1. For corporate IT chiefs, human interactions trumps technology - F'l'.com Page 1 of2
FINANCIAL TIMES
July 8, 2011 5:06 pm
For corporate IT chiefs,
human interactions
trumps technology
By Paul Taylor in New York
Every couple of months or so, the IT chiefs of some of the world's largest
multinationals get together in the boardroom of a prestigious brownstone building on
West 54th Street in midtown Manhattan that once served as the HQ of Faberge.
Today the brownstone with its marble foyer and bookshelf-lined reception rooms is
headquarters for the Research Board, an invitation-only organisation founded in 1973
with a mission "to inform, stimulate, counsel and connect the world's most senior IT
executives. "
The Research Board's 100 members have each been interviewed for suitability and
membership is restricted to only most senior executive responsible for IT within an
organization. IT vendors, telecommunications providers and consulting firms are
excluded from becoming members to preserve the Research Board's objectivity.
While the Board does not publish its client list, some companies are known to be
members. They include Bank of America, ExxonMobil, General Motors,
GlazoSmithKline, British Airways, Rio Tinto, Coca Cola. Think big. What they have in
common is some of the largest scale IT deployments in the world and a willingness to
learn from one another about how to do it better.
Not that you'd find this out from the Research Board's web site. It simply features a
short business description and an address. Nevertheless Peter Sole, the Research'
Board's chief executive, insists the organisation is not deliberately clandestine. He
describes the Research Board as private, but not secretive, and the membership as
elite, but not elitist.
"The business of technology is not getting any easier for CIOs, so the ability to cut
through industry and vendor hype with their peers is invaluable to members," says Mr.
Sole.
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2. For corporate IT chiefs, human interactions trumps technology - FT. com Page 2of2
The Research Board's activity is organised around highly detailed research projects on
subjects selected by the members, and small groups of members who meet to review a
different topic three times a year.
Each meeting includes a collective examination of research conducted by the Research
Board, external presentations by experts and a review of best practices. According to
Mr. Sole, "each meeting is carefully choreographed to ensure members have a chance
to engage fully with the topic, absorb new information, ask questions in a safe
environment and think clearly about important topics that impact their organisations."
The Research Board also shares feedback from its members with the sellers of IT
hardware, software and services. Once a year the Research Board provides formal
feedback from their membership - at no cost - to the CEOs of the largest enterprise
technology vendors. "We do it because improvements made by vendors based on the
feedback we provide will ultimately benefit members because the products and
services they buy will provide more value to their organisations," says Mr. Sole.
Not surprisingly, the chief executives of the largest enterprise technology vendors
including are keen to receive briefings from the Research Board because they know the
quality and seniority of members represent a significant body of purchasing power and
the views of CIOs in the largest end-user organisations.
"Meeting face to face and personal involvement are core principles of the Research
Board," says Mr Sole. "Curiously, in the age of the ubiquitous technology
communications devices, face to face interaction with peers at the Research Board
meetings delivers a lot of value for CIOs in the largest companies in the world."
Mr Sole suggests that part of the Research Board's appeal is that back at the office,
members are expected to be experts on everything, always the smartest person in the
room.
At the Research Board, everyone acknowledges that the collective intelligence in the
room is much more powerful than anyone individual. "The experience is both
liberating and humbling for everyone involved," he explains. "Technology is our raison
d'etre, but for this network of global CIOs, human interaction trumps technology".
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