A huge thank you to Chris Higgins – CIO at U.S. Bank for hosting our Think IT Special Event last Thursday. Thank you to our panelists, John Bandy – CIO at Data Recognition Corporation, Julie Durham – VP Software Engineering at United Health Group, Marc Kermisch – VP and CIO at Red Wing Shoe Company and Mike Mathews – CIO at Deluxe Corporation for sharing their insights on the questions our members were most curious about.
We had the opportunity to try something new, where attendees were able to text in any questions they had for our panelists! Below you will find an overview of the most popular questions from our audience and a summary of what was discussed.
What IT trend are you most excited about? What IT trend are you fed up with?
We discussed how different terms can be overused such as Agile and Big Data. The misuse of these words can be bothersome. Some other terminology and topics that IT leaders are “fed up” with include: technology debt, API and the cloud. Then, on the other hand, different IT leaders are excited about the cloud and the opportunities it can bring an organization. Each organization is going to be excited or fed up with different things, depending on what they’re currently working on.
Have you done anything with Artificial Intelligence within your organizations? If so, do you have any lessons learned to share?
Marc Kermisch from Red Wing Show Company shared how they have used Artificial Intelligence to teach their machines to see impurities and defects within their products. He has learned that he needs to keep the machine industrialized which raised the question of are you afraid of eliminating jobs or the culture within your organization? A simple response was that someone needs to run and manage the machines leaving it not much of a concern.
How has the role of CIO changed over the past few years?
The role of a CIO has seemed to change drastically over the past decade. CIO’s are much more inclined to be aligned with the business side of an organization than in the past. There is a sweet spot in finding the balance between business and technology. CIO’s have started to tell more stories about what they can do to fix a certain issue. They have found the meaning behind everything they do, backing it up with the “why” to be more persuasive.
Information technology is always changing, which is why it’s so intriguing to keep up with this industry. Thank you to everyone who attended out Think IT Special Event and to those who submitted questions they may have had. Our five panelists did an outstanding job answering the questions that appeared on the screen. We hope to host another event like this soon!
Click here to review the slides from our Think IT Special Event.