By Mike Cooke, Aveek Guha, Mark Lockwood 

IT is beginning to lose control of new technology development. Web 2.0 and new media technologies, such as blogs, wikis, and social networks, are spreading rapidly through companies, often without IT's direct involvement. Marketing departments, "shadow" organisations within a company, and even external agencies have begun taking the innovation lead with these tools, often explicitly outside IT's domain.

CIOs and their IT departments must take the lead in these emerging technologies. As new technologies become more popular, and some prove to be strategically relevant drivers of business value, it is incumbent on CIOs to become knowledgeable about and comfortable with them and provide the leadership necessary for the organisation to use them effectively.

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