Welcome

Why a blog called “ChubbyCIO” and what is its purpose?  Well, ChubbyCIO works on so many levels I just couldn’t help myself.  I am a CIO and my wife’s chubby hubby, but there is more to the name.  Every time the phrase is used is causes people to smile—it’s funny.  A CIO’s job is very stressful at times when things are melting down, so humor plays a big part in keeping me sane.  If people laugh, they might actually remember the ChubbyCIO.  It is also ironic that the ChubbyCIO is focused on lean and mean technology—particularly thin-clients, cloud computing, and virtualization.  And let’s not forget that “chubby” strategies lead to chubby profits.  OK I’ll stop.

In this blog, I hope to share my opinions on the role of a CIO and some of my tricks and tips, particularly in small-medium sized organizations.  While have I spent a good part of my career at Fortune 500 companies, this blog is for firms that have big technology needs but small budgets (or at least where money is an object).  My goal is to not get too technical; my goal is to communicate technology concepts and strategies in business terms so that the CEO or business owner can use this information to make technology decisions that will affect their business today and many years into their future.

As much as technology changes, much of it never changes since computers were first invented.  There will always be new trends, hype, as well as real innovation that need to be embraced but there are many concepts that are tried and true and should not be abandoned.  Even today, I see “new” products that remind me of products that I installed in the 1980’s.  As a CIO, I sit as a quarterback of all the technology the firm uses or might use in the future.  You need an unchanging framework to manage all this change and capital investment over many years.  I have an IT “dashboard” that has five major categories: People, Software, Hardware, Telecommunications, and Facilities.  Every piece of technology ever invented or will be invented will fall into these categories and I use them to make trade-offs between categories.  Each of these categories has a price tag that the CIO looks to manage, reduce, or increase based on the needs of the business.  Yes, I know IT is about value/strategy and you can’t always look at the numbers.  But if IT wants to have a seat at the executive table, you better think in numbers since that’s how we keep score in business.  If I can keep my IT numbers down, then we can decide whether to reduce our IT spend or to add strategic capabilities.  If you consistently solve problems for the least amount of money, you will have more money to do more things—either grow the business, reduce the IT spend & overhead, or pay your people bigger bonuses.

Thank you for reading my blog.  Feel free to click on the blog header to connect with me if you would like to dig deeper into a topic.

Chris France, CIO

Little Diversified Architectural Consulting

Charlotte, NC, USA

Before I go much further, I want to highlight the great team we have here at Little.  Without their dedication, support and ingenuity, none of this technology can be built or operated.  IT is truly a team effort.

Bill Bohanon – DBA, Software Developer, Sharepoint guru, and all things Microsoft extraordinaire

Paul Chesney – Helpdesk, Voice, Video conferencing aka “Silky” Chesney

Rachel Ritchie – The Revit, Autodesk, and design applications queen.  If you looked up customer service in the dictionary, you would see Rachel’s picture.

Tim Sphabmixay - Microsoft Desktop Images, workstation cloud builder, group policies, get-it-done-now focused.  Users circumvent helpdesk to talk directly to Tim.

Tommy Brame – Is the master, we are all grass-hoppers.  Vmware, EMC, Exchange, AD, networks, etc..  One day I’ll figure out something he can’t do.

Will Underwood – Hardware isn’t broken until Will says it’s broken.  It wouldn’t surprise me if he gives advice to MacGyver.