Deep into the night, the normally bustling office building was now covered by a sea of darkness. The only beacon of light was from a meeting room on the 13th floor. Chief Information Officer Jiang and his subordinates, Tao and Ping, together with four consultants, Dr. Zhang and the other three surnamed Wang, Li and Zhao, were holding a marathon meeting that was stretching into the early hours of a new day. Everybody was exhausted, except Jiang, who remained high-spirited and lucid throughout the long, tortuous meeting. Now he could see the daylight – the IT project draft he had commissioned was approaching to a successful ending tonight.
The team of contracted consultants had spent two months concentrating on the draft in the lead-up to the big meeting. Headed by Dr. Zhang, they thoroughly studied the present informatization situation of the government administration region that Jiang was in; they also managed to figure out each manager’s expectations as well as departmental informatization requirements; with the aid of professional instruments, they estimated the gap between the status quo and their objects to decide on the appropriate means of realizing change. Finally, based on such preparatory work, the consultant team helped Jiang to draft up a five-year IT plan.
To Dr. Zhang’s surprise, the initial project draft failed to meet CIO Jiang’s expectations, even after being revised 15 times. Zhang had never before found himself in such an awkward situation throughout his consulting career. Every time he discussed a revised project draft with Tao and Ping, they thought it was just perfect. But each of them was rejected bluntly by Jiang and thrown back with negative comments. Dr. Zhang was nearing his wit’s end.
Later, with the help of his assistant Wang, Dr. Zhang finally took the pulse of Jiang. He reckoned the pre-plan study as kind of waste. In fact, all that he expected from the consultants were to focus on the five-year development plan, so called “Grand Plan”, approved by government officers and keep in line with it. Zhang found it really depressing.
“Believe it or not, if you add ‘the Grand Plan’ with words like ‘digit’, ‘digitalization’ and ‘informatization’, and phrase your words in a more IT-like fashion, Jiang would happily buy it. For example, if ‘the Grand Plan’ mentions entertainment, then we should say ‘digitalized entertainment’; if ‘the Grand Plan’ emphasizes community service, then we should suggest ‘digitalized community service’; if ‘the Grand Plan’ requires development of traditional enterprises, then we should strive for the ‘digitalized development of traditional enterprises’,” advised Wang.
With this “open sesame” in mind, Dr. Zhang reworded the draft accordingly, shelving a range of data, graphs and painstakingly detailed analysis in the process. It turned out that Wang was right-Jiang was rather satisfied with the new revisions. Today, at this summit-style meeting, Jiang was finally sitting together with them to discuss the details of the IT project draft.
So far, the body of the draft had been completed, with only one simple yet complicated task left. That is to find a glamorous title for this strategic five-year informatization plan. Jiang didn’t like its present name, thinking it was too plain and not catchy enough.
“How about ‘4×4 Strategy’? We can summarize the plan into four major tasks, and further divide each task into four sub-parts, creating a matrix,” suggested Li.
Jiang dismissed it at once, saying that “Matrix administration is completely out of date. It sounds stupid for us to go back to it again.”
“I think maybe ‘4321 Strategy’ is a nice option: 4 tasks, 3 fields, 2 key points and 1 special project,” suggested Zhao in a whispery voice. She was always a little bit timid in the face of Jiang’s aggressive delivery.
Jiang wasn’t happy with it either. “This won’t do! ‘4-3-2-1’, the descending order seems to suggest the plan is on the way downhill,” he said.
Wang didn’t make any concrete proposal, but said, “Let’s switch our approach a little and leave those digits alone.”
Wang’s words inspired Jiang with a bright idea. “Projects named with digits are indeed worn-out already, but ‘digital’ sounds good. It’s in keeping with the pace of our time to call anything ‘digital’,” he remarked.
Dr. Zhang felt he was on the verge of suffocating, as if Jiang’s words were weighing down on his chest. To him, Jiang had gone against a sound scientific IT planning, apparently making it a tweaked version to please those big pots above him. Now he had even demeaned it into a frivolous game with words! Dr. Zhang tore off his glasses, threw them on the table, rubbed his eyes and muttered resentfully. “Now that everything is digital, why don’t you call it ‘Digital World’!” he claimed.
Surprisingly, Jiang was quite excited about the name: “Wonderful! A doctor is a doctor. I always felt we should think of a name for the project on a high level. Now this is the one, resounding and elevated!”
Jiang didn’t seem to notice Dr. Zhang’s shock, and proceeded to explain his thoughts. As he put it, “over the next five years, our informatization process should cover work in all possible fields – work on the land; in the mean time we should build a full-coverage radio network – work in the air. ‘Digital Land’, together with ‘Digital Air’, forms a ‘Digital World’! ”
Jiang then asked for the opinions of others present in the room. He asked, “Tao, Ping, how do you feel about it?” Tao and Ping could only nod their heads while echoing “Yes, ‘Digital World’, sound and fit.”
Dr. Zhang let out a long heavy sigh, and asked Wang to insert “Digital World” at the beginning of the project draft. Then, Jiang stood up to shake hands with everyone, declaring a perfect conclusion to the IT project. All is well that ends well, it seems.
附中文原文：CIO故事之十五：数字乾坤
夜已深。整个政府办公楼一片漆黑，但是13楼会议室仍然灯火通明。CIO老姜的两个手下小涛、小萍，还有张博士、小王、大李、小赵等4名咨询顾问已经开了 整整一天的会。大家全都疲惫不堪，只有老姜始终精神抖擞、思路清晰，因为眼看着他主持制订的IT规划今晚就要大功告成了。
在 此之前，咨询公司的顾问们已经工作了两个多月了。他们在张博士的率领下，对老姜所在政府的管理区域的信息化现状进行了详尽的调研，仔细摸清了各口领导的未 来期望和各部门的信息化需求，动用了大量专业工具剖析了现状与目标的差距，以及实现目标的途径。最后，他们以此为基础，帮老姜起草了今后5年的IT规划。
令 张博士意外的是，规划稿一连修改了15个版本，CIO老姜仍然不满意。这是他多年咨询职业经历中从来没有出现过的情况。每次，张博士与小涛、小萍讨论规划 修改稿时，他们都说写得很棒，可是一提交给老姜，总都被他毫不客气地退回来，往往还付上颠覆性的修改意见。对此，张博士真是百思不得其解。
后来，在小王的提醒下，张博士终于发现了症结所在，结果让他非常沮丧。原来，老姜心里竟然觉得咨询顾问们的前期调研工作完全可有可无，他觉得他们只要紧紧围绕政府领导批准的5年发展规划（他们称为‘大规划’），与”大规划”保持步调一致，就可以了。
“不 信你瞧，你给‘大规划’戴上‘数字’‘数字化’‘信息化’之类的帽子，措词再稍微IT一点，老姜准保喜欢。比如，‘大规划’提及娱乐，咱就在IT规划里提 ‘数字娱乐’，‘大规划’强调社区服务，咱就跟着来个‘数字化社区服务’，‘大规划’要求提升传统产业，咱就提‘信息化提升传统产业’。”小王建议道。
获得这个”秘诀”后，张博士把数据、图表和分析结果统统扔在一旁，按照这样的思路对文字进行了整体修改。结果证明，小王真是聪敏过人，老姜看到新的修改稿后，立刻表示基本满意。今天，老姜终于和他们坐到一起，开始逐字逐句斟酌起IT规划稿了。
此刻，主要文字修改已经完成，只剩下一项既简单又复杂的任务–为这个5年信息化战略规划取个响亮的名字。老姜嫌现在的规划名字太平实了，不够打眼。
大李说：”可以总结为四大任务，每项任务分为四个部分，创新一个矩阵式提法，叫做‘4×4战略’如何？”
老姜马上否定了这个提法，他说：”矩阵式管理已经过时了，我们还提什么矩阵式战略？！”
“我觉得，概括为‘四三二一’战略不错：四大任务、三大领域、两个重点、一个专项工程。”小赵小声建议道。在老姜凌厉的攻势面前，她总是有些怯生生。
老姜不高兴地说：”这不成！‘四三二一’，一路下滑，多不吉利啊。”
小王没有提出具体建议，只说：”咱们改改思路吧，别尽跟阿拉伯数字较劲了。”
这给了老姜以灵感，他说：”数目字的规划名字确实叫滥了，但是‘数字’这两个字倒是不错，叫‘数字××’现在很与时俱进啊。”
听到此，张博士心里堵得慌。在他看来，这个老姜不但把科学的IT规划变成了图解领导意图的工具，这会又把规划演变成文字游戏，这未免太儿戏了！于是，他摘下眼镜往桌上一扔，揉着眼睛有些赌气地嘟囔着说：”什么都‘数字’，干脆叫‘数字乾坤’得了！”
没想到老姜听后大为兴奋：”这个好！还是博士厉害啊。我一直觉得高度不够，需要拔高，这个名字够响亮、够高度！”
老姜没有理会张博士的惊讶，自顾自地解释起来：”未来5年，我们的信息化建设要全面覆盖各个领域的各项工作，这地面上的工作就是‘坤’；同时，我们要建设全范围的无线网络，这天上的工作就是‘乾’。‘数字乾坤’正合适！”
老姜问：”小涛、小萍，你们觉得呢？”
小涛、小萍只有不住点头，连连说：”‘数字乾坤’很妥当、很合适。”他们一直不太说话，自始至终都很少表态，但在这样的时刻，他们一定会表态，这表态至关重要。
张博士不由得长叹一声，让操作电脑的小王把”数字乾坤”插入到规划稿之首。之后，老姜站起来和他握手，宣布这次的IT规划项目圆满完成。