The two solitudes!

A recent article by Thornton May in Computerworld discusses the results of a recent survey of 55 top executive MBA candidates -- degree-seeking students who have full-time jobs -- at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University. The results indicate that IT still has a long way to go to engage the minds of next-generation business leaders.


75% said they didn't think much about IT.

66% didn't know who the CIO was at their company.

48% had "never actually met an IT person."

63% were hard-pressed to articulate the IT strategy of the company they worked for.

84%, when asked to recall personal experiences related to IT, cited very negative situations, such as IT failing to deliver on something.

Put this together with Peter Weill's findings, documented in his book IT Governance, that only 38% of executives/senior management can describe their organizations IT governance process and you get some feeling for why we have so much trouble "connecting the dots" around the topic of IT value.

Click on the title line of this post to follow the link to read the full Computerworld article.