2008 will be remembered for many things, including the presidential election, the massive brokerage failures and the ensuing economic meltdown. But around here at CIOZone, it is significant for another reason.
With the beginning of the New Year, CIOZone officially turned one year old.
And what a year it has been. As with the launch of any start-up we encountered our fair share of challenges, which I’ll talk about a bit more later in this blog, but looking back on the past year we’re very pleased and excited with what has been accomplished.
We began 2008 with an entirely new technology platform, based on open source software and largely untested at a scale required by CIOZone. We also began the year with no members, although the founding principals behind CIOZone had managed to recruit a strong group of chief information officers and IT executives to serve on our advisory board.
We also began the year with a concept about how a professional social network for CIOs would work, but with no past examples to guide us.
We’re often asked what is the difference between CIOZone and a traditional IT media publication, such as CIO Magazine or Computerworld. I always like to provide a concise answer: We are in the business of creating a community of CIOs and IT executives and providing our members with the technology and tools to share, collaborate, discuss, and learn from one another.
Traditional media properties serve up articles and editorials for their readers. So do we, but we also provide our members (not readers) with tools to exchange private emails, create forums and blogs, post videos, and create groups around topics of interest, or communities of interest, such as the e-Waste Task Force.
In short, CIOZone has embraced the Web 2.0 world and is leveraging those technologies to create a professional social network for IT executives.
So how did we do in our first year? Well for starters, CIOZone attracted almost 4,000 CIOs and other high-ranking IT executives as members. We’re proud of that number, but we take greater pride in the quality of our membership. CIOZone members include CIOs and other high ranking technology executives from such companies as 1-800-Flowers, Sbarro, Target, Ogilvy & Mather, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Devon Energy, Starwood Hotels, GE, Medco, Altria, and many, many other well respected organizations.
We also signed on as members the heads of Share, the IBM user group, ASUG, the SAP user group, and many executive members from the Society of Information Management and the Association of Information Technology Professionals – two of the most prominent CIO/IT associations in the country.
We established a partnership with Dr. Arthur Langer who heads an IT mentoring program at Columbia University and serves as associate director for instructor and curricular development of IT Programs at Columbia’s School of Continuing Education. Langer’s postings on CIOZone, The Langer Reports, have become one of our most popular features.
We established content sharing partnerships with Forrester Research, McKinsey & Company, Robert Half Technology, Info-Tech Research Group and many others. We formed technology zones with key IT vendors, held four virtual trade shows, and conducted live panel discussions with CIOs.
But most importantly, our members used our technology and our platform to blog on issues as wide ranging as career development to cloud computing and to create more than 50 technology forums and groups on such topics as Women in IT, Software as a Service, and Global CIOs.
So yes, we accomplished a lot in our first year.
What could we have done better? To begin, don’t be shy – tell us what you think we could be doing better. You can reach me at mduvall@ciozone.com or by phone at (403) 254-4189.
From our own perspective, we think we need to find better ways to encourage our community to be more interactive. Our members are busy people, many managing large IT departments, and it can be difficult to find the time to blog or post responses in forums. But when a topic strikes a chord, members have shown their willingness to respond. So, we need to be sure we are hitting the right notes.
Overall, we’ve been very pleased with the technology platform, but there have been some growing pains. CIOZone Chief Technology Officer Bill Gerneglia has posted updates on the CIOZone platform, but the bottom line is, features have not always been ready when we would have liked.
And finally, we would like to do more with Web 2.0 technologies. We’ve done a lot and have some exciting plans for 2009 (one teaser – we’re working on a new virtual trade show platform), but there are so many other great applications emerging that we would like to test and make available to our members if time and resources allowed.
As Chief Content Officer, I want to personally thank the technology, advertising and editorial team behind CIOZone for the dedication required to launch a start-up. Most of all, I want to thank you, our members, for your support and participation in this exciting venture.
It’s been a fun and rewarding first year and despite the challenges all around us, we can’t wait to see where we’ll be at the end of 2009.
Comments (4)
1. 01-08-2009 15:30
I think that CIOZone has done a great job this past year. With providing a network, up to date news on important viewpoints and highlights. Wish you all the best for 09'.
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2. 01-08-2009 19:22
CIOZone has done a magnificent job starting from ground zero and building a vibrant and professional community in one short year. And yes- blending and leveraging on Web 2.0 and soon Web 3.0 interactive technologies is a key differentiator from older CIO/IT sites. Best wishes to all for a successful and creative year in 2009
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3. 01-08-2009 22:15
Yes. Full marks to CIOZONE. Great job in providing comon plateform for knowledge sharing.
Some suggestions for inclusion: Enterprise Risk Management, Agile Information Security, Effective Technology role in Secured Civilization.
Best luck for 2009
Shankar Gurkha
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4. 01-13-2009 19:47
Mel nice going to you and John McCormick for your many hours in front of the screen nurturing this new media into a destination site.
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