Dan Berthiaume
Many CIOs are encouraged to engage in “social listening” – review social media chat to look for buzzwords and trends that relate to their company and its products and services. Now IT solutions/managed services provider Logicalis is listening in on the social chat of CIOs to find out what technology topics they’re thinking and talking about. 
In December 2012, Logicalis conducted its fourth annual “Top 10 Tech Trends to Watch” study by analyzing CIO and CTO postings in blogs, forums, Facebook and Twitter. Following is a brief review of each trend Logicalis discovered.
Cloud – While it is a foregone conclusion that IT executives would be discussing the cloud in 2012, Logicalis noted a subtrend of managed cloud services, which is definitely a “shortcut” to cloud implementation worth investigating for CIOs with limited human and/or financial resources.
Mobility – CIOs were particularly focused on BYOD in their comments on mobile technology. Logicalis has observed that US companies lead companies in other parts of the world in having employees sign formal BYOD agreements, which are excellent tools for governing BYOD usage and also clearly indicate rules and responsibilities associated with BYOD in a particular organization.
Security – Especially as hacking gets more sophisticated with global organized crime rings and even nation-states getting involved, and as more and more sensitive data goes online, maintaining the highest possible degree of IT security is crucial for any organization.
Vendor Management – Like cloud technology, this is another crucial area of the modern IT organization that can be effectively outsourced.
Big Data – Everyone is in general agreement that it’s important to capture the exponential volumes of data created by social media, mobile devices, sensing technologies, etc. and then sift through it to discover actionable insights, but how to accomplish these goals is a bit fuzzier. In 2013 CIOs will need to take the idea of Big Data and make it a reality, and again outsourcing can play a key role.
Social Media – As mentioned above, social listening is turning social media into the “world’s largest focus group.” And while there is potentially significant cost in obtaining the technology and personnel needed to conduct social listening, the focus group itself is free.
Data Center Efficiency – The modern data center must run without unnecessary redundancies and wasted computing power. Virtualization and outsourcing can both play key roles in making a data center truly efficient.
Innovation - With data centers at the heart of most corporations, CIOs and CTOs have to re-think end-user computing, modernize application development and evolve their infrastructure before the need for the services and solutions they’re creating even exists.
Outsourcing - Top IT pros are beginning to see the advantages of doing what makes them a specialist in house, and turning over the reins for more mundane tasks to an experienced third party’s managed services team, freeing both time and resources to focus on more strategic technology projects.
Data Storage – Most of the other top 10 CIO technology trends generate large volumes of data, much of it brand new. Effective data storage will be needed to handle it all.
