Gartner Trends @ ITxpo

Gartner analysts describe what’s happening in video today as similar to mobile computing 3-5 years ago. It’s at the beginning of the big explosion and everyone wants to know more about how to successfully implement all forms of video in their enterprise.

Video in the enterprise comes in many forms and styles including events, on-demand, sharing and collaboration, mobile video, surveillance, and digital signage.

Collaborative video can take various forms and there’s a purpose to each. These include personal or desktop video, small room or group video, video appliances with executive endpoints, HD group video systems, and immersive telepresence. Understanding the differences and the various outcomes each offers, is a key to understanding what’s best for the enterprise – and we must help those in the business define their expectations to determine what technology best fits their need.

In the telepresence marketplace Cisco, Polycom, Tandberg, and Teliris rated most positive. And now that Cisco purchased Tandberg, analysts are further optimistic in this space.

Network architecture and infrastructure is a key component to successful video deployment in the enterprise. Have a collective and strategic approach to both the network and video deployment are a must going forward.

Peter Weill is the Chairman of the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), and partners with Gartner on this research. His presentation today was based on many years of research on the value of reuse in information systems.

Weill’s research shows reuse really pays off, but not all reuse pays off equally. He states that firms with more reuse not only perform better financially, but their CIOs are also rated as more effective. MIT CISR and Gartner assessed levels of reuse and performance in more than 1,000 firms focused on business process, data and technology reuse enterprisewide and within business units.

Reuse can come in the form of technology reuse, data reuse, and process reuse. Reuse in departments is easier to do first, but real value comes from reuse on an institutional level. Create centers of excellence and create consistent processes across organizations and locations. Key words he used to describe a path on how to implement reuse in an organization were: Start, Consolidate, Govern, Measure, Share, and Create Incentives.

More of his research is available through the Gartner EXP site.

At today’s CIO lunch we heard a great presentation by Jim Collins, author of Built to Last, Good to Great and How the Mighty Fall. He touched on all his books but focused the talk today on the five stages of decline in How the Mighty Fall and a 10 item “To Do” list to help you prevent the fall. 

The stages of decline are:

1. Hubris Born of Success
2. Undisciplined Pursuit of More
3. Denial of Risk and Peril
4. Grasping for Salvation
5. Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

Quoting his ideas from Good to Great he mentioned that the reason we don’t have greatness in more places is because overall things are good – suggesting the secret to mediocrity is inconsistency. “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline,” said Collins.

If you don’t want to be one of the mighty who falls, Collins suggests the following 10 item “To Do” list:

1. Go to www.jimcollins.com and use the free Good to Great diagnostic tool.
2. Begin tracking the key roles in your organization.
3. Build a personal board of directors to provide a consistent team of people who have the same set of values as you do, and check in with them.
4. “Get the right young people in your presence” and let them challenge you.
5. Turn off all your electronic gadgets! Find “pockets of quietude and whitespace” – block time for no distractions so you can just think.
6. Ask more questions.  Determine your questions to statements ratio and then double it.
7. Start making a “Stop Doing” list – listing the things you need to stop doing.
8. “Abandon titles from your thinking and simply claim what you are responsible for.”
9. Determine your maximum risk level - what will sink you – so you will know when you approach it.
10. Determine your 10 to 20 year BHAG – “Big Hair Audacious Goal” – use vivid descriptions.

TAGS: Gartner, CIOs, Leadership, Jim Collins

Vivek Kundra, President Obama’s newly appointed CIO, sees an opportunity to elevate the role of CIOs overall especially in the public sector. The public sector is falling behind on having CIOs at the table where innovation and planning occur at the top levels of an organization. Tactically, he plans to focus IT efforts on transparency, security, data portability, agility and innovation. Transparency is key from the administration’s perspective because the U.S. Government spends $76 billion annually on IT.

One of the most visible outcomes to Kundra’s leadership thus far is the Federal IT Dashboard offering visibility and transparency into the projects and investments in IT by the government. Representatives, senators, cabinet secretaries, watchdog  groups, and citizens alike can all keep an eye on government IT projects.

Another of Kundra’s initial efforts, Data.gov offers access to government datasets that previously weren’t available. The availability of this data is driving massive innovation efforts never before seen. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) released data from their research on the human genome and innovation on research in personal medicine has skyrocketed.  Similarly, when the Dept. of Defense released data on their latest satellite research, it also resulted in massive amounts of innovtion. The idea is to have many eyes on the problems of the world – share data and reap the benefits of the innovation that follows. Kundra states that New York City and San Francisco are in process of following suit with similar efforts in their respecitive cities.

TAGS: Gartner, Federal Government, IT, Technology, Innovation,  Research, CIOs