Crowdsourcing an ICT Strategy - Update

Way back in July, I blogged about an exercise I did with SOCITM SW regarding crowdsourcing an ICT Strategy. The group came up with many ideas but the overwhelming favourite was for a regional workshop with Chief Executives and Senior Directors to discuss the problems and challenges where ICT had a key role to play. We all talk about ICT getting a seat at the top table but in practice CIOs find this very difficult to achieve. The aim of the workshop was to put ICT on the agenda. The plea for support from ICT Managers in the SW gave me an interesting insight into life at the coal face.

Fortunately I was invited by Eastern Region to repeat the event and post CSR and the coalition government it came up with some very different results. I plan to blog more later on the outputs. The interesting point for me was that Vic Freir (Somerset) was on the same agenda with SOCITM President Jos Creese and we had an interesting chat beforehand. It seems that the workshop idea is taking off and will take place shortly with SOLACE at their Regional Conference. SOCITM will be attending as is seen as a huge opportunity for ICT to increase its influence. All credit to SOLACE SW for responding so positively and it highlights that its no use bemoaning the lack of influence unless you are prepared to get off your backside and do something about it. Well done SOCITM SW and the timing could not have been better.

Workshop Session:
An opportunity to ‘set the scene’ for Chief Executives/ Senior Directors to the opportunity that ICT represents. The workshop would support local ICT Officers in taking a more central role in the savings process. This project had the singular advantage of being a quick implementation, minimal resources, easy to manage, a quick win, low cost and supporting the ICT professional role.