In a helpful review of the various studies on CIO social media use et al. Theresa Clifford draws attention to the most details, a Gartner piece from earlier this year, with its alarming (though hardly surprising) data point that social is not on the list of the top ten CIO priorities for the next 3 years. Links below.

Having discussed the social-C-Suite problematic on various occasions I am wrestling with a way of understanding what this is emerging as one of the most ridiculous deficiencies (and, at least for now, biggest opportunities) in the entire business environment.

Plainly, the extraordinarily limited personal engagement of top CIOs in (public) social media (4 blogs/250, 25 Twitter accounts . . .) is one factor. Back of that is the hiring and promotion policies that have set in perhaps the most sensitive position in corporate America the least prepared persons. Back of that is the tech focus of the CIO office, which should be about information – the core of value in C21 – and is far too much focused on system upgrades and playing defense on security and employee social use and BYOD and  . . . Back of that that the CIO office it typically reports through the – ugh – CFO (it really does). And back of it all: that the CEOs and Boards of our top companies have yet to realize that the seismic development of this generation has not been about comms and database systems but about the information that they contain and enable.

Kinda basic, don’t you think? But at the end of the day amazing insights and dumb errors usually are. Think, once again, of Thomas Kuhn. Every exec and board members should read him; just as they should all do social immersion courses. I’m serious. And happy to help.

It’s about information; and once you get that, you will get that it is about social – knowledge and relationships, and the threat and opportunity the offer in tandem to every organization on the planet.

That is to say, taken together, they present the core strategy issue to C21 business. Every C21 business. And the bigger, by and large, the more central.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1897514

Is social media the next area for CIO innovation? | CIO New Zealand.