Leveling the Playing Field: A Manifesto for Change
Together we are stronger. That is the primary motivation behind the CXO Forum. Two groups-business leaders who define technical strategies and the software innovators who build the tools that move entire societies - must come together as a unified force for good in the face of a global pandemic of cybercrime and debilitating technical debt.
For decades, an industry has blossomed and matured around the mission of building an asymmetric relationship where one group (often the vendors) was exploited for the benefit of the other group. More recently, we’ve noticed that more and more, the second group was also being exploited.
Where a technology leader would spend a generation gaining knowledge through trial and error, painful mistakes, and long hours of toiling at their craft, their hard-fought thought-assets were being mined for free and turned into profit for event coordinators and meeting facilitators. We at The CXO Forum want to create an environment where everyone wins and thought leaders from both sides of the software acquisition process wind up in a better position.
We feel that a conversation between executives and vendors (whether the founder or the business development rep) needs to be conducted on a level playing field. Think about the field of battle: there is an all-out assault on businesses and the technology consumer. Much is at stake, and the bad people are winning. We need good people to work more closely together. That starts with allies being better aligned in the fight. The old world of viewing the vendors as the “dark side” is over.
Very smart people work in businesses: defining strategy, defending information, and protecting people. Some very smart people start technology companies, build the tools, gather intelligence, and put the technical weapons in the hands of good people. Executives that lead teams, and vendors that supply technological tools, are two sides of the same coin. That single coin, with two sides, is the price we as a society need to pay to stop the badness from happening.
CXO Forum's mission is to facilitate conversations between the brightest minds in the business and the vendor space. Thought leaders gather together to discuss issues, concerns, and looming trends. But more importantly, they gather together to develop solutions, strategies, and mobilization of resources to fight more prominent and complex problems than they ever could alone. Only in a mutually respectful, collaborative partnership can both groups (the business defenders and the technical blacksmiths) fully maximize their creative innovation and societal stewardship. It has to become a joint mission, not a temporal transaction. We intend to create the arena for this intellectual growth, the safe place where vendors feel empowered to provide ideas and business leaders are comfortable describing their most perplexing issues. Then, together, we will reason our way to solutions that make us all stronger.
Earl C. Duby, Jr.
The CXO Forum