If you start trying to differentiate your business by announcing, “Our product sucks less,” then you’re preventing it from achieving its ideal, said Dr. Robert Rennie, VP, Technology & CIO at Florida State College at Jacksonville. He was  referencing a quote from Guy Kawasaki. Becoming a big deal requires you to jump from an old to a new technology, or “jump the curve,” Rennie said, this time quoting Thornton May, futurist, executive director and dean, of the IT Leadership Academy and host of CIO Boot Camp in Las Vegas. Rennie was giving his presentation about taking on the risk of jumping the curve. Rennie pinpointed some of the key curves that need to be jumped. They are:

• Consumer devices in the enterprise
• Ever-more integrated lives
• Better and more mobility
• New cultural norms/experience demands
• More Compliance Issues
• Churn and faster adoption rates – Stuff is coming out so fast. The iPad is only a year old and we’re already talking about it running serious parts of our life.

For quite a while, CIOs and the IT department have been expected to drive business and create value. But the CIO is also responsible for the jump away from old technology, Rennie points out. IT needs to guide everyone in the organization to get there. If you're in IT, you need to plan for what's next, Rennie said. It's just one of the multitude of roles that IT needs to play. The CIO must operate at the intersection where value creation, innovation, and leadership come together. Creative Commons photo attribution to mikeinlondon.