Peer to peer pays off

ON A DAY-TO-DAY basis, many CTOs are so busy running their own companies' IT operations that they have precious little time to seek out the counsel of their fellow CTOs. Most of my days are spent interfacing with the other executives at InfoWorld and the people on my technical staff. Although I would value daily interaction with fellow CTOs, chance meetings are rare. Scheduling a meeting with two busy CTOs is only slightly less difficult than nuclear fission. Like me, other CTOs spend their time in meetings explaining to largely nontechnical executives how technology can be leveraged to meet the business needs of a company. The rest of the time is often spent with technology staff translating the business goals into the language of technology. When the business folks say, "We need to transact with our business partners more efficiently via the Web and integrate online offerings with third-party services," the CTO goes back to his staff, explains the business context, then begins delving into the specific requirements with the team while beginning to do high-level analysis of things such as directory servers and Web services.

Although CTOs are key figures in their companies and interact with people throughout their organizations, their work is often solitary. Their executive peers don't always understand the many complexities of running a high-quality, service-oriented IT organization (and a good CTO knows that hiding this complexity is a large part of the job), and their own staffs often wonder what goes on in all the meetings with the business people.

This is not to say that CTOs work in isolation -- CTOs I know often work more broadly with other departments within a company than their counterparts do -- but it's rare to find more than a couple of CTOs in the same room.

The challenge of networking with other CTOs is why I'm looking forward to the InfoWorld CTO Forum, April 8 through April 10 in San Francisco. Speaking purely as a CTO (not an InfoWorld employee), this invitation-only event is hands-down the best conference I am aware of for networking with top CTOs.

Last year, I had the privilege of meeting CTOs from a broad range of leading companies -- people such as Gene Rogers of Boeing and Tony Scott of General Motors. Best of all, in the intimate peer-to-peer environment of the CTO Forum, I could ask people like Gene and Tony how they deal with challenges, and I could learn from people with years of experience in handling the toughest technology management issues.

This year's event will be no different, as many of the same attendees will be joining us again. The conference will include keynotes from Norman Lorentz, the federal government's first-ever CTO, and Patrick Gelsinger, CTO of Intel.

If you would like to join us, request an invitation at www.ctoforum.infoworld.com/foruminfo/rfi/default.asp ). I can't wait.