Calling all intelligent life forms...

As a CIO you may at times have felt like an extra terrestrial life form come to Earth to convey the benefits of advanced technology to a group of inferior life forms (management).

You may think you’re expounding the benefits of a transformation project or why your organisation really should move to that new data centre, but as far as the CFO or CEO is concerned, you’re speaking Klingon.

Well, why not take a minute to commune directly with some real aliens? Or at least try to.

Cosmos magazine, with some help from the federal government in conjunction with National Science Week, has launched a Web site to collect messages from Earth which NASA will shortly beam to Gliese 581d using the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex in Tidbinbilla.

Gliese 581d, a super-Earth planet about 20.3 light-years (194 trillion km) away from Earth, in the constellation Libra, may support life, scientists believe.

The Hello From Earth, Web site launched by Science Minister Kim Carr yesterday, has already collected hundreds of messages from around the globe.

The messages range from the droll to the serious and include an opening message from Minister Carr: “Hello from Australia on the planet we call Earth. These messages express our people's dreams for the future. We want to share those dreams with you.”

“Our observations indicate that your planetary system is a low-mass star orbited by at least four planets, can you confirm?” Professor Penny Sackett from Canberra wrote.

“Ask us about Star Wars... you will not regret it” Brad L. from Ajax, Canada wrote.

“Have you guys got hyperspace drives yet? We'll trade you google [sic] for it!” wrote J. Lee from Melbourne.

Earthlings have until 5pm Monday August 24, 2009 Sydney time to register on the site to post their message to the planet.

Who knows, maybe we'll all end up with new bosses who can really appreciate the value of a good CIO.