Computerworld wants to know what a CTO does

A reporter from Computerworld called me recently to discuss the difference between the CTO and the CIO. It is common to confuse the two positions when discussing IT companies and a number of dot.com's. For those, the CTO often fills a position that is like an "Assistant to the CIO". The CTO discussed IT services, deploying capabilities to customers, etc. -- always tied to IT products and services.

However, when you are talking about the CTO of a cellular phone company, the person is more likely to deal with the strategy side of new technology and research related to cell phones.

The Computerworld reporter wanted to focus on the "Assistant to the CIO" role, while I wanted to talk about the non-CIO positions. In my own research on the subject I spent several months confused by the diversity of CTO's. Eventually I settled on "5 Patterns of the CTO", one of which is CIO-like.

It will be interesting to see how my comments on the subject come out in the article.