@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.

Going to Boise from San Diego seems to be either thru Utah, Denver, LA or SFO. We took the SFO route with united to get home the soonest. While I was at the SFO airport killing some time between flights I decided to catch up on my twitter feed and see what was the rumbling going on out there in the world. Turns out it was good info (as normal) and that there was some great talk, url’s and general info on the new iPhone 3S. I also found out some great world info, creative sites, etc. 20 minutes later I felt up to date and ready to eat some lunch and head to the plane. On the leg from SFO to Boise I looked toward the front of the plane as I was grinding through an audio book [twitter power] and I saw an older fellow I’d guess about 65+ reading a newspaper. One of the headlines on the page he had exposed to the back of the bus was titled “New iPhone details coming soon”. I kind of had to chuckle because before that ink had even dried I’m sure there were tweets going on all about what the article was only then eluding to. I had already seen photos, read comments and articles and this poor man was just getting his appetite for tomorrows ink. This got my head wound up with several thoughts that I’m going to post here. I don’t think they are anything profound but I hope to get a comment or two about them.

1. How can paper companies survive what seems to be one after another going bankrupt? How can they bring in the social aspects (book: Tactical Transparency – A very good read).
2. What age group reads the paper? How many are currently in transition and just need help making the switch? I’d think it won’t be long.

After thinking about that for a few minutes I faded back to my hotel room for the last week. Every day when leaving the motel room I’d have the WSJ sitting in front of the door as if to say “you should read me”. I would pick it up and toss it in the trash and proceed to get real time relevant news, stocks etc on my iPhone. I would have done much of that on my laptop but the hotel did not offer free wifi! Hey Hyatt, I have an idea for you, are you ready to listen? How about you give me the option when I check in to get WSJ or free wifi? How about you give me the option to have my Sheets changed every 2-3 days and knock off 10 bucks from my 20$ parking fee that we know didn’t cost you anything.

Ok I’m ranting. I like the Hyatt, they are always friendly but always seem to stick it to me with parking and that part drives me nuts but that’s not the topic of this post perhaps another day. I guess I’d have to admit I’ve never read the paper and I’ve always found my news and information online where I can read comments and find out other peoples views (much more fun). Let me know what you think about papers survival and if your a paper reader educate me as to why you are still doing it that way I’d love to know.