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The job of the chief technology officer is becoming more, well ... technical.

It feels a little weird to say it — the job is supposed to be technical, right? — but there’s a lot more to think about now and a lot more riding on the choices we make.

For one thing, there’s a major shift going on in the world of IT.

It used to be that a CTO could focus on what software to buy (most of it) and what to write in-house (a few applications that could give the company a competitive advantage). We’d decide what to buy after reading a number of reports and setting up a few "application bakeoffs." Then we’d assemble our best-in-class stack and manage that with an eye toward total cost of ownership. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but you know what I’m talking about.

Now things are getting more complex, but also more interesting.

Bill Joy, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, where I’m the CTO, was fond of saying, "Innovation happens elsewhere," meaning no company has a lock on new ideas. It also means that, as CTOs, we face a fascinating challenge: How do we prepare our enterprises — in terms of architecture, infrastructure, security and so on -- to take advantage of something that happens elsewhere, something we don’t control?

Every customer I’ve talked to recently recognizes the importance of building a service-oriented architecture, and different companies are in different stages of that process. However, the more progressive ones are asking, "How do I open that up so other people can incorporate my services into new hybrid services?"

The old IT question: "How do I choose the right vendors for my application stack?"

The new IT question: "What can I do to stimulate innovation for my company outside my company?"

Think Web 2.0. Think mashups.

I often wonder about all the incoming packages I can expect in a given week. What is in the pipeline for me at DHL, FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service?

It should be possible to create a hybrid service, or mashup, that combines package tracking from various delivery companies so that I can go to one place to satisfy my curiosity. There may be things that have been on back order or that I’m particularly eager to receive. Will the delivery come today, or will I have to wait until tomorrow? In either case, it would be great to know what’s on tap.

Now, imagine that you’re in the delivery business yourself. You might still want to know what deliveries you can personally expect, but you probably won’t want to put that service together yourself in combination with all your competitors. But the combination is what would make the service appealing, and if someone else created the service, you certainly wouldn’t want to be left out.