I was at the MIT CDO Symposium in Boston at the end of July, where there was a lot of discussion around the business value of data, and the challenges of cultural and behavioral change. I agree that business leaders need more data literacy. And I also think the corollary is true: data leaders need... more
Building relationships is more important to the CIO’s role than ever before. To make a real impact, it has to be. But let’s get one thing straight: if you’re defining “building relationships” as asking your peers what they want from IT in the next fiscal year, you’re doing it wrong. If you see your job... more
Throughout this series of posts, I’ve emphasized the importance of IT and overall information architecture in the journey to cloud. But as organizations become all-cloud—or more likely, a hybrid mix of cloud and on premises infrastructure—there’s another key stakeholder: the chief data officer. CDO is a relatively new role, and it’s still being distinguished from,... more
The latest book on our CIO Reading List is The Phoenix Project: a novel about IT, DevOps and Helping Your Business Win, by IT veterans Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford. It’s essentially about how to apply lean manufacturing processes to IT operations — but told in a creative, entertaining way. It follows a... more
Every one of us is going through his or her own version of data transformation. And we each define that transition differently. For some of Informatica’s customers, data transformation is figuring out how to get closer to their customers, obtaining that end-to-end view. For others, it’s making sense of the sheer amount of data from... more
When Informatica talks about trust, we’re usually framing it around trusted data. It’s a core element of an enterprise data platfor: Can you trust that the data is accurate, timely, etc.? But then there’s security: Can you trust that your data is secure? In the cloud, on premises, regardless of application, at rest and in... more
In my last post, I talked about how enterprises need to truly understand what their data is worth to the business as they journey to cloud. But the shift toward cloud services and the leveraging of data as an asset changes another value proposition: Yours, as an IT professional. Specifically, a cloud transformation redefines the... more
It’s hard not to like the travel side of my job. I get to meet customers and peers, attend conferences and events, and share experiences around data and digital transformation. But, as a rabid baseball fan, my September trip to Chicago was really special: I took a “backstage” tour of Wrigley Field with Chicago Cubs... more
“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” So goes an ancient Japanese proverb. As a CIO, you know better than most how important it is to balance vision and action: Even the best plan can fail because of poor execution. From digital transformation to cloud migration or organizational optimization, the... more
I hear this idea a lot lately: Data, we’ve suddenly realized, is a business asset, a source of potential value. This is certainly true, but a lot of the discussion seems to frame that opportunity as a bonus, something extra. That’s ridiculous. “Making the most of your data” is not the limited province of extra-clever... more