IT still doesn't understand its role in society

BCS President and former Hampshire Council CIO and CDO Jos Creese examines the role of IT in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal

Computing magazine always used to be about the technology. I always thoroughly enjoyed the technical articles, but often felt that this did not connect well with the issues that I grappled with as an IT leader - whether as a programme manager, as an IT account manager, or more recently as a CIO and CDO.

It struck me, when I opened this September's edition, just how much things have moved on. This month gives much more space to the changing role of IT and its part in business leadership.

That of course lies at the heart of the debate about CIOs and CDOs - the former seeming inextricably constrained by operational IT matters, whether insourced or outsourced, and the latter filling the vacuum created by misalignment between IT activity and business priority. Everyone seems agreed that the role of a CDO is not about the technology. It is about people and process. But it cannot operate without a fundamental understanding about the opportunity that technology offers, and therefore CDOs must work closely with IT professionals.

Even the more technical articles rightly focus on the connection to outcomes; for example, in the debate about security threats and the need to balance protection and flexibility. Cyber security, privacy and confidentiality in a digital world are business risks and business issues that are often misunderstood, and it is that misunderstanding that results in IT professionals sometimes taking an over-zealous approach to security management. Of course, IT professionals have the best interests of the organisation at heart when they seek to protect customers and commercial practice, but we all know that over-restrictive IT practices damage customer service and constrain productivity, creativeness and the effectiveness of employees.

CIOs have an image problem. Instead of being seen as transformational leaders, they are widely viewed as being essentially technologists. This is grossly unfair. After all, I have yet to see a transformational programme that is not underpinned by better use of technology, and technologists typically understand business analysis, project management, systems design and technology risk, and such knowledge is a fabulous asset when it comes to complex business change programmes.

This is why I believe the CDO role is necessary, at least for a period; there needs to be clear blue water between operational technology delivery and the necessary business challenge, which is a central part of the CDO role. I am also convinced that the two roles will remarry in a few years' time, since the split is somewhat artificial, and some organisations won't need it.

Although the debate about these roles is interesting, it is actually part of a much wider and important issue. The narrow definition of IT professionals and the role of IT is one of the reasons we are attracting too few to the profession. We have a growing IT skills shortage and we are unable to attract enough young people and women in particular to join the profession.

IT leaders are too often seen as being technologists and the creative side of our industry is underplayed. Governments and businesses alike portray IT in terms of software engineering, gaming, cyber security and research. Yet IT is much more than this: it fundamentally impacts on the success of every business, every democracy, every research programme and pretty much every home. IT is transforming the health of nations and the openness of governments. IT is central to the protection of scarce resources and the future of our very planet. This is the message that will help the sector attract the recruits it needs.

IT is therefore also a moral and ethical issue, particularly in areas such as health but also in more subtle ways, such as in the recent misuse of technology in VW cars. It's not usually clever technology that is at fault, it is the way we choose to use it and our moral standards. IT must be more than a source of technology that goes into our cars, homes, offices, hospitals and shops (pretty much everywhere actually). We must have a moral and ethical responsibility to challenge how IT is to being used.

This is not some airy-fairy ambition, it's very real and has commercial as well as social value, as VW has found out. As IT increasingly permeates our lives, our trust in it to keep us safe and to protect the world we live in, will be as important as its role in enriching our lives. Fail, and governments and businesses will lose that trust - to their cost as much as ours.

So we need clever technical specialists, but we also need IT professionals who can bridge the gap between technology opportunity and the benefits that technology can bring society. That is why the goal of BCS - the Chartered Institute for IT - is "to make IT good for society". That should be the role of IT professionals.

This means that IT professionals need to understand the impact of technology, positive and negative, in the way systems and IT tools are designed. It means IT has a significant part to play in the debate about privacy and trust emerging from IT changes. It means we have a part to play in the way systems are designed to benefit society, not just to make profit. And it means IT is a creative, human discipline, not just a scientific and engineering profession.

We should keep this in mind as we consider the potential of the Internet of Things, the adoption of cloud, big data, and of course "digital" - the latest buzzword.

Jos Creese is the former CIO and CDO of Hampshire County Council, and current president of the BCS