InformationWeek

July 20, 1998

Secret CIO:
The Indomitable Moderator

Warning buzzers began to go off when he said he had a few slides to provide examples of his points.

By Herbert W. Lovelace

was recently invited to be a member of a panel on information technology as an enabler of business opportunity. The sponsor of the meeting was a group that makes its living by setting up conferences on various topics, and then convincing people like us that we'll become instantly obsolete if we don't immediately fill out the enrollment form. They charge what they perceive to be a reasonable fee: in other words, low enough that we consider it within our power to expend; high enough that we think only important people will attend.

The financial arrangements for these types of seminars are fascinating. They are held at hotels that provide a meeting room at no charge in return for a guaranteed number of room reservations. The speakers--and this is where my fellow panelists and I come in--are usually members of the profession who speak for free. In return we receive a complimentary conference attendance, a great-looking badge with a ribbon that says "Speaker," and the cachet, I suppose, of being able to relate to friends and family, in a bored and slightly off-hand fashion, "Oh, I was out of town last week. I had promised to give a talk at a conference and really couldn't get out of it."

This particular parley had a catchy title and a list of sessions that included all of the latest wonder words such as Web and E-commerce. Thus, the attendance was heavy--there were several hundred people in the room when I walked up to the stage after the morning break. The five of us on the panel had been thoroughly briefed. The moderator, a senior consultant with a major firm, was to provide a five-minute overview, then ask for questions from the floor for the rest of the allocated hour. Strategically located runners with cordless microphones were positioned around the chamber, poised to move quickly to anyone who might even think of raising a hand.

We started with a wonderful display of colored lights flashing and music blaring. Alvin, the consultant turned moderator, spent a minute or two doing an excellent job of shaping the scope of the history, opportunities, and risks involved in using IT as a competitive tool. However, my mental warning buzzers began to go off when he said he had a few slides to provide examples of his points. The first two were visually attractive charts with the type of clip art that would make your heart jump with joy. Some 20 minutes later, my enthusiasm for pretty pictures and multisyllabic words had waned, but at least he was done. The first query from the room was addressed to the panel at large and was about the security risks of Web commerce. Our moderator said that was an excellent question and then proceeded to explain what his own company was doing to ensure that problems would be minimal. He then asked the panel if we had anything to add. Tom, an old friend and the CIO of a major financial institution, added a few comments, as did another CIO. Instead of asking for the next question, Alvin spent a few minutes summarizing our responses. Tom, whom I have known for years, and I exchanged glances. And so it went throughout the session.

Mercifully, the hour was finally completed. After the customary thanks, we received polite applause and departed. Tom and I paused a moment in the hallway. Tom remarked that if Alvin talked half as much, he would probably have twice the number of clients. Still irritated, I said Alvin should have been called our filter, not our moderator. Tom smiled and reminded me of an old proverb of which he is fond: Better to be quiet and thought a fool, than to speak and be proved one. With that, we shook hands and went our separate ways.

Herbert W. Lovelace is the CIO at a multibillion-dollar international company. Herb practices his day job under an alias and has changed the names of colleagues to protect the guilty. Send him E-mail at lovelace@home.com. He'll provide real answers--and whimsical comments--to your questions on InformationWeek Online at www.InformationWeek.com.