IDG Contributor Network: What CIOs can learn from Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock

In the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock thriller Rear Window, James Stewart portrays a paranoid magazine photographer convinced one of his neighbors murdered his wife. Stewart’s L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries character is isolated in his small Greenwich Village apartment recovering from a broken leg. He passes the time watching his neighbors through a telephoto lens as he sits in a wheelchair before a window with a panoramic courtyard view. Jeff collects snapshots of the truth, and he spends hours with his thoughts running amok. But in the end, he stays alive and helps solve the crime because he leverages his paranoia for good.

For CIOs facing constant transition, this classic film serves as a parable about harnessing the power of paranoia and uncertainty to your benefit and the benefit of your organization and its customers. It also displays the danger of isolation in vivid Technicolor.

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