Focusing on innovation

The headline for my previous column was "A Last Word on Outsourcing" -- a not-so-subtle hint from my editor to let the subject rest! -- but the mail keeps pouring in. Much of it deals with the core issues of self-identity in IT.

To cut to the chase, Don Mennie wrote: "Unless you will soon be giving the lowest offshore bidder your own CTO job in the near future, I suggest you get a lot more familiar with the big, ugly outsourcing picture." Don points me to an article in EDN by Executive Editor Bill Schweber with the headline, "Are we losing our innovation religion?: Outsourcing of innovation starts a dangerous downward spiral."

The nut of Schweber's piece is this: "Once your outsource partners learn how you define products, how you market them, and whatever other 'secret' understanding you have or you assume that you have, and you have an 'in' on your markets, those partners no longer need you. It's that simple. The 'secret sauce' you think makes a difference may not be such a secret or maybe isn't the barrier to entry that you thought it was." Well, I haven't outsourced everything and don't plan to -- just the obvious noncore functions that can be done better and more cheaply by someone else. Until the kind folks at my desktop support outsourcer, spam filtering service, or Web hosting facility start publishing a successful IT magazine and Web site, I'm not worried.

On the other hand, I think Don Mennie's e-mail begs a legitimate question for anyone in IT, not just CTOs: What services to your company can you provide that aren't easily offshored to the lowest bidder? I feel compelled to remind my faithful readers that I am not pontificating from an ivory tower here. InfoWorld operates in a highly competitive and challenging business environment, and like any other CTO or CIO, I fully expect to have to prove my value day in and day out -- or my days are numbered. 

So how can I prove that value? The two main focuses of my job are to maintain basic IT operations and to leverage technology to help InfoWorld innovate and be competitive in its business operations. To a large degree, resources are a zero sum game, so time and money devoted to basic operations siphon away resources that could be used to leverage technology for business innovation -- if anyone has solved the issue of fundamentally finite resources and trade-offs in IT, please let me know.

So I've chosen to let some of the operations go and focus my team's energies on innovation. While my outsourcers are patching Windows systems, creating better spam filtering algorithms, or scaling power and cooling systems at a datacenter, my IT team at InfoWorld is working on the bigger questions facing our industry. How does InfoWorld deliver its content via RSS and provide value to our advertising customers while protecting its traditional revenue streams? Where is podcasting headed and how can InfoWorld participate and experiment while paying its bills?

The value of IT rests in active participation in the core issues facing your business, not operations. Focusing one's energies on critical strategic business issues should provide the greatest resistance to lowest-bidder IT management -- although nothing is ever guaranteed. Providing value yesterday is no reason to relax today, but when you're unencumbered by rote operations, you've got a better shot at making your mark.