“We don’t want to come to work to build a wall, we want to come to work to build a cathedral.” —Simon Sinek, Start with Why CIOs can’t succeed unless they can communicate. Whether we’re convincing our C-level colleagues to support complex, cross-functional programs, persuading our staff that our strategy will enable their success, or proving... more
This is the final post in my short series on CIO relationships across the business. Read the overview and the posts on the CEO and CMO dynamics. Believe it or not, IT’s role in the enterprise is not to make other functions happy — even though IT provides technology to help business teams meet their... more
(Note: I’ll be finishing my series on CIO-CxO relationships in my next post, looking at the CISO. Check out thoughts on the CEO and CMO, but first, the latest book on my reading list …) The first book to make it onto my reading list for 2018 is a big one—in every sense of the... more
This is the third post in my series on CIO relationships across the business. (Previously: The intro and the CEO.) Informatica hired a new CMO, Sally Jenkins, within six months of my arrival as CIO. Since we were both new, it gave us a chance to build a CIO-CMO relationship from scratch by getting up... more
This is the second post in my four-part series on CIO relationships across the business. You can read the first one here. Even though data and technology are critical to every business today, too many companies keep CIOs on the sidelines during business discussions that drive the organization. Instead of helping to make critical business... 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
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 digital transformation. And we each define that transition differently. For some of Informatica’s customers, digital 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
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