Gartner's IT Symposium in Orlando last week generated the usual amount of news and interest from that annual gathering and the last gasp has been summed up in this Baseline article, "CIOs Told to Make Conspicuous Contribution to Revenue." As Baseline points out, business alignment has always been the bread and butter of the choir at Gartner events, but this year it's gone a step further... apparently, you're going to have to start actually generating revenue to keep your seat at the table.

Actually that's not what the article says, but it must have sounded more catchy than "Gartner Says Same Thing They've Said Before." But that's the gist of it; align IT with the business. They've gotten a bit more specific this year-align IT with the revenue side of the business. Ah, gotcha. That must have been the bit we were forgetting previously.

I think the advice that you not only have to do your job, but to be seen to be doing your job, is rather timeless and hardly specific to IT. On the other hand, it's long been assumed on both sides of the table that what happens in the IT department is mysterious and inexplicable to laymen and a modicum of faith is required that they're doing what they in fact say they are doing.

Considering other recent trends which seem to minimize the role of the CIO in the organization this perhaps isn't so surprising. Then, too, Gartner needs to be taken with a grain of salt; like me, they have to come up with new ways to say the same things repeatedly to earn their keep, and if the real message is "stay relevant to the business" then perhaps the specificity of the delivery can be disregarded from time to time as less relevant hyperbole.