Join the CTO club

In my years writing this column for CTOs, the positive e-mail I’ve received often boils down to a simple message: At last, someone out there understands what I’m going through professionally each day. Most CTOs don’t have others in their companies who can relate to the unique demands of their work.

Fortunately, a few enterprising CTOs across the country have started and are running successful CTO clubs to provide a regular venue for peer interaction. I talked to two of them recently about what makes a successful CTO club: Jon Williams, who co-founded and runs the New York CTO Club with fellow CTO Igor Shindel, and Oded Noy, who runs the Los Angeles CTO Forum. Jon and Oded run their clubs independently and a bit differently from each other but common threads run through both organizations.

In both clubs, members find value in swapping information on vendors, technology solutions, and technology trends but the real payoff comes in face-to-face conversations about “what keeps you up at night?” issues. In about one-third of its meetings, the Los Angeles group has one of its members present a case study dealing with a problem currently being faced in their organization.

These sessions follow a template that the club has developed, with the presenter itemizing actionable concerns and members offering feedback. Oded describes this as “business school for CTOs,” noting that these mutually helpful sessions have been important in creating the “glue” that holds the group together and creates ongoing value. The members of the New York club share this sort of information in a less formal way, but the common thread in both groups is openness and confidentiality among members — what is said in the club stays in the club, period.

Membership to both clubs is by invitation only, and the CTO title itself is not nearly as important as senior-level IT management experience. The New York club doesn’t admit CTOs from vendors as a rule, but the L.A. club is not as restrictive — although bringing a sales agenda to a CTO meeting in either city is certain to breed immediate disfavor in the group. In both groups, active participation is the price of membership, and potential members who can’t commit to regular attendance are not considered for membership. According to Jon, the participation requirement means that some very high-level CTOs at large companies have been denied membership because they were unable to comply with the time commitment.

As the co-founder of the New York CTO Club, Jon offers some useful advice on starting your own club. First, don’t be too ambitious with your first few meetings because it takes time for the group to gel and the members to gain a level of trust — give it at least six months. Keep the rules of the club very simple. In fact, Jon told me about one rule that Igor Shindel made in the early days of the group that has limited group management overhead: If the group ever spends more than an hour discussing the rules of the group, the group must disband immediately.

If you want to start a CTO club in your area, send me an e-mail and I will be glad to hook you up with CTOs like Jon and Oded for advice. Also, visit my Weblog for extended information on CTO clubs in other cities and the CTO club concept itself. Starting and running such a club isn’t easy, but the rewards are substantial. i