What's a Chief Information Officer (CIO)?

In doing a search yesterday, I ran across hundreds of websites that stated that they offered CIO services.

When organizations first started to make use of computers, they called the manager of the group various names from Data Processing Manager, to IT Manager and most recently CIO. While most of these positions had a very similar role, that of managing the activities of the folks that supported computers at the company, the CIO was supposed to identify a new role, that of a business person who was responsible for helping the business to exploit IT to make it more profitable and effective.

While many CIOs still manage the IT function, it detracts from their ability to exploit technology to improve the business. If IT is outsourced, there still is a need for a CIO. Would CIOs be more effective in this situation? Could they add more value to the business? If the business didn't want to outsource would it make sense for the IT Manager and CIO to be two separate positions?

Many small businesses have outsourced IT support, because they just can't afford to hire the type of computer skills that they need. Even if they don't outsource, their computer staff do not have the business skills to help them take advantage of technology.

If they check the Internet for a CIO, most of what they find is IT support businesses that call themselves CIOs. They aren't. They are just computer and network support companies. They don't try to understand thye business, they simply fix what's broken.

If we really want to help small businesses to exploit Information Technology, then we need to focus on their business and not on fixing computer problems. That's not to say that keeping technology stable is not important (it is critical), but we should be past that. Maybe we need a new title instead of CIO, since CIO is being misused so much.