I have used the title Chief Technology Officer for some time and have fulfilled that role either by that name or as Technical Director or whatever for a few years. During that time I have become more and more convinced that the role of CTO is inadequate to describe the requirements of some posts and that companies might be better off with a role of Chief Science Officer.
Science has a specific meaning and has connotations of research that may be confused with a pure technology role but as I go through my business life I see more overlap than ever between the two.
A concrete example of that being a task that requires a multi disciplined approach to problem resolution that would fall outside of a pure technology role. Designing a product today might have aspects of electronics, engineering, software technology choices and even chemistry or biotechnology that would outstrip the skill-set of a career technology manager.
I have recently been involved in such a project where the requirements of electronic design, knowledge of software systems, some physics and engineering all have to come together in the right order to create a product and the research aspects of the system are quite demanding.
Perhaps in the not-so-distant future a CSO role will become more important as we begin to integrate diverse technologies into everyday items. What do you think?
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