I recently spent a week taking care of my father while my mom took a well-deserved break from her responsibility of being his primary caregiver. Dad has Parkinson's disease, which slowly but surely robs you of your muscular functions. It's a cruel process; your whole life you've been able to move your arms and legs however and whenever you wanted, and then little by little you can't. Every day you wake up and can do less for yourself than the day before. You're increasingly dependent on others for eating, moving from place to place, using the bathroom, etc.

As a son, I found myself doing things for my dad that I'd never expected to be doing for him. Think of what you do to take care of a baby: all of that I was doing for my parent.

It brought to mind the words of Tim Rice and music of Elton John in The Lion King song "The Circle of Life." There really is a circle of life: you're helpless in the beginning, and most of us are helpless in the end. During all the time in between, surely we should be making the very most of our time on this earth.

Most every CIO I know is operating pedal-to-the-metal....maxed out....in endless meetings....more often than not in urgent mode. But does it have to be this way? Yes, technology is changing faster than ever. Yes, there are more demands on the C-suite's technology SPOC than ever. Yes, the tech-based threats to a company are more insidious than ever. Yes, "job security" is an oxymoron now more than ever.

One thing CIOs can do to start improving the situation: Lock onto a company that can be your trusted technology partner, then treat them like one. Jettison any master-slave attitude. Tap into the partner's ingenuity. Ask them "What would you do in this situation?" Throw them tough questions and watch how they respond. I work for such an SI and we love getting challenged by CIOs for new solutions, even when our suggestions aren't taken.

Opening up to and trusting an SI partner that is eager to delight and has a track record of doing so is a key way to work more strategically and enjoy greater success in the CIO role.

My 17-year-old son needed some community service hours for school, so he signed up to serve lunch and dinner at the Catholic Action Center downtown this past weekend, and I went with him. The food there is for anyone who chooses to come to the facility; about 40 percent of the people are homeless, the rest low-income, and there seems to be varying degrees of mental illness across the group.

Most people were very courteous and grateful for the food. Others seemed accustomed to the center being their main source of meals and appeared nonchalant about it. A couple of them were hostile, such as the man who got a piece of fried chicken that was smaller than he expected and started cursing and threatening to "turn this f***ing place upside down" (he ultimately calmed down and ate his chicken).

What I think left the most significant impression on me were the three people we worked with at the center. All three are volunteers.

- Gary. About 64. He was a jump-master in the Army for 25 years, teaching soldiers how to parachute out of aircraft (his son is now a three-star general who commands Fort Bragg in South Carolina). Despite having major surgeries over the years and a lot of metal put into his body (including 2 bullets in Vietnam) the effects of which now make it difficult for him to move around, he works at the center cooking and preparing well over a dozen meals each week. While volunteers like us serve meals, he sits near the serving line and keeps order, e.g. making sure no one cuts in line, snags extra food, etc. He told us that when he was growing up on a farm about ten miles away, he would never have come into the run-down part of town that the center is in. But now, he said, he's more than happy to do it because "most of these people just took a wrong turn in life or had something unfortunate happen to them, and it could happen to anyone."

- Bev. About 60. She works full time at the University of Kentucky in a clerical role. Then she comes and spends up to 20 hours a week working alongside Gary -- cooking, preparing, cleaning. She's the person who got cursed at for giving the wrong piece of chicken, but she seems to take it all in stride.

- [didn't get his name]. About 45. He cleans pots and cooking utensils, all the food-preparation surfaces, and the tables where the food is served and consumed and the areas around them. He is a very large man and formerly worked as a bouncer in local clubs. Not sure what he does now for work, but he comes to the center multiple times each week to give this service.

I expected that working at the center would be a good experience for my son, and I went there mainly to support him. But I left there very appreciative of being reminded that the 'have-nots' in our community can benefit so much from the willingness of the the 'haves' to share time and abilities. It was a great experience, and I fully plan to do it again soon.

When Webex had their IPO at the turn of the century and people really started paying attention to web conferencing, I figured that business travel would start declining markedly. After all, while videoconferencing had already been available -- albeit at a high price and via largely proprietary, challenging-to-use systems -- web conferencing essentially allowed us to share the same material, e.g. PowerPoint slides and white-board drawing, that we'd share if were in a client's meeting room or office. It seemed so much simpler and cost-effective than going through all the hassle of packing and driving and flying and lodging and dining. When analyzed on paper, it certainly appeared so.

But the death of business travel has been greatly exaggerated. So long as humans are still making decisions about how money is spent (how much, with whom, by when, etc), other humans will still need to get out and connect with them face-to-face. How else can you build a client's confidence such that she will choose what you're offering over someone else's offer? Much as industry tries to mechanize purchasing, e.g. via Ariba or other such platforms, and remove the human factor and its accompanying emotion from the buying equation, the fact is that people are making the decisions and these people are ever-influenceable (yes, we all are). The people who want to sell to them therefore need to create reasons and opportunities to get in front of those human decision-makers and connect to build confidence and trust.

A prospective client recently told me over dinner, "I'm trying to be dispassionate in making my decision." I understand why, because he needs to be able to justify his choice to his management and they will expect to see his analysis of how what I'm offering compares to what my competitors are offering. But what all that analysis will not show is which person and team that client has the best gut-feel about. And that guiding sense, combined with solid analysis of the data, is what is most likely to lead to a choice that delivers what the client wants most of all: success. The quality and commitment of people, i.e. humans, behind the offer will determine -- more than company name, industry analyst rankings, the technical tools involved -- the success the client sees.

When I started my IT sales career, I read this paragraph in a book about selling:

"Most people love to buy but hate to feel sold. Feeling sold means feeling like you have lost control -- been taken advantage of, coerced, or manipulated. Most people have had an experience in their life where they have come away from an encounter with a salesperson feeling that the salesperson controlled them. That is why salespeople have to live by 'You are guilty until proven innocent.' Salespeople are guilty by [default] for all the sins that other salespeople have committed on their buyer."

I've remembered that short paragraph because I find it so true. I have absolutely -- and more than once -- felt "sold" and manipulated by salespeople. Because I detest that feeling, I've always tried (perhaps with varying degrees of success) to be as genuine as I can with my clients and prospects. It's important to me that people who buy from me feel good about their choice. It's certainly how I want to feel when I make a major purchase.

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Au début de ma carrière en tant que commercial dans le domaine de l'informatique, j'ai lu le paragraphe suivant dans un livre au sujet de ventes:

"La plupart des gens adorent acheter mais détestent se sentir 'vendu.' Se sentir vendu, comme on dit, signifie que tu ressens avoir perdu le contrôle -- avoir été exploité, forcé, manipulé. La plupart des gens ont également ressenti qu'un vendeur à un certain moment les a controlé. C'est pour cela que les représentants commerciaux portent le fardeau de 'être culpable jusqu'à ce que leur innocence ne soit établie.' Les représentants commerciaux par défaut sont culpables de tous les péchés que les autres représentants commerciaux ont commis contre un acheteur."

Depuis longtemps j'ai gardé en mémoire ce paragraphe parce que je le trouve exact. Je me suis absolument senti -- à plusieurs reprises -- 'vendu' et manipulé à la suite d'avoir traité avec certains vendeurs. Puisque je déteste ce sentiment, j'ai toujours essayé d'être le plus authentique possible quand je traite avec mes clients et clients potentiels. Pour moi il est très important que les gens qui achètent les services que je représente se sentent entièrement à l'aise quant à leur choix. C'est bien le sentiment que je veux avoir lorsque je fais un achat important.

Why do IT RFPs happen? From my -- an IT solutions provider's -- perspective, it's often because the service provider working for the client isn't thinking proactively enough about how to help that client become more efficient and/or more profitable. The client, therefore, has to figure it out on their own. And RFPs take so much time and so much energy and so much money to solve relatively simple problems -- the process surrounding them can get completely out of hand. When was, for example, the last time you participated in an RFP that actually closed relatively close to the originally-specified date? That rarely happens, in my experience.

If IT service providers are as smart and well-versed in industry best practices as we claim to be, then we should be putting enough compelling ideas (with business value quantified) in front of the client to make it easy for them to improve a situation incrementally (agile) with our proposed ideas rather than in one fell swoop (waterfall) via an RFP that is the brainchild of their own organization. After all, who more than an IT service provider has the opportunity to be able to clearly see relevant, applicable IT best practices in a client's industry than a provider who serves a host of clients in that industry?

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Por qué emiten las compañias solicitudes de ofertas (en inglés, "RFP") en el campo de la informática? En mi opinión, es porque el proveedor de servicios (PS) informáticos (trabajo personalmente para uno de estos) ya empleado por el cliente no piensa de manera suficientemente proactiva para ayudar a su cliente a llegar a ser más eficiente y/o más rentable. El cliente, por lo tanto, está obligado a buscar su propia solución. Las solicitudes de ofertas toman muchísimo tiempo y energía y dinero, sólo para realizarse -- el proceso a veces se convierte en un monstruo que no se puede amansar. La última vez que Ud. participó en una solicitud de ofertas que terminó para la fecha que el cliente había especificado al principio del proceso -- ¿cuándo fue? Según mi experiencia, esto casi nunca ocurre; siempre hay demoras, y pueden ser muy largas.

Si nosotros los PS somos tan inteligentes y bien informados acerca de las mejores prácticas de industrias como lo pretendemos ser, deberíamos pues presentar suficientes ideas al cliente (ya habiendo calculado el valor comercial de ellas) para hacer que le sea mas fácil mejorar una situación paulatinamente debido a esas ideas, en vez de súbitamente a travéz de una solicitud de ofertas procedente de su propia organización. Después de todo, los PS ¿no somos aquellos que más conocimiento tenemos sobre las mejores prácticas de las industrias en las cuales nuestros clientes actuan?