Terry White's Blog (3)

I have a friend who is the Chief Information Officer of a Government Department here in South Africa. The other day, he said: “The problem with our Government Ministers and Director Generals, is that they are buzz-word-compliant. They use all the latest buzzwords without having a clue as to what the implications of their words are”. A survey of a number of recent news articles reveals this to probably be true of most of Africa, and who knows, possibly true of many other Governments in the world… Continue

It’s bizarre – when Data Processing was a function –then a department, everyone knew what they did. They processed data. Simple hey? What on earth does the modern IT function do now though? And don’t get me going on ICT – Information Communications Technology – that’s just another techie jargon qualification to avoid doing any real business. Ditto in my mind for IS, IM and any other cool an oh-so-self-important name that they can justify. Now if they still think their role in the organisation is… Continue

Recent research shows that three things trouble CIOs today: • How do I keep IT costs down? • How do I add value, and be seen to add value? • How do I align with my business? But our research also shows that in general, the average CIO can only deliver against the first of these concerns. There are two primary reasons why CIOs cannot add value and are struggling to show alignment. The first is to do with the organisation’s understanding of the role of IT in day-to-day operations, and the second… Continue