As I was perusing Bradley Leimer’s flood (in a good way) of links this morning, I noticed a recent piece on CIO Insight, 7 Ways to Prepare for the IT Infrastructure of the Future. I don’t disagree with the trends discussed in the article and below, but there’s more to the story than just ripping out legacy systems and tinkering with a few iPads so the CEO can check email.

Taking advantage of these trends is as much about the passion and the attitude of IT leadership as it is about the technologies themselves. An IT leader that’s interested in protecting the status quo and running the factory isn’t going to have much of an interest in understanding the impact of consumer technology, for example.

The importance of a leader’s ability to maintain an organization that can execute day-to-day can’t be discounted, but I’d argue that a passion for learning and tinkering is a critical trait necessary for a CIO to successfully take advantage of some of these trends.

Run-the-Factory Guy will execute on those things that will save money and keep the auditors off IT’s back. So, Run-the-Factory Guy will work on:

  • Converge and Consolidate (because a converged network saves money)
  • Rethink Security (because auditors made him do it)
  • Embrace Project/Portfolio Management (because it’s a filter for the project pipeline)

Forward Gal’s looking ahead, building a team that’s passionate about what’s next. Budget’s tight, but she’s looking for cost saves to fund proof-of-concepts (help me with the plural here!).

  • Consumer Technology (customers are using a variety of new devices and communications media, better be ready to deal with it)
  • Modular not Monolithic (good sourcing strategy will allow IT to focus on the strategic)
  • Move Beyond Alignment (don’t just communicate with the business, improve their speed-to-market and support the mobile workforce)
  • Build Analytics into Everything (business units are going to demand self-service analytic capabilities from traditional and non-traditional data sources)

Forward Gal’s looking at what Run-the-Factory Guy is looking at, too, but from the perspective of how those trends benefit internal and external customers in addition to the “what’s in it for me”. Forward Gal’s staff is also more energized, spending more time looking ahead than backward. Leadership’s attitude toward embracing the future matters and that attitude finds its way down to the team. I know who’s team I’d rather be on.