Off the Cuff

Mike Jones

TITLE: CIO

COMPANY: Silverleaf Resorts Inc., Dallas

ANNUAL REVENUE: $200 million

INDUSTRY SECTOR: Time-share vacation resorts

TIME IN JOB: 15 years

BEST ADVICE EVER RECEIVED: Don't rush to apply the whiz-bang technical stuff. Focus on the business problem.

FROM WHOM: A manager at Computalog.

FAVORITE QUOTE: "Change your thoughts, and you change your world." -- Norman Vincent Peal

FIRST JOB: A summer job at General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin Corp.) working on an inventory control project.

BEST CIO DECISION: Hiring the staff here. Some heads of IT are afraid of hiring people who are technically better. But you can't be.

ON WORKING FOR A MIDMARKET FIRM: We're small enough that we need to have people who are jacks-of-all-trades.

BEST CAREER MOVE: Coming to Silverleaf. I've had the opportunity to move into different departments.

FAVORITE GUILTY PLEASURE: It might sound a little nerdy, but PC strategy games like Civilization.

UPCOMING IT PROJECT: Changing our in-house-developed marketing package to get our direct-mail campaigns out faster

BIGGEST CAREER INFLUENCE: A boss at Computalog, who taught me to find good people and then give them some rope and see what they can do

BEST PERSONALITY TRAIT: Having perspective and the ability to see multiple sides of an issue.

WORST PERSONALITY TRAIT: Keeping too much paper; my inbox is chock-full.

Lauren Horwitz, former managing editor, production, for CIO Decisions, is now managing editor for TechTarget's Data Center Media Group. Write to her at lhorwitz@techtarget.com.

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