CIO Who Admitted Too Much,

¶ … CIO Who Admitted Too Much," Evan Shuman (2005), addresses the issue of Overstock.com's Shawn Shwegman and the fact that he wrote a letter admitting his own failure as CIO in creating effective databases to handle all of the company's administrative demands. What is interesting is that he takes the blame onto himself, and that he is absolutely honest in his view of the future: that there will be even more problems with updating the existing, inadequate Oracle system architecture. He completely denigrates his work as "horrible." After this description, Shuman states that the CIO was displeased that the letter had leaked, and that his simplification of the matter in said letter may have been misleading. It is furthermore interesting that Shwegman admits that his prediction was proved incorrect by the success of the completed Oracle update. Whichever position he now takes however, it remains that the letter did leak and that there was possibly a large amount of damage in the relationship between Overstock.com and their stakeholders as a result. On the other hand, Shwegman may have felt that his sense of ethics compelled him to be truthful about the matter as he felt about it at the time. Later statements by the author of this article, as well as other knowledgeable writers, indicate that it may not have been wise for Shwegman to be as brutally honest as he was in the first place, much less to let the letter leak.

Examining the roles and dispositions of CIO's as they relate to the rest of the company is useful when determining the wisdom of Shwegman's communication. According to Shuman (2005), the nature of the CIO's work requires a sense of pessimism in terms of future plans and programs. The reason for this is that information technology projects do often come with inherent glitches. Rather than wait for the glitches to occur, the CIO's work entails projecting such problems and creating solutions ahead of time, so that the problem is not unexpected and can be handled within the required time frame. This appears to be a sound strategy when working within a highly technical environment. Shuman however emphasizes that such projections should not be communicated to outside stakeholders and partners, especially as they focus on hypothetical future situations. It is therefore, according to the author, not a very sound political strategy to do what Shwegman did.

In Shuman's view, communications to partners and stakeholders should be handled by marketing officers rather than information technologists. A better move for the CIO would therefore be to communicate concerns to the officials immediately above his or her position, or to the marketing officers themselves. These officers can then use their communication skills to reassure rather than unnecessarily panic their stakeholders. Being of a pessimistic disposition, the CIO tends to transmit this in a communication effort. This disposition is however of much better use within the planning and implementing of technological systems.

Good political advice to Shwegman might therefore have been to rather communicate his concerns within the company itself. This would have had the effect of internal communications and investigations into the true extent of the problem, and what could be done to mitigate this. Once all the updates and improvements were in place, marketing officials could then communicate a much rosier image to stakeholders and partners.

What Shwegman did could only damage the reputation of his company and indeed of his own skills in terms of competence and reliability. He focuses absolutely on his company's and his own lack of skill in handling business administration. While this may have been an honest strategy, as Shwegman saw it, it was hardly wise.

A concomitant problem, according to Shuman, is the fact that Shwegman is a senior vice president in his company, along with his duties as CIO. Hence his external communication carries a certain amount of authority, which makes it even worse for readers of the letter. The point is that such complete candor in communication, especially before upgrades are complete, is not advisable or even particularly ethical. Indeed, in terms of ethics, it harms the company the CIO is working for, along with his own reputation. It is therefore better to channel negativity into the planning, implementation and anticipation stages than into external communications.

A consideration of publications regarding the specific duties and positions of the CIO within a company provides further insight. According to Strassmann (reviewed by Goldsmith, 1995), for example, the CIO is primarily responsible for cost-reduction deliverables and the management of a strategic resource. Goldsmith highlight's Strassmann's definition of the CIO's duty as that of an "executive politician." He or she should build support and fulfill the needs of the organization rather than enforce standards and procedures in a rigid fashion.

According to Shwegman's confession, he failed in the basic duties of the CIO - he was unable to build adequate technological support for the needs of his company. However, according to Shuman's article, he felt this way even as strategies were implemented to improve the process. He was immediately and completely negative before the process was even completed, and he communicated this with absolute honesty, rather than even attempting a sense of optimism regarding the future. Furthermore although he did attempt to blame himself for the entire disaster, as he saw it, this also reflected badly upon those working under him. In this sense, Shwegman went beyond his duties as CIO in communicating externally, and did more damage than may have been strictly necessary.

On the other hand, Paul a. Strassmann, in a 2005 article, identifies certain criteria that should be applied to the duties of the CIO in order to ensure that the company benefits rather than suffer from such an official's work. Clearly, Shwegman's company suffered considerably in terms of reputation as a result of his letter. Strassmann's criteria are adapted from the Department of Defense and applied to the CIO profession in general. They provide further insight into the exact role and duties of the CIO, and may also clarify the estimation of Shwegman's decisions as wise or unwise.

According to Strassmann (2005), it is vitally important that the CIO be empowered. This means that he or she needs the authority to set and execute information management policies, as these are the focus of his or her work. This in turn connects with the issue of accountability. Accountability is measured by the above-mentioned list that Strassmann provides. These include elements such as the CIO's power to put in place measures for result evaluation, report on progress, authorize investigations, authorize projects, etc. Interestingly, Shwegman appears to have taken the accountability requirement to heart.