Andrea Di MaioLast week I had a chance to meet to government CIOs in the same jurisdiction. One of them works for a social security organization, while the other one heads the IT organization for an infrastructure authority. In both cases the conversation was about how web 2.0 technologies would impact both IT and the business.
The former, a smart and very articulated lady, started from sharing that the way they are tackling web 2.0 is from the outside in. They are focusing on analyzing occurrences of the agency name and conversations about topics that they cover in multiple social media platforms ranging from YouTube to Facebook and Twitter. She said that before doing anything internally or in terms of service delivery model, they need to understand what people already do. One of her direct reports also said that where he is expecting the most immediate impact is on case management.
The latter, also quite smart and relatively new to the organization, engaged me in a conversation about information management and how to deal with both structured and unstructured information. His objective is to build an information architecture to overcome some of the organizational silos, but he seems to be mostly concerned with leveraging the collaboration tool that is organization has purchased. When I asked him whether he was looking at the overall enterprise architecture, who was in charge, whether he was making sure they were building the “to be” rather than the “as is” architecture, he became elusive and kept referring back to the tool. When I asked whether he had factored in the potential impact that consumer social platform may have before they deploy the tool, he was dismissive, saying that probably only 10 percent of the organization knows anything about social media, and he has them under control.
Comparing the very different attitudes of these CIOs I cannot help thinking that the former has what it takes for navigate and succeed in these uncertain times, while the road to success for the latter looks considerably more impervious. It was not coincidental that the former let her report speak and engage, while the latter allowed his staff to intervene only upon his request and usually to support what he was saying.
In the next several years, government IT organizations will face substantial challenges in terms of sustainability, agility and innovation. In order to be up to these challenges, CIOs need to possess a rare blend of competence, courage and humility. As this tale shows, not all do.
Category: web 2.0 in government Tags: enterprise architecture, social media
5 responses so far ↓
1 Tweets that mention A Tale of Two CIOs -- Topsy.com July 19, 2010 at 1:54 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Andrea DiMaio and Mary Groebner, open3gov. open3gov said: RT @AndreaDiMaio A Tale of Two CIOs – http://bit.ly/aTgONF #gov20 [...]
2 Gov 2.0 Radio Hot Links – July 20, 2010 « #2010Left July 19, 2010 at 8:39 pm
[...] GCN: 10 government apps that get resultsDelimiter: Australian Open Govt declaration attracts filter dissentAndrea DiMaio: A Tale of Two CIOs [...]
3 Gov 2.0 Radio Hot Links – July 20, 2010 « Adriel Hampton: Wired to Share July 19, 2010 at 8:40 pm
[...] GCN: 10 government apps that get resultsDelimiter: Australian Open Govt declaration attracts filter dissentAndrea DiMaio: A Tale of Two CIOs [...]
4 Gov 2.0 Radio Hot Links – July 20, 2010 | Gov 2.0 Radio July 19, 2010 at 8:42 pm
[...] GCN: 10 government apps that get results Delimiter: Australian Open Govt declaration attracts filter dissent Andrea DiMaio: A Tale of Two CIOs [...]
5 SDM July 23, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Any comprehensive discussion of structured and unstructured information must consider a fundamental restructuring of the Internet itself.
The ability to benefit from newly discovered underlying patterns of information is in direct proportion to the total volume of information available for analysis. Therefore, imposing limitations on the initial data set necessarily impacts the potential for meaningful results.
Creating a more inclusive Internet must therefore shift emphasis to capturing virtually all data from all sources – both online and off (state secrets and proprietary data excepted) while providing end users with powerful data mining tools to sift through massive information haystacks in search of that one digital needle.
A brief outline of one such concept can be found here:
http://www.squidoo.com/unstructuredinformation
Until a global effort is launched to collect EVERYTHING and put the ultimate power of search in the hands of the end user, we will have to make due with observing only the tip of the iceberg. I suspect that what lies beneath holds the greatest promise for our digital future.