Thoughts on #NZCIO Summit 2014
Conferences and summits are inherently hit and miss - they are often a mixed bag of content propped up by some okay networking opportunities. Too often there are too many cliche & platitude sessions and not enough practical, experience based content. That perhaps sounds a bit cynical but I’ve attended a shed-load of events over the years.
That being said the New Zealand CIO Summit 2014 pleasantly surprised me. I’ve been a long to quite a few of these Summits over the years (I think there have been about 8 in total - correct me if I’m wrong) and this years event was head and shoulders above previous years.
What I really enjoyed this year is that almost all sessions had a strong business focus. Often you go to IT conference and its a brief mention of business outcomes followed by speeds & feeds presentations (although that’s slowly but surely dying off).
Some other top of mind musings on themes and key outtakes for me - in no particular order - below.
- Speed to delivery is an imperative for all industries. It used to be restricted to some industries - like retail and technology - but it’s now a key business drivers for everyone.
- Information (data) is the new business commodity - almost every organisation is now in the information business, consciously or unconsciously.
- All business strategies are digital - any business strategy that doesn’t factor in digital is doomed to failure.
- Be adaptive or risk becoming irrelevant - change is the new normal.
- When it comes to IT service delivery one size fits none - I’d argue this has always been the case. The ‘standard desktop image’ days were a misguided period driven by false economies.
- We all need to think globally whilst we deliver locally - CIOs have a broad range of scalable, secure and cost effective solutions at their disposal. We need to tap into global platforms and services.
- It always boils down to people - surround yourself with smart, capable people and support them in doing awesome things.
- CIOs need to work hard at reducing the cost of 'keeping the lights on’ each time they do any major IT asset upgrade or replacement - creating that space for doing the things the business values, not running infrastructure.
- Demo Projects coupled with Design Thinking disciplines are taking off in a major way - we certainly had a lot of success with that approach in the last 18 months.
- Agile has earned its stripes across NZ organisations - for a long time it was a nice concept but we see organisations really embracing it and reaping benefits.
- Culture is simply the demonstrated behaviour of a organisation’s leadership - Barbara Chapman and the team from ASB have shown us what’s possible with a recognition of the role technology plays in business, the right culture and having awesome people on the bus.
- Users will find ways to use great products and services - look at how many people have found a way to access NetFlix from NZ eventhough, technically, it’s not available here. You can’t fight it.
- Connect with your users - don’t assume you know what they want; chances are pretty good you’re wrong. People want to be involved in exploring possibilities and building new things - tap into that.
- The global talent/skills shortage is well and truly now hitting NZ but quite a few awesome initiatives are coming together to meet the challenge. I’ve always been passionate about talent supply chains and it’s awesome to see dots being joined across NZ.
- Boards needs CIOs to help them understand technology better - managing risk better and capitalising on business growth opportunities.
The CIO Awards Dinner was a great event; congratulations to all the winners and nominees this year. Hilary Barry was a fantastic MC.
Congratulations to Kevin Angland on winning the CIO of the Year Award.
Rod Drury is a very deserving of his Contribution to Technology Award - a fantastic ambassador working tirelessly to put NZ hitech on the map. Good on ya Rod!
Congratulations to the CIO Summit organisers - 2014 was a great year. Look forward to what 2015 has in store for us.