City University London's Master of Information Leadership is offering a scholarship for April 2012 entry in conjunction with IBM,
http://www.city.ac.uk/interdisciplinary-city/centre-for-information-leadership/ibm-enterprise-computing-scholarship
Congratulations to both David Chan for securing this and IBM for having the foresight and vision to support the MIL and City's efforts to support the CIO community in this way.
Computer Weekly is again the media partner for the MIL scholarship; I enjoyed working with them immensely when I was at City.
Read the webpage for details and pass onto someone who you'd think make a great future CIO and help the IT profession get the future leadership it deserves.
Showing posts with label cto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cto. Show all posts
Monday, 5 December 2011
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
The Master of Information Leadership's (not so) Secret Weapon...
The Master of Information Leadership differs from conventional MBAs (in the absence of anything better the main default option for aspiring information leaders) in a number of ways, apart from the focus of the course - that's a given.
The first is that we take a coaching approach to student support. At the professional level the MIL is pitched we are beyond the transmission of knowledge and concepts. There a few right answers at this level and instead judgment and the ability to critically evaluate the evidence base is needed (there's a reason for the board-level salaries!). So we aim to develop the academic skills that underpin this to a high level.
So between the weekends David Chan and I are available to support the students either remotely or sometimes face-to-face. As the MIL scales up in number, we'll be adding to this core team. I act as the academic coach, David as the professional coach. This is one of the aspects of the MIL that the students have found most beneficial to their learning.
This leads us onto the MIL's secret weapon: David Chan. I've been working with David for almost two years to set up the centre and the MIL - it's been a blast.
David was one of the UK's first board-level information leaders with expertise spanning the BBC, Provident, Razorfish to name a few. His professional expertise feeds into the course design throughout. David adds his experience to the lectures and syndicate tasks, either by a well-placed anecdote, a reference to relevant theory, or in the 'CIO Coda' where David brings all the activities of a weekend together and reflects with the students on how the issues raised over the weekend relate to the challenges that information leaders face.
If you can find a quality executive masters in any way relevant to CIOs that has an experienced information leader sitting in on the lectures on contributing to the discussions - we'd like to know! Ditto if you can find an MBA where a CEO/CFO sits in all the lectures...
Finally, students also get the mobile number of the course and centre directors - not something you usually get on an MBA! This is consistent with the MIL's philosophy of being a high-contact offering for a select intake of talented self-directed senior IT professionals, rather than being a high-volume commodity.
The first is that we take a coaching approach to student support. At the professional level the MIL is pitched we are beyond the transmission of knowledge and concepts. There a few right answers at this level and instead judgment and the ability to critically evaluate the evidence base is needed (there's a reason for the board-level salaries!). So we aim to develop the academic skills that underpin this to a high level.
So between the weekends David Chan and I are available to support the students either remotely or sometimes face-to-face. As the MIL scales up in number, we'll be adding to this core team. I act as the academic coach, David as the professional coach. This is one of the aspects of the MIL that the students have found most beneficial to their learning.
This leads us onto the MIL's secret weapon: David Chan. I've been working with David for almost two years to set up the centre and the MIL - it's been a blast.
David was one of the UK's first board-level information leaders with expertise spanning the BBC, Provident, Razorfish to name a few. His professional expertise feeds into the course design throughout. David adds his experience to the lectures and syndicate tasks, either by a well-placed anecdote, a reference to relevant theory, or in the 'CIO Coda' where David brings all the activities of a weekend together and reflects with the students on how the issues raised over the weekend relate to the challenges that information leaders face.
If you can find a quality executive masters in any way relevant to CIOs that has an experienced information leader sitting in on the lectures on contributing to the discussions - we'd like to know! Ditto if you can find an MBA where a CEO/CFO sits in all the lectures...
Finally, students also get the mobile number of the course and centre directors - not something you usually get on an MBA! This is consistent with the MIL's philosophy of being a high-contact offering for a select intake of talented self-directed senior IT professionals, rather than being a high-volume commodity.
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Master of Information Leadership: Computer Weekly Step-Up Scholarship
Do you know (or are you) a talented IT consultant, information manager, ITSM practitioner, enterprise architect, project/programme manager or an information professional in a business facing role that could be an information leader of tomorrow? Well here's your chance!
It's been a busy week! We have launched a scholarship for the April 2011 intake for the Master of Information Leadership in partnership with Computer Weekly. One talented professional can secure themselves a free place on the course, worth £30,000.
David Chan and I have enjoyed working with Computer Weekly over the last year in promoting the role of the information leader, particularly in regard to the CW500 club and so we're delighted to be working with them on the Step-Up scholarship.
The opening article from Computer Weekly can be found here.
The press release from City University London is here.
Details of the scholarship can be found here (or you could click the big banner ad on the top of this blog...:-).
I'll be continuing my blogging on the MIL weekends thus far. I hope this will be useful to anyone interested in joining us on the MIL.
For now, feel free to pass the word onto any talented professionals you know. Thank you!
Thursday, 6 January 2011
MIL: The Information Leader in Organisations and the Opening Talk (Sat 2 October 2010)
The MIL is designed to allow modules to be delivered in any order. However since we are starting with a first cohort we commenced with The Information Leader in Organisations (ILO). This is one of two modules below consider the role of the information leader in context, both with organisations and in wider society.
The aim of this module is to examine the role of the information leader past present and future and to provide a conceptual framework to understand how the role of the leader has evolved. We look at the CIO and their role and how the information function works in organizations in both strategic and operational terms. As the MIL is thematic, this means at supporting issues such a financial accounting, boards, as well as look at the CIO’s team and talent management (more on that in later postings).
As I was staying with the inducted MIL students I met them for breakfast and then we arrived at the Cass Business School building together and got coffee...:-)
The MIL weekend starts with a course director's session that sets the scene for the weekend. It is also where the syndicate group task is handed out and any logistics/announcements happen. I won't go into detail about what I said but suffice it to say it involved a Dirty Harry clip and the fact that in the early 20th century 'information officer' meant propagandist!
The opening talk was somewhat of a surprise. I wanted the students to appreciate one important fact: there is now right to the CIO/information leader role and if information leaders don't deliver value to their organisations then their role will become redundant. Needless to say I feel the role has an important future in society, but it is one we need to earn.
Therefore we were glad to host Jem Eskenasi, CIO of Groupama. Jem has written on whether the CIO will become an endangered species. This talk looked at the changes going on in the industry, the commoditisation of technology, and drew on the work of Nick Carr and others. I think the students were surprised at the choice of first speaker, but they quickly saw what David Chan and I were trying to achieve. The debate was lively; I wanted to make sure that the MIL students were aware and could respond to the arguments against information as a source of competitive advantage.
One thing I want to achieve is for students to be exposed to a range of evidence, concepts and ideas and for them to critically evaluate this and make up their own minds. As such this was a good start to the MIL weekend.
More on this MIL weekend in later posts.
The aim of this module is to examine the role of the information leader past present and future and to provide a conceptual framework to understand how the role of the leader has evolved. We look at the CIO and their role and how the information function works in organizations in both strategic and operational terms. As the MIL is thematic, this means at supporting issues such a financial accounting, boards, as well as look at the CIO’s team and talent management (more on that in later postings).
As I was staying with the inducted MIL students I met them for breakfast and then we arrived at the Cass Business School building together and got coffee...:-)
The MIL weekend starts with a course director's session that sets the scene for the weekend. It is also where the syndicate group task is handed out and any logistics/announcements happen. I won't go into detail about what I said but suffice it to say it involved a Dirty Harry clip and the fact that in the early 20th century 'information officer' meant propagandist!
The opening talk was somewhat of a surprise. I wanted the students to appreciate one important fact: there is now right to the CIO/information leader role and if information leaders don't deliver value to their organisations then their role will become redundant. Needless to say I feel the role has an important future in society, but it is one we need to earn.
Therefore we were glad to host Jem Eskenasi, CIO of Groupama. Jem has written on whether the CIO will become an endangered species. This talk looked at the changes going on in the industry, the commoditisation of technology, and drew on the work of Nick Carr and others. I think the students were surprised at the choice of first speaker, but they quickly saw what David Chan and I were trying to achieve. The debate was lively; I wanted to make sure that the MIL students were aware and could respond to the arguments against information as a source of competitive advantage.
One thing I want to achieve is for students to be exposed to a range of evidence, concepts and ideas and for them to critically evaluate this and make up their own minds. As such this was a good start to the MIL weekend.
More on this MIL weekend in later posts.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Public Sector CIO Pay: Are we comparing like with like...?
There has been something of a moral panic regarding the pay of some senior civil servants, including some government CIOs getting paid more than the Prime Minister (who appears to have been given a pay cut). I'm not about to make moral or value judgements - this is not the place.
The real issue for me is whether we are comparing like for like. In executive recruitment, you need to consider the whole reward package: pay, perks, use of hotels/residences, memberships, pensions... For example, the PM gets the free use of two 'grace and favour' residences (No. 10 and Chequers) plus associated maintainence, cleaners, servants. I somehow doubt this is matched by the civil service CIOs.
The above applies to making comparisons with private sector peer CIOs too. We also then need to consider the benefits side, i.e. what they deliver. At that point we can start to look at costs and benefits somewhat more objectively, before discussing the value judgements.
All this reminds me of comparisons made routinely in the press about goods being cheaper in the US than in the UK (currently fluctuations aside). These claims don't always stand up to scruitiny as they invariably quote US prices excluding sales tax but UK prices including VAT and/or compare US out of town prices with central London prices. But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story!..:-)
The real issue for me is whether we are comparing like for like. In executive recruitment, you need to consider the whole reward package: pay, perks, use of hotels/residences, memberships, pensions... For example, the PM gets the free use of two 'grace and favour' residences (No. 10 and Chequers) plus associated maintainence, cleaners, servants. I somehow doubt this is matched by the civil service CIOs.
The above applies to making comparisons with private sector peer CIOs too. We also then need to consider the benefits side, i.e. what they deliver. At that point we can start to look at costs and benefits somewhat more objectively, before discussing the value judgements.
All this reminds me of comparisons made routinely in the press about goods being cheaper in the US than in the UK (currently fluctuations aside). These claims don't always stand up to scruitiny as they invariably quote US prices excluding sales tax but UK prices including VAT and/or compare US out of town prices with central London prices. But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story!..:-)
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Ade McCormack on Visionary CIOs
Ade McCormack, a Honourary Visiting Fellow of the Centre for Information Leadership writes in CIO UK Magazine on the need for CIOs to be visionary. Two points in the article caught my attention.
In any case, it's clear why the dynamics of boards and how to work with them is essential for any information leader to master (which is why we cover it in the Master of Information Leadership).
Of course, it may be argued that other members of the board (such as the CFO) also have a stewardship role. How do they balance the tension between vision and stewardship? Or are they not expected to major on both? There may be lessons to be learned here.
If there is a conclusion to draw from Ade's thought-provoking article it is that not only does it fall on the information leader to address the actions Ade suggests, it also falls to the organisation to have a culture that allows such efforts to grow and thrive.
"But isn’t it the CEO’s role to be visionary while everyone else focuses on strategy? Where does this leave the CIO? Surely he has insights into the fast-moving world of technology that will not only shape the vision but seed it?"My first observation would be that if a CEO felt they were the only source of vision, the likelihood is that they would not be very good. That aside, to an extent wouldn't it depend on the dynamics, personalities and culture of the board, and the perceptions of the information leader within it? When I studied governance on my MBA I came away with the feeling that culture and personality drove much of the effectiveness of boards.
In any case, it's clear why the dynamics of boards and how to work with them is essential for any information leader to master (which is why we cover it in the Master of Information Leadership).
"But it’s simply not happening – a security nightmare, you say. So rather than being the hero of the hour you are known as the person who rains on other people’s parades. The Chief Visionary ‘Stiflement’ Officer."The next point Ade raises implies a tension between the information leader as an enabler and their stewardship role around risk, security and compliance. In a litigious and risk averse culture it is perhaps not suprising that some information leaders feel that they cannot ever fail and so seek to lock systems down tight (leading to the complaints above). So If I may, I'd like to suggest the term 'stewardship trap': information leaders need to work in an environment where there is a mature understanding of stewardship, in order to allow them to manage risk and deliver vision, rather than just being managed by risk.
Of course, it may be argued that other members of the board (such as the CFO) also have a stewardship role. How do they balance the tension between vision and stewardship? Or are they not expected to major on both? There may be lessons to be learned here.
If there is a conclusion to draw from Ade's thought-provoking article it is that not only does it fall on the information leader to address the actions Ade suggests, it also falls to the organisation to have a culture that allows such efforts to grow and thrive.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | Video on TED.com
As this blog is to focus on Information Leadership, this TED video caught David Chan's and my attention. How many CxOs in fact really understand why they are there and what their role is about?
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