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I put up a new header today that includes a picture of a reef. The picture is from a dive trip I took to Bonaire this month. I’m an avid scuba diver and trained dive master with several hundred dives in both fresh water and salt water. I run two of the largest online forums for scuba divers in the midwest: mnscuba.com and wiscuba.com.
I still don’t know exactly how to define what a CTO does — and I am one. It’s one of those techie titles that means different things to different people. Some people think that a CTO is the head tech guy within an organization. He is the wizard behind the curtain. Others look at him as the futurist that always understands the pulse of the technology ecosystem.
CTOs are dangerous. They generally like change. They are a fast moving part in a slow moving system. They take risks because failing is better than succeeding poorly.
They have more technology smarts than most people in an organization. But those smarts can also be a weakness. Ego can create divisions and resentment. People want to be lead and not driven.
Some parts move faster in an analog clock than others. But all parts have to follow the same beat, the same rhythm. Sometimes CTOs want to beat their own drum and lead the organization in a direction it doesn’t want to go.
I read an interesting article this week in CIO.com about unhealthy CTO roles: CTO: A Dangerous Title. The article is definitely worth a read. The one negative is that it doesn’t tell me what a healthy CTO should be doing in an organization.
