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The Accidental Successful CIO

The Accidental Successful CIO

By Jim Anderson

Managing an IT department is not just a business, it’s a science. Nobody knows more about the science of being a CIO than Dr. Jim Anderson.

“I don’t embrace excuses about why an IT department is not being successful, I embrace solutions.”

Over the last 25 years, Dr. Anderson has transformed failing CIOs worldwide. Dr. Anderson will turn these nervous executives into powerful leaders.

Welcome to the premier podcast for learning how to think and act like a successful CIO – both if you are a CIO today or if you hope to be one in the future.
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CIOs Need To Get Better At Detecting B.S.

The Accidental Successful CIOAug 14, 2019

00:00
07:03
CIOs Start To Redesign Their Web Sites To Meet The Needs Of Older Customers
Jul 27, 202210:08
European CIOs Come Under Fire When Their Systems Fail

European CIOs Come Under Fire When Their Systems Fail

The one thing that stock traders want to be able to do is to trade their  stocks. 

However, if the IT systems that they use to make this happen  have a fault or an outage, then all of a sudden something that is  normally always there can vanish instantly. When this happens, down lost time means money lost for stock traders.  The person that they are going to be holding responsible for their  losses will be the CIO who is in charge of the systems that they use.  This was recently a big problem. 

What are CIOs to do to prevent events  like this?

Jul 20, 202208:40
CIOs Start To Deal With The Loss Of Encryption

CIOs Start To Deal With The Loss Of Encryption

CIOs who are following what is going on in the world of security and encryption know that things are about to dramatically change. 

A new type of computing, quantum computing,  is being developed. This new type of computing is going to be perfectly  suited to breaking the types of encryption that we are using to secure  our networks and our corporate data today. 

Within 10 years these new  quantum computers are going to become available and CIOs need to be getting ready to deal with them now.

Jun 29, 202208:01
VW’s CIO Looks For Ways To Catch Up With Tesla

VW’s CIO Looks For Ways To Catch Up With Tesla

Just about everyone knows who Volkswagen is. 

They are the German company  who makes cars – remember the Beetle from the 1960’s? Well, they are  still around and they still make cars. The person with the CIO job has  been studying the car market and has seen the rise of Tesla in the  electric car space. VW would like to enter this market also. 

However,  despite their years of experience in making cars, it turns out that it’s been software that they have been struggling with as they try to enter this new market.

Jun 22, 202209:45
Do CIOs Need Robots To Manage Their Managers?

Do CIOs Need Robots To Manage Their Managers?

Ok, so let’s have a talk here for just a moment. 

The managers that CIOs  are putting into place these days seem to becoming younger and younger.  Maybe it’s because there are so many millennials now working in the IT  department, but it sure seems as though the pool of candidates that we  can promote to manager no longer have any gray hair. This is causing a  problem for the person with the CIO job. This new breed of manager lacks some basic training.  

In order to ensure that this new generation of IT managers is going to  be successful dealing with the importance of information technology, is  this the time for the person in the CIO position to turn to robots to  keep track of how their new managers are doing?

Jun 15, 202208:54
CIOs Discover That Dumb Technology Can’t Always Be Upgraded
Jun 08, 202208:36
CIOs Start To Deal With Trying To Secure Their Supply Chains
May 25, 202208:29
How Can CIOs Prevent The Creation Of A Post Pandemic Two-Tier Workplace?

How Can CIOs Prevent The Creation Of A Post Pandemic Two-Tier Workplace?

In the post pandemic world CIOs are facing a major challenge: where should everyone work? 

There are those people who have been just waiting for permission to return to the office because they like the environment and the interaction with all of the different people. However, on the other hand there are the people who actually prefer to work from home and who might leave the company if they were forced to come back into the office. CIOs are going to end up with a hybrid work environment with some workers in the office and some remote. 

How is this going to work out for everyone?


May 18, 202211:04
Why Are More CIOs Keeping Their Data At Home Instead Of In The Cloud?

Why Are More CIOs Keeping Their Data At Home Instead Of In The Cloud?

You would think that being a CIO these days would be a pretty easy job. 

All you really have to do is to find ways to move more and more of your company’s IT assets into the cloud and everyone will think that you are doing a great job! However, it  turns out that a number of people with the CIO job who understand the  importance of information technology are starting to have second thoughts about doing exactly that.  It turns out that there are a number of issues such as cost and  security that make what seemed like a simple decision a lot harder. 

CIOs need to take a careful look at their current situation and make the  right decisions.

May 11, 202209:17
How CIOs Can Use Social Media To Further Their Career
May 04, 202209:33
How Should CIOs Handle A Hybrid Office?

How Should CIOs Handle A Hybrid Office?

As all CIOs now realize: the world has changed. 

The Covid-19 pandemic  changed everything for everyone. After having spent a year working from  home, most companies have now once again opened their offices. However,  not all of their workers have come back and in fact many of their  workers don’t want to come back. This means that the office environment  that we once knew where everyone clustered in a shared environment has  now gone away forever. Say hello to the “hybrid environment”. 

How can  CIOs make this new work environment work for everyone?

Apr 27, 202209:04
CIOs Know That The Biggest Threats Come From Inside
Apr 20, 202208:17
Five Rules That CIOs Have Learned About Working From Home

Five Rules That CIOs Have Learned About Working From Home

CIOs need to understand that things have changed. 

The workplace has  undergone a once-in-a-lifetime change and now the number of workers who  are working from home has skyrocketed. What the person with the CIO job  needs to understand is that many of those workers aren’t going back  anytime soon. A survey of corporate leaders found that in the future,  82% plan to allow remote working at least some of the time; 47% said  they intend to allow full-time remote work going forward. A recent  survey of managers yielded the same result: 82% said they will have more  flexible work-from-home policies after the pandemic. CIOs need to  quickly learn lessons about the varied necessities of remote work, from  appropriate tools to new styles of management. 

Here are five rules that  every CIO needs to adopt.

Apr 06, 202208:36
CIOs Prepare To Work With Virtual Assistants
Mar 30, 202206:26
CIOs Move Slowly To Implement Artificial Intelligence

CIOs Move Slowly To Implement Artificial Intelligence

I think that we can all agree that artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful IT tool that can allow companies to use the importance of information technology to get their IT systems to do more. 

CIOs have been studying  the technology and attempting to understand how it can be applied to their firms. The implementation of AI at firms has been progressing fairly slowly at smaller firms simply because the complexity of implementing it is still out of their reach.  

Due to the importance of what AI can do for a company, CIOs need to  find ways that AI can be used to help the firm move forward.

Mar 23, 202209:57
Chinese CIOs Find Ways To Put Robots To Work

Chinese CIOs Find Ways To Put Robots To Work

All CIOs understand that if they are going to help their companies become more successful, then they are going to have to find ways to introduce new technology into how the company performs its processes.  

It turns out that in China CIOs are under a great deal of pressure to successfully accomplish this task in order to help their firms and their  country achieve national goals. 

How are Chinese CIOs going to pull their companies forward using the latest technology?

Mar 16, 202207:31
Can CIOs Lower Costs By Hiring More Robots?
Mar 09, 202209:33
CIOs Start To Prepare Their Websites For Use By Older Customers
Mar 02, 202208:50
CIOs Want To Know Where To Go From Here With AI

CIOs Want To Know Where To Go From Here With AI

Every CIO knows about the key role that artificial intelligence (AI) plays in the importance of information technology and the fantastic  things that it is going to be able to do in the future. 

Already our  homes are being flooded with devices that can listen to what we want  them to do and perform a variety of actions to meet our every need.  However, in the workplace it’s starting to look like AI may have hit a wall – a limit in what it can do for us. 

How are CIOs going to find a way to realize the true potential of AI?

Feb 23, 202208:33
CIOs Need To Start To Watch Out For Ad Scammers
Feb 16, 202208:29
CIOs Get Involved In Efforts To Prevent Airplanes From Being Hacked

CIOs Get Involved In Efforts To Prevent Airplanes From Being Hacked

As though airline CIOs didn’t have enough to worry about dealing with the importance of information technology,  some people in the CIO job are now having to worry about IT systems  that spend their time flying from city to city. 

CIOs for the major  airlines have become aware that their company’s most expensive assets,  their airplanes, may be vulnerable to hacking attacks. As  airplanes have become more and more modern, the number of IT systems  that they contain has been increasing. The result of this is that each  airplane is almost as complex as a flying data center and it has as many  vulnerabilities. 

This means that CIOs need to take steps to find ways  to protect them.

Feb 09, 202208:24
Agile vs. Waterfall: Which Should A CIO Choose?

Agile vs. Waterfall: Which Should A CIO Choose?

As a CIO I suspect that you are well aware that there are a number of  different ways that your IT teams can go about developing software (and  doing a lot of other things). 

There is the classic method that has been  used for over 40 years called “waterfall”. Then there’s the new upstart  in town that everyone seems to be flocking to called “agile”. All of  these options can place a CIO in a difficult place. 

Which way is the  best way for our teams to create products?

Feb 02, 202207:56
How Can CIOs Make Their Talent Pipeline More Diverse?

How Can CIOs Make Their Talent Pipeline More Diverse?

Every person with the CIO job wants to have an IT department that is  quick and nimble. 

We want our staff to be able to anticipate what is  coming and make sure that the company is ready when it arrives. CIOs  also realize that in order to be able to do this, they need to make sure that their IT department is diverse.  

However, even though much has been said about the importance of having a  diverse and inclusive IT workforce, when it comes to promoting  ethnically and racially diverse people to senior leadership positions,  CIOs continue to struggle.

Jan 26, 202208:08
What CIOs Need To Know About Self-Driving Cars And AI
Jan 12, 202207:27
Should CIOs Track Employee Happiness?

Should CIOs Track Employee Happiness?

As the person with the CIO job, one of your many tasks is to find ways to make sure that the people that your company has hired choose to stick around.  

This can be a difficult thing to do: all of the computers in the world  can’t tell you what your company’s employees are thinking at any given  moment in time. CIOs need to find ways to use technology to determine if  the company’s employees are happy or not. 

Is this something that we can  do without violating everyone’s privacy?

Jan 05, 202206:57
CIOs Need To Prepare For The Arrival Of Face Scan Technology
Dec 15, 202108:23
How Should CIOs Deal With Companies Who Don’t Do E-Commerce?
Dec 08, 202107:42
Health Provider CIOs Have To Deal With Ransomware
Dec 01, 202107:52
Why CIOs Need More Diversity In Their IT Departments

Why CIOs Need More Diversity In Their IT Departments

Perhaps more than any other executive in the company, CIOs have long known that having a diverse workforce is a good thing. 

Now research is starting to back them up. Diverse and  inclusive cultures are providing companies with a competitive edge over  their peers. 

This is the result of research analysts ranking of  corporate sectors based on how diverse and inclusive they are.

Nov 17, 202107:50
CIOs Ponder If They Should Ever Return To The Office
Nov 10, 202107:56
CIOs Deal With The Problem Of How People Create Passwords
Nov 03, 202108:42
CIOs Start To Realize That They Have A Colorblind Problem
Oct 28, 202106:12
How CIOs Can Build Human Networks

How CIOs Can Build Human Networks

Although we like to think of the CIO job as being a technology job where we spend our time trying to communicate the importance of information  technology, there is a lot of human contact required. 

With the arrival  of the Covid-19 virus this part of the job, which was never easy, has  all of sudden become that much harder to do. 

In this new era of social  distancing, how can CIOs build the human networks that they need?

Oct 20, 202108:35
CIOs See A Need For Data In Their Factories

CIOs See A Need For Data In Their Factories

CIOs who are responsible for their company’s factories are starting to understand that they will be spending far more on data management and  analytics tools in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak, and will  be using those tools for deeper insight into operations, sales and  supply chain disruptions. 

The reason that they will be doing this is  because they understand the importance of information technology and  they want to be able to enhance their ability to remotely monitor plant  equipment, which engineers had limited access to during the pandemic.  All of this is going to require a lot of changes. 

What will CIOs have to do?

Oct 06, 202106:53
How Serious Is The Lack Of Machine Learning Talent?

How Serious Is The Lack Of Machine Learning Talent?

The person with the CIO job understands that the future belongs to artificial intelligence (AI).  

Just about every part of the business is starting to be infused with AI  based software that is designed to help humans make better decisions by  wading through the reams of data that threatens to overwhelm most  businesses. 

As much as the person with the CIO job understands that the  importance of information technology requires that mastering AI is  critical to helping the company to get to where it wants to go, they are  starting to discover that hiring people with AI talent is becoming harder and harder to do.

Sep 22, 202107:35
What Impact Will 5G Have On Work From Home?

What Impact Will 5G Have On Work From Home?

If you’ve been watching TV or reading a newspaper (online) lately, you’ve probably started to see all of the 5G wireless network ads that the major service providers have been running. 

It sure looks  like when 5G arrives, the world is going to change. However, one of the  big questions that CIOs need to find the answer to is just exactly how  is it going to change. 

More specifically, what will the impact be on  workers who want to work from home?

Sep 15, 202107:08
Shopping Mall CIOs Try Out Facial Recognition Software

Shopping Mall CIOs Try Out Facial Recognition Software

So if you were the CIO for a shopping mall, what would you want to know? 

You’d want to know that all of your servers and networking gear  was secure. You’d want to know what the next “big thing” in technology is going to be. You’d also want to know just exactly who your customers at your mall were.  This last question might be the hardest question of all to answer.  Anyone can go to a mall, visit one or more stores and then go home and  the mall CIO would never know. 

Well, that’s all about change and it’s going to change because mall CIOs are starting to deploy facial recognition software to keep track of you and me.

Sep 01, 202108:23
How CIOs Can Reduce Bias When They Are Hiring

How CIOs Can Reduce Bias When They Are Hiring

With a little luck, we’ve all gotten the message by now: having a more diverse IT department makes for a better IT department.  

However, despite the fact that most companies have spent a lot of money  trying to teach everyone about the power of diversity, we still don’t  seem to have done a very good job of making our departments diverse. It  turns out that one of the big problems that the person with the CIO job  is dealing with is that the people doing the interviewing are bringing  their bias to the interview table. We all like people who are like us.  

What can be done about this?

Aug 25, 202107:23
How IT and Business Can Work Together To Benefit The Customer

How IT and Business Can Work Together To Benefit The Customer

CIOs need to ask themselves why should the business and IT collaborate? 

Perhaps a better question is why wouldn’t they collaborate?  We need to understand that business units like sales, marketing, and  operations have direct interactions with customers that are enabled or  empowered by technology — technology that’s typically managed and  deployed by IT. CIOs have to ensure that these front-line experiences  are optimized for customers. To make this happen business and IT teams  must work together closely. We all know that better customer experiences  lead to better business outcomes. 

Over half of all CIOs are spending  time learning about how better serving customer needs and using the  importance of information technology can create new revenue generation  opportunities.

Aug 18, 202109:46
How IT and Business Can Work Together To Benefit The Customer

How IT and Business Can Work Together To Benefit The Customer

CIOs need to ask themselves why should the business and IT collaborate? 

Perhaps a better question is why wouldn’t they collaborate?  We need to understand that business units like sales, marketing, and  operations have direct interactions with customers that are enabled or  empowered by technology — technology that’s typically managed and  deployed by IT. CIOs have to ensure that these front-line experiences  are optimized for customers. To make this happen business and IT teams  must work together closely. We all know that better customer experiences  lead to better business outcomes. 

Over half of all CIOs are spending  time learning about how better serving customer needs and using the  importance of information technology can create new revenue generation  opportunities.

Aug 11, 202109:49
Why Do CIOs Fail When It Comes To Innovation?

Why Do CIOs Fail When It Comes To Innovation?

As the CIO of your company, you have been given the job of leading innovation at the firm so that it can realize the importance of information  technology. 

However, it can be all too easy to fail at this task. I  think that we all understand that innovation is an important driver of  growth, and many CIOs aspire to build capabilities that can deliver  sustained innovation. However they have a steep hill to climb: A quarter  of CIOs who participated in a recent study say that their innovation  capabilities are nonexistent. Of the CIOs who responded, only 11 percent assessed their current innovation capabilities as excellent or leading

Why are we doing such a bad job at innovation?

Aug 04, 202107:58
Questions You Need To Ask About Your Next CIO Job

Questions You Need To Ask About Your Next CIO Job

As CIOs we will eventually go looking for our next CIO job. 

When we  do this, we need to be prepared to answer plenty of questions on various  technology, business and personal topics. However, before any  employment meeting ends, it’s always a good idea for you to toss a few probing questions back to the interviewer.  Keep in mind that as the potential employer seeks to ensure that you’ll  be able to perform professionally and productively, you’ll be risking  nothing less than your reputation and future career path on commitments  made during this interview. 

What types of questions should we be asking  during our CIO job interview?

Jul 28, 202107:41
How CIOs Can Position The IT Department For Success

How CIOs Can Position The IT Department For Success

As the person with the CIO job, it’s your responsibility to make sure  that the IT department is successful. In order to do that, you need to  be able to lead the department in the right direction in order to  realize the importance of information technology. 

What this means is  that you have to plan, organize and launch new strategies and  initiatives. Changes in business trends, security issues and increasing  government oversight of many IT activities, combined with a seemingly  never-ending series of disruptive technologies, make it essential to be thinking about tactics and goals all the time

How should a CIO go about doing this?

Jul 21, 202106:25
CIOs Struggle With The New Challenge Of Citizen Developers

CIOs Struggle With The New Challenge Of Citizen Developers

As though CIOs didn’t already have enough to worry about with the importance of information technology, it now turns out that within their  own company there may be a shadow IT department at work. 

What has  happened is that there is a growing demand for software and this has  given rise to pseudo-programmers who, though not professional  developers, build applications that help their business lines. These  so-called “citizen developers” (cit-devs) build apps because the IT  department is not willing to build the software they require when they  require it. Clearly this is an issue for a CIO. 

What are we supposed to  do about this new army of developers who don’t work for us?

Jul 14, 202107:59
CIOs Have To Prepare For The Hybrid Work Environment

CIOs Have To Prepare For The Hybrid Work Environment

Every CIO understands that the pandemic was a major disruption to their  business and the importance of information technology. 

Their workplaces  went from being filled with people to being deserted. Now that vaccines  have become available, those workers are starting to trickle back in.  However, the workplace as we used to know it may never exist again.  Instead, it’s going to be transformed into a new environment. Not all of  our workers are coming back and not all of the ones who are coming back  will be there all the time. 

How is a CIO going to secure this new  hybrid work environment?

Jun 23, 202110:48
Just Exactly What Should A CIO Do During Their First 100 Days?

Just Exactly What Should A CIO Do During Their First 100 Days?

Being a CIO is an exciting job. 

Starting a new CIO job can be both  exciting and just a little bit daunting. When the person with the CIO  job gets ready to start a new job, they need to make sure that they are  going in with a clear plan. Hitting the ground running can be key to  establishing themselves at a new firm and laying out a path to success  so that the company can realize the importance of information  technology. 

What you are going to need is an 8-part plan for the first  100 days.

Jun 16, 202109:46
How Are CIOs Failing Their Business Users?

How Are CIOs Failing Their Business Users?

Right now every CIO seems to be talking about the customer experience (CX). 

What CIOs have been told is that if you don’t get customer  experience right, you may leave yourself vulnerable to competitors who  do. However, CIOs who focus only or mostly on customers are forgetting  something just as important: the employee experience (EX) .  The basic formula is: You can’t have customers that are happier than  your employees no matter how well you understand the importance of  information technology. 

Here’s how CIOs can fall short of providing  employee-facing technology that helps rather than hurts productivity, morale and the bottom line.

Jun 09, 202109:11
How A CIO Can Make An Inherited IT Department Better

How A CIO Can Make An Inherited IT Department Better

As CIOs, some jobs are tougher than others. 

One of the most demanding is when you find yourself taking on a troubled IT department.  This isn’t a job for the faint of heart. Your job will be to repair  damage and put things back in order so that the company can realize the  importance of information technology. This will require a great deal of  time and effort on your part. The good news is that if you succeed,  you’ll be lauded as a hero. 

The bad news is that if you fail, your  washout could haunt your CIO career for years to come.

May 26, 202112:24
How Should CIOs Implement Robotic Process Automation?

How Should CIOs Implement Robotic Process Automation?

Guess what? A brand new technology is on the horizon and as the  company’s CIO, you are going to be the person who is going to have to  implement it. 

This new technology is called robotic process automation (RPA) and it allows average business users to configure software “robots” to  automate what are called “swivel chair” repetitive tasks and maximize  the importance of information technology. A company’s motivation for  launching an RPA campaign is to put themselves on a much faster automation track while reaping the benefits of increased productivity and lower  operational costs. 

What do CIOs need to know in order to introduce this  new technology into their company?

May 19, 202109:07
What Do CIOs Have To Know About Business Intelligence?

What Do CIOs Have To Know About Business Intelligence?

Modern CIOs need to understand that Business Intelligence (BI) leverages software and services to transform data into actionable insights that  inform an company’s strategic and tactical business decisions. These BI  tools access and analyze data sets and present analytical findings in  reports, summaries, dashboards, graphs, charts and maps designed to  provide users with detailed intelligence about the state of the  business. 

In IT the term business intelligence often also refers to a  range of tools that provide quick, easy-to-digest access to insights  about an organization’s current state, based on available data. 

The  challenge that CIOs are facing is how best to make use of these new  tools?

May 12, 202106:49