The Director's Cut: CxO - what's your x rated?

In business and IT terms, the first few years of the third millennium will be remembered as the coming of the Cs. They are all over the place, and not just on newly printed business cards. There are conferences, academic papers and writings galore involving them.

We have CEO, COO and CFO, of course, and in IT we have CIO, CTO, CKO and even CCO.

The C and O remain the same - C for Chief, O for Officer. It's the middle initial that counts for everything.

In the above list, for example, we have Executive, Operating, Financial, Information, Technology, Knowledge and Change (I have also heard a CCO as being a Chief Communications Officer).

Our main interest today is the CIO - the new, growing term slowly replacing IT director. However, regarding the others, this is what they mean to me:

CEO - Managing director, the person in charge

COO - The guy that does all the work, day to day, and takes the blame for everything

CFO - Posh new name for finance directors, same job as it always was

CTO - A new technology role for technology people, largely in IT vendors and dot-coms but also found in larger user companies. Some IT directors are becoming CTOs

CKO - A meaningless title. If you are called this watch out - you are effectively on sabbatical!

CCO - If this means Change be warned - no single person can be held responsible for all change in any company. If this means Communications be even more warned - no one person can be accountable for all communications. In either case, watch your back.

Regarding CIO, a term more prevalent in the US, there is a joke that it stands for Career is Over. The sad element of this is that it originates from IT directors themselves, which says something about how we see ourselves.

Although many people say the title does not matter, more companies are now using the term CIO to distinguish a new type of role from the traditional IT director. Geest, a leading producer of fresh food, for example, deliberately advertised in the Sunday Times for a CIO, rather than IT director. This was to highlight the business, information, change and leadership elements of the role, and to lessen the technology element.

I think the CIO will become the default term for a new type of IT leader. The timing for our industry is right to create and establish a new role. It is one that puts behind us technology, for the sake of technology and recognises a track record inside an IT department may not be the most effective training ground for business/information/people leadership.

The CIO is an opportunity to create a new business, board-level role that focuses on the provision of timely and effective information, on transforming technology into real wealth for an organisation and on placing IT at the very heart of a company. We're at a watershed.

Overall, IT leaders are well poised for the future - it is on our side. However, more important than your title, are your personality, talents and aspirations. Titles are useful for business cards, however. Three letters of any description save so much space.

David is author of The Naked Leader the fastest selling business book ever in the UK. www.nakedleader.com

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