As we grow, advance and ascend to positions of greater responsibilities, it is essential to remain grounded and stay true to yourself. No matter what happens and where you end up in your career make sure you remain who you are as a person, as a human being. While I do understand that certain positions may require adjustments to protocols …
Business and IT alignment
Dear fellow IT leaders, please stop aligning IT to business and be the business! Allow me to explain. Generally, in life, one aligns two separate things, two separate items while IT and business need to be one and the same. There are no IT organizations, there is only one organization, one business that you as IT are integral to. Information …
Why Educause matters to me
Each industry has a number of organizations that unify professionals and enable them to network, collaborate, communicate and exchange ideas and knowledge. For me, one of such organizations, is certainly Educause. Educause is an association that unifies all of us who are in higher education (higher ed) information technology (IT) and provides opportunities for collaboration with colleagues and vendors. When …
Job interviews and acronyms
Job searches and everything they entail can be challenging, time consuming and a bit unnerving at times. The crowning moment and the one you are really after is an in-person interview. Once you get there it’s all on you to demonstrate value, share ideas and “sell” your vision. Now, once you are seated in front of the search committee it …
Why leaders are not experts
As a leader one must motivate, inspire, set standards, coordinate, improve, communicate, collaborate and so on, but they should never mistakenly believe and act as if they know everything. There is a multitude of reasons why teams are built with people of diverse backgrounds, experiences, knowledge and education in order for them to complement each other and cover all responsibilities. …
CIO: one of the most rewarding positions
In my humble and somewhat biased opinion, one of the most rewarding positions is that of a CIO (Chief Information Officer). I say this based on their potential to influence positive transformation, change and growth within organizations. CIOs are uniquely positioned and have exposure and partnership opportunities with all business areas (finance, legal, marketing, operations…you name it, technology is involved …
CIOs are joining Boards of Directors
Technology is a the core of nearly everything we do in modern business and as such it needs to be considered as one of the greatest opportunity and difference makers around. With this in mind, it is natural to see more and more technology executives, most frequently Chief Information Officers (CIOs) joining both boards and top management teams. These teams …
Be a leader, not a decision maker
Leadership is earned, not given and as such you need to justify your privilege to lead others. Your title alone is not enough to make you a leader. Your position as a CEO, CIO, CFO, CMO, President, Vice President…gives you an opportunity to make decisions, not necessarily lead people forward. To lead others you must win their hearts and minds, …