Posted on Wed, Feb 17, 2010 @ 02:22 PM
I had the opportunity to attend the VMware partner conference in Las Vegas this week. My wife suspects that it may have been just a ploy to get out of town to avoid dealing with the 2 feet of snow that just happened to hit town while I was away. Pure coincidence. Really!
Not only was I lucky to avoid shoveling snow, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Rick Jackson, VMware's Vice President of Marketing. The conversation turned to The Cloud and what lessons from the past might teach us about what lies ahead.
The Example
Rick observed that how some organizations used Lotus Notes holds a valuable lesson for CIOs. Notes is a powerful and flexible tool, with one of its biggest benefits being the ability to develop custom applications and tools that integrate directly into the program.
Managers in the industry quickly figured out that using Notes, they could simply work around IT and implement their own solutions, thinking, "We don't need to have IT involved. We can work faster and cheaper without them." This would go on for some time, with more and more independent projects working from Notes.
Thus, the CIO would get run over by a proverbial bus* because then came the inevitable — something would go wrong.
- Lost data wasn't backed up.
- An audit turned up a licensing violation.
- There was a security breach.
- An intellectual property dispute erupted.
At this point, everyone turns to the CIO and collectively says, "This is your fault, what are you doing about it?" In essence, the organization puts the bus in reverse and runs the CIO over — again. Nobody ever said life being CIO was fair.
The Lesson
Rick's advice to CIOs in this situation is to take control now. Clearly communicate to your organization that you have a plan for The Cloud, because if you don't, people will develop one of their own.
Nowhere is communicating your plan more important than to the managers who are responsible for budgets, particularly if their budgets include charges for IT services, as these are the ones likely to be driving that bus.
Questions to Ask:
- Are you helping your employees understand what The Cloud means?
- Do your education and communication strategies include risks as well as rewards?
- Do you have a migration plan?
- Are you including managers' input in helping build your plan?
* Disclaimer on Rick's Behalf: The overused bus analogy is 100% mine. Rick is far too eloquent a communicator to have to resort to such a crude technique. My many thanks to Rick for so generously sharing his time and thoughts.
Lance Frew is the President and Chief Financial Officer at MCPc and helps guide the organization in achieving its strategic vision as an industry-leading technology products and solutions provider. Connect with Lance on LinkedIn.
Image credit: fontplaydotcom