The Manage IT Newsletter - The ITO Professional of the 21st Century:

This issue focuses on how today's transformation of IT demands a broadening of competencies and skills at all levels of the IT organization

Welcome to the February 2005 issue of the "Manage IT Newsletter." This monthly publication is dedicated to helping ITO managers and their teams enjoy a richer career experience so they can reach their full potential while driving maximum value to their organizations.

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With warmest regards, Joe Santana,
Co-author Manage IT
http://www.manageitbook.com
***************************In this Issue ****************************
* Focus Topic - The ITO Professional of the 21st Century
* IT Management News & Trends
* Free Gift of the Month: Self-assessment questionnaire
* Closing Comments and Announcements
*********************************************************************

--------------------------- Focus Topic -----------------------------
The ITO Professional of the 21st Century

In the December 2004 issue of Optimize magazine my fellow ITO author Mark Lutchen provides an in-depth look at what he considers the most important driver of CIO success in the 21st century. Namely, the diversity of skills that he or she brings to the CIO job. According to Lutchen these diverse skills are spread equally across five critical areas. They are:

* Leadership and management
* Business
* Technology
* Organization and culture, and
* Fiscal management

According to Stephen Pickett, vice president and CIO at Penske Corp, senior-level IT management and leadership is not the only ones being pressed to expand their horizon beyond the technical focus. Considering that today's CIO is tasked with possessing much broader competencies personally as well as in her or his team, in order to address much larger goals then those they faced in the past, it is not surprising to see them demand more from their direct and indirect staff. According to Pickett, in a recent article by author Gay Jervey in CFO Magazine titled "Programmer, Reprogrammed, "somebody who is inflexible and wants to be a programmer for the rest of their life is probably in the wrong industry."

Furthermore, another recent article by author Andy McCue titled "Offshoring: IT staff should stop moaning and skill up," warns ITO professionals of the diminishing value of traditional basic technical skills of individual contributors. According to this piece "traditional IT skills such as software development have become globally ubiquitous and a narrow focus on these technical skills and their application will not help tomorrow's professionals.

Fortunately, there are a number of new development avenues becoming available to the IT professional that seeks to broaden his or her skills. For example:

* Organizations like SIM (Society for Information Management) are now doing much more than just training people from technical certification. Recognizing the need for broader business and communication competencies, SIM is training program attendees in important soft skills such as negotiation and project management. (Also note the growing number of soft and business skill offerings in the course catalogs of your traditional IT elearning program providers).

* Companies are also creating "home-grown" programs to fill the growing demand for business and communications skills. Human capital and leadership development companies such as EmployeeROI are helping these organizations to create and/or deliver these programs via their new IT Management Competency offerings (For more see http://www.employeeroi.com/eROI_shifting_core_competencies.htm)

* Colleges and university are also beginning to re-structure their programs, so as to produce the kind of people needed by the marketplace

In this months free tip sheet at http://www.joesantana.com/freenewsandtips.htm you will find a list of questions you can ask yourself or use with a member of your team to assess your needs for a plan to "round-out" skills.

In the IT Management News and Trends section below that you will find a list of articles that will offer additional details on this important career planning topic.

JS

-------------------- IT Management News and Trends -------------------
This month, we have some select articles that focus on the need for new ITO professional competencies.

An article on the need for soft and business skills in the ITO professional
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3421308

Another article on the need for soft and business skills in the ITO
http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/consulting/0,3800004140,39126187,00.htm

How broadening your skills help you to protect yourself from offshore outsourcing.
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6316-5074311.html?tag=search

The need for diverse skills in ITO leadership
http://www.optimizemag.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=53701400

An article on how HR can help ITOs address the need for new competencies
http://www.joesantana.com/hchrhcatnfn21stcitmc.htm

------------------- Free Gift of the Month ---------------------------
For your free copy of tips on questions you can use to assess where you and your team are relative to having job performance supportive tools go to http://www.joesantana.com/freenewsandtips.htm

----------------- Closing Thoughts and Announcements -----------------
WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT PROS AROUND THE WORLD THINK?
Join to the IT Professional World Wide network at http://itpww1-network.ryze.com (Membership is free).

FOR WEEKLY UPDATES, READ JOE'S WEB LOG
Updated two to three times per week, Joe's Web Log contains rapid insights into the news that affects the careers and jobs of IT professionals. To access visit http://www.joesantana.com/blog.html

WANT TO LEARN WHAT TO OUTSOURCE FOR TOP RETURN ON INVESTMENT?
Get your copy of the audio program titled "Doing more with less through IT Outsourcing," at http://store.mixonic.com/joesantana

WANT TO HELP YOUR FRIENDS LOOKING FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO FIGHT BURNOUT AND ACHIEVE PEAK PERFORMANCE
Have them visit www.joesantana.com and sign up for the free TIPS DRIVING PEAK PERFORMANCE EMAIL SEMINAR. Delivered over seven days, this program is packed with advice that can immediately be put to use by a rookie or a veteran IT manager. (HR pros will also find it a rich source of ideas they can use to coach IT managers).

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IT MANAGEMENT WITH JOE?
Visit www.ULiveandLearn.com and register for the IT Management webinar. This information packed program comes right to your desktop and offers you advice on one of your most important career decisions.

NEED HELP WITH EXECUTIVE COACHING, TRAINING, HIRING,
ASSESSMENT Contact EmployeeROI www.EmployeeROI.com 1-212-937-8413

I hope you enjoyed this issue of the IT Managers Newsletter and as always I look forward to continuing to serve you.