It took three years to transform the technology services enough where I and my organization started started winning awards. In 2012, the multi-institutional course registration system won the Georgia Technology Innovation Award. I won the Evanta Global Top 10 Breakaway Leaders Award for my transformation of IT services. In 2013, we won another Georgia Technology Innovation Award for our new contract and vendor management system. It was a finalist for a national CIO innovation award. InformationWeek ranked us as the 9th most innovative technology provider in the nation on their Top 500 list. They also listed our multi-institutional course registration system as the 2nd best idea to steal in the nation. InformationWeek selected me as one of the five national CIOs of the year and locally, the Atlanta Telecommunications Professionals selected me for their Leadership Impact Award – the technology executive with the greatest impact in the state of Georgia.
2014 would be a year of continued recognition for my team and I. We would receive our third Georgia Technology Innovation Award for our deployment of the largest private cloud instance of the learning management system, Desire2Learn, in the world. This project was nominated by the state for a national award. For the first time in 26 years and after more than 50 different projects had been submitted by Georgia state agencies, Georgia won a National Association of State CIOs Award – the Enterprise IT Management Award. Governor Deal sent me a personal note celebrating the technology innovation and service to the state. My old West Point officemate and friend Rick Howard was attending the event unbeknownst to Eileen and I and photobombed us like old hams I mean friends do. InformationWeek picked us as a member of the Elite 100 – the most innovative users of information technology in the nation. We were the only higher ed organization on the list. ComputerWorld gave me a lifetime award (Premiere 100) for technology impact. Desire2Learn recognized me as one of five Global Leading Educators. And in a shocking surprise, I won the Georgia CIO of the Year from inspireCIO. This last award deserves a little more detail and a story.
inspireCIO started recognizing the best technology leaders in the state in 1998. By 2014, this was a mature and highly respected award recognition program. You had to fill out an extensive questionnaire, be interviewed and filmed in person, and then you were evaluated by previous winners of the award. Your CEO was interviewed and filmed as well. The award was made by Tiffany – the same company that makes the Oscars. It was a beautiful and weighty award. The selection process mimicked the Oscars in that no one knew who was going to win until the envelope was opened on stage. There is real drama in the room. Some winners have a Sally Fields moment. Some winners are cocky enough enough to prepare written comments because they think they are going to win. Some winners have lost three times previously but kept their written comments under the hope that eventually they might win.
In 2014, I was competing against incredible technology leaders including a CIO who also served as their organization’s chief operating officer. I thought she was going to win. She thought I was going to win. I really thought she would win when I noted she was seated all the way in the front and center of the presentation room. I was all the way in the back of the 1,200 people attending and barely inside the room. She was going to win.
You can imagine my surprise when the envelope is opened, my name was called and I saw Chancellor Huckaby‘s video on the screen nominating me. I quickly thought through my acceptance speech. Thank the other finalists and recognize their accomplishments. Thank my wife and family for their support. Thank my team because they did the real work to win the award. I navigated through just about all of the tables in the room because I really was on the table furthest from the stage and gave a decent acceptance speech.
When winning an award, thank the other finalists and recognize their accomplishments. Thank your wife/partner/family for their support. Thank your team because they did the real work to win the award.
When I won the National CIO of the Year for the third time in a scene eerily similar to winning the Georgia CIO of the Year, I was asked by the sponsoring agency what did the award and associated recognition do to accelerate my success as a CIO? I responded it didn’t. Politics and trust are local and awards don’t change the dynamics of politics or trust. I know who I am and what my strengths and weaknesses are.
What awards do is affect the internal culture and belief systems of your team. They start to see themselves as part of a world class team. They experience pride when you describe this award is a result of their efforts. They stay with the organization longer and are more resilient. They are more innovative because everyone else in the organization “obviously” is because we keep winning awards.
An award recognizes the team. A series of awards recognizes the culture.
If you are progressing through this website sequentially, the next chapter is in retrospect.