Stories by Divina Paredes

“It was like walking on crushed glass,” recalls Jonathan Iles, on how he felt at the end of an 80-kilometre race on rough terrain.

Microsoft’s Kevin Ackhurst is moving to Singapore next week to become the vendor’s vice president of sales and marketing for Asia Pacific.
Ackhurst says the local business has been successful in the past couple of years, but admits strong relationship building was needed at the outset of his term and there is more work to be done.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) is working with businesses across the country on how to “unlock the value” from broadband and develop their future prospects using digital content and technology.
And the “poster child” for the company that has achieved this is Air New Zealand, says John Ferguson, sector manager - digital content and technology at NZTE.

“A lot of people thought New Zealand Post was mad,” saysTracy Voice, general manager, business enabling at New Zealand Post.
This, she says, was the reaction when they announced the implementation of Google Apps in the Postal Services Group and the corporate office.

When Claudia Vidal joined UniServices as general manager business operations, she found the principles of ICT management useful to the research and consulting environment.
UniServices is responsible for all research-based consultancy partnerships and commercialisation at the University of Auckland, and has been growing at a rate of 13 percent year on year.

A number of enterprises now have policies around the use of private notebooks for work purposes, reports Gartner.
The analyst firm says the number of inquiries from its clients on the ‘Bring Your Own Computer’ (BYOC) programme has grown significantly in the past year.

For two years, the technology team at Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) has been working on a project to put an end to “skimming” of credit cards.
The practice refers to the capturing of information on the magnetic stripe of a card to create a clone credit card. The card holder is then billed – six months to a year later – for purchases they never made and often in places they have not visited.

Eight children aged eight to 13 were taking turns playing games on four computers in one corner of a room, one afternoon at the Community House in Rata Vine, in Wiri, South Auckland,. The children went to the community house straight from school – and into the computer room.
A few minutes before 4.30 pm, the supervisor told them the room has to be closed. The look of reluctance at having to leave was evident as the boys gathered their school bags to walk home.

Why thinking like an astute financial portfolio funds manager is a useful approach for managing ICT.

When a CIO is said to be embroiled in firefighting, that means his or her time is spent dealing with one crisis after another – systems, technology or people-related. It leaves little time for doing more strategic things for the business, so is not an ideal place to be in.
Last weekend, Mike Clarke, the CIO of SkyCity, willingly placed himself in such a situation. It was, however, not in the context of ICT management.

To get a grip on cloud computing, try to think of how people make decisions on public transport, suggests Steve Hodgkinson, research director, public sector at analyst firm Ovum.
Cloud computing is like a menu of transport options for organisations, he told CIO New Zealand during a recent visit in Auckland. “What we have now is a range of different transport options and they can think more creatively about their business needs.”

Controlling/reducing costs, recruiting and retaining skilled staff and meeting users’ expectations have been the top challenges facing New Zealand CIOs in the past two years, IDC reports.
The difference, with this year’s report however, lies in the ranking of these criteria, as revealed in the latest Australia and New Zealand's Forecast for Management Survey.

Clayton Wakefield is providing the kind of consultancy service he sought when he was head of technology operations and cards at ASB Group in New Zealand.As co-executive director and principal of Techspace, he is aiming to provide exceptional IT services at the most senior level."We are a part of a CIO's capability to get things executed," says "<a href="http://cio.co.nz/cio.nsf/spot/CB3ADB9365608B86CC2572AD001E85C3?Opendocument&amp;HighLight=2,wakefield">Wakefield</a>, who set up Techspace two years ago when he left ASB. "Our strength is around ensuring delivery of critical programmes of work."All CIOs have large programmes of work and they have issues they have to deal with. In a lot of situations this is a great assistance for them; somebody that they can deal with at that level of capability, [and whom] they can trust and utilise."We identified there was a gap in the market for exceptional IT services at the most senior level," he says. "We are not really providing 'rent-a-CIO'. In fact, we find that we are more aligned to very good CIOs who would like to execute on their plans."At the same time, Techspace can provide services to companies that are transitioning their ICT teams. "They have been downsizing their teams and as a result in order to get capability, they now have to contract it," he says."Clearly that is something that we could assist with -- simply by having expertise available for short pieces of work, strategy or business cases, running the project office or executing on critical initiatives."His co-executive director at Techspace is Mike Prebble, who worked at IBM and EDS. Like Clayton, Prebble has 30 years-plus ICT executive experience, which included managing outsourcing contracts with Fonterra and Telecom New Zealand. The company has a team of more than 20 senior ICT professionals, who have held a variety of roles including CIOs, general managers, senior contract project managers, programme directors and architecture professionals.

Ben Robinson recalls attending a conference where the speaker, a CIO, whipped up a PowerPoint presentation on "how to integrate IT with the business". He winces at the recollection. "I just hate the term IT and the business," says the chief information officer of Paymark.

Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon, is not raring to reprise the 1969 trip on board the Apollo 11. Aldrin, now 80, can make better use of his time on earth, he tells CIO during a recent trip to Auckland.