Description: Digital technology and its impact
A couple of weeks ago I chaired a Global CIO Institute conference, hosting a dinner, various talks, and round table discussions with CIOs.
What has struck me during all these interactions was the marked contrast between these CIOs at the coalface and the topics obsessed upon by LinkedIn/academic/journalistic style discussions. While CIOs are interested in topics like digital transformation, AI, robotics, data-lakes and lakehouses, the API-economy and the rise of ChatGPT (the usual LinkedIn fare) these were not what drove them. Their interest was much more on safely driving consequential innovation within their company’s line of business.
Of significant interest within this was the need to manage various forms of risk. Risk was not to be “avoided” – or as Robin Smith (CISO) at Aston Martin put it, we need to promote “positive risk taking” for innovation. All intervention generated risk. For some this manifested as needing guard-rails around IT innovation so creative and innovative staff were not constrained by the risk of a catastrophic failure. This was particularly true as low-code and citizen development expands. For CIOs, developing a cu