[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPKlr97zCRM&w=560&h=349]

To be a great IT leader you need to move your department -- and the entire organization -- away from old systems into new systems. How do you bring people there? What opportunities, competitive edges, and efficiencies will your new system bring? Can you champion the cause and handle the bumps and bruises you'll receive along the way? The old story of doing more with less is now assumed, says Thornton May, Dean and Executive Director of the IT Leadership Academy at Florida State College, Jacksonville, and Chairman of Interop's CIO Boot Camp. Just keeping the digital lights on is not even table stakes. It's presumed you're going to be running your system at top efficiency. To stay competitive, an effective IT leader needs to "Jump the Curve," he says. How? You feed core elements that create competitive differentiation. "Context" is what keeps the digital lights on. You throw money at core and fiscally starve contextual activities through virtualization and moving operations to the cloud. Then you need to create a menu of strategic options and convince the enterprise to make the trip.