Can the IT department survive Web 2.0? - 25/08/2009 - Computer Weekly
CIO in hot water
Hinssen recounts the story of a recent lunch he had with a CIO from a large Belgian company. During the meal, the CIO received an angry call from his CEO who had e-mailed a presentation from home to his Google Mail address (it was too big for the corporate inbox). “The CEO was having a problem accessing his Gmail account at work and the CIO had to tell him access had been blocked on the corporate system. I could hear the CEO shouting through the phone receiver from the other side of the table and it wasn’t pretty.
“When the CEO of one of the biggest companies in Belgium almost fires the CIO on the spot because he can’t access his Gmail, it is a clear sign that these types of technology are gaining a broader foothold in business than simply Generation Y.”
So why aren’t more IT departments embracing the technology? Hinssen believes a major factor is the rise of what he calls “governance thinking” in IT.
“A lot of IT departments are using governance and security as a shield, so if anything goes wrong they cannot be held liable,” he says. “It is stupid. There is plenty you can do within ‘safe’ boundaries. If you say you must wait until a technology is completely mature, that means businesses shouldn’t have done SOA, ERP, CRM the list goes on.
“What IT needs right now isn’t people who focus on what could happen if things go wrong, but people who think about the possibilities if things go right.”
Interesting article about what Peter Hinssen say about the future of the IT department.


