David Carey is the editor of 
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Loading ...Second Life and the CIO
If you’re interested in the virtual reality world of Second Life as a business tool, check out the cover story of the Sept issue of CIO Canada when it hits your desk in a week or two, or read it on ITWorldCanada.com. After hearing Inspector Kevin McQuiggin of the Vancouver Police Department talk about setting up a recruiting seminar in Second Life, I talked to him to find out more about how they did it and what results they gleaned from the project. I also spoke to some of the other people involved.
The virtual recruiting seminar turned out to be a big hit, and it’s succeeded in raising the profile of the VPD around the world, especially with Gen X and Gen Y. If that’s an audience you’re targeting, for whatever purpose, Second Life is something worth giving some thought too. There’s a lot more to it than you might imagine. Those in the know will tell you that it’s certainly not just a virtual reality game for geeks. It may become a pervasive technology that smart companies will take advantage of for marketing, recruiting, hosting events and a bunch of other stuff.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Offshoring strategies - what is a good number of providers?
Whenever I hear that a company’s offshore program has crashed and burned, or failed to launch, I can’t help but wonder what went wrong. Everyone knows that without visible senior leadership supporting any change initiative, they may as well not bother even trying. But when senior leadership support is strong and the offshore program still fails, the problem usually lies somewhere between a flawed strategy and inadequate processes.
Let’s talk provider strategies for IT application development and maintenance (ADM). In one company that really got it right, there was unquestionable senior leadership support for offshoring. But it took them 2 years before got any traction.  Once they clarified their strategy, determined the phases of its evolution, developed simple, accessible processes and put a great Program Manager in place, they successfully offshored 95% of their $50 million annual budget for application development and maintenance (ADM),  in just 9 months. Â
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Outsourcing – when is a holiday?
A good outsourcing contract should tell a story. In plain, easy to understand, it should outline what services and responsibilities each party to the contract is expected to do and expects of the other partner. It should also make clear what services or responsibilities are not covered. And most importantly, a governance mechanism that can deal with items that the above plain language turns out to not be and to deal with changes that will inevitably occur. The old adage that good fences make good neighbours applies. Spelling out as clearly and simply the purposes of an outsourcing arrangement in addition to the specifics of what services are expected set the context and framework to deal with the inevitable “surprises.”
On “surprises:” A proactive governance model that monitors the routine operations of the relationship provides a mechanism to identify and deal with these before operational level people of both parties dig in to a fixed position (creating a win-lose mentality which erodes trust), and it must be used.
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(1 votes, average: 8 out of 10) Loading ...Outsourcing Strategies - some practical insights
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Have you ever heard the expression “Any road will take you there if you don’t know where you’re going.”?
It can sure cause long term problems if you don’t invest in strategy development, goal setting and planning. Today I’d like to talk about a couple of “best practices” and “worst practices” in outsourcing strategy.Â
Thankfully, “worst” practices in outsourcing strategy are becoming less common. One that is still surfacing is that lots of really well-run companies find themselves stepping back to take a closer look, only to find a dizzying array of outsourcing relationships on their plate. It could look a bit like a messy plate of spaghetti. An elegant name for this is “multi-sourcing”, but don’t be lulled into complacency by a nice name for a challenging situation. Read the rest of this entry »
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Outsourcing blog - starting off
Bring any group of CIOs together and mention the word outsourcing, and stand back – it’s an emotional subject. Fear, loathing, love, tolerance: few are neutral. Many CIOs (or whatever title the IT portfolio leader is given) are either already outsourcing some functions today or are looking at whether it may be an option.
If you’re not looking at and not talking about outsourcing with the executive team, then expect your CEO or CFO to ask you why you’re NOT bringing it forward. They’re being barraged by vendors whose solutions are the magic silver bullet to solve all of your corporation’s IT needs, both those today and anything that might come up in the future.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...So simple only a child could do it
Had my first go at one of those do-it-yourself grocery store check-outs the other day, and the experience was so frustrating that I may never bother with them again. Kept getting messages, telling me to rescan the item or put it in my shopping bag. But the system couldn’t tell me what my error was and there was no one around to steer me in the right direction. Two or three times it looked like the whole thing was going to crash and I would have to take all my stuff to a regular cashier, wasting a good fifteen minutes of my time.
The whole experience was like a bad IT application roll-out - not enough training for the user and little to no tech support for him while he’s trying to familiarize himself with the technology. And in the end, you wind up with a frustrated employee looking for ways to work around the system.
After decades of introducing users to technology, seems like many organizations haven’t learned a thing when it comes to rolling this stuff out. To my mind, it should start with good user training, augmented by a very clear and uncluttered set of instructions - do this, do this, do this. And you need to follow that up with plenty of readily available support. Anything short of the above is a recipe for failure.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...CIO Assembly wrap-up
Well, the CIO Assembly in King City, Ontario wrapped up on Tuesday, and a good time was had by all. Folks came from across the country, so it was a good place to connect with peers in other parts of Canada.
If you missed the event, you can read all about it in the September issue of CIO Canada. As well, we’ve got a cover story coming up, based on a highly popular presentation at the conference. I think will be of considerable interest to a great many readers, so keep your eyes peeled for it.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Calling all CIO bloggers
We’re now ramping up the CIO Canada blog site, and we’re looking for Canadian CIOs to blog for us on a variety of topics of interest to IT executives.
Each blog topic area will have at least three or four regular contributors, so it shouldn’t be too much work for any individual. A new post every week or two will keep the topic updated with sufficient frequency - and posts needn’t be more than two or three paragraphs.
If you’d like to take part in our online dialogues, drop me a line at dcarey@itworldcanada.com and I’ll send you further details.
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(1 votes, average: 8 out of 10) Loading ...CIO Assembly
In case it’s gone under your radar, this year’s CIO Assembly in King City, Ontario is only days away (July 13-15). Those of you who have attended these events in the past need no reminder as to how good they are, but if you’ve never been to one, allow me to offer a few words of recommendation.
This event is flat out the best you’ll come across in Canada for delving into issues of importance to CIOs, networking with IT executive peers and having more fun than should be allowed at a business function. The theme for this year’s conference CIO Impact: Innovative Thinking that Builds Business Success is one that should generate plenty of interesting discussions.
The Assembly also provides a great introduction to the CIO Executive Council and its members, who play a big role in putting on the event. The Council does all sorts of good work and provides opportunities to network and exchange information with leading CIOs around the globe. There’ll be plenty of members at the Assembly who will outline the benefits for you.
In short, the CIO Assembly is an event not to be missed. If you can squeeze it into your calendar, by all means do so. And when you’re there, look me up. I’d be happy to chat with you.
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(2 votes, average: 8.5 out of 10) Loading ...Three ways to boost your career from reading CIO Canada
This blog will be a forum for Dave Carey, myself and readers to exchange ideas about better IT management, and I thought we could start off by looking back through a few recent issues of CIO Canada to go over things our online audience might have missed.
Remove functions to test user demand: Like a lot of organizations, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) recently set up a Microsoft SharePoint portal to faciliate the exchange of content, including a “My Site” page that allowed users to see what documents their colleagues had been reading. “I took it down, but my staff asked me to put it back up. They said they depended on it to see what I was doing, and what I thought was important,” Ronald Surrette, ACOA’s CIO, said. Sometimes employees don’t know what they want until it’s gone.
Don’t hide behind the monitor: Vancouver’s North Shore Credit Union did all the standard things to improve customer relationship management, like deploying the latest software. Then it did something else: created a “pod” style of teller station that removed the barrier between employee and customer. Although it was more of a physical architecture change than an IT change, it made a big difference. “Our tellers are encouraged to come out and greet clients, like in a retail setting, so we’ve eliminated the them-and-us type of thinking,” said the credit union’s CIO, Fred Cook.
Embrace strategic flukes: Aeroplan recently went through a major SOA project, which was driven in part by a company push to a new non-air rewards program. That meant it was a lot easier to make the business case and get senior management behind it. Remi Lefrance admits it was kind of a fluke, but that’s okay. “But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the whole experience it’s that this worked very well for us. I think it could work well for others too.” Best practices come in all kinds of ways. Don’t ignore the ones that come about as a happy accident.
While we’ll be updating this blog regularly, you can also keep up between issues of our print edition by visiting the CIO Canada home page.
