Often times on SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE, guests will have a final question posited them regarding what they believe the bumper sticker on the vehicle pulling away from the event should read. In short, it is a briefly worded takeaway from the keynotes and breakout sessions that encapsulates the overarching message of the conference. Last week’s MIT CDOIQ Symposium, held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, may herald the sunset on the position of Chief Information Officer in many organizations across several industries.

The canary in the coalmine for the CIO position may likely be in the field of healthcare. This industry, in particular, is moving away from the headaches associated with infrastructure and provisioning, looking outside the organization for cloud providers that help to ease that burden. As author and social media strategist Paul Gillin notes, among current CIO’s, “…there is no detection of regret. They are going to be focusing more on data governance and strategy which they like better anyway.” He believes the CIO role will go away but that those currently in that position will find their skills will likely lead them to become the future COO’s and CDO’s of their organizations.

Watch the Day 2 wrap-up in its entirety here:

Everything’s Easier In The Cloud

Wikibon’s Dave Vellante believes cloud providers like Amazon are going to be more and more instrumental in streamlining business processes. “I’m strongly of the opinion that Amazon is going to be provisioning infrastructure better than anyone else in the next 10 years.” He continued, “You’re seeing companies like Amazon step up in the area of compliance and doing things that are making us comfortable.” He concedes there are still entire industries, like the financial services sector, that haven’t embraced the world of public cloud. “The marginal economics of the public cloud are going to be so compelling over the next 10 years as to overwhelm the business case,” he predicted. “Public cloud will become too good an option to ignore.”

This is likely being hastened by the price war we are currently witness to in the public cloud market. “Why should you worry about investing in hardware that you’re going to have to depreciate and you’re ultimately going to lose a lot of that money,” asked Gillin, “when you can just pay a monthly fee and the prices are just going to keep going down?”

With the likelihood of the infrastructure and provisioning playing fields being leveled for all players, the differentiation in companies will transition to their application development and customization.

As Wikibon’s Jeff Kelly explained, “The differentiation is in data an analytics and how you use it.” He agrees that the growing acceptance of cloud computing is driving this monumental shift in how business will be conducted. “The differentiator is going to be how organizations monetize their data assets. It’s as simple as that,” he stated. As the shift he pointed out continues to progress, the role of CDO will be presented with a dual mandate. The first will be in the area of governance and compliance issues with respect to the data. The second will be to enact mission critical strategies that present new and better ways to leverage the organization’s data as an asset.

As Gillin pointed out, having been around in the late 80’s when the CIO role was making its first appearance in the business world, the role of the CDO appears to be taking an almost identical trajectory. While some question the validity of having a CDO, Gillin believes in five year’s time, it will simply be an accepted norm in most organizations.

“Generally speaking, we are seeing the role of CDO solidify a bit,” Kelly concurred. “We are hearing about emerging best practices like executive buy in. That tells me the role is becoming real. The role is being tied to large strategic initiatives.” He continued, “Both of those things are encouraging to me. Overall, we are moving in the right direction.”

photo credit: Philip Taylor PT via photopin cc