@bbcomCIO

What type of CEO, CFO, COO, CIO – EI-EI-O do you work for? Do you work in a company with a Digital or an Analog boss? I read a blog post the other day talking about Digital CEO’s and how they differ from traditional CEO’s of yester-year. Overall, the article got me thinking about leaders in a company in general and how they operate within their organziation. As a CIO I consider myself to be digital vs. analog but I felt I’d better put myself to the test to be sure.

Some of the questions I came up with to validate the digital concept ultimatley revolved around my interaction points, my communiction style, my information sourcing, etc. Here is the list I have so far, please feel free to comment or send me an email if you have others because I’d like to add to the list.

The list below shows a form of doing something on the left (Analog) vs. the same thing on the right (Digital) and if you have a preference. The first example would be how you prefer your admin update you with events throughout the day.

List of contrasts Analog <-> Digital: Prefered models.

• Voice Mail, Memo <-> email, twitter, texting
• Written Memos <->Evernote, iPhone Note Sync
• Long eMail’s <->Twitter, FaceBook group chat.
• Phone Calls <->Twitter, Texting
• Recruiters <->Job Boards, Linked-In, Twitter, FaceBook
• News Papers <-> Twitter, Blogs
• Paper Advertisements <-> Craig’s List, ebay

An excerpt from the blog says this “The business value produced by IT is significantly higher, when the organization is lead by a digital CEO” and I 100% agree with the statement.

As a CIO I also like working for a Digital CEO- A CEO who is constantly pushing for new media outlets, asking about how we are dealing with new technologies, pushing for metrics and better BI, who is passionate about our digital products and consistently challenging the analog. This keeps things exciting and new and it also keeps me on my toes to stay one step ahead.

In today’s business, technology is key to  productivity.  However, unless properly managed it can bleed a company out rapidly with high burn rates.  Having a CEO that is involved in the leadership of IT creates a natural push for a results driven IT organization and fosters trust vs. an IT Organization that is miss understood, mistrusted and most often failing to complete projects required to keep the business ahead of it’s competition.