As part of a panel discussion at the CIO Summit in Toronto last month, experts said CIOs need to continuously explore other ways of connecting with their enterprise instead of relying on the analysis of big-name consulting firms. Among those methods? Blogging.
“”I’m thinking of writing a magazine
article called Leading and Managing by Blogging Around,”” said Jon Husband, founder of corporate coaching and strategy firm Wirearchy. CIOs could use blogs to update organizations on their projects or facilitate employee blogs to gather their ideas. A lot of blog content is irrelevant, but it’s an interesting way to find out what’s going on, he said.
Cindy Gordon, CEO of e-business collaboration firm Helix Commerce International Inc., agreed that the most important feedback comes from outside the executive suite. “”You really need to reach down into the bowels of your organization to your youth and bring them into the process,”” she said.
CIOs have been telling each other for years that most project failures are the result of human problems, not technology. Gordon suggested they tackle those problems by developing an entirely new skill set: cultural anthropology. Many companies are moving away from highly centralized, authoritarian decision-making towards self-organizing communities of knowledge workers.
Although she admitted cultural anthropology has yet to filter into the mainstream business community, Gordon said she believes it will eventually be used to form new kinds of performance measurement in the enterprise. “”Our brains weren’t genetically hard-wired to work in the kind of organizations we’ve created,”” she said.