CEOs are from Venus, CIOs from Mars and cliches reign

There's just something about business alignment and information technology that makes CIOs deliver as many cliches as a football coach.

Yes, a football coach. Interview any football coach and you'll be barraged by cliches. You know the standard cliches: "We gave 110 percent." "We just didn't get the bounces." "It's a game of inches." Hear enough of them and you become a zombie. Andy Reid, coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, hasn't uttered one meaningful statement in years.

IT has its corollary. "CIOs need a seat at the table." "IT and business must be aligned." "This a business driven project."

These cliches were on display at a CIO roundtable at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo. The roundtable included Patricia Graham, CIO Centerpoint Energy; Mike Goodwin, SVP of IT, Hallmark Cards; Leslie Brennan, CIO of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; and Leo Genders, CIO, Ohio Worker's Compensation Board.

Simply put, the dialogue was so laced with solutions, C-level chatter, processes and business imperatives and alignments that I became a zombie. Disclosure: I've been hearing about IT and business alignment so long I may be jaded. But the fact CEOs and CIOs are still from two different planets is a bit alarming. Twenty years of business/IT  therapy sessions has created a situation where no one speaks English. Take all the tech acronyms--SOA, ERP, BI, SaaS--and combine them with business speak--alignment, TCO, ROI and change management--and you get an incomprehensible soup.

Even worse this language mashup has created a situation where no one knows what anyone is yapping about. CEOs are still from Venus. CIOs are from Mars. Gartner and The Wall Street Journal conducted a joint poll on the topic. The money stat: When CEOs and CIOs were asked about what amount of change was necessary to compete 38 percent of CIOs said significant change was needed. Among CEOs, 2 percent saw significant change as necessary.

This disconnect has created pure gibberish.

A sampling:

• "We're a focal point for business needs," says Graham.
• "It's the CIOs job to enable the C level team to execute change," says Genders.
• "You have to speak business," says Brennan.

Now I believe CIOs should have MBAs as well as all the technology knowledge. Genders noted that just the fact that so much time is being spent talking about the CEO and CIO relationship indicates the CIO role isn't defined yet.

That's true and I'm sure there were good project tales to be told. But I just couldn't find them among the cliches.