Business Manageres look to IT Departments to add value

According to eWeek, an overwhelming 96% of midside businesses see their IT Departments as a strategic part of their business. Managers who are not in IT see that remote access for their workers are more productive. They are also seeing that it is important for a company to be mobile.

Does your company look at IT as a strategic department? Do many employees at your company work remotely?

LinkedIn strikes a deal with Twitter

According to the Bits Blog at the New York Times, Twitter has struck a deal with LinkedIn. The professional networking site will soon feature incoming tweets.

According to Allen Blue, LinkedIn’s co-founder and vice president of product strategy, "Twitter is not only a massively open platform, but also it’s a place where there’s a tremendous amount of professional information already being shared, and we wanted to be sure that was coming to our LinkedIn user base.” By integrating Twitter into LinkedIn, the professional networking site can enable more conversation, as they aspire to be the hub for all professional conversation.

We've seen Twitter be used for marketing, but there's no real spotlight on how many business conversations are taking place. What will the partnership do for the business world? Will Twitter become a more integrated part of communication and business plans?

Cisco Aids in Business to Business Collaboration with New Social Software

According to this article in CNN Money Cisco has recently introduced several product improvements to its already existing line of collaboration portfolio. It also announced its launch of two new markets - enterprise social software and hosted email. It's goal is to bring the collaborative power of communities to businesses.

Cisco TelePresence and Unified Communications allow for collaboration by delivering video, voice, and presence capabilities throughout the organization. It will be interesting to see the companies that will quickly follow suit.

Less than 2 Weeks Away: ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts

PW & WCBA is right around the corner, November 16-18 in Anaheim, CA, and we’d like for you to take a look at the keynotes speaking at our upcoming West Coast Conference. Our featured keynotes include Vincent Cirel, SVP / CIO of Norwegian Cruise Line, David King, CIO of WellDyne, Inc., James A. DiMarzio, CIO of Mazda North American Operations, and Richard Baily, VP of Go To Market for Xerox just to name a few – over 40+ industry experts will be presenting. Make sure to check out the rest of the keynotes.

Also, take some time to view our complete lineup of speakers below, as well as a special priority code we’ve set up for our blog readers for 20% off the registration rate: PWWLINKEDIN. Hope to see you in Anaheim in less than 2 weeks!

Visit the ProjectWorld Homepage

View the ProjectWorld Brochure

View the ProjectWorld 2009 Speaker Roster

Register
Save 20% off the registration rate when you mention code PWWLINKEDIN

Enterprise 2.0 and Community management

Dion Hinchcliffe recently wrote a great article on ZD Net that looks at the connection of a company's online community manager and their success with enterprise 2.0. Even though many companies are having a hard time placing these things into the right flow charts and organizational processes, Hinchcliffe has seen a definite correlation between organized Enterprise 2.0 and online community management. See a chart he included in the article below, and read the full article here.

What today's top IT decision makers want to know more about

CIO Magazine recently released the results of their Top 10 IT Technologies being researched by top technology decision makers poll - #1 on the list: Cloud Computing.

Has your organization taken the first steps to adopting this new technology? NOW is the time to take action. Join us this November at the Cloud Computing & Virtualization Summit and find out if the Cloud is right for your business and what you need to do to implement this new technology.

Get the knowledge and insights you need to make the decision to transition to the Cloud from leading experts from Intel, TransUnion, IBM, Amazon Web Services and more. Hear first hand how your peers were able to prove the value of the Cloud to their entire enterprise, complete the transition, and measure results.

Download the program agenda for the complete speaking roster and presentation details.

Visit the event website

View the speaker list

Register today and save $100 off the standard rates - Reserve your spot today!

Dell and Salesforce team together for cloud computing

According to eWeek, Dell and Salesforce.com have teamed together to bring mid-size companies cloud computing. The two are working on bringing customer relationship management to their clients via cloud computing.

Steve Felice, Dell's president of global small and medium-sized business operations, stated:
“Dell and Salesforce.com are providing customers with an integrated and proven solution that we have been testing extensively in our own organizations “Today, Salesforce.com runs its data centers and PCs on Dell equipment and Dell has integrated Salesforce CRM with our on-premise applications using Dell’s PowerEdge servers and Dell Integration Services."

Read the full article here.

Mergers & Acquisitions Offer Huge Opportunities For CIOs

Global CIO Blog writer Harvey Koeppel offers up a great look at how M&A can offer CIOs an unparalleled opportunities. Koeppel writes that M&A are a perfect opportunity for CIOs to step up into a leadership position and work with their partners in the business to not just combine but truly integrate the best parts of each of the legacy processes into a new and innovative best-of-breed process: in effect, a better way of doing business for the newly merged enterprise.

For more tips and information, check out the original article here.

Global CIO: Mergers & Acquisitions Offer Huge Opportunities For CIOs

CIOs Believe that BPM is a Key Priority in Many Firms

This post on CIO.com discusses that even despite the economic situation, investing in BPM tools is still a main priority and focus for many firms. A report called "Driving Value with Process Improvement" written by Forrester Research indicates that CIOs must embrace BPM technology early in the life-cycle. Are you seeing the same trend across your firms? Is IT really investing more in BPM technology?

LinkedIn's Profile Bookmarking

According to Read Write Web, LinkedIn is now offering a way for it users to bookmark the profiles in a manageable way while browsing profiles. Users can bookmark important profiles, store them in folders, and add notes about why they've bookmarked the contact. The video below explains this tool.

Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 Ranks Canada's Top Technology Companies

Topping the Fast 50 list is Montreal-based ProSep, an oil and gas processing equipment company that posted an 18,070-per-cent five-year revenue growth. It also rated in the awards' Technology Green 15 rankings and the leadership awards. The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards rank companies based on their past five-year revenue growth rates, rates that dropped on average for 2009 to 1,993 per cent, down from 2,456 per cent the previous year.

For the full list, please click here.

CIOs should go primitive in communication

This recent post on CIO.com highlights that even though social media tools like Facebook, YouTube, twitter, email, technorati, and various other collaborative technology is popular now, it might not be the best choice for communication and messaging. Loraine Antrim mentioned that going "primitive" like a simple phone call or in-person meetings can give CIOs a strategic advantage for many critical situations.

Going "primitive" allows the CIO to engage in a more personal level. Here are some examples as detailed by the post when CIOs should go "primitive".

1. When body language can make a world of difference in your communication. At times a simple gesture or a shrug of your shoulder can really aid in communicating your point. Also, when the tone of voice is important CIOs might want to make a live phone call instead of tweeting or emailing.

2. When attempting to persuade or influence. Any type of persuasion is best done in person and in live delivery. Social media communication is best for expanding on data points.

IT Leadership Forum Speaker Profile: Jerry Luftman, Professor, Stevens Institute of Technology

Jerry Luftman
Professor
Stevens Institute of Technology, School of Management

Dr. Luftman is a Distinguished Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, School of Management and the Associate Dean of Stevens’ Information Systems programs. In this capacity, Luftman manages and conducts projects, research, and executive programs about business-IT alignment. Among his many clients are IBM, U.S. government federal agencies, CitiGroup, Merck, AT&T, Lucent, and Prudential. He is the founder of Stevens graduate IS programs, which is recognized as one of the largest in the world. Prior to his work at Stevens, Dr. Luftman worked at IBM as a program manager at the Advanced Business Institute, where he played a significant role in defining and introducing IBM’s Management Consulting Group. He has had success as a CIO, Management Consultant, and academic.

His framework for assessing strategic alignment maturity is fundamental in helping clients achieve the management, technology and business process changes required to achieve improved IT-business integration. He has served on the SIM Executive Board for over ten years and was the NJ Chapter President. Dr. Luftman has authored or co-authored over a dozen books.

Don't miss Jerry's opening session Leadership Through IT at the IT Leadership Forum this November 2-4 in Phoenix, AZ!

NASA Names CIO

InformationWeek.com reports today that NASA has a new CIO. Linda Cureton will assume new post at NASA headquarters next week from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where she is currently the CIO. Cureton replaces Bobby German, who had been acting CIO at NASA. German will return to his former role as deputy CIO.

NASA is moving forward with a major series of IT services contracts called the Information Technology Infrastructure Integration Program (I3P) that will be worth more than $4 billion. According to the I3P Website, reviewing finalized RFPs for I3P will be among Cureton's first tasks. Cureton will also manage a number of other IT efforts as NASA's top IT official, including continued IT centralization and consolidation. She will also have some oversight over IT projects at NASA's space centers.

NASA Names CIO

Free Web Seminar - Navigation Tips for Exploring the IIBA BABOK 2.0

Date: Wed, Oct 7, 2009
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT

Have you ever gotten lost when traversing through the IIBA® BABOK® 2.0? How quickly can you find pathways through the Guide? How easily can you trace your way from one key element to another? Whether you are new to the discipline of business analysis, someone studying for the CBAP® or even a seasoned business analysis professional, navigating through the BABOK® can be a daunting task.

In this webinar we’ll explore a variety of pathways through the BABOK. Your navigator for the session is requirements guru Mary Gorman, a four year veteran of the IIBA Body of Knowledge Committee.

IIBA® International Institute of Business Analysis®
BABOK® Business Analysis Body of Knowledge®

What you will learn:

• Visualize the underlying foundation of the BABOK® (knowledge areas, tasks, techniques and requirements models)
• Trace foundation elements throughout the BABOK®
• Apply analysis modeling techniques to navigate the BABOK®

Speaker:
Mary Gorman, CBAP™, Senior Associate at EBG Consulting, assists teams to build the right product through exploring, analyzing and confirming their requirements. Mary has over 25 years experience as a consultant, mentor, trainer, facilitator, process engineer, developer, and analyst. In addition to serving on the IIBA Body of Knowledge Committee, Mary also helped create the certification exam for the Certified Business Analysis Professional™ (CBAP™).

Register below, mention priority code M2120W3BLOG
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/974065696

Google, MLB.com recognized for best on mobile web

According to eWeek, the Yankee Group has reported that some of the best mobile websites come from Google, Yahoo and MLB.com were reported to have some of the best capabilities for their websites when it comes to the mobile web. According to the website, the biggest difference for websites from this year to last is that they have built in functionality to better service users who are using smart phones. Read more about the report here.

IT Leadership Forum Speaker Profile: Dr. Michael Valivullah, CIO, PMP, United States Capitol Police

Dr. Michael Valivullah
PMP, CIO, Associate Director, Office of Information Systems
United States Capitol Police

Dr. Valivullah is a Planning Specialist, Office of Information Systems, at the United States Capitol Police, United States Senate. Dr. Valivullah is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)and GSA and Federal CIO Council certified Chief Information Officer (CIO). He worked as a Program Control Manager for EDS, an Information Systems Integrator and Project Manager for Lockheed Martin and a Consultant for Sabre Systems, US Airways, MCI, etc. He has extensive knowledge in Software, Database and Systems Development, Requirements Management, Enterprise Architecture, Migrations, Configuraion Management, Quality Assurance, Operations and Testing.

Don’t miss Dr. Michael Valivullah's session "How Can I Become A Successful IT Manager and Leader?" at the IT Leadership Forum this November held in Phoenix, AZ.

CIOs Leading Companies Out of the Downturn

CIO.com looks at how CIOs are at the forefront of leading organizations out of the current downturn. Exclusive research carried out by CIO UK and global recruitment and professional services supplier Harvey Nash reveals how CIOs being called on to drive change, efficiency and leadership.

Over 1,300 CIOs and IT leaders across Europe were surveyed by Harvey Nash and CIO UK as part of the Harvey Nash IT Leadership survey. The strategic importance of the CIO and the understanding by management boards of IT was startling. Seventy-four per cent of the CIOs surveyed said that the current down turn was a good opportunity to raise the profile of IT.

Find out more about this study and about how CIO's have helped reverse industry downturns within their organizations.

CIOs Leading Companies Out of the Downturn

IT Leadership Forum Speaker Profile: Ed Trainor, CIO, Amtrak

Ed Trainor
CIO
Amtrak

Ed Trainor is Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President, IS for Amtrak. Prior to his return to Amtrak, he held the position of CIO for Paramount Pictures. Trainor has held similar positions with the Southern California Gas Co., and Flying Tigers. He is a new member of the Capital Area SIM chapter but has previously served in several positions on the Executive Committee of the Southern California SIM chapter. After terms as VP, Partner and Service Provider Programs, and VP, Issues Advocacy Trainor served as SIM International’s President in 2003. Trainor has been a participant SIM Advanced Practices Council® and a sponsor of several participants in the Regional Leadership Forum.

Information Week also recently profiled Ed Trainor in which he mentioned that he foresees high-speed rail passenger corridors as a key component of a national transportation policy. You can view the article here.

Don’t miss Ed Trainor's session The Road to CIO & The Future Role of the CIO at the IT Leadership Forum this November held in Phoenix, AZ.

Leadershp Lessons from the Financial Crisis

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday on the year since Lehman fell and what CEO's and top executives can learn from how they handled themselves amidst a terrible fiscal year. Author Michael Useem writes,

Crisis leadership lesson one: The experience of managing through a crisis makes leaders stronger, more resilient and better prepared for the next one...Corporate leaders who survive and thrive use the crisis as a galvanizing force. "It's how you handle those setbacks," CEO John Chambers of Cisco Systems observed in an interview, "that really develops you."

So thinking back on this year and what's ahead for the next, how have your leadership skills changed to lead your team?

A Year Out, Leadership Lessons of the Crisis

Are CIOs Turning to MSPs for Competitive Advantage?

This latest post on CIO discusses how IBM's Daniel Rabbitt believes that "with the right provider, a medium-sized business can enjoy the same service levels as a Fortune 500 company, without the costs of building and maintaining an in-house solution."

According to research from Nemertes Research's 2009 Spring Benchmark 60 percent of participants are planning on increasing their managed services in 2009 and beyond. Some of the reasoning behind this is falling budgets, lack of specialized expertise, shrinking staff, and a bigger demand to support more complex applications.

IT Leadership Forum Speaker Profile: Charles Thompson, CIO, City of Phoenix

Charles Thompson

CIO

CITY OF PHOENIX


Take a look at Charles’s latest conversation with Biz Journals on how he plans to update Phoenix’s communication systems.


Information Technology Services coordinates the use of information technology across the various departments and agencies of Phoenix city government to ensure that accurate and timely information is provided to citizens, elected officials, management and staff.

The department also manages the city's radio, telephone, and enterprise computer network systems.


Don’t miss Charles’s session IT Governance: Cost Shifts vs. Cost Savings at the IT Leadership Forum this November held in Phoenix, AZ.

Should IT Directors View Enterprise 2.0 as a Process or Solution?

Oscar Berg recently posted on the content economy how he views enterprise 2.0 should be viewed as a process and not a solution. Oscar gives an example of how web 2.0 and social media are built on a core of values including honesty, participation, trust, and openness. But, if we were to just dump the solutions and applications from social media into a corporate setting people would not just start sharing and collaborating. The main reasoning behind this is because the same values that we find outside of work are not found in the corporate environment. Oscar includes a great quote from Gil Yehuda's enterprise 2.0 blog:

I don’t believe “Enterprise 2.0″ is a solution, I believe it is a description. I agree with the bold statement in Sameer Patel’s post: Enterprise 2.0 is a state that Enterprises achieve by employing an appropriate set of social computing concepts. I word it my way: “Enterprise 2.0 describes a transformed organization.”

Do you agree with Oscar that enterprise 2.0 has to been seen as a process instead of a tool?

Ten Great Ways to Crush Creativity

As at IT leader, you know the importance of finding creativity within your staff. Its important to look to them for innovations in processes and ways that can enhance your business environment and your bottom line. But are you actually crushing this enviornment of creativity? Take a look at this recent post by Paul Sloane on Stepcase Lifehack.

If you want to crush creativity in your organization and eliminate all the unnecessary bother of innovation then here are ten steps that are guaranteed to succeed.

1. Criticize

When you hear a new idea criticize it. Show how smart you are by pointing out some of the weaknesses and flaws which will hold it back. The more experienced you are, the easier it is to find fault with other people’s ideas. Decca Records turned down the Beatles, IBM rejected the photocopying idea which launched Xerox, DEC turned down the spreadsheet and various major publishers turned down the first Harry Potter novel. The same thing is happening in most organizations today. New ideas tend to be partly-formed so it is easy to reject them as ‘bad’. They diverge from the narrow focus that we have for the business so we discard them. Furthermore, every time somebody comes to you with an idea which you criticize, it discourages the person from wasting your time with more suggestions. It sends a message that new ideas are not welcome and that anyone who volunteers them is risking criticism or ridicule. This is a sure fire way to crush the creative spirit in your staff.

2. Ban brainstorms

Treat brainstorming as old-fashioned and passé. All that brainstorms do is throw up lots of new ideas that then have to be rejected. If your organization is not holding frequent brainstorm sessions to find creative solutions then you are not wasting time on new ideas. Instead you are sending a message to staff that their input is not required. If people insist on brainstorm meetings then make them long, rambling and unfocused with lots of criticism of radical ideas.

3. Hoard problems

The CEO and senior team should shoulder the responsibility for solving all the company’s major problems. Strategic issues are too complicated and high-level for the ordinary staff. After all, if people at the grass-roots knew the strategic challenges the organization faces then they would feel insecure and threatened. Don’t involve staff in serious issues, don’t tell them the big picture and above all don’t challenge them to come up with solutions.

4. Focus on efficiency not innovation

Focus solely on making the current business model work better. If we concentrate on making the current system work better then we will not waste time on looking for different systems. The current business model is the one that you helped develop and it is obviously the best one for the business. After all, if the makers of horse drawn carriages had improved quality they could have stopped automobiles taking their markets. The same principle applied with makers of slide rules, LP records, typewriters and gas lights.

5. Overwork

Establish a culture of long hours and hard work. Encourage the belief that hard work alone will solve the problem. We do not need to find a different way of solving a problem – rather we must just work harder at the old way of doing things. Make sure that the working day has no time for learning, fun, lateral thinking, wild ideas or testing of new initiatives.

6. Adhere to the plan

Plan in great detail and then do not deviate from the plan regardless of circumstances. ‘We cannot try that idea because it is not in the plan and we have no budget for it.’ Keep to the vision that was in the plan and ignore fads like market changes and customer fashions – they will pass.

7. Punish mistakes

If someone tries an entrepreneurial idea that fails then blame and retribution must follow. Reward success and punish failure. That way we will reinforce the existing way of doing things and discourage dangerous experiments.

8. Don’t look outside

We understand our business better than outsiders. After all we have been working in it for years. Other industries are fundamentally different and just because something works there does not mean it will work here. Consultants are generally over-priced and tell you things you could have figured out anyway. We need to find the solutions inside the business by working harder.

9. Promote people like you from within

Promoting from within is a good sign. It helps retain people and they can see a reward for loyalty and hard work. It means we don’t get polluted with heretical ideas from outside. Also if the CEO promotes people like him then he can achieve consistency and succession. It is best to find managers who agree with the CEO and praise him for his acumen and foresight.

10. Don’t waste money on training

Talent cannot be taught. It is it a rare thing possessed by a handful of gifted individuals. So why waste money trying to turn ducks into swans? Hire our kind of people and let them learn our system. Work them hard, keep them focused on our business model and do not allow them to fool around with crazy experiments. Workshops, budgets and time allocated to creativity and innovation are all wasteful extravagances. We know what we need to succeed so let’s just get on with it.

Ten Great Ways to Crush Creativity

5 Basic Reaons Why Enterprise 2.0 Projects Fail

Michael Krigsman recently posted on ZDNet that organizations can follow a simple guideline in order to avoid enterprise 2.0 failure. Here's a quick recap of his 5 points.

1.What’s in it for me’. Not just ‘What’s in it for us’ - Most failures occur at the initial planning phase where the typical business focus is on organization benefits and personal incentives. An example of this is how a sales rep would act in an online community as opposed to an engineer who would want to collaborate, learn, and share information.

2.Social software plays an important but limited role towards Enterprise 2.0 design - Another big stepping stone is premature technology selection. It's best to think of the performance objectives you're trying to affect and then deciding whether a best of breed solution is best of if you can stick with a general purpose platform.

3.Fix the True Break points in Your Organization - You must carefully think through inputs and outputs of enterprise 2.0 design before deploying anything.

4.Figure out the Optimal Ownership Structure - It can be quite confusing to figure out for this broad functional set in the enterprise. Do this instead, identify which benefits most closely support your performance objectives. This should help you figure out the right home for it in the enterprise.

5.There’s Metrics and then there’s Performance Goals - Explain to superiors that metrics for new media is different. You should measure your business based on conversations, engagement, affinity, frequency of sharing, and other such points.

Do you have any more reasons to add to this list?

IT Leadership Forum Speaker Profile: Daniel W. Rasmus, Director of Business Insights, Microsoft

Daniel W. Rasmus
Director of Business Insights
Microsoft

Daniel Rasmus is the Director of Business Insights at Microsoft Corporation.

Dan has 20 years of experience in the IT industry. Prior to joining Microsoft, Dan was the Vice President of Knowledge Management and Collaboration research at the Giga Information Group, a subsidiary of Forrester Research. Prior to Giga, Dan was manager of workgroup computing at Hughes Space and Communications, where he managed their knowledge manage programs among other roles.

Dan has held technical and management positions at Dataproducts, ITT Cannon, Cipher Dataproducts, Western Digital and Hughes Aircraft. He has managed large projects, including engineering collaboration systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations and the development of expert systems for manufacturing applications.

Dan is the author of nearly 200 trade journal articles and three books. His most recent book, Listening to the Future, was published by Wiley in 2008.

Dan attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, and received a certificate in intelligent systems engineering from the University of California, Irvine.

Don’t miss Daniel's session Preparing for the Business Environment of the Future at the IT Leadership Forum this November held in Phoenix, AZ.

Service Provides Immediate Threat Response and Support for Businesses Worldwide

The Nation reports that TippingPoint has introduced the TippingPoint Emergency Response Service, to help organizations immediately address the impact posed by cyber attacks, viruses and various other risks that continue to threaten network security without warning. For organizations that are experiencing a network security breach or feel they may be under attack, this complimentary service will provide network managers with access to TippingPoint's intrusion prevention system (IPS) to immediately stop threats from impacting the business.


TippingPoint Launches Industry's First Emergency Response Service

A Snapshot of IT Budgets in 2009

This article in CIO discusses how recent research taken by Forrester shows us that companies are reducing their IT budgets by not only laying off staff, but by also cutting back on benefits and employee salaries. The research firm took their information from more than 1,250 SMB IT decision-makers between the months of February to May 2009.

According to the report "IT staff salaries and benefits continue to be the largest part of the IT operating budget. Hiring freezes and layoffs top the list of actions that firms expect to take this year as a result of current economic conditions."

How are IT departments expected to innovate when there are so many cutbacks on resources?

ETS to Provide Recovery Audit Services for Dept of Veterans Affairs

Enterprise Technology Solutions LLC, a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business and Health Net Federal Services LLC, the government operations division of Health Net, Inc., today announced they have been awarded a contract by the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Administration Center to provide recovery audit services of VA payments made for non-VA hospital care to veterans. As the prime contractor for this agreement, ETS will provide program management, and Health Net Federal Services, the prime subcontractor, will provide technical and operational expertise.


Enterprise Technology Solutions and Health Net Federal Services Awarded Department Of Veterans Affairs Recovery Audit Services Contract

IT Leadership Forum Speaker Profile: Warren Fristensky, CIO, John Wiley & Sons

Warren Fristensky
CIO
John Wiley & Sons

Warren Fristensky is the SVP/CIO for John Wiley & Sons, responsible for all computer and communications services for the company worldwide. Coming to Wiley from the financial industry in 1992, Warren successfully reengineered the technology function and infrastructure to a common global platform architecture. Recent activities have been focused on integrating major acquisitions, evolving global hosting and development capabilities including outsourcing and offshoring, and helping the company transform to electronic publishing via the Internet. These activities have been recognized as innovative and leading edge by several industry publications and academic research studies. Prior to his position at Wiley, Warren was V.P. of advanced technology at Banker's Trust, and V.P. of Systems and Network Development for Bank of New York where he utilized early Internet technologies for the Bank's commercial and retail networks. Warren received his MBA degree from Pace University where he won top honors in Information Science, and holds a B.S. degree in Business Management and Data Processing from St. Peter's College in Jersey City, where he later served as an adjunct instructor in Data Processing. Warren serves on the MSIS Executive Board at Stevens Institute of Technology, and is a member of the Board of Regents at Saint Peter's College. Warren is an active member of the Society for Information Management.

Don’t miss Warren's session Managing in A Global Environment at the IT Leadership Forum this November held in Phoenix, AZ.

5 Recession-Era Strategies for Software Vendors (and Their Customers)

CIO.com has a great plan of action for software vendors and customers during the recession. Writer Eric Lai discusses that Accenture Ltd., the global consulting firm released two reports that, while aimed at executives at software vendors, can offer insight to their customers, such as enterprise CIOs.

Check out the article here, for recommendations for software vendors.

5 Recession-Era Strategies for Software Vendors (and Their Customers)

Archive Web Seminar from founder of CMS Watch: Enterprise Social Software: Ready for Prime Time?

For those of you who missed Tony Byrne's informative web seminar yesterday
Enterprise Social Software: Ready for Prime Time? here's your chance to view at your own leisure! Make sure to check back on the blog often more upcoming web seminars brought to you by the IT Leadership Forum. Don't forget if you're planning to attend the event make sure to mention ITWEB for 20% off the standard registration.

View the web seminar archive.

IT Leadership Forum Speaker Profile: Kathleen Barret President and CEO, IIBA

Kathleen Barret
President and CEO, IIBA

Kathleen Barret is the Program Manager for the Global Resourcing Centre of Competency within BMO Financial Group. With her team of GR consultants, Kathleen oversees BMO’s relationships with its multiple suppliers of India-based development resources for its information technology organization.

Kathleen started with BMO Financial Group in 2000 as a Business Analyst within the Call Centre business area. In January 2003, she moved to the BMO IT Best Practices group to lead the organizational charge to standardize and ISO certify its requirements management process. From 2004 to 2006, Kathleen further refined and integrated the requirements management process as BMO adopted the CMMI software development framework. In late 2006, she accepted the role of Program Manager for GR, leveraging her experience and knowledge of business analysis to ensure effective off-shoring of development work.

In March of 2004, Kathleen became the first and current President of the International Institute of Business Analysis, a professional association focused on defining the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge^® (BABOK^®) and implementing a certification program for qualified practitioners.

Kathleen has over 20 years experience in the Information Technology field. Particular fields of expertise include networking, research, benchmarking, retail and e-business in large and small enterprises. In addition to BMO Financial Group, Kathleen has worked for major corporations such as Manulife Financial, Bell Canada, KPMG and IDC, and spent 10 years with a benchmarking consulting company, Real Decisions, that was later acquired by Gartner Group.

Kathleen received her degree in International Economics from Georgetown University.

Don’t miss her session Back to Basics - Coming out ahead after the recession is over at the IT Leadership Forum this November held in Phoenix, AZ.

http://iirusa.com/itleadership

Kathleen's biography courtesy of theIIBA.org

Obama Administration Pushes Open IT Innovation

According to this recent post on the CIO blog Barack Obama and his administration is pushing for agencies to pursue an open innovation approach to government. One of the departments heavily favored to adopt this practice quickly is John Holdren, who heads up science and technology. George Bush's administration was highly criticized for the lack of involvement and idea exchange in their technology agencies, will this finally change/

Sharepoint is shining in the recession

The Bits Blog at the New York Times recently took a look at how Sharepoint is shining in the current economic downturn. It's a software, much like Microsoft Office, that has taken many different applications and combined them for use in one program. It's used to both create and manage content for their websites. Read the full article here.

How to Strengthen the Office of the CIO

In his two part series on GovTech.com, Andy Blumenthal discusses ways that the office of the CIO can be changed to better serve the us population and the government body. Blumenthal's discussion focuses around to identifying, describing and linking the core elements that make up and support an Office of the CIO for the purpose of demonstrating how that will lead to improved IT operations. When the CIO is properly supported, program and project management can be executed with strategic intent and alignment.

We encourage you to check out both articles in Blumenthal's series and share your thoughts with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

How to Strengthen the Office of the CIO: Part 1
To Strengthen The Office of the CIO: Part 2

Reminder: Free Webinar Next Week by Tony Byrne of CMS Watch: Enterprise Social Software: Ready for Prime Time?

Next Thursday, the IT Leadership Forum in association with Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch, will present a one-hour long web seminar on Thursday, August 13th from 2:00 - 3:00 PM EDT. Here's a brief description of that web seminar.

You can now find numerous case studies of successful departmental implementations of various social software technologies, such as wikis, blogs, forums, tags, micro-blogs, and so forth. However, extending those projects to enterprise-wide initiatives gets trickier.

Noted independent analyst and evaluation firm CMS Watch will explain how the challenge in enterprise deployments stems partly from immature technology. Many social computing tools – even from large, established vendors – lack key functionality. But the rest of the challenge lies in organizational factors, including common barriers to adoption.

This seminar will assess today’s social software and collaboration marketplace and offer concrete advice about how to select the right tool for your circumstances. It will also share best practices in enterprise deployment and adoption of social technology.

What you will learn by attending:
- Key success factors for enterprise-wide social software roll-outs
- How the enterprise social software marketplace breaks down into six categories
- Strengths and weaknesses of some of the major vendors
- How to pick the right tools for your enterprise
- What the future holds for 2010

Featured Speaker
Tony Byrne, Founder, CMS Watch

Register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/345059881
Mention Priority code G1M2114W1BLOG

Intel Taps Facebook Multitudes for Massive Research Efforts in Volunteer Computing

According to TechNewsWorld.com, Intel has built an application that will connect Facebook's More about Facebook masses to a volunteer computing application designed to boost the research efforts of three nonprofit organizations.

Progress Thru Processors is launching as a public beta and is available to all Facebook users. It runs as a background process on the computer, automatically directing idle processing power to the researchers' computational efforts. When the user's computer needs the processor performance, the application shifts into idle mode.

Progress Thru Processors' desktop client and application are based on software developed by the National Science Foundation-funded BOINC project at the University of California, Berkeley.

The process utilizes volunteer computing, which according to the report, has been around for a long time.

Progress Thru Processors is starting out with only three research endeavors:

* Rosetta@home, which uses computing power to help find cures for cancer and other diseases such as AIDS and Alzheimer's;
* Climateprediction.net, dedicated to understanding global climate change by predicting the Earth's climate and testing the accuracy of climate models; and
* Africa@home, which is currently focused on identifying strategies to combat malaria by studying simulation models of disease transmission and the potential impact of new antimalarial drugs and vaccines.

What do you think about utilizing volunteer computing for the greater good? Would you like to implement or join this effort with your business? We'd like to hear your thoughts.

Follow IT Leadership on Twitter!

The IT Leadership Forum now has a Twitter!

Follow us at:
http://twitter.com/itleaderforum

What are some of the IT Twitters that you recommend following?

IT Insights from one of the World Top Business IT Leaders

Here's some insight from a great CIO from JPMorgan Chase, Guy Chiarello. According to this post in Information Week, his advice on innovating through the economic downturn is to focus on innovation in IT infrastructure.

Chiarello explains that investing in IT infrastructure is critical now more than ever. Now is the time to tap new markets and make improvements. IT infrastructure must be ready for when the economy turns. Those IT departments that stand still are in deep trouble while those that are investing in innovation will come out strong through this recession. What is your IT dept doing to stay ahead of the game?

Encouraging IT innovation

CIO recently looked at how innovation can be promoted in IT. They look at the company Eurpac, and how every meeting, CIO Mike Skinner asks three questions: 1) Where are the resources invested? 2) What progress have we made? 3) What is our next goal?

Mike's goal is to constantly have his team looking forward and constantly fostering an innovative atmosphere. Do you have a similar initiative for your IT department? What do you do to promote innovation?

Free Web Seminar by Tony Byrne of CMS Watch - Enterprise Social Software: Ready for Prime Time?

In anticipation of the IT Leadership Forum this November we are putting on several webinars. This is the 1st in the series in which Tony Bryne from CMS Watch will be presenting "Enterprise Social Software: Ready for Prime Time?" on Thursday August 13th from 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT. Here's a brief description of the event:

You can now find numerous case studies of successful departmental implementations of various social software technologies, such as wikis, blogs, forums, tags, micro-blogs, and so forth. However, extending those projects to enterprise-wide initiatives gets trickier.

Noted independent analyst and evaluation firm CMS Watch will explain how the challenge in enterprise deployments stems partly from immature technology. Many social computing tools – even from large, established vendors – lack key functionality. But the rest of the challenge lies in organizational factors, including common barriers to adoption.

This seminar will assess today’s social software and collaboration marketplace and offer concrete advice about how to select the right tool for your circumstances. It will also share best practices in enterprise deployment and adoption of social technology.

What you will learn by attending:
- Key success factors for enterprise-wide social software roll-outs
- How the enterprise social software marketplace breaks down into six categories
- Strengths and weaknesses of some of the major vendors
- How to pick the right tools for your enterprise
- What the future holds for 2010

Featured Speaker
Tony Byrne, Founder, CMS Watch

Make sure to mention priority code G1M2114W1BLOG when registering.
Register here: http://bit.ly/1pn1Um

New video conferencing tool for small businesses

eWeek recently took a look at the video conferencing tool ooVoo. This video chat startup is meant for small businesses to be able to easily jump into video conferences. The line can hold up to six people at a time and the can chat via video and phone. Additional users can join via telephone line. This ad-free package lets users share their desktops without viewing any ads on the platform. Read the full article here.

IT Managers Must Listen to Honest Feedback in Order to Succeed

According to this article in CIO.com communication between teams and honest feedback from managers and employees is essential in order to successfully run an IT team. It might be tough to get feedback from customers in businesses, but meaningful feedback from managers should not be tough to get, especially since it is vital to your job.

When is the last time you received important feedback from one of your IT teams? How did it affect the project?

New IE 8 allows users to customize browser

Microsoft's IE8 has been designed to be customized by the person using it. The first time the user opens IE8, it allows the user to build the browser to hold the features that are relevant to the user.

Another important part for IE8:
"IE will never install, or become the default browser without your explicit consent. However, we heard a lot of feedback from a lot of different people and groups and decided to make the user choice of the default browser even more explicit. This change is part of our ongoing commitment to user choice and control."




Read the full article at eWeek here.

How can IT change if the NYPD still uses typewriters?

Cio.com recently wrote an article on why IT change is so hard within an organization, especially with the example they give of the NYPD signing a three year, $1million deal for typewriters. This comes after the magazine covered a story in 2003 on the NYPD and how Jim Onalfo took control of their IT department and made massive improvements in disaster recovery, wireless communication, and network infrastructure.

Even though these massive improvements have taken place in the past couple of years, it is evident that there is still a lot to be done. What are some of the IT issues your company is encountering?

Xobni has new premium offer

According to the Bits Blog at the New York Times, Xobni has expanded their offerings to help clear a busy inbox to a premium version of their services. As of Tuesday night, they were offering Xobni Plus, and the premium service would include the normal tool box with search capabilities. To read the other capabilities offered, read the article here. They're looking for the number of free users to increase, because they have more confidence is in the business due to the offering of a premium product.

Web Seminar: "Is LEADER spelled with an I?" Searching for Innovation in the World of Talent Development

Here's a web seminar that is being put on by one of our sister events that I thought our readers might be interested in.

About the webinar:
The success of leadership development, leadership transitions and leadership integration vary widely across industries, organizations and individuals. Why? In a recent research review, most executives expressed doubt that new leaders can step into new roles and deliver positive results. With all of the investments being made in talent management today, there are expectations that greater outcomes will be achieved. Please join Dr. David Yudis and explore some paths of possibility.

Featured Speaker
Dr. David Yudis, Director, Global Learning and Development, Disney

Date: Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT
Find out more and register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/501492696
Use Priority Code: G1M118W1BLOG

Twitter accounts for more than one person

Read Write Web mentioned yesterday new new platform that allows more than one person to manage a Twitter account: CoTweet. It's a device that is free for now, and allows multiple persons to access and tweet to one Twitter account. Read the full story here.

What's the best browser for the enterprise?

In a recent article at eWeek, they look at how Internet Explorer is one of the most widely used browsers in the enterprise, but may not be the best for the industry. They state that IE6 and IE7 are loosing market share quickly, but IE8 and Firefox 3 are gaining share quickly. He also points out that Firefox now controls 27.73%of the market, and Google, Opera and Apple all have single digit market share. So if IE is not the best for the enterprise, why does it have such a corner on the market? The article looks to suggest that since it is a standard feature on all new PCs, many companies see it as a quick and easy way for their employees to surf the web. What do you think? What is the best browser for the enterprise, and will IE loose its share anytime soon?

CIO's and Business Strategy

Michael Idinopulos discusses in this post in the Transparent Office that CIOs are still fighting for a seat at the strategy table when it comes to improving the way their company does business. IT is strategically important but most line managers fail to see that IT for more than just back-office support functions.

Enterprise 2.0 has changed all of this. Managers outside of the IT industry are figuring out that blogs, social networks, micromessaging, and other forms of online collaboration are changing the way that people interact with one another within a company. As an IT manager, companies will be looking at you to teach and explain the benefits that these social media outlets can have in an organization. That is why it is every so important to have IT managers on board discussing strategy with teams early on.

New IT Leadership LinkedIn Group

We've just launched a brand new LinkedIn group called IT Leadership that is designed for current or emerging IT Managers (up-and-coming IT leaders with CIO potential) who are looking to augment their technical skills with managerial and leadership competencies in order to work more collaboratively with business stakeholders and ultimately increase the influence on strategic initiatives across the enterprise. The group will look at these issues from the individual’s POV and discuss ways to hone personal leadership, communication and problem solving skills and also from the departmental level focusing on strategies to increase the strategic role of IT on business initiatives.

Join the IT Leadership Group

Microsoft Expressions to become a stand alone product

According to eWeek, Microsoft will be dropping Microsoft Media from it's media suite, Expressions Studio. It will instead become a stand-alone product that will be launched on July 10 in the San Fransisco area. Read the whole article here.

Meetings Drive Business

This is why companies need to continue to invest in business meetings. Not only will those who attend gain new and fresh perspectives from other attendees, but they’ll hear from top companies who have lived by the same philosophy. Investment in yourself and innovation are the key to your business. What have you done recently to invest in your business?

Will you be attending one of IIR’s IT events this year? What do you want to gain from the experience?

Meetings Drive Business

To catch enterprises eye, Google must make some changes

According to an article at eWeek, they believe that Google must find a way to change GMail and where it hosts the information before the enterprises will recognize it as a business tool.

Your Web browser must stretch itself to serve as an application host; your link to the Internet becomes more important than ever; and your continued use of the cloud application in question is tied tightly to the operational competence of your provider.



Read the full article here.

Ray Hood, CEO Qumu

Ran across a great interview with Ray Hood, CEO of Qumu from the good folks at FierceOnlineVideo. They caught up Hood to discuss the company's progress so far this year, its plans for the future, and what trends and highlights he sees in the online video industry.

Below are two excerpts from the conversation that particularly relates to our work with Enterprise. We welcome you to visit the entire article here.

FierceOV: Are there specific verticals where you are seeing greater uptake of enterprise video?

Hood: No specific vertical comes to mind as adopting much more quickly than others, but the size of the company is a factor. The larger enterprises are leading the way on adoption of streaming video, and we'll see that continue as we roll out products that allow for scheduling streaming video direct from calendars. The companies we've seen with the clearest benefits from our products have more than 5,000 employees and are geo-distributed.

FierceOV: What do you think the next "big thing" in enterprise video might be?

Hood: I think the convergence of technologies and ease of use with video will continue. For instance, an executive wants to have an event, he has three technologies at his disposal, what is the best choice: Qumu, Polycom or LiveMeeting? I think we need a clear and smooth transition to automatic selection of the best choice, given the present circumstances and what the exec wants to achieve with the meeting.

On the streaming side, I think the acceptance and adoption of H.264 as the standard will reduce latency in streaming events, and eventually, you'll be able to call on someone at a remote location to address a group in a multi-cast.

Microsoft, HP Tie the Knot on Unified Comm

Sean Michael Kerner of InternetNews.com reports that Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have officially joined forces for UC communicationons. "The move aims to better capitalize on burgeoning demand for UC solutions. Forrester Research has said the market for enterprise unified communications could grow as high as $14.5 billion by 2015, and that businesses will give about 60 percent of their workforce access to UC functions to improve their productivity." Kerner also reports that, "of course, interest in linking applications, devices and employees together through unified communications has also encouraged new efforts from other major industry luminaries, ranging from Cisco to Oracle."

Will the "marriage" work and offer more functionality to each companies software and development issues?

Microsoft, HP Tie the Knot on Unified Comm

Motorola brings new network options to enterprises

According to eWeek, Motorola has developed a new LAN solution which will offer more to enterprises looking to enhance their networks. Its advantages are cost, power, and performance.

Kevin Keefe, vice president of marketing for Motorola's Access Network Solutions recently stated:
"Enterprise users require a different level of network sophistication today than they did even a few years ago. Not only do they expect secure and reliable IP voice and data, but they demand improved network economics and greatly simplified solutions."

Read the full article here.

Enterprise 2.0 Maturity and Adoption: It's About Work

According to Gil Yehuda of Social Computing Journal, Enterprise 2.0 is at a very challenging stage of development. It's no longer a fad. It's not going away. But it's not a fundamental part of mainstream businesses, yet.


Do you think it will be a part of mainstream business within the year, within two years?



Yehuda goes into detail what can and should be done to enable enterprise 2.0 to head more into the natural order of business computing, we encourage you to read the article in its entirety here.



What are your thoughts on Yehuda's findings and predictions?

Wolfram Alpha gets supercomputer boost

According to CNet.com, concerns with the public launch of Wolfram Alpha later this month is withstanding the crushing load the Internet can impose. But Wolfram Research revealed Tuesday it's building the service on the world's 66th-fastest supercomputer. The machine, built out of Dell hardware by a company called R Systems, can sustain performance of 39.6 trillion mathematical operations per second, according to the November 2008 list of the top 500 supercomputers. That muscle will come in handy for Alpha, which I think of as a combination of a graphing calculator, search engine, and reference library that not only supplies some answers to factual, data-intensive questions but also does math in the process.

What will this mean for public performance issues? Will it make a change in your work?

Leading BOLDLY Through Change

The IIR Executive Education series is designed to provide senior executives with practical, yet aggressive strategies for surviving the economic downturn and leading through change. Blending business topics with corporate experiences, this series is tailored to helping you be an integral part of jumpstarting your company’s future. Think differently about your organizations efficiency model, ensure employees maintain an entrepreneurial spirit, build a team of leaders that help manage change, and plan for short term adjustments and longer term innovations beyond the immediate crisis.

Develop the insights, tools, instincts, and confidence you need to lead BODLY through change and capture success through corporate stability. Consider this your blueprint for becoming a high-performance leader and profiting from uncertainty.

Find out more here:
http://www.iirusa.com/leadchange/home-page.xml

Oracle Takes on SharePoint With Beehive Upgrade

Alex Goldman of Internetnews.com writes that, Oracle is adding several new features to its Beehive enterprise collaboration software, including unified communications and Web-based collaboration...Add unified communications (UC), and faxes and voicemails come directly into e-mail. The UC function also stores voice and Web communications for compliance purposes...With other Oracle software products, Beehive can do more. It can connect to any custom application that an enterprise has built to run on Fusion middleware, for example, using open platforms such as Sun's Java Management Extensions (JMX).

Will Orcale's introduction of Beehive cause you to think twice about your current collaborative software?

Oracle Takes on SharePoint With Beehive Upgrade

Vine - Microsoft's New Social Web Application

According to this article in eWeek Microsoft will launch a new Facebook/Twitter like application that is expected to blow them out of the water. Brier Dudley of the Seattle Times describes the app as,

"...a hyperlocal, personalized message and alert system. It's intended to be a dashboard that people can use to keep tabs of their family, friends, activities and major events in their community."

The app Vine is expected to be used first to alert people of schedules and changes. The idea for this came out of Microsoft's response to Hurricane Katrina, so Microsoft will be initially targeting first aid responders and local emergency officials. It shouldn't be too long though before we see this app being used in the enterprise.

Enterprise 2.0 - Efficient Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange

Oscar Berg from The Content Economy recently put up his slides from their seminar, Enterprise 2.0 - Efficient Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange. Take a couple of minutes to view them below.

Enterprise 2.0 - Efficient Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange

View more presentations from Acando Consulting.

Managing passwords is still a challenge for the enterprise

According to GCN.com, managing passwords is still a challenge for the enterprise. William Jackson writes,

the overhead required to manage passwords for a large population of users can overwhelm a help desk, and managing large numbers of passwords can be complex for end users. The problems are magnified by requirements for complex passwords that must be regularly changed. Still, passwords are not disappearing despite the proliferation of certificates, tokens and other schemes for access management, and tools for managing them are still in evidence at this week’s RSA Security Conference.

Jackson intereviews Phil Lieberman president of Lieberman Software Corp. and Bill Carey, vice president of business development for Siber Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va. for this article. Both Lieberman and Carey offer their own take on how difficult it is to manage passwords.

Visit the original article here.

Cloud e-mail service available

According to eWeek, Iron Mountain has begun offering a total email management service. All of the data is store don Iron Mountain's servers in their secure data centers. There is no software needed for this email service, just a monthly payment for the service. Read the full article here.

Sharing Information Throughout the Enterprise

The main theme of Oscar Berg's latest post in the Content Economy is that businesses must support sharing and use of knowledge. Seems straightforward right? Well this is a concept which was thought up ages ago, and was followed by many including Andrew Carnegie.

Although this practice of sharing knowledge has tested well throughout the century, still many companies don't get it. The use of social technology platforms is crucial to a company's survival. After all knowledge is key. Share it...

StumbleUpon back to origional owners

According to the Bits Blog at the New York Times, StumbleUpon was purchased from eBay by its original owners. New plans for the site include features such as URL shorteners so that StumbleUpon users can share the links in places such as Facebook. The websie currently has 7.5 million users.

Twitter's wide web

Are you still looking for those companies on Twitter who tweet about your industry? Are you looking for your competitors? ReadWriteWeb recently did a great wrap-up of what they consider the top 7 Twitter search engines. Check them out:

monitter
Twitterfall
twistori
Tweet Scan
TweetChannel
Twitscoop
Tweetizen