The Hindu Business Line : The CTO can be a `horizon filter'

Normally, one doesn't expect a philosophy student to wander into technology. But that was the trajectory Carl S. Ledbetter followed, and became Senior Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in Novell.

When young, Carl used to hear his father speak at the church on `abstruse, arcane subjects out of the Bible, such as the translation of a particular word from Hebrew and how it applied to the topic of his sermon that day.'

But Carl reminisces how the scholarly presentation at the pulpit would always make `a topical reference' to make `the very technical, intellectual, academic subject come alive in a visual way that people would remember.'

What Carl leant, `almost intuitively, instinctively' was that to make difficult subjects clear to lay people, one can use `analogies, stories, and references to things they know and understand.' If you amuse them, entertain them, make them laugh, you also make them understand what's important, writes Carl in The Art of Technology Management, from Vision (www.visionbooksindia.com) .

"Technology managers get to help make the future, and most often they do that by explaining what technology can do," he says. Handy insight, that is, when you want to overcome people's intimidation by technology.

"The real issue is that scientists and engineers think things are important if they're technically interesting. But most people think things are important if they're useful," explains Carl. Often, the two things are not the same because `being technically interesting means being inaccessible to those who are not technologists'.

The CTO can be a `horizon filter', says Richard Schroth, the CTO of Perot Systems. He speaks of how you can filter the horizon inside the company, by `keeping a perspective from 18 months to two years'. Another filter is to look at the horizon from the market's perspective. "Generally, you should keep a list of five or ten technologies you think are profound," advises Schroth.

"A ready-to-go list of the `Ten Most High-Impact Technologies' is a great tool to have in many different situations. These list elements give you a place to start exploratory conversations about business initiatives and technology evolution and serve as a barometer to establish just how much tolerance an individual or organisation has for the future."

An essay by Kirill Tatarinov, CTO of BMC Software, is on how innovation drives business success. "The role of the CTO in a large, high-tech company is to make sure the organisation is ready for the next major new technology cycle," he insists.

"One measure of a CTO's success is benchmarking the return on R&D investments through proper prioritisation of goals. To be successful, a business must generate profit, and R&D is the foundation for future company profits."

Technology for technology's sake isn't nearly as interesting as technology that can transform the way people live and work, says Scott Dietzen, CTO of BEA e-Commerce Server Division in an essay on `managing the technology knowledge'.

To him, `the single most gratifying thing' is to have technology ideas broadly used and adopted. "High-tech CTOs measure their success by the success of the technology their companies bring to market... You have to have a lot of bandwidth to be a CTO."

The CTO is an agent of change, says Doug Cavit, CTO of McAfee.com. "The most successful IT organisations are those that embrace the concept of continuous evolution. `Good enough' is never good enough," he declares.

As a change agent, the CTO has to get the best people in the right positions and "build a culture of open accountability, where there are no givens and everyone is free to question the status quo."

A compelling collection of `lessons from business leaders'.

Network security is a legal issue

It is a myth to think that the two words in `network security' are mutually exclusive and that `the only way to secure a computer is to segregate it completely.'

Securing Networks with Cisco Routers and Switches or SNRS is one of the exams associated with the Cisco Certified Security Professional (CCSP) certification. To help, here is CCSP Self-Study CCSP SNRS: Exam Certification Guide, by Greg Bastien, Sara Nasseh and Christian Abera Degu, from Cisco (www.ciscopress.com) .

"Network security is a complex business. It is important that you have extensive experience in and an in-depth understanding of computer networking before you begin to apply security principles," notes the introduction. Chapter 1 begins by clarifying that it is a myth to think that the two words in `network security' are mutually exclusive and that `the only way to secure a computer is to segregate it completely'. Securing that way `completely' may render the `secure system' completely useless, caution the authors.

They define `network security' as "the implementation of security devices, policies, and processes to prevent the unauthorised access to network resources or the alteration or destruction of resources or data."

This, in turn, is based on `corporate security policy,' defined as "a formal statement that specifies a set of rules users must follow while accessing a corporate network."

Security policy is not a formal `technical document', explain the authors. It is "a business document that lays out the permitted and prohibited activities, and the efforts and responsibilities regarding network security."

It is not that the security policy dictates how the business is operated; "the business needs dictate the scope and depth of the security policy."

Network security is a legal issue, please note. How so? "Consider the following scenario: An employee of Company X uses his computer (without authorisation) to scan the Internet and eventually finds a server that belongs to Company Y that he is able to take control of using a documented exploit," reads an example.

What happens then? "The employee then uses that server to break into a database server at Insurance Company Z and steals the medical records of a celebrity containing sensitive and potentially damaging personal information. The stolen information is later distributed to the public." The key question is who is responsible if the celebrity were to sue. "Companies X, Y, and Z could possibly become involved in legal action as a result of this theft."

Essential addition to the administrator's bookshelf.

Tailpiece

"I always carry a hammer under my seat!"

"What for?"

"As a manual override, just in case I get locked in by the car's embedded technology."

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