Fired Yahoo Workers Take To Blogs

Know of any openings for experienced, hard-working, forward-thinking CIOs? Because I know of a few who are looking for work.

Within the last several weeks I've received e-mails from three CIOs who had recently lost their jobs. One said that the projects he had been leading "came successfully to conclusion and there was not a place for me to move into that I was interested in." Another said the CEO he was working for had been "transitioned" and that he became "one of the casualties ... as the new CEO builds his new team." The third said that his philosophy as a CIO had always been to "work himself out of a job," and that recently he had succeeded:

"IT operations and engineering have been optimized to the point where high-quality results can be sustained without me -- and at dramatically lower costs."

While one said his severance package was sufficient so that he wasn't under a great deal of pressure, two said they were actively seeking new positions and looking for leads. So if you know of any open positions or emerging opportunities, please e-mail me ([email protected]) and I'll pass along the information.

My question is this: Is this a layoff blip, or a rush to CIO turnover? I'm not sure, but there's a saying in the media business that may apply here: Three's a trend.

I'm intrigued by the gentleman's reference to working himself out of a job. Given current trends in technology, such as end-user empowerment and the increasing familiarity with IT by business unit executives due to the integral part technology plays in almost every business process and project, it's a very real possibility that CIOs are working themselves out of their jobs -- at least the jobs they used to have overseeing the IT infrastructure. Recently, the long-time CIO of Saks retired, and the company indicated it would not immediately replace the position. Now, that may or may not be because IT operations and engineering had been optimized to the point where high-quality results can be sustained without a CIO ... but it's interesting to note.

As has been pointed out in this blog and elsewhere, the average tenure of a CIO has never been long. And while studies indicate it may be increasing -- a survey last year by the Society for Information Management reported that the average tenure of CIOs had increased to 4.1 years from 3.6 years in 2006 -- that doesn't mean there aren't forces aligning that may change the nature, and the viability, of the CIO position.

Are you seeing a trend? Let me know and feel free to post your thoughts in the comment section.

John Soat
[email protected]
www.informationweek.com

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Scarcely a week goes by these days without word of the theft of a computer with sensitive personal information on it.  It's gotten that much easier to protect such data with whole-drive encryption, but those kinds of solutions have typically been proprietary, like Windows Vista's BitLocker (which isn't available in all versions of Vista, either).  Now comes version 5 of the free and open source encryption system TrueCrypt, which features -- you guessed it -- whole-drive encryption.   My associate George Hulme touched on TrueCrypt before, but I decided to try encrypting my Windows notebook with it and see how it held up.

My (Latest) Ugly American Moment
In traveling to 20-some countries, I suspect I've inadvertently offended someone in nearly every one. Anyone who does business internationally dreads the moment they'll make some cultural gaffe. It took me one day in India to put my foot into it, all too literally.

CIO Turnover: An Uptick Or A Trend?
Know of any openings for experienced, hard-working, forward-thinking CIOs? Because I know of a few who are looking for work.

Liquid Computing's New CEO Outlines A Plan
Greg McElheran, the new CEO of Liquid Computing, explains the recent decision to replace the company's former CEO as being a shift in focus from product development to sales. Having spent four years building its fabric-computing system, Liquid Computing needs to find customers willing to pay for its fancy box.

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Reacting to the seemingly endless conga line of companies announcing one of their employees lost a laptop or tape that held un-encrypted customer data, some organizations rushed into encryption solutions that may have caused more problems than they solve. While pundits recommended SAN encryption appliances for performance, the market turned out to be smaller than expected, forcing vendors Kasten Chase and NeoScale out of business in the past 18 months. Customers of these defunct vendors have a whole lot of ugly work ahead.

CA Surveys 300 IT Execs
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Just a few years ago, the chief information security officer's focus was to defend business-technology systems from the continuous barrage of viruses, worms, denials-of-service, and many other types of attacks that placed system availability and information at risk. For many, I suspect, this role has changed dramatically.

Partners That Compete
I know cooperative competition is supposed to be a cornerstone of business today. Still, I have to wonder how much further down the path to recovery will Dell get before its primary storage partner EMC complains?

What Exactly Does A CIO Do?
The reason I ask is because I'm seeing a lot of different job responsibilities connected to the CIO title lately. Is this because the position is changing, or because certain individuals are embracing -- even demanding -- a more critical role?

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Web services are having a dramatic impact on improving enterprise architecture and application development practices. This paper highlights three sample case studies illustrating how Fujitsu's CentraSite delivers SOA solutions.

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