Reach Out

Autry's outreach has been well received, but equally important to her is the other side of discourse - listening. She and her staff of 36 keep their ears open for new initiatives going on in other departments. "If we hear of some idea like, say, a new marketing program, we invite ourselves to the meeting," Autry explains. "We simply say, Hey, we might be able to help with that. Can we come?" Sometimes IT can offer assistance, sometimes it can't, but Autry says the time in those meetings is always well spent because it sets the tone that IT should be involved in business initiatives.

Show Them the Money

Like Autry, Marcia Balestrino is a consistent communicator. As senior vice president of information and technology for the Girl Scouts of the USA, she publishes articles about IT in the CEO's biweekly newsletter, creates a monthly IT newsletter for the 300 local Girl Scout offices and hosts national technology conferences to display her department's best work. Yet she still has trouble convincing her business partners and users at Girl Scout headquarters (who historically have not been involved in IT) that her department adds value to the organization.

Last year, she started publishing a quarterly communiqué called Dollars and Sense, which she distributes to executives at the Girl Scouts' New York City headquarters. With hard numbers, it details each department's portion of total technology expenditures - from the telephone system on up to large IT projects.

Getting that information together has been a big challenge, but communicating the cost and ultimate worth of what her department does will be invaluable, Balestrino says. "It's a way of charging back [costs] without charging back, and of giving users a real understanding of the cost of technology," she says. "In the past, their perception was that the technology budget was just for the technology department. But now they see it supports the entire organization. And as they receive this information on a regular basis, we hope they can use it to help make better technology decisions in the future."

Keep an Open Line

To foster communication between Smurfit-Stone Container's approximately 40,000 employees and his IT staff, Burdiss has taken a page from customer-facing groups, creating a customer advocate position within IT. The advocate, who was hired in April 2002, spends time with the line users at the plants. "She's basically an ombudsman," Burdiss explains. "She's not there to replace the help desk; she's not there just to be bitched at; she's there to talk to our customers and find out what they need."