How Senior IT Executives Can Benefit from a Professional Organization: An interview with Robert Keefe

Robert Keefe

CIO, Mueller Water Products

President, The Society for Information Management

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Fortune magazine has called the 40-year-old Society for Information Management or SIM the IT field's top professional group. In fact, Robert Keefe, CIO of the $1.8 billion dollar Mueller Water Products, attributes his successful career in IT to his involvement with SIM. Keefe is SIM's current president.

Membership in SIM is open to qualified senior IT professionals, academics, and consultants. SIM currently has about 3,600 members in 36 U.S. chapters. (Yes, each SIM chapter does due diligence on each prospective member.) SIM's offerings fall into several categories: information exchange through chapter meetings; educational programs, and chapter-sponsored venues, such as the MIT Sloan School CIO Symposium. SIM also holds an annual conference called the SIMposium.

About 16 years ago, Keefe went through SIM's year-long Leadership Forum. He says, "At the time I took the course I wasn't a CIO. I quickly landed a CIO position and then had my company join SIM's Advanced Practices Council."  Each year about 300 professionals attend monthly Leadership Forum classes in 10 major cities. Keefe says, "These people have good IT skills and business acumen, but this program helps them to think outside of the box." The course curriculum blends about 40 different pieces of media, mostly books ranging from The Old Man and the Sea to The Innovator's Dilemma.

The Advanced Practices Council, another SIM educational program, consists of about 40 member companies that contract with academics to do IT research. The research can range from a look at new, emerging technologies to different segments of IT leadership. Recently, Boston University delivered a paper about the competitive levers for leading innovation in the 20th century. Keefe says, "It's not all about technology but how business models are changing. For example, google.com gives away a search engine, but charges for it through advertising. How do compelling changes in the marketplace like this one translate into decisions that a CIO must make?"

Keefe says that SIM is a great environment for senior IT professionals to share ideas. He says, "You can network with people at the meetings or you can contact anyone in the directory. As you get to know more and more people, you'll find someone who has done what you're asking about.  We have a growing virtual community as well."

Each year SIM surveys its members about the top 10 concerns on their minds. For the 2007 survey, the three top concerns included: attracting and retaining good IT professionals; making sure IT professionals develop good business skills that enable them to understand the business strategy, and properly aligning the needs of the business with services IT can effectively provide.

In addition to speaking about SIM in this podcast, Robert Keefe also gives his perspective on key IT management issues.