A common refrain these days, among analysts and consultants, urges CIOs to become more involved in the business side of their organizations so that they can learn to play a more strategic role. I don't doubt that this is generally good advice, but it can be taken too far. It is taken too far, for example, when it sets the CIO in an oppositional stance--rather than a cooperative one--vis-à-vis the business units.

One of the latest reports on this topic--just one of many making the same general point--came out last week from Constellation Research. As reported, the researchers found that several developments in technology are broadening the role of CIOs and forcing them to expand their responsibilities. According to the research, the "I" in CIO increasingly will come to mean infrastructure, integration, intelligence and innovation.

As chief infrastructure officer, the CIO will concentrate on cost reduction, and as chief integration officer, he or she will focus on bringing together systems, data and business processes. As a chief intelligence officer, the CIO will concentrate more on the business side of the house, improving users' access to data. All of this, it seems to me, would sound fairly familiar and sensible to most CIOs today.

The most challenging of the emerging roles, according to the research, will be that of chief innovation officer. To be successful, CIOs will have to figure out how to promote innovation on a shoestring budget. If they can't, the researchers warn, they risk losing that function to the business units: "A shadow CIO-like organization could emerge on the business side to fill the roles of Chief Innovation and Chief Intelligence Officers."

Does it really need to be framed in this kind of us-versus-them proposition? Innovative ideas often stem from business units without costing the CIO important functions or stature. A number of the innovations that CIOs have discussed with me over the past year originated on the business side, and yet those CIOs were instrumental--and successful--in implementing the ideas. If an early adopter in the sales or finance or legal department comes up with a great idea that can be realized on a shoestring budget, that's a win-win proposition, not a case of the IT leadership failing to adapt to a new role.

IT executives should welcome ideas for innovation from anywhere within their organizations without fear of it reflecting poorly on them. It seems unlikely that it would cost them important functions; valuable innovations still tend to require infrastructure, integration and information expertise that remains the purview of IT. - Caron