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CIO Leadership for Cities & Counties: An Evolving Role

Dr. Alan R. Shark

A brief history of the rise of the CIO

Today, no private sector company would consider operating without a Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – yet many cities and counties continue to struggle to define what type of technology position best fits their needs and budget, as well as what type of governance structure works best. Local governments only recently began to consider such titles as CIO or CTO.

Traditionally, those whose main responsibility was technology — be it for a department, division, agency or jurisdiction-wide — were called director of technology, director of office of information and technology, director MIS, if not CIO or CTO.

Typically, a CIO is responsible for an enterprise and all the business units of a particular unit or jurisdiction with an eye toward leading, managing and integrating all communication and information technology applications.

The CTO position, by contrast, usually is considered a more technically oriented position and is more focused on technology solutions as opposed to navigating the political and administrative functions. In practice, it appears that the titles have been used interchangeably and carry little distinctive differences as compared to what is found in the private sector.

So, one may ask, do titles really matter?

by Editor, July 21 2009     E-mail this to a friend