Innovation and the CIO

It is interesting to note the significant coverage CIO Magazine and other IT-centric publications have placed on the role of IT in support of innovation within the enterprise. The February 1, 2007 issue of CIO Magazine ran a special report on I.T.'s role in innovation. The September 15, 2007 issue returned to the topic with editorial coverage by the magazine's CEO (with recommended links to www.innovation.net, www.innocentive.com. www.open-innovation.com, and www.wikinomics.com) and articles on Innovation ROI and Collaboration for Innovation. Intel's Premier IT magazine also covered the topic in it's Winter 2007 article discussing Developing Systemic Innovation in an IT Organization.

The reality of innovation within the IT enterprise does not appear to many of us to meet the potential discussed in these articles. In a November 15, 2007 CIO Magazine article titled "No Innovation for You" Gary Hamel, an expert on business strategy, blames obsolete management practices for the failure to establish a culture of innovation. Gary poses an interesting question by asking CIOs what percentage of their total budget and headcount is devoted to things that are unique in their industry. While Gary feels this percentage should be somewhere in the 30 to 50% range it requires no answer to the rhetorical question to know the reality is not at all close to such a figure.

This issue is not a CIO specific problem and stems from the enterprise's budgetary and rewards infrastructure. IT organizations are typically understaffed and underfunded so the focus remains on keeping the ship afloat versus innovating for the future. If operational shortfalls occur (and they do frequently despite best efforts) the application of resources to innovative programs versus optimizing current operational performance is clearly not a career enhancing decision for the ambitious CIO. For IT to realistically become a true partner in corporate innovation executive level commitment and support must be behind the innovation initiatives the CIO supports. Given the enabling power of the IT infrastructure to support innovation throughout the enterprise this support is critical for innovation to blossom company wide.

At times a ground swell of non-supported use of certain enabling technologies by corporate users can force IT to embrace these systems for either control or security reasons (and gain the buy-in for this effort by senior management). The corporate introduction of instant messaging and intelligent mobile devices followed this path within many firms. The availability and application of many Web 2.0 enabled services in the consumer internet arena makes it likely that many of these new capabilities will follow this path to corporate adoption and Enterprise 2.0 deployment.

As Gary noted in the recent CIO Magazine article "...The internet is doing exactly what management is supposed to do. It's amplifying and aggregating human capabilities. It's democratizing the tools of creativity..." Enabling the CIO to support this sea change in the tools of innovation is key to long term enterprise success.