Re: RE: 75 month CIO
The guy's got a point though. CIO's a great place for someone with a reasonable depth of knowledge across a broad range of subjects and it's obviously worked for him. If you're CIO you need to be able to spot when people are talking crap and it's difficult for them to do that if you know their subject.
I work in one of the big IT firms. We have dedicated problem resolution managers and while they may come from a particular technical or non-technical background, they may specialise in another area. A broad knowledge of customers' IT environments is critical when you're looking for resources or dealing with situations and you have little time to spare and are under a lot of pressure.
I do a similar job. I'm primarily a techie in a particular area, but I have a good range of knowledge and experience in a number of organisations as well as a number of technical subjects. It comes in very useful when you're put on the spot by, say, a DB admin and you can explain the situation to them in language they understand, then draw some pretty pictures for management in the same meeting.
I think it's important to be a specialist in at least one area, and management or running a business counts as one. If you've really got a broad range of knowledge you can probably take your pick and you'll still be better than some people who claim to be experts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
