CIO Story 15: Digital World
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
