CIOs Uncensored: Personal Tech Is A Part Of Business--Get On With It

There are times when I hate that our business and personal lives have become so blurred. Like when I see a kids' soccer coach with a Bluetooth earpiece on during a Saturday afternoon game. Can't his office leave him alone for 45 minutes? Or when I see a mom maneuvering a stroller while she's on a cell phone troubleshooting a database problem. Or the dad at a cheerleading practice who has to sit in just the right spot in the gym to get a cellular modem connection. Or the fact that my husband can spend a two-hour car ride listening to veterinary lectures on his iPod rather than talking with his family.

We could all give another dozen such examples, but don't complain too loudly. The benefits of our increasingly connected and mobile world outweigh the annoyances. (Now I'm ducking for cover. The last time I wrote something like that, I was pelted with letters from people telling me to "get a life.")

Much of the technology we use in our personal lives to be more productive and mobile has found a place in our business lives. In fact, personal tech innovation is, in many ways, driving innovation and creative thinking in business. Smart CIOs don't fight or just reluctantly accept this power shift; they embrace it.

At General Motors, those who resist are considered dinosaurs, says CIO Ralph Szygenda. "You can't separate the individual who is working at home--or their personal life--from their work," he says. "So we are architecting how those things work together and can look like one for the individual employee and the corporation." That includes everything from BlackBerrys and cell phones to instant messaging and other Web-based collaboration software. "We look at the outside world and the individual as the norm," Szygenda says.

Tiffany & Co. appreciates the value of mobile devices, not just for its people in the field, but also for those who work in its stores. CIO Bob Davidson says the retailer is testing wireless PDAs that let sales staff scan a product's price code and swipe a customer's credit card on the store floor so the customer doesn't have to wait in a long line for his blue-box purchase. Data is wirelessly transmitted to a printer for the receipt and integrated into Tiffany's point-of-sale system. That should be good news for all you last-minute holiday shoppers.

This Consumer Effect, as InformationWeek labeled the trend in a March 13 story, isn't slowing. With Web 2.0 initiatives coming fast and furious, it's only just beginning. Yahoo CIO Lars Rabbe says the ability for anyone to create and share content and "deliver a video experience to anyone who uses the Internet" is among the most exciting parts of his job. It's surprising, then, how many companies still limit or prohibit media streaming to employee desktops. Granted, the boss doesn't want you watching the NCAA tourney at work, but there's plenty of business-related content available.

Hewlett-Packard CIO Randy Mott sums it up best. "Anytime we look at emerging technologies as they relate to personal lives and we don't think about how they'll be used in the enterprise, we miss an opportunity for productivity." Hey, it wasn't that long ago, he notes, that people didn't think the PC should be part of the IT department.

Stephanie Stahl,
Executive Editor
[email protected]

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