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Naked CIO: Stand up and be recognised
Even if it's as a 'most hated business executive'...

By Naked CIO

Published: Monday 13 October 2008

Don't be afraid of seeking out awards for your and your organisation's achievements, says the Naked CIO.

How important is it to CIO's and companies to be recognised by peers for the work they do?

Autumn is awards season and many of the people and companies we know will be nominated for awards of excellence due to personal or organisational achievement.

I have participated in many of these awards dinners and have had the luxury of even being on the winning end once or twice. From personal experience the positive aspects of the wins were a lift in employee moral and recognition of the IT department within the organisation

Individually I suppose there is also some benefit to winning awards as validation of your own work, though this sort of public recognition only goes so far, especially to me.

Take, for example, this column. Many readers have pointed out that writing under an alias seems cowardly. Yet I differ with that opinion. For many people writing an article is about pride and publicity but I seek nothing more from this than sharing experiences and opinions that hopefully inspire others to think about key issues.

But back to peer recognition. Along with awards there are now many sites that allow people to rank everything and everyone. One in particular I am aware of is UnSpun by Amazon where users can list absolutely anything and rank them.

Recently I found I was ranked (my real name - not Naked CIO) on a list of 'most despised business executives' - along with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (although I was much lower down the list than those two, thankfully).

Now it is never nice to be on such a list and while there are plenty of reasons why an individual could possibly think of me in that way, I am confident it is not a persistently held opinion of me.

It got me thinking, however, about the old saying that all publicity is good publicity. Being on a list at all is in some way an accomplishment, as is winning an award or even being nominated. As both the Naked CIO and in real life, I have never been afraid to share opinions as I believe it is critical to advancing our vocation and improving ourselves - even if I am sometimes wrong.

So please think about your organisation and what you have accomplished and don't be afraid to stand up and be recognised for a job well done by applying for various awards.

Equally never be afraid to have an opinion and to get others involved in constructive debate about key IT and business issues. I know one thing for certain, if you are frustrated or disappointed by something within the industry there will be others that share your opinion - speak out if you need to.

In the meantime log into UnSpun and add your most despised business executives so my name will be dropped from the list!