Does the movement toward work anywhere, cloud and smart phones begin to validate the idea of a chief mobility officer?

I voted no, but the answer I really would have chosen is 'maybe'. I think it depends on how effective your company and your IT leadership is today in driving mobility efforts. I use the word 'driving' as opposed to 'reacting' because IT and the CIO really should be driving this conversation. The discussion should be focused on how to enable employees and customers and business partners in new ways because of mobility, which offers great new opportunities to engage all of those communities. In too many cases, however, IT is simply reacting to the flood of devices and apps and trying to figure out how to support them. If you aren't driving change and capitalizing on mobility, perhaps the company needs someone to spearhead that. But it really should be the CIO and the IT team.

Absolutely not. Companies that benefit from mobility need to make this a central effort ... run by the CIO and their designate ... not another C-level title that isn't quite part of the C-suite. Forrester has been advocating a variety of new titles, including re-naming the CIO title Chief Business Technology Officer. But here's my take ... a "great" analyst recommendation doesn't necessarily make a great real-world recommendation. Mobility needs to be driven by the CIO, given the implications not only on business process, but cloud computing, enterprise security and application modernization. We don't need additional bureaucracy.

--Paul Calento

(note: I work on projects sponsored by EnterpriseCIOForum.com and HP)