I received an email from a friend today asking if I would comment on  How to Fearlessly Grade a College Tech Department’s Performance, the current installment of Tech Therapy blog by Jeff Young on the Chronicle. This segment features an interview with Sandra Smith, Co-CIO at St.

“CIO Cheapskate” is a fantastic label worthy of pursuit by any CIO and certainly every public sector CIO. This is not a trendy hyped up austerity chic initiative in response to our economic times. It is a genuine challenge for CIO’s to stop complaining about lack of IT funding in our use-it-or-lose-it budgeting world. If you were to embrace this idea you would be amazed at what it will do for you.

To ruminate is to think deeply about something. For CIO’s it is a crucial skill that must be developed and nurtured. It is also a deliberate decision making process (rumination) involving thoughtful contemplation. The ability to turn issues and options over and over in the mind while allowing our feelings and impressions to develop before acting. This is what separates the sentient beings, including CIO’s, from all others.

That’s the conclusion of a joint study just released by Financial Executives International and Gartner. The findings of this research report are already appearing all over the web today and should be a must read for every CIO.

I want to go on the record as disagreeing with the EDUCAUSE 2011 Top-Ten IT Issues list. I also want to assert the list and others like it only serve to perpetuate the idiocracy so rampant in our profession further compounding the dystopia of IT in higher education.

idiocracy (noun): peculiarity of constitution; that temperament, or state of constitution, which is peculiar to a person; idiosyncrasy

The most critical management decision you will ever make as a CIO is who to hire. This is an absolute truth in information technology. The team you build is foundational to everything. They are truly your enablers and your limiters to achieving your strategy. And of course, the team you build also becomes your legacy as the people you hire and the core competencies they represent will outlast every technology decision you have ever made.