Last week I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at the MIT CIO Symposium. It was a great conference, particularly notable because of the focus on leadership and innovation in IT. Most of the conferences I attend tend to be either topically or industry focused, so this was a welcome change. Getting to meet and talk with so many smart people with wildly different backgrounds was extremely interesting.

The day opened with a superb CEO panel. Moderator Wade Roush of Xconomy focused heavily on the evolution and future of the CIO/CTO role, which traditionally has been about managing infrastructure - people and systems, primarily - to support the business. Alan Trefler, CEO of Pegasystems, argued that the CIO must shift from managing "information" to helping to optimize and streamline the process that requires and/or uses the information - driving change throughout the organization and reducing cost company-wide, instead of just in IT. Joseph Alsop, CEO of Progress Software, seemed to agree, noting that great CIOs "simplify the infrastructure" but now also need to focus on simplifying the rest of the business. He then sparked a lengthy discussion about cost reduction, stating that more than half of the IT spend goes to "keeping the lights on". He noted that cloud computing and other outsourcing trends have helped this, but stated that more needs to be done.

Jim Champy, Chairman of Consulting at Perot Systems Corporation, said that the problem of cost is not just a CIO problem and that CIOs and CTOs need to be more involved in strategic planning - including especially the "business model". He added that CEO's tend not to pay attention to IT unless "something breaks down", a model which also needs to change. Trefler seemed to agree but noted that part of the problem is the fact that IT spending is rarely reflected in top line growth.

Later in the day I gave a luncheon keynote on Unified Information Access. Echoing the themes raised during the CEO panel, I spoke first about the need for CIOs to reduce cost, but also provide more value to the business. One way to do that is to use UIA to build better service and support systems; during a down economy, retaining customers is incredibly important as it has a more efficient impact on profits than trying to acquire new customers. Then I spoke about the challenge traditional media companies (especially newspapers) face as they try to grapple with the endless, low-cost competitors enabled by the emergence of the Internet, and how UIA can help them find and re-purpose content at low cost. Finally, I spoke about how cost is also driving companies to look more and more deeply at Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The benefit of 'free' commodity capabilities cannot be overstated as they allow IT and R&D to focus scarce resources on differentiators and levers that really drive the business. I was also delighted to participate in the Enterprise 2.0 panel, moderated by Professor Andrew McAfee , Visiting Associate Professor at the Center for Digital Business at MIT, who recently left Harvard Business School . He opened by asking each panelist what Enterprise 2.0 means to them. For the most part I think we were all on the same page; I actually quoted Andrew's definition to nail it down and people seemed to agree.

As the discussion evolved, however, it was clear that whatever Enterprise 2.0 is, it is still evolving. Anne Convey, VP of Marketing and Strategy for Clickfox, focused heavily on Twitter and Facebook as being critical external sources of influence that marketers need to be very aware of. This led to quite a bit of discussion on the panel. I stated that although we don't fully understand the positives and negatives of Enterprise 2.0, there is a great potential; what companies need to do is start experimenting and, particularly, to start educating their staff. Professor McAfee had previously asked the audience to raise hands if they used Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. I was surprised that when I asked how many people worked at companies that discussed use of these tools at work with employees, not a single hand went up. Geoffrey Oblak, General Partner at Ascent Venture Partners, agreed, saying that a "backlash" was certainly possible out of any technology with such wide-ranging implications.

Later, during the Q&A period one audience member (a journalist) objected to our focus on Twitter and external "b2c" capabilities, saying that Enterprise 2.0 is really about social collaboration "within the firewall". Both Anne and I said that this is changing. Social networking is actively blurring the lines between organizations and reducing the formality; eventually, this effect will encompass consumers. However, I also took the opportunity to speak about work that Attivio is doing to create collaboration and "Enterprise 2.0" capabilities for use within the enterprise. Raheel Retiwalla, CTO at Monitor Analytics and Clearway Technology Partners, also offered good examples of internal applications his firm helped implement.

Some other highlights:

• During the future of IT panel, Professor Thomas Malone, Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management and Director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI), discussing how social interaction inside and outside the firewall are powerful forces, quipped that "the future of IT may well be 'crowd computing'". He used Linked-In as an example of how a crowd of people can produce a rich, accurate, valuable information service at a fraction of the cost of purely technical approaches.

• During the CIO Keynote Panel, which focused on CIO Leadership and the Bottom Line, Jo Hoppe, CIO at PAREXEL International Corporation, spoke passionately about moving to agile development as a way to iterate more with business users in smaller cycles, thus ensuring both satisfaction and greater alignment. She noted that typical projects were now less than 3 months; they try to avoid longer ones by breaking the problem into smaller chunks.

• Also at the CIO Keynote, Stephen F. Schuckenbrock, President, Large Enterprise at Dell, and the former CIO of Dell, said that CIOs should be more aware of the financial bottom line and if their projects and initiatives are helping the company generate cash or not. He also said CIO's need to learn how to say NO and avoid becoming "order takers". He also said he felt virtualization is a key vehicle for driving cost out of IT. Dell shut down "10,000 servers" a few years ago and this is the sort of thinking required to lead in the future.

• At the Cloud Computing panel, Ed Bugnion, VP, Cisco, cut through a lot of discussion of cost and hype by noting that the cloud is really about reliability and the ability to scale to meet demand, all at low cost. He also said that clouds were good because they would re-invigorate IT as they can switch focus from running things to building new things.

Another great highlight for me was being back at MIT; I haven't been in Kresge Auditorium in 20 years or more. (Ok, technically the last time I was at Kresge I was not inside - rather, I was sitting on the roof drinking beer and keeping an eye out for the Campus Police.) It was also great fun to re-connect with old friends and classmates.

Sincere thanks to the organizers including especially Dr. Graham Rong, 2009 Event Chair, Christopher Reichert, Executive Chair, and the many volunteers who give their time to produce this great event, as well as all those who took the time to chat with me. I look forward to attending next year.

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