In episode 37, our antepenultimate episode for Season 1, we dive into Part 2 of the "Individual Loss of Autonomy and its Effect on IT." In our previous episode, Episode 36, we explored the first three of six primary ideas:

1) We reset the stage and context for the individual autonomy crisis
2) We discussed how the individual loss of autonomy is now very closely mirroring a lot of what is happening in corporate IT
3) And we covered the net effects on leadership and strategic decision-making that come about as a result of this mirroring effect

It's a big lift, and we did our best to get into it. This week, we built on those ideas and went a step further covering:

4) The Sovereignty paradox
5) How we are becoming conditioned towards strategic responses
6) What does the future look like for this, and how might we slow it down?

We left some questions open and will return to the primary themes of last night when we kick off Season 2 on January 8th.

For the season's next and final two episodes, we will cover "IT Tropes that Won't Die and Why We Love Them." Hope to see you there!

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In Episode 36, Mike and I revisit a topic from Episodes 10, 12, and 13. In those episodes, we discussed how technological advances are erasing individual autonomy to the point that most people have only the barest shreds of autonomy left. We are revisiting this topic because we want to explore how this loss of individual autonomy is bleeding over into IT strategy, leadership, and decision-making. This is part 1 of a two-part series, and in Part 1, we explored three of six primary ideas:
1) Setting the tone and context again for the individual autonomy crisis
2) Discussing how that is now very closely mirroring a lot of what is happening in corporate IT
3) And due to this mirroring, what are the net effects on leadership and strategic decision-making?

It's a big lift, and we did our best to get into it. Next week, we will be exploring the other three pieces of this idea:
4) The Sovereignty paradox
5) How are we becoming conditioned towards strategic responses?
6) What does the future look like for this, and how might we slow it down?

Support the show

The Calculus of IT website - https://www.thecoit.us
"The New IT Leader's Survival Guide" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
"The Calculus of IT" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
The COIT Merchandise Store - https://thecoit.myspreadshop.com
Buy us a Beer!! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thecalculusofit
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Email - nate@thecoit.us
Email - mike@thecoit.us

The AI assistant is not a new concept. It’s been made “new” again through the GAI zeitgeist effect, but we have used AI assistants for quite a while now. In Episode 31, Mike and I discussed using GAI for IT strategic decision-making. Tonight, we took it a step further in connecting the dots with episodes 33 and 34, which focused on redefining the IT Paradigm and the future of the CIO. The net result is that in Episode 35, we at last examine the worth of the virtual CIO. This assistant can help any moderately seasoned IT professional create an entire CIO program (in about 45 minutes) and, by this, have a forever assistant to help construct the IT paradigm. We have some additional questions on the substack post that are worth discussing further, and maybe we will tackle these in a future episode. I have also released the entire vCIO Bot script code package (which can be re-used in Make, Zapier, Botpress, or your favorite bot-making automation machine) and posted it on Substack. For now, enjoy Episode 35 - The Value of the Virtual CIO.

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The Calculus of IT website - https://www.thecoit.us
"The New IT Leader's Survival Guide" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
"The Calculus of IT" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
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Kevin Dushney and Joel Nichols joined Mike and me again to discuss whether or not the IT Paradigm should be changed and how we might do that if we wanted to. We discussed:

1. Evolving IT Leadership Roles
   • The changing role of the CIO - why do we still need a traditional CIO and where is this role going?
     1. Chief Digital Officer (CDO) - is this even/was it ever a thing that could sustain itself?
     2. Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) - will any CISO want to move into this role?
     3. None of the above/something else entirely
2. Innovative Ideas for IT Department Transformation
   • IT as an true internal consultant beyond the typical MSP model - been there done that but it could really really work well if there was some additional components not yet tried
   • Citizen development and low-code/no-code platforms and how much IT could theoretically be pushed back into the enterprise - this really dovetails wonderfully into decentralized IT - your leader is a policy maker/security wonk and everyone else is responsible for IT in the company (e.g., turning shadow IT into company-wide IT)
3. So how are we going to do all of this?
   • Assessing current IT capabilities and then plotting a delta between now and then - imagination probably wont be too far from reality
   • Developing a transformation roadmap beyond simply going digital because in doing so you will become digital by default (you have to) and you can go on to what is next beyond that - we cant keep having a digital transformation plan every single fucking year - eventually we have to go to the next thing.

Bottom line - what will the leader of tomorrow look like, be called, be expected to do? What will IT be called? What will IT do?

It was an awesome episode and though we left a lot of questions unanswered, we did cover some significant ground. Key points:

1 - To run IT requires the evolved ability to handle a significant amount of complexity all at once.
2 - Relationship building is at the heart of everything.
3 - You have to know what's going on everywhere, all of the time.
4 - You have to be able to constantly gauge time and emplace buffers before things even happen.
5 - You need an enterprise view of the data no matter what.
6 - The types of people we hire will dictate the strategy whether we want them to or not.
7 - Employee Experience management will be instrumental to success of any strategy.

Support the show

The Calculus of IT website - https://www.thecoit.us
"The New IT Leader's Survival Guide" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
"The Calculus of IT" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
The COIT Merchandise Store - https://thecoit.myspreadshop.com
Buy us a Beer!! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thecalculusofit
Youtube - @thecalculusofit
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Notta - The best audio transcriptions on the Internet
Email - nate@thecoit.us
Email - mike@thecoit.us

This is Part 1 of a 2-part series on the future of the "IT Paradigm." In Part 1, Mike and Nate, along with their two special guests Kevin Dushney and Joel Nichols, set the stage for how we arrived at this moment in time for the "corporate IT function" and the IT Leadership historically needed to run the show. You cannot begin to explore the future of the IT Paradigm until you can understand how it has evolved over the last 25 years or so to where we are today. Join us next week, as we explore Part 2 where we take a look at the future and what the possible new paradigms will look like.

Support the show

The Calculus of IT website - https://www.thecoit.us
"The New IT Leader's Survival Guide" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
"The Calculus of IT" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
The COIT Merchandise Store - https://thecoit.myspreadshop.com
Buy us a Beer!! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thecalculusofit
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Email - nate@thecoit.us
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Mike and Nate, along with very special guest Bill Bartlett, parse the pros and cons of citizen developers in the organization. We discuss the guardrails and risks and the benefits of having employees take the reins of development for their improvements. It's a lot more complicated than you think, and the answer is not to simply prevent the behavior of citizen innovation and development. Listen along and pick up some handy tips for working with folks who are apt to make things better (and worse). We also discuss Nickelback and IT Budgets.

Support the show

The Calculus of IT website - https://www.thecoit.us
"The New IT Leader's Survival Guide" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
"The Calculus of IT" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
The COIT Merchandise Store - https://thecoit.myspreadshop.com
Buy us a Beer!! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thecalculusofit
Youtube - @thecalculusofit
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Notta - The best audio transcriptions on the Internet
Email - nate@thecoit.us
Email - mike@thecoit.us

Mike and Nate are back! We went to a bar near Mike's office and didn't get the best sound quality as we hoped but that's what it is. In this episode, we asked the question - "How are we (and should we be) using GAI for IT strategic and operational decision-making?" We spent some time digging into this not so much to try and find nascent value in GAI (spoiler alert, there really isn't any) but to see if we could improve our worlds by using GAI to rub off some of the sharper corners. We also talked about our obsession for Andres Desplat and other shenanigans.

Support the show

The Calculus of IT website - https://www.thecoit.us
"The New IT Leader's Survival Guide" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
"The Calculus of IT" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
The COIT Merchandise Store - https://thecoit.myspreadshop.com
Buy us a Beer!! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thecalculusofit
Youtube - @thecalculusofit
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Notta - The best audio transcriptions on the Internet
Email - nate@thecoit.us
Email - mike@thecoit.us

Hi all - Mike and I will be taking a short break due to a massive amount of scheduling conflicts between now and mid-September. We will be back with a kickass set of episodes for the Fall and should be resuming our normal Wednesday night schedule again. Stay tuned!

Support the show

The Calculus of IT website - https://www.thecoit.us
"The New IT Leader's Survival Guide" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
"The Calculus of IT" Book - https://www.longwalk.consulting/library
The COIT Merchandise Store - https://thecoit.myspreadshop.com
Buy us a Beer!! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thecalculusofit
Youtube - @thecalculusofit
Slack - Invite Link
Notta - The best audio transcriptions on the Internet
Email - nate@thecoit.us
Email - mike@thecoit.us