What’s The Difference Between A Vendor And A Partner?
When you become CIO, you’re going to be faced with the challenge of picking your friends. No, I’m not talking about being nice to the CEO and CFO – let’s hope that they are already your friends. What I’m talking about is the collection of outside firms that provide your IT department with goods and services. They can’t all be your best friend, so you’ve got some decisions to make…

Yes, I will tell you what this skill is; however, do you think that you can guess it before I do? I’m sure that you can come up with the standard list of leadership skills that every product manager has (or at least should have): able to deal with pressure, able to lead people, vision, positive attitude, creativity, etc.
However, those would all be good to have, but none of them would be the #1 skill that a product manager needs to have. Give up? The answer is …

Welcome to the 21st Century where all IT workers now view themselves as temporary workers. The constant cycles of downsizing and outsourcing have made even the most committed workers view their jobs as being not so much as a career, but rather as a temporary pit-stop.

So when was the last time that you spent any time thinking about how you breath? I’m going to guess that it was sometime when you couldn’t get air – underwater, someone sitting on your chest, bag over your head, etc. Since you are reading these words, I’m going to guess that somehow you were able to get that next precious gasp of air and that you’ve probably not paid any attention to the whole breathing thing since then. However, maybe it’s time that you did…

So what is your view of the the French? Is your view of this magnificent county and its people shaped by those Inspector Clouseau movies that you used to watch while you were growing up? If it was, then it’s time to get over it and move on – they negotiate much differently than you do.

Forget the whole alignment thing, is it possible that a CIO’s behavior is the root of the problem that the IT side of the house and the business side of the house have never been able to get along? Could it be that this is the secret as to why there has always been such a gap between these groups?

Gosh – doesn’t the whole concept of subliminal advertising just sound naughty to you? I mean, I’ve always sorts lumped this type of advertising together with hypnotism and sorta figured that they were slightly immoral. You know, it can’t be right to get people to do things that they wouldn’t do otherwise, right?

A question that I often get asked by both new and old IT leaders is “how can I become a better manger?” The question is a simple one that has complex answers. What all IT leaders want is to become one of those leaders who has the ability to get all of our employees to light up when we show up. We want to be able to get them excited about us and about their jobs. How hard could that be?

Have you seen those giant flat screen TVs that they are selling these days down at Best Buy? They are HUGE! In fact, they are so large and so bright that you’d almost have to go next door in order to properly watch them if you bought one.

I believe that by now we all probably have somewhat of a love / hate relationship with Donald Trump (“The Donald” if you like). No matter how you feel about the guy, you have to give him credit – he’s done quite well for himself. What’s interesting is that as caught up in himself as he often seems to be, he is more than willing to give credit where credit is due when it comes to negotiating. When you are talking about negotiating with Donald Trump, then you are really …