CIO Decisions Conference 2008: Presentations and Coverage

More from CIO Decisions Learn who won our CIO Decisions Midmarket IT Leadership Awards -- and why.

Watch your email for information on next year's conference, to be held in September/October 2009, or check our conference website, CIODecisionsConference.com, for updates. To join our advisory board or submit a speaker proposal, please write to conference chairperson Anne McCrory at amccrory@techtarget.com.

Blog entries

  Notes from CIO Decisions 2008, Zach Church, CIO Symmetry

  The Brady effect, Linda Tucci, TotalCIO

  All Ears: Susan Cramm on ITopia, Linda Tucci, TotalCIO

News coverage

  Leadership coach says IT should delegate, not regulate
[Zach Church, News Writer]
Why does IT suck? A CIO Decisions keynote speaker says all CIOs should ask that question.

  Disaster recovery funding often hard sell for CIOs
[Zach Church, News Writer]
There's no ROI on disaster recovery. But CIOs can still convince their bosses to invest.

Video coverage

  What is your biggest IT challenge?
[Staff, SearchCIO-Midmarket.com]
CIOs explain the toughest part of their job.

Keynote address

SESSION TITLE: Your technology roadmap: Strategic decision making and modernization efforts

SUMMARY: Research shows many midsized companies will engage in significant IT modernization efforts in the coming months and years. In this keynote, Forrester analyst Phil Murphy, who has covered the IT management space for more than a decade, scopes out how to balance the myriad and often competing priorities for IT dollars, from foundational software and hardware investments to strategic business applications, risk management initiatives and more. He also offers best practices for engaging your business stakeholders to share in your vision and drive your efforts.

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The 21st-century data center: Virtualization

SPEAKER: Kurt Sowa, director of IT, Deckers Outdoor Corp.

SUMMARY: Faced with the need for greater computing power, disaster recovery capabilities and the need to conserve energy, midmarket IT organizations are weighing a range of data center options. This session explores options including colocation and managed hosting, as well as real-life experiences with the latest data center technologies, such as server virtualization and blade servers.

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Business continuity: CIOs take charge

SPEAKER: Larry Bonfante, CIO, United States Tennis Association

SUMMARY: Offsite backup and time-to-recovery objectives are part of any disaster recovery plan, but often there's more. CIOs are finding they must lead the charge companywide to establish policies and procedures for the day the lights go out or worse. Learn how peers are managing this challenge, and find out how CIO Larry Bonfante forged his path to cross-departmental cooperation. Bonfante also shares how he developed crisis playbooks for key business processes so his organization stays afloat no matter what happens.

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The BI revolution: Making money with insights

SPEAKER: Mykolas Rambus, CIO, Forbes Media

SUMMARY: In 2008, BI is more than the data warehouses, data schema and reporting tools that combine to deliver information to business users; it's a philosophy of how to accelerate your business by making money from insights. New products, data sources, methods, and vendors promise to speed solution development, but to what end? Forbes' Mykolas Rambus delves into his experiences having to go from "0 to 60" in selecting the latest BI tools, data sources and people, kicking off a robust discussion about the key drivers, decisions and outcomes of BI projects.

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Governance and IT portfolio management

SPEAKER: George Bock, vice president of IT, Sole Technology Inc.

SUMMARY: Nothing is more critical to IT success than the ability to meet business needs, and that means choosing the right IT projects at the right time for the business. Effective project and portfolio management uses people, processes and technology to chart investments, determine priorities and ensure you steer purchasing and resources in the right direction. Session leader George Bock has been managing IT projects and initiatives from the business user, consultant and IT sides for the past 13 years; he has experienced huge success establishing project management offices at Sole Technology, a maker of action sports footwear and apparel, and a previous company as well. Bock shares how he overcame resistance to enable effective management of time, dollars and resources.

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Powerful approaches to developing leaders

SPEAKER: Susan Cramm, leadership coach and founder, Valuedance

SUMMARY: CIOs understand that the future of IT rests on our shoulders. Yet many of us still find we're riding on the coattails of the business units to get things done. How can we change the way we approach organizational politics, innovation and people development to get us where we need to go? How can we craft a more positive, exciting future as global leaders within our organizations? In this dynamic keynote, former CIO and business leader turned leadership coach Susan Cramm outlines how to become the future CIO with an IT organization that absolutely matters and which new competencies you must embrace today to play tomorrow's leadership game.

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Selling security and DR projects

SPEAKER: Chuck Kramer, senior vice president and CTO, Social & Scientific Systems Inc.

SUMMARY: Getting funding for your IT initiatives is never easy, but some projects prove especially challenging for even the most experienced veterans. Disaster recovery and data security-related purchases are among those projects for which there is no straight ROI, meaning you must show the importance and value to business stakeholders in other ways. Senior vice president and CTO Chuck Kramer shares his years of experience gaining approvals and his best practices for identifying the "trigger" points of senior executives when it comes to their tolerance for risk.

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