The Leadership for a Networked World program will run a small online research seminar from April 14 to approximately the end of June. The group will use wiki and other technology and will focus on:

1. What CIOs need to know and do, especially in settings where IT-enabled change is or should be a strategic concern to the organization's senior leaders.
2. The extent to which wiki-enabled collaboration could generate cost-effective improvements in the dissemination of IT-enabled innovation in government.

Our research will deepen and possibly modify a framework for public sector strategic management developed over the years at the Kennedy School. A description of how that applies to the work of CIOs can be seen HERE.

The calendar for the course can be seen HERE.

Participants will work with me and others deeply interested in these issues. Will will produce two papers through the work of the seminar, one assessing course materials for CIOs, and the other assessing the value of wiki-enabled research methods. Seminar participants will be recognized in the reports, and specific contributions will also be acknowledged. Participants who complete the work of the seminar will receive a certificate of completion.

Please contact me immediately if you are interested, indicating your interests, background, and skills for this work. There are only a few places still available.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

Jerry

P.S. This research will inform and extend work will do will at a Harvard Workshop on Leadership and Strategic Management for CIOs to take place June 17-18 at Harvard. Here is the link to workshop information and registration materials.

A recent DOJ decision looks to have completely ignored the long-term impacts of digital data infrastructure on energy conservation and the global climate. I'm speaking of narrowly focusing on music distribution in allowing the merger to proceed between XM and Sirius satellite radio.

According to a recent post of Philip Greenspun -- a friend of my former deputy Cesar Brea -- the new XM/Sirius monopoly will jump the price of satellite data (doubling it or more). This will limit the benefits of mobile data in a wide variety of transport decisions -- giving cars and trucks and airplanes, for example, real-time information on weather and congestion, in some cases along with congestion pricing signals. Monopoly profit maximization will generate negative spillovers through congestion, energy loss, pollution, and global warming.

DOJ allowed the merger when they judged it would not create a monopoly -- for music distribution. It ignored the crippling impact on the public value that would otherwise be created through intelligent transportation.

Here's the link to Philip's post.

Jerry

What do CIOs really need to know?

Come join us at our June workshop on what CIOs need to know

Imagine we're talking with a visitor from outer space, one sent to help us assess our situation and what's required for the future.

Our guest asks first about the big picture: Over time, what has most changed the human condition?

In exploring this, we soon agree that the big changes started with new knowledge. We learned about -- and then took advantage of -- bronze, coal, steel, antibiotics, hybrid corn, atomic energy, the net (TCP/IP) and the web (html).

Early learning was about how the world works: Will the wheel make it easier to move things? Will the bridge hold the weight? Will the engine pull the train? Will the code compile and compute?

We've long needed people good at such problems: puzzles with clear right or wrong answers. We usually recognize good puzzle solvers as "smart" when they are quite young. People smart in this way have tended to become mathematicians, scientists, engineers, computer programmers.

I see, says our guest. You need to be smart about things you can use -- tools -- as it is tools that let you expand your capabilities.

But is that the same kind of "smart" needed to apply those tools?

Well… No, not exactly. The problems and smarts to apply tools are not the same as those to build them.

In general, problems of application are social more than physical. New applications require people to change their behavior and division of labor. To fully apply plants, plows, and other tools of agriculture, we move from hunter-gatherers to farmers. To apply steel and steam engines, we produce at greater specialization and scale, organizing at the level of nation and even continent. Powerful new tools require people to change what they do and who they do it with.

These problems are not puzzles with provably right answers. They require deep involvement and judgment via interpersonal communication and negotiation. They require street smarts about people and politics -- a different kind of intelligence.

I see, says our guest. You need first to be smart about things -- to invent tools -- and then about people -- to apply tools successfully.

Well then, given where you are now, what is the right balance of smarts for the road ahead? Do you have what you need, or will you need a new balance?

Important questions, eh?

In a networked world, as we move beyond the delivery of online services to redesign and transform our globally interconnected value chains, what do we need in the way of smarts? Are we smart enough to know what we need and how to get it?

Let me know your answers.

We'll be exploring this and other questions at our Leadership and Strategic Management for Chief Information Officers Program (June 17-18 at Harvard). Here's where to learn more and apply. Hope to see you there.

Regards,

Jerry