Since its launch in June, the CIO Exchange has conducted several teleconference and face-to-face meetings and attracted a growing core of members. The CIO Exchange is CIO Canada’s initiative to provide CIOs with a means to more effectively network with peers; to get decision support — quickly — from people who face and have addressed similar issues; and, to collectively influence the role and perception of IT and the CIO in Canadian organizations.
Behind the initial success of the Exchange is CIO Canada’s partnership with Shared Insights, an organization with a successful history managing similar exchanges for other executive communities, including HR and call centres. The infrastructure and experience already established by Shared Insights has provided a kick-start to the CIO Exchange and enabled a robust set of communication and support services from the outset.
Membership is restricted to CIOs — IT executives with a clear strategic mandate. Careful screening of membership candidates ensures that all members are able to contribute as well as benefit from the Exchange; a key criterion for its success. And while members determine topics and content for presentations and discussions, Exchange program staff are constantly researching topics and sourcing subject matter experts.
On acceptance, members are profiled in detail for the member database. Profiling helps to identify individual and collective points of pain, and enables program managers to target the most urgent issues for inclusion in events and interactive sessions. As well, member profiles identify areas of expertise to enable us to facilitate effective networking and support opportunities.
This latter service, the so-called concierge service, responds to member requests for urgent help with a specific issue. The Exchange program manager will identify other members with similar industry or technology profiles, as appropriate, and match the requesting member with one or more of these members who can provide support on the issue.
Scheduled events and meetings revolve around specific technology or management issues and may target industry verticals. Other sessions may target particular groups of members, such as CIOs within subsidiaries of multinational corporations, or those in the largest Canadian organizations.
For information about the CIO Exchange, contact Susie Ibbotson, Program Manager, at 416 221-5363, or email her at sibbotson@itworldcanada.com. Or check out the Web site at: http://www.cioexchange.ca