In today’s business environment, the pressure to change, and change quickly and often, is growing, thanks to the proliferation of empowered customers, emerging global markets, regulation (and deregulation), and growing social responsibilities. For the past several years, I’ve worked with CIOs from all types of industries as they’ve worked to transform the culture, the tactics, and the technology of their organization to become more agile. The successful ones, like Michael Mathias at Aetna or Glenn Schneider at Discover Financial Services, now sit in organizations where the business leaders look to IT as a key enabler of business agility.

And interestingly, when you speak with these successful CIOs, they often point to their enterprise architecture (and business architecture) as the secret weapon for how they achieve that agility -- the ability to tap new technologies and processes to help their businesses shift and innovate quickly. That’s great news, and shows the potential for high-performance EA practices.

Forget Brad and Angelina (or "Brangelina" for those that are more plugged in to pop culture than I), the new "it" couple is the CIO and CMO. Why? In the digital world we live in today, which Forrester defines as the Age of the Customer, empowered buyers demand a new level of customer obsession. That means firms must deliver marketing and technology solutions that have visible impact on the customer. CIOs and CMOs are best positioned to deliver because they have a broad, end-to-end purview of their businesses and they understand how to innovate. But, CIOs and CMOs also often come with conflicting expectations and priorities that can sabotoge well-intentioned collaboration efforts.

Charles Rutstein, Forrester's COO, recently sat down with my CMO Practice Leader peer David Cooperstein and me to discuss the role that CIOs and CMOs play in this customer-obsessed new world. See what we had to say here:

I am so looking forward to hearing from our keynoters next week at the Forrester's IT Forum 2011. Poised to be one of the most informative – and entertaining – will be Michael Ali, VP & CIO, Harman International. Michael will discuss how integration, not alignment, is the ultimate goal for CIOs who are determined to get the most out of IT investments for the benefit of their businesses. Rumor has it that he’ll also toss out some zinger lessons learned that will help us all avoid common pitfalls as we move beyond alignment. I asked Michael a few questions to get some insight on his IT organization and his experience with IT transformation. His answers point to both the fundamental shifts that will characterize the empowered BT era and some perennial truths of IT. We hope you can make it to Las Vegas to hear more . . .

Sharyn: To move beyond business-IT alignment, Forrester believes organizations must drive innovation. How is the IT organization at Harman doing that?

Are you ready for Forrester's IT Forum 2011? Mark your calendars for May 25-27 in Las Vegas and June 8-10 in Barcelona — and help us design an event that is as relevant and productive for you as possible. We've come up with three potential draft themes and need your vote for the best IT Forum 2011 theme:

1. Unleash your empowered enterprise.

As technology becomes more accessible through mediums beyond IT's control, you have but one choice: Get proactive by empowering employees, or swim against the current. Successful BT leaders will react not by blocking access but by lending their expertise to increase the chances of technology success and empowering the users to solve customer and business problems. This year's IT Forum will provide a blueprint for reaping the benefits of your empowered organization — complete with case studies, methodologies, and step-by-step advice tailored to each IT role.

2. Capitalize on the intersection of business and technology.

IT leaders have long struggled to deliver business and technology alignment. But alignment implies a waterfall process: decide on a business strategy, and then build your technology on that foundation. Today, our businesses move too fast for the traditional IT model. Instead, Business Technology leaders must join the leaders of their lines of business to create business and technology strategy simultaneously. That means working with new business partners inside and outside your organization, operationalizing innovation through standards, and above all, saying, "yes, and..." instead of "yes, but..." This year, we'll dedicate IT Forum to building bridges to new business partners, scaling innovative solutions, and co-creating business and technology strategy.

Is it me or do you feel like everyone is restructuring their IT organization – or at least talking about it? Chatter among CIOs often turns into a debate over the merits of plan-build-run models versus demand/supply models – or any other IT model du jour. So, I was eager to get my hands on the first draft of Marc Cecere’s  presentation on “Future BT Organizational Models” that he’ll be delivering at Forrester’s IT Forum in Las Vegas (it’s next week, so I’m up to my elbows in draft presentations – reviewing our CIO analysts’ content, pushing their thinking further, and frankly reveling in all the new research). Here’s a sneak peek: