Chapter 4 - Learn The Business - 3

Smith mentions that in order to be sucessful one must think like a consultant. Do you feel that over your internship you boosted your consulting abilites (mentioned on page 83-84)? How do you think these skills will benefit you next semester?

Chapter 4 - Learn The Business - 2

Smith talked about developing trust with business units / departments within a company. Do you find yourself going out of your way to satisfy certain group's requests? Does this impact your relationship with other groups?

Chapter 4 - Learn The Business - 1

Smith talks a lot regaring building relationships. How much time do you guys spend talking to others around the office on a given day? Is the conversation mostly related to the ongoing issues or does the conversation stray away to off topic? Do you believe that its a good idea to keep the conversation strictly related to tasks at hand? Why?

Chapter 1 - Key Technology Skills - Thread 3

Assuming that the Mr. Smith is right about the key skills needed to become a successful CIO, where do you think you are at? What skills have you started to develop? What areas do you need to work on?

Chapter 1 - Key Technology Skills - Thread 2

Do you agree with the author's assessment of the key skills needed to become an effective CIO? Why or why not?

Chapter 1 - Key Technology Skills - Thread 1

What is the key theme of chapter 1? What are some of the key points that you feel were important in chapter 1?

Discussion Guidelines

For our book discussion we will proceed in the following manner:

• We will all read a chapter.
• The "chapter lead" will start one or more discussions about the chapter.
• the others will comment on the first discussion or they may add new discussion threads.

Note when I mention "comment", I mean to click on comments link and add a comment about a previous posting. Previous comments can also be viewed. (I'll comment on each of your info blogs to show you what I mean). So, blogs that show up on the main page will basically be the start of short discussions about a chapter, and we will continue that discussion (for the most part) using the comments feature. (Feel free to add a comment to this blog to give it a try)

Here's the tentative "Chapter Lead" assignment. The Chapter Lead will be responsible for getting the first discussion rolling for each chapter.

• Dr. Piercy: 1, 11
• Greg: 2, 5, 8
• Stephen: 3, 6, 9
• Zlatko: 4, 7, 10

We will basically go straight through the book. For each chapter we'll decide on a "due date" for reading the book. By the due date, the Chapter Lead will post a blog with some thoughts and questions for discussion. I'll do the first and last chapters (if we get that far) to get us started and wrap things up.

We'll be informal but respectful of each others opinions. Feel free to debate and disagree, just do it respectfully to each other. If you feel strongly about being a chapter lead for a chapter that is not assigned to you, just work out a trade with the person that chapter is assigned to. Also, realize that after the chapter discussions get started, any of us can start another discussion about the chapter. A new discussion would be about a topic from the chapter that may be unrelated (or less related) to the earlier discussions.

Now for the first chapter: how about having the first chapter read by Monday, June 5. By then, I'll post one or two discussion starter blogs.

le Introduction

I'm Zlatko Unger, and I am doing an internship with KPMG as a consultant. I will be working with the Information Risk Management practice located in the Atlanta office.

Getting Started

This blog has been set up to support the book discussion for MIS students at the Terry College of Business - University of Georgia who are doing summer internships sponsored by Dr. Craig A. Piercy.

For this discussion we will read and discuss issues in the book:
"Straight to the Top: Becoming a World-Class CIO" by Gregory S. Smith. (Pub: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; isbn: 0-471-74478-6)

In my next posting, I will lay out the strategy and rules for the book discussion. For now, I would like each participant to add a brief comment to this posting about who they are and what internship they are doing.