Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

IS strategy is the organizational perspective on the investment, deployment, use, and management of information systems.1 Even though each individual business and IS executive may have his or her own particular view of IS, organizational IS strategy reflects the collective view shared across the upper echelon of the organization.2 An IS strategy determines if, when, how, and the extent to which a company will innovate with IS.3 Research by Daniel Chen et al.

Have you ever noticed a team and thought -- that's a good team? What is it that makes them good? Smart people? Dedicated people? Knowledgeable people? All of the above? Actually, the most important quality is none of the above.

As social networking and Web 2.0 applications continue to enter the workplace and rise in importance, it is crucial to be aware that they bring new risks along with new opportunities. Although relatively few companies have as yet introduced strong codes for using these applications, the risks of unrestricted access are beginning to become apparent.

This is the first Executive Update in a three-part series discussing the variety of ways in which organizations, particularly commercial firms, are leveraging virtual worlds to create and capture value. In this Update, I lay out the conceptual foundation for the discussion.

Last month, I wrote about the difficulty IT organizations have in achieving effective integration with business (see "An Attitude Persists: Thinking Business? -- Hah!" 5 May 2010).

In a bit of technological determinism, Nicholas Carr suggests that the Internet is making us dumber.