TecOA Meeting Update

[Jay]

Wednesday's TecOA (Technology Officers' Association) meeting was a
great success! It was a real breath of fresh air to actually come out of a
meeting having accomplished something tangible! :)

Topic:       How to articulate the business value of an organization's
             technology leader to the company's non-technology executives.
Deliverable: Elevator-pitch about how a technology leader can add a
             significant positive impact to any company.

This topic was tougher to tackle than we anticipated. Nonetheless, we
emerged from the meeting successful. Although this elevator pitch was
written for a CTO, it really applies to any senior technology leader in
your organization. The statement is also purposely broad, as it was not
written with any specific company in mind. For individual use, it should
be fine-tuned to meet your particular needs. The output of the meeting is:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The CTO ensures technology use will maximize profit by effectively
applying technology to business goals. The strategic mission of the CTO is
to protect the current business investments in technology and ensure
future technology investments align with business objectives. The CTO is
responsible for providing the technical direction, leadership, and
guidance to every aspect of the company.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

We hope this statement will be useful to others opening the lines of
communication and understanding between an organization's technology and
non-technical leaders. If you are interested in TecOA or would like to
attend future meetings, please check out our web site at http://tecoa.org.

-- 
~Jay