by Peter High, published on Forbes
4-15-2015
Increasingly, a key differentiator among chief information officers is how well they communicate. This is not a historical strength of CIOs, who in the past, traditionally led support organizations who awaited “orders” from their colleagues. Today, IT’s must be supreme networkers, collaborating with their colleagues in IT, their colleagues outside of it, establishing partnerships with vendors that will generate new value for the enterprise, and increasingly engaging customers, who are much more tech savvy today no matter the industry. A proxy for one’s ability to do each of these well is one’s engagement in social media.
Most CIOs have some combination of accounts on Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook, but these channels are used to varying degrees of success. There are many layers to the value a CIO can derive from better social media engagement, including:
Developing a personal brand and enhancing the brand of the company’s IT department: Social media is a wonderful opportunity to establish one’s voice and personal brand. This is something that was not deeply contemplated in the past, but now is increasingly a foundation that every executive needs to develop. As one establishes a strong personal brand, it should also shine a light on the good work of the IT team as a whole. Therefore, when one leverages social media to talk about IT’s successes, better to use the pronoun “we” than “I”
Networking: This has become a primary way for leaders to connect. If you are not active on social media, chances are you are missing opportunities to collaborate in way small and large with peers. This means that there are insights that could be gained that are not accessible.
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