Stories by Laurie M. Orlov

This MarketWatch article (placed by Banker's Life Insurance, no less) caught my eye: Seniors: Overcoming Loneliness. The article encouraged seniors to visit their local senior center: "If it's too cold or difficult for you to get out, stay connected to others by phone, mail or computer. The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project surveys taken from 2006-2008 show that older generations are online now more than ever before with email being their most popular online activity."

Business functional view of the importance of technology is not synonymous with IT's ability to provide it.

Everybody wants to sell something to the mid-market IT execs.

The sky of IT certainly seems to be falling, depending on who you read. But this is the best of times for CIOs to sit down with their CEO and ask for help.

It can't be a coincidence that two consulting partners I interviewed recently were both sharply critical of the last few years of IT efforts at 'alignment'. They argued that too often many CIOs mollified complaining business units who whined that IT was too slow and too rigid -- so they really need their own apps and infrastructure. Whoops. This resulted in a swing to such extreme business unit autonomy that companies began choking on proliferating apps and redundant infrastructure.

CIOs being fired -- this always gets my attention (along with the ever-compelling "Five Things You Must Do..." titles of course).

Maybe you remember the business joke -- a new executive is presented with 3 numbered envelopes by the outgoing exec to help him deal with any problem he couldn't solve.

Consider this. Big projects (a year or more) are unhealthy for CIOs. By the time they're done and the business execs see the result, these snoozing sponsors discover it wasn't what they wanted.

So Goldman Sachs says IT spending growth will slow from 7 per cent to 5 per cent.

Walter Mossberg (Wall Street Journal) thinks IT organizations are regressive and poisonous because their policies get in the way of individuals using what they want.And Rudy Puryear of Bain thinks the CIO job is really two jobs, internally focused and externally focused. Maybe he is right, but for other reasons. Consider:

You'd think that all that CIOs did all day was comparison shop for new tech products.

Don't vendor partners just want to be loved? And what better way for you to love them? During this economic slow-down, ask them how you can cut your costs with them.

It's easy to talk about what you'll do in the future. It's what you're not doing today that's a problem. Juxtapose this:

My recruiter friend Bob (19 years in the biz) gave me an earful the other day about how the hiring process seems interminable - even in a candidate-driven market.

CIOs run a lot of meetings with their own employees, explaining, encouraging, reminding about some type of transformation underway. Is that good?