"Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty occasionally in IT. And specially don’t be afraid of a project that just doesn’t work out. No one bats a thousand, learn and move on."

JOHN C. MOON
CIO
Johnson Outdoors Inc.

John is the Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Johnson Outdoors Inc. He enjoyed a successful 23 year career at Baxter International Inc. and Caremark International where he held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility before being named Baxter’s Chief Information Officer in 2000 and Corporate Vice President in 2002. Prior to joining Baxter, he held positions in the telecommunications and software industries. John was named CIO of the Year in 2001 by the Association of Information Technology Professionals and was selected as a Premier 100 IT Leader by Computerworld Magazine in 2003.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations.
I expect the pace of change, the need for quick-hit business solutions to increase exponentially. My wish for 2013 and beyond for solutions and technology providers is to simplify the IT supply chain, just as traditional business supply chains have had to adjust to changing business conditions. We can’t afford to do IT related business transactions the same way we’ve been doing business for 20+ years. Contracts need to be simpler, license terms need to be simpler, customer support capabilities need to be streamlined. It’s time for IT solution providers to step up and recognize it’s a new world for the IT supply chain.

The areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easier.
With millions of dollars going into advertising “cloud solutions” for common business challenges, the cloud isn’t as simple as it might seem in an advertisement. Data standards and lack of simplified integration are pain points. Solutions need to mesh together. Islands of solutions feel good for a few months, but quickly become painful islands of data.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO
More than ever, the CIO role has evolved from an IT person that knows a lot about business, to a business person that knows a lot about IT. CIO’s have a somewhat unique vantage point of being able to look vertically and horizontally at a traditional global matrix organization.Because it’s unique, a CIO needs to use this as an opportunity to make a difference. Don’t experience change, drive change! Don’t watch your organization change, lead it!

Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise Business Environment
Social media is changing customer interactions. The “always on” mentality is stretching traditional products and services. More electronics devices are connected to the web and that trend will escalate rapidly. Harnessing and acting on the data associated with social media and “always on” web enabled devices will prove to be a HUGE challenge going forward. From an IT perspective, we need to be in front of our business partners from a planning and capability perspective, but move in unison with the business partners from an execution standpoint.

Lessons I learned as a CIO that can help you
It’s become mandatory for CIO’s to immerse themselves in the business. Know P/L’s, customer analytics, and consumer insights as well as the people running business units. Understand business challenges, look at strategic plans, travel with sales reps, sit with customer services representatives, use your company’s website, keep track of what your competitors are doing on the web. You gain respect and trust from your business partners by being with them, not by doing things to them.