Oriented toward private sector, but certainly advice and a challenge for government CIO’s as well…

Nunno, the Gartner analyst, said that not every company is always comfortable with seeing CIOs shift from “the guy who solved all our tech problems” to the one who’s co-leading the next marketing campaign. Good modern CIOs need to develop management and business skills, and become well-versed in proving their ideas are good for everyone at the company—and for the bottom line.

“Of course companies want a tech advantage,” she said. “But you have to be able to say: ‘Here’s this emerging technology, we need to start experimenting. It will make you uncomfortable, but if you try it it can make us healthier and more profitable.”

Companies that have a strong working relationship between their CIOs, CEOs and CFOs tend to outperform their peers on important metrics such as profit and revenue, said Linda Ban, who directs a regular study from IBM that examines relationships in the C-suite. In general, Ban said, chief executives are relying more on a wider bench of top advisers, and the CIO is often at the lead of that pack because of the way technology has transformed so many businesses.

Read the whole thing. The rise of the chief information officer