Jerrold Grochow, Vice President for Information Services and Technology, MIT

I had a great meeting with Jerrold Grochow, MIT's CIO. He's one of the first people I targeted for a career interview. I went in with a list of questions and he answered openly and honestly.

Here is a subset of my notes from the meeting:

Discussed his career path: changed jobs every 3-4 years to take on new challenges

It is important to understand the motives of the people you are working with

Being a CIO, you have to deal with a range of issues: people, technical, legal, etc.

It requires a combo of strategy and tactical focus

A big part of his job deals with making tradeoffs or helping people make tradeoffs

I asked his thoughts about Nicholas Carr: IT shops are not even close to having the same capabilities, so there is still a myriad of places for competitive advantage.

To be a CIO you need a broad background in tech and mgmt skills including financial and marketing

Spot sourcing works, but not full outsourcing of IT