CIO Focus Groups are live, interactive panels of CIOs who volunteer time as a fund raising activity of the CIO Scholarship Fund organization. The CIO SF has a commitment to raising funds for student scholarships, and they accomplish this with the Focus Groups and the publication of IT related books [see the CIOFocusGroups.com website home page view and order]. There are more than 50 affiliated members of the CIO Scholarship Fund, including the current CIOs of Trimble, Synopsis, UC Berkeley, PGP, Serena Software, Autodesk, Palm, and others, and the former CIOs of Brocade, Altera, Yahoo, VMWare, Symantec, Lucent, Hitachi Data Systems, HotWire and TiVo.

Here's how the CIO Focus Groups work:

The purchasing company buys time in front of these effective [and opinionated] Chief Information Officers.

The Forums are individual sessions of 3-5 CIOs. Before the session begins, NDA's are signed and the company presents a check for a fully tax deductible fee, up-front, usually from $5000 to 10,000 [depending upon length of Forum and number of CIOs], which is made out to the CIO Scholarship Fund, a registered non-profit organization.

Donating companies have used these sessions as try-outs for radical new technology approaches, dry runs for media rollouts, tests for the appeal of product modifications, and blatant sales pitches. The CIO team, under non-disclosure, is committed to providing direct, constructive feedback and suggestions as requested: from the basic concept of the talk, strategic discussions about timing and pricing, to the method of presentation and effectiveness.

Please click here to inquire about or reserve a CIO Focus Group.