The festive season is on. This is a time when some CIOs tend to relax and make holiday plans during Christmas and the year end. Some others, particularly those who head IT in E-commerce and retail companies have a busy time meeting the demand arising due to various discounts. But this being the festive season is also a time when people buy gifts for their friends and peers. Considering that most CIOs are technophiles it makes sense that you gift them a gadget that will add to their armoury. Here’s our take on what are ideal gifts you can buy for that CIO who is either your friend or a peer.
The best USB drive that money can buy
There was a time when storage was not considered sexy enough. But not anymore. Today you can pack hundreds of Gigabytes on a tiny flash drive. There are plenty of options available in the market. Some vendors even offer a nifty USB drive that packs a humongous 256 GB of storage. It’s something that’s simple and comes handy for that CIO friend of yours. And it just costs a couple of thousands of rupees.
Portable cellphone powerbanks
A cell phone is the most important device anybody possesses. It’s important that it is always charged so that one has access to various apps and contacts all the time. There are a whole variety of portable cell phone power banks available today. Many of these are wireless powerbanks. Most of them are satellite power banks that come with their own dock and some of them also provide a USB output. And the best of them cost between Rs.1500-2000.
Gifts for the audiophile CIO
If your friend is an audiophile there are a whole range of devices you can gift him or her. If you really want to binge you have the Apple Airpod which retails at some 20 odd thousand rupees, but delivers great audio quality. It also provides quick access to Apple applications like Siri. Then there are a whole range of bluetooth speakers and bluetooth home theatre systems available from leading vendors at various price ranges. Any of these should put a smile on the face of the audiophile CIO.
A gift for an avid reader
If your CIO friend is an avid reader and loves to catch upon books and magazines in his free time you can relieve him or her of the burden of carrying physical books when he or she is travelling. Pick up an Amazon Kindle paperwhite. Considering that Amazon has the biggest e-book store on the Internet this should be an ideal gift to that bibiliophile CIO.
A wearable device
Here you have a whole range of options starting from Apple watch to Samsung and others which come with a whole range of features that include GPS, altimeter, barometer and HRM. It would make the ideal gift for the CIO on the move. You could also look at FitBit kind of devices that help them keep track of various physical fitness parameters like blood pressure, exercise etc. There are a whole range of them available in the market.
A mobile device
An Apple iPad Pro (6th gen) is almost as good as a replacement for a laptop as one can use most office applications including spreadsheets, powerpoint and word. There is also a convertible laptop from HP which has some great multi-tasking features. You can pick and choose depending on what’s ideal for that CIO friend of yours.
A gift for the petrolhead CIO
If your CIO friend is a petrolhead and loves his/her bike or car there are numerous things to gift them. Bosch has a nifty 1500 watt car/bike washer that comes really handy. There are a whole range of tyre pressure gauges available on Amazon. You also get some nifty air vent mounts that help you keep your mobile phones secure while driving and a whole range of other products like car vacuum cleaners among others.
Photograph: Jennifer C./Flickr
