One of the biggest hindrance in way of embracing cloud is data security. In cloud the data is stored in a shared resource pool where the infrastructure is made available to all the users indiscriminately. Since the data is hosted in a virtualized space outside the physical in-house data server it becomes vulnerable to violation if not properly monitored and secured. When cloud offers distinct advantages over traditional in-house IT model it has its share of disadvantages too.

Mobile devices, and perhaps even more importantly, user expectations around mobility are profoundly changing the role of IT in the enterprise. Today’s users are increasingly demanding instant access to the people, applications, and data they need to make them productive either professionally or personally. Their expectations have been shaped by consumer services that in an increasing number of cases enable them to bypass IT, challenging its role as sole provider of IT services.

You will hear many familiar themes in my live Tweets from the MIT CIO Symposium two weeks ago: CIOs have to move away from ops and live the business; embrace social media; innovate; and run IT more efficiently. Many live Tweets stand on their own, but my elaboration where required is in italic. Tweets are not always direct quotes: rather quotation marks set off the live tweets.

When I was in graduate school pursuing a business strategy degree, I took a class taught by Ian Mitroff, professor emeritus at the Marshall School of Business. During one class, Ian had the entire class take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment and then grouped us by our results. He asked our groups to determine the world’s problems and to create a Tinker Toy object to represent it. I was in the systems thinker group. We were done in 30 minutes and built a very simple object.