Staying the Course as a CIO: How to Overcome the Trials and Challenges of IT Leadership

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”

(Mark Twain)

It has been thirty-five years since I first came into contact with the world of IT. Much of the material in this book owes itself to experiences I have enjoyed and endured with some wonderful people. After being imbued with the importance of education by my parents, Peter and June, my first fleeting encounters with the rudiments of programming were made on an undergraduate training course at Exeter University in Southern England. They were perplexing and unfruitful. At the time I decided that this “computing thing” was all too hard as it seemed to be filled with insurmountable challenges. Many decades later I still feel much the same way about it, though I have at least made a few friends along the way. I cannot remember the name of the bearded lecturer who led the course. But if you are still alive and you know who you are—then the bespectacled student in the Pink Floyd T-shirt at the back of the class who kept falling asleep says “thank you”.

Other seminal moments require appropriate acknowledgement. I owe thanks to Robert Ash and the team at the Aberystwyth University computer suite for their patience during my research years. If they were ever wondering why the university mainframe seemed to curiously crash so often during the night, I fear that on some occasions at least, it might have been due to me and my incomplete ...