More notes from the MIT CIO Symposium.
Panel: The IT Organization of the Future: Driving Business Change

How many business professors does it take to ... well, you know the rest.

You might think that a panel of academics studying IT at the hallowed halls of MIT would all speak with one voice — but not so. Some sparks were flying and discussion turned into debate when it came to ways that CIOs should approach business change. And in many ways, the dichotomy represents the tension taking place among IT professionals themselves — and between IT and the business — on the best ways to adopt new technologies while still maintaining old infrastructures.

The most heated exchange was between Frank Moss, who directs MIT's experimental Media Lab, and Jeanne Ross, who directs the more traditional Center for Information Systems Research. Moss, who has a background as an entrepreneur and business executive — he was CEO and Chairman of Tivoli Systems before it merged with IBM in 1996 — kicked things off by claiming that "IT professionals are no longer in control" of technology, compared with the past. "That's a big shift, but get over it," he told the CIO attendees. "Your job is no longer about control." With social media, "value is being created elsewhere in the organization — without you." Users are connecting and managing their own data.

"How do you change your job?" Moss' answer is for CIOs to educate themselves on new tools and platforms. "Get on Facebook, watch what's going on with Twitter, understand the tools that your workers and customers want and then empower them to use them."

Not so fast, said Ross. She argued that some level of "underlying control is needed," to protect "sacred transactions" that run the business. Ross, co-author of several books, including IT Governance; Enterprise Architecture, and most recently, IT Savvy, said that businesses need at least one "powerful platform to build on." Once that's in place, the IT organization is free to innovate.

Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the Center for Digital Business at the MIT Sloan School of Management, noted that standards do create a paradox for CIOs: If rules are too rigid — whether it's centralization, TCP/IP, ITIL or others — they inhibit innovation.

To Moss, innovation can occur only "when ideas and stories are shared openly" on shared media. "Ask your customers what's sacred and what's not," he said. If IT is too sacred, it will hold you back. Ross maintained that openness doesn't mean you can encourage chaos. Rules and stability matter, she said.

Brynjolfsson had the last, conciliatory words, telling attendees to "Embrace the chaos and change" as an opportunity to rethink the role of technology in today's business and the world.

Easier said than done? Which path are you on in your IT journey?