participants included a Silicon
Valley high school teacher, a couple of child techno-prodigies and a father-son CIO
duo in middle-age and retirement. Most agreed the N-generation will alter the power
balance between managers and workers, forcing today's leaders to forge new
partnerships with employees in which authority will be based less on seniority than
on the negotiated abilities of people or teams, regardless of age, to execute change,
promote new skills, and harness emerging technologies in the service of business goals.
For the full article see: http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,3959,1268064,00.asp
(CIO InSights, 23 Sept 03)