Eeek! Geek! Picture this: the CIO of a huge paper-products company is sitting in the boardroom surrounded by top executives. (True story, as recently told by the CIO.) He"s walking through a very complex presentation on the company"s latest application deployments when the vice chairman starts drawing squares in the air with his hands. The CIO asks, "What are you doing?" The vice chairman responds, "Boxes, dummy. I"m drawing boxes. We just make boxes. It"s very simple. Keep it simple."

Harsh, yes. But it happened. IT executives need to understand that business users don"t have patience for all the mumbo jumbo. Your job is to make it simple. According to "The CIO Profile," a recent Forrester Research report, CIOs are still perceived as techies, although they"re working more closely with the business than ever.

The report, based on a survey of more than 900 IT and business execs, notes that while CIOs continue to rise higher on the corporate ladder -- with 40 percent reporting directly to the CEO -- they come primarily from tech backgrounds and spend most of their time on tech issues, which can explain the common perception.

The result? "Business technology users report dissatisfaction with IT"s communication of IT priorities and new technology adoption," says analyst Bobby Cameron, the report"s author. And what to do? "CIOs need to embrace the concepts, terminology, and processes of marketing: creating marketing plans, executing campaigns, and boosting IT"s brand equity within the firm," Cameron writes.

That"s a little glib. I don"t agree that it"s all about marketing -- outcomes count -- but IT execs need to understand that when it comes to corporate power and influence, perception often trumps reality.