"Develop a strategy for IT to support the business and a clear proposition for future business," says Miller. "Then write this up as a report and present it to various interested parties," he says. According to Miller, who has obviously refined this process over his years in the business, this should take you no more than two weeks and will act as an exhibition of your competence. If you work in a public-sector organisation, the principle is the same, but you may want to seek out the key stakeholders in the organisation. A CIO is meant to be an information expert, so it helps if they are seen to be good at communicating. Instead of issuing bossy directives to users, try keeping them in the loop about developments. You need to keep communicating to users what you're about, or they'll soon lapse back into their comfortable prejudices about IT being run by geeks who prefer machines to people.
An intranet-based solution is one possible approach that makes information openly available for staff from a web browser. On the downside, it's time-consuming and online publishing is a dark art that the IT department might not have mastered. A formal newsletter? There's only one thing worse than a lack of communication, and that's a tedious, expensive publication, that doesn't communicate. It's a great trick if you can pull it off and could help get users on your side, but avoid the temptation to rush something out. If it's bad, it'll only damage your reputation further. Being recognised in the media works too. Colleagues who take your good work for granted may think differently if they see how an independent publication, or broadcaster, perceives you. A practical and less time-consuming method of communicating is to organise events.
You want everyone to see the human side of the IT department and its senior decision makers. Scheduled face-to-face meetings are always helpful, although you might need to offer some kind of event to facilitate interaction with IT. Consider offering free training.
Video is a fantastic medium for endearing yourself to people - but only if executed well. Most departmental heads and CEOs love making them, and as CIO you are ideally placed to flatter their egos. "There's increasing demand for personal broadcasts," says Julian Phillips, managing director of Iocom, which offers a video-casting product to corporations. "If you can fulfil that demand, it's a great way for the CIO to give people what they want. And now the YouTube generation is making its way up the corporate rankings, video is seen as a way of communicating messages."
Finally, make sure you can back up your 'vision'. "Leadership requires more than being able to point out the possibilities. That's the easy bit," says Jos Creese, head of IT at Hampshire County Council.
"The impossible is easy for he who does not have to do it."
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