Minnesota has two CIO’s (companies) on the 2008 CIO 100 list.
Congratulations to (links are CIO.com entry and company site):
Schwan’s is also featured with this: How Schwan Food Cashed In on Server and Desktop Virtualization.
Below are articles from recent weeks that I have not yet written about. A few posts in the coming days will be on topics like the job market for IT professionals and information for CIO’s. Until then you should find interesting information in these items:
Dealing With Email
-Hoarders vs. deleters, I am both depending on the day. I go through extremes with email much like blog posts. Either the Inbox is empty and everything answered, categorized, and archived or as is today I have 2000+ messages mostly answered I think, a few not open, many needing to be deleted, and a few to be archived.
-Take These Steps to Avoid Spam Purgatory, including 8 simple rules for making sure your message is received.
Business And The Use Of Technology
-20 Great Ideas From InformationWeek 500 Companies, there is always a lot of hype around the next tool that will change how we operate. I like to wait and see how someone uses it first. I am rarely an early adopter of the next best thing, my use of this blog for business, marketing and public relations being the exception.
List
IT Hiring
There have been quite a few articles on the tight job market, good for the professional and bad for the employer:
-IT Job Market Looking Good, even those who have been cautiously optimistic are becoming bullish.
-Careers: IT Hiring Still Strong, CIO’s planned in 2006 4th Quarter to hire 13%, reducing 3%.
-Building the Perfect IT Person, sure would make hiring easier.
-Panel discussion: tech getting easier, employers looking for more than just tech skills.
-Study Shows 95% of IT Pros Happy With Their Jobs, maybe I am reading this wrong but maybe they are happy with their function or what they are working on but less so with their employer.
-Three Experts' Tips for Hiring, Retaining IT Staffs, nothing earth shattering here but worth reading.
IT Salaries Are On The Way Up, 2.8% is not a significant increase but at least its in the right direction.
Older Workers More Loyal to Employers, I thought being loyal had gone out the door.
Outsourcing And Offshoring
-Outsourcing: India Skills Gap Widens, apparently India is not able to produce enough qualified talent and are now increasing training efforts and looking to recruit from abroad.
-In India, even Google finds job recruiting tough, between having the necessary skills and the competition of those that are skilled, even Google has a hard time in India.
-Indian IT recruiting goes global, Tata Consulting Services will double the number of non-Indian workers. Infosys Technologies is hiring grads form foreign universities, training them in India, and send them back home to work.
Insourcing: Is IT Heading Home?, certainly an interesting shift in favor of the in house staff.
US Versus The World
-U.S. Education, Competitive Edge Not Adding Up, hopefully the new funds for science and math will help.
For The CIO’s
-Six Rules for Great IT Project Success, going old school by using Einstein and Pareto.
-Just How Important Is IT Anyway?, and the debate goes on.
-Sink or swim: 10 steps to rescue a foundering project, I like the first one, “Stop the Project”.
-The Team at the Top, a look into the building of an IT team.
Online Social Networks
-Social Networks: Execs Use Them Too, not just for the recruiters and kids.
-Web, Wikis: Models For Business Software, Panelists Say, Wikis and an ant colony.
Web 2.0
-Web 2.0 venture capital increasing, but real success hard to find, maybe this space is not evolved enough yet to realize its money making potential.
-Bubble 2.0?, glass half full or half empty? The previous article talkes about little cash going into Web 2.0. This article talks about it pouring. This does feel like 2000.
Thoughts On Business In Silicon Valley
Can anything good come from outside the Valley?, do they drink a special kind of Kool-Aid out there?
Future Of The Web
-Warning over 'broken up' internet, a UK perspective on the issues facing the Internet.
Impact Of US Elections On Tech Industry
-Few tech changes if Democrats control Congress, written right before the election.
-New Congress Likely To Support Net Neutrality, good news if you want neutrality.
-What the Democrats' win means for tech, including net neutrality and digital copyright.
IT Certifications
-Another Nail in the IT Certification Coffin, I tend to agree that they are not what they used to be.
CIO Job Market Continues To Improve - October 1, 2005
CIO.com has more evidence of a stronger job market for CIO’s noting that more companies are hiring.
Job Search For CIO’s - October 7
A fantastic article on CIO.com for CIO’s particularly, but anyone really, on how to find jobs not posted and how to make sure once an opportunity is found that it is the right opportunity for you.
CIO’s Sticking Around Longer - October 13
This SearchCIO.com story has statistics from Forrester and Gartner showing that CIO’s are sticking around longer at their jobs than they used to. Four years, plus or minus .5 year, is average. The article has cites many reasons for the longer stay.
Chief Information Security Officer, A New Trend - October 13
CIO Today with an article on the trend of some melding the CIO and CSO and others creating a hierarchy. 40% of respondents say they employ a CISO up from 31% in 2004.
The Evolving CIO - November 16
Seems like everything in IT is changing, including at the top. CIO’s seem to be evolving into many things. Wisconsin Technology Network has a posting on the “hybrid CIO”. There is very little I like about Wisconsin, there goes my Gopher bias again, but this site always seems to have new and thought provoking information.
