6th Annual Iowa IT Symposium : Agenda

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6th Annual Iowa IT Symposium

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7:30 am	Attendee Check-In; The Traditional Breakfast Buffet: Fluffy fresh scrambled eggs, Sugar cured crisp bacon and sausage links, Breakfast potatoes, Freshly baked fruit muffins, Slices fresh seasonal fruit display, Chilled assorted fruit juice bar and milk, Freshly ground regular and decaffeinated coffee
8:20 am	Welcome Message
8:30 am	Transformation: Changing IT’s Focus from Technology to Business Value
	Jeff O'Hare SVP Enterprise IT West Corporation We will discuss where the organization was at when I arrived 10 months ago and the vision on where we are taking the organization in the future. Develop a clear focus for the entire technology group to include Vision, Mission, Objectives and Focus areas. Focus on Injecting Technology Leadership, evolving the organization use of meaningful metrics (information) versus just data, Project management methodology/IT process and IT governance (knowing what to outsource/insource) are all pieces of the puzzle. We’ll review the evaluation process / assessment process evaluation that we went through to develop the baseline we would start at (a lot of companies struggle with where to start). We’ll end up with where we are today, where we are headed and help the audience understand this is not a process you go though and then put the business plan on the shelf, this is a continuous process. The vision is something you live by and constantly evaluate the gaps.
9:45 am	Flipping the Switch to Centralized Computing!
	Cindy Adams VP of IT Holmes Murphy & Associates	Sponsored by Citrix Andy Stadtlander Network Administrator Holmes Murphy & Associates
	This interactive breakout session will focus on how Holmes Murphy centralized computing for our small branch offices. The session will cover issues and solutions that Holmes Murphy had in their recent implementation. We hope that the sessions creates conversation and sharing among all participants with the goal of sharing insights, experiences and best practices to create successful future centralized computing for other businesses.
9:45 am	Selling Identity Management - A Work in Progress
	Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Don Mihulka Associate Chief Information Officer University of Nebraska The Gartner and Burton Groups have placed Identity Management (IdM) in the top categories for Information Technology spending in recent years. Many organizations have realized the real value of a IdM infrastructure and the long term benefits of this critical technology. Yet ‘selling’ the purpose and reasons for spending significant dollars on this important technology continues to be a challenge for many organizations. This presentation will provide an overview of IdM and why it is becoming a critical IT infrastructure component to the University of Nebraska. We will also discuss how the University has begun the process of selling IdM to its constituents and business communities, and while some strides have been made, there are challenges that remain ahead of us. Additionally, this session is intended to be interactive and provide the participants an opportunity to discuss and share their approaches to IdM and how they have ‘sold’ IdM within their organizations.
9:45 am	Business Continuity Planning.- Open Systems
	Sponsored by Symantec Rex Engstrand SVP, Corporate Business Continuity Planning Wells Fargo & Company Learn about Wells Fargo’s Corporate BCP Program and how we have taken a holistic approach to BCP that includes the Open Systems environment. We will touch base on the BCP program, plan structure & process, Mainframe BCP & High Availability and how we managing our BCP open systems environment. We will then continue the discussion with questions from the audience to compare and contrast BCP “best practices” and how it relates to the information provided.
11:00 am	Portfolio Management - A Case Study
	Walter Weir Chief Information Officer University of Nebraska Increased demand for accountability in public institutions necessitates performance-based reporting across the board. Obviously, it can be a real challenge to boil the complex world of IT down to tangible measures, such as return on investment and alignment to mission. And yet, it is so important to represent this asset in those more traditionally financial market terms. In IT, we have limited resources and a plethora of requests for our time and money. How do we objectively determine which project or system we should move forward and which ones must wait? How can we involve others in the decision-making process and how do we logically explain the result? Are there tools to help us make the correct decision? Portfolio Management is a technique that is gaining favor and being used by more and more business institutions, like Sears, Hershey and the federal government, as a way to systematically choose technology investments, including applications, infrastructure, projects and vendors. It is a set of business processes, that when consistently applied, allow an organization to choose and execute on technology investments that return measurable value. The talk will explore the notion of Portfolio Management as a case study.
11:45 am	New York Deli Buffet: Seasonal composed salads, Sliced Dilusso deli meat display including: Peppered roast beef, honey glazed ham, smoked turkey breast, corned beef, Assorted sliced cheese selections, Gourmet breads and rolls, Sliced tomatoes, sweet onions, and crisp lettuce, Appropriate condiments, Homemade potato chips, Triple fudge brownies and signature cookies
12:45 pm	IT Procurement: Reduce Costs by 30%- 40%, and Get What you Want Every Time
	Sponsored by Corporate Contracts Ken Shaffer Director of IT FBL Financial Group Who is negotiating for your organization's IT software, hardware, services, and telecom? Vendor salespeople routinely receive several weeks of training each year to ensure that they get their company the best possible deal, which translates into you paying more and receiving less. Unless you have a similarly trained and experienced negotiator working for you, it is almost impossible for you to control your costs and get the terms that you need (like service levels, and the right to terminate if you aren't getting the level of service you require). That's where Corporate Contracts comes in...
12:45 pm	The Service Catalog: A Transformation From Cost Center to Strategic Services Provider at Bandag
	Sponsored by Involta Tim Sulzberger Manager, Bandag Technical Support Bandag, Inc. As manager of Bandag's Service Management Office, he facilitated the process of implementing a Service Catalog, Service Level Agreements, as well as Incident, Problem, and Change Management best practices. Implementation of the ITIL practices moved the company away from viewing IT as a cost center to a strategic partner. The Service Catalog gave the organization visibility into the services that IT provides, as well as the costs. This transformation put decision-making in the hands of the customers and empowered Bandag's IT group to deliver anything the customer asked for as long as the business unit was willing to bear the cost.
12:45 pm	Best Practices in Grid Storage
	Sponsored by NEC Jeff Edwards Vice President Advanced Storage Products Group Is your enterprise storage environment still using decades-old RAID based arrays? Does your IT organization have problems with scalability, manageability and resiliency? Are there pain points in your backup and recovery process? If so, attend this session focused on Grid Storage, where we will host an interactive discussion on: storage issues facing today’s IT organizations, where storage products have failed in the past, the business value of grid storage architecture, and the latest storage technologies to future-proof your environment. Grid storage represents a big advance in enterprise class storage, find out what this next evolution in storage is all about.
1:45 pm	Technical Employee Retention – Make them proud!
	Sponsored by Microsoft Jim Thomas Director of IT Operations Pella Corporation This discussion will share how Pella creates an environment where technical employees are both challenged and proud of what they accomplish. Working on new technologies, presenting and interacting with peers and being acknowledged as experts in their field contribute to both job satisfaction, retention and effort brought to the job. Attendees in this session will take away some ideas and really question themselves on how they are creating environments that attract and retain technical talent.
1:45 pm	Preparing for a Business Intelligence Implementation
	Sponsored by Oracle John J. Ferin CIO Life Care Services, LLC Many BI implementations concentrate initially on the multitude of data challenges inherent in these initiatives. Managing data from multiple, disparate systems and deploying data warehouse and ETL tools is, indeed, a challenge for most organizations. The bigger, and arguably, more important issue is how to transform your data into insightful information, capable of providing support for the strategic and tactical decision-making that occurs in all levels of your organization. This roundtable discussion will focus on the techniques companies have used to insure that their BI efforts are providing the most critical outcome: insight.
1:45 pm	Email Archiving: Benefits to IT Management, Legal, Compliance, and Communication
	Sponsored by EMC Wade Arnold CTO T8DESIGN There is no question that email is the number one business application; it is also the most difficult application when implementing internal controls. In an effort to regulate disk space, many IT managers force stringent rules on email in an attempt to thwart explosive mail storage. But the repercussions of such actions cripple effective communication, in addition to opening the business up for legal attacks. Litigators tend to take advantage of these companies’ lack of IT preparation and make email a target of e-discovery. Since it’s common practice for businesses to be unprepared in their archived communication, it leaves a significant gap for data management, legal and compliance issues. Learn a more solid approach to handling email communication legally, and with a non-intrusive solution that is scalable.
2:45 pm	Making IT Matter - Demonstrating the Business Value of IT
	Gary Scholten SVP & CIO Principal Financial Group Much is written about the need for IT to get a seat at the business table. What do you need to do to get that seat? What do you do when you get it? Join in a discussion about how to demonstrate the value of IT in order to position IT leaders for influence with the business - and the important role that innovation plays in demonstrating business value.
2:45 pm	Partnering with the “800 lb. Gorilla”…It’s Not Just About Size….
	Steve Printz VP & CIO Pella Corporation So, you’ve just invested “a ton” of money for some new technology/capability that is long term strategic to your business success. How do you continue to leverage that investment? How do you make your organization a “strategic partner” with that vendor? Hear how Pella has created a “mutually beneficial” partner relationship that goes way beyond what is typically described as “strategic”.
2:45 pm	What If They Do Get In?
	Sponsored by Netpro Eric Smith VP MIS Hy-Vee Food Stores
3:45 pm	Leadership Intelligence: Developing the Next Generation of IT Leaders
	Robert A. Rouse Director of the Regional SIM Leadership Forum & Professor of Computer Science Washington University Leadership remains the competitive advantage in conquering IT complexities of the 21 st Century. It is the key for IT professionals and leaders in government, non-profits, business and social enterprises. Leadership is the critical success factor for individual contributors, managers as well as those with formal leadership responsibilities. Organizations can develop leaders by intentionally providing experiences and educational opportunities to a wide variety of talented individuals Most leaders discover their own unique and authentic leadership capacities. They acquire them through continuously learning from day to day experiences as well as reflecting on their own lives, defining core beliefs and personal aspirations. Becoming an effective leader is not learning the “10 Lessons of Great Leaders”, but discovering one’s own authentic strengths and style. Leadership is a combination of what you know and who you are. Learning the “things” of leadership like strategic planning, financial analysis, and industry knowledge are necessary but not sufficient to know your personal capacities to influence through your core values and ability to get others to follow your vision and direction. Over the past fifteen years the Leadership Forum has helped high potentials discover themselves as leaders. What works for them and their organizations will be the heart of this presentation. Current senior leaders with the responsibility of developing new leaders for the future and those who aspire to leading in their lives will discover proven paths to build their own capacities and the capacities of their organizations.
4:30 pm	Closing Remarks, Cocktail Reception with Hors d'oeuvres

Efm Events

Agenda

Thursday October 18, 2007

Hy-Vee Conference Center

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6th Annual Iowa IT Symposium

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