9th Annual Kansas City IT Symposium : Agenda

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9th Annual Kansas City IT Symposium

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7:30 am	Attendee Check-In; Midwestern Breakfast Buffet: Market Style Cubed Seasonal Fruit, Individual Flavored Yogurt, Cold Cereals with 2% Milk, Assorted Muffins & Croissants, Chef’s Choice of Breakfast Bread, Fruit Preserves & Butter, Fluffy Scrambled Eggs, Breakfast Potatoes, Pork Sausage & Bacon, Starbucks Coffee & Tazo Tea, Assorted Chilled Juices, Assorted Soft Drinks
8:20 am	Welcome Message
8:30 am	Turbo-Charging Your Organization in a Relationship-Based World
Grand Ballroom	Mark Showers Retired CIO Monsanto Whether focused on improving innovation, making faster and better decisions or improving overall effectiveness, you need to take a different approach in today’s flatter organizations. Success demands effective collaboration within and across organizational, functional, physical and hierarchical boundaries. In this context a network perspective yields multiple performance improvement opportunities that traditional managerial tools such as process mapping, culture surveys and activity analyses all miss. This presentation demonstrates why and how executives must pay attention to collaboration and networks within their organizations. Specifically, for CIO’s and senior IT executives, this presentation provides a CIO perspective to: Based on research done at the McIntire School of Commerce - University of Virginia, demonstrate the way a network lens provides unique insights for leaders to improve value-added collaboration and concurrently performance (organizational and individual), innovation and quality of work life. Discuss the role of collaboration tools and technology in facilitating effective networks in an organization. Review policy and risk management considerations as collaboration becomes more technology enabled both within and across organizational boundaries.
9:45 am	Case Study: The Evolution from SMB to Enterprise
Salon G	Sponsored by AOS Jeff Widgren CTO eData Solutions Most will agree, especially on a bad day that a common statement is "Why is it down?", but what those voices are often implying is: "We can't afford to be down!" The Goal: Quickly design and build a highly available and quickly scalable solution that can be grown without business interruption. In this session Jeff will share his practical approach to responding to the demands of a small business that needed to quickly grow into an enterprise architecture. He will share how he went about identifying the technical requirements, selecting the right design team and engineers, picking the right product for the job, presenting the design and cost to the financial decision makers, and finally implementing the plan to a successful end. Jeff will candidly describe the challenges they met along the way, and will clearly explain the importance and make-up of a rock solid, scalable plan that everyone is willing to buy into. He will conclude with what is still being considered for the future.
9:45 am	Managing Information for Litigation, Audit, and Regulation
Salon I	Sponsored by IBM Chris Cotteleer Principal Doculabs Effective management of content has become increasingly critical for organizations facing litigation, as they seek to manage potentially discoverable information. Additionally, organizations face heightened oversight from both internal audit and external regulatory bodies. The technology to manage content has become a key part of how an organization approaches its ability to capture, store, manage and produce information. Today, an estimated 85 to 90 percent of the content created within an organization now exists electronically. Business operations are generating vast volumes of unstructured data – ranging from the content created in desktop applications to the web content and digital assets that are created and used in the course of business. Add to this the growing volume of digital communications – email, as well as the increasing use of instant messaging, PDAs, and voicemail – and it’s clear that today’s organization has many more sources of information to manage than the organization of even just five years ago. This presentation will share best practices and recommendations for how your organization can leverage investments in ECM to manage information for compliance, specifically: Where does Records Management fit into the discovery process for litigation, audit, and regulation? How does technology serve as the foundation for discovery initiatives? Why do we need a program to address discovery issues? What does it take to develop and implement a compliance program? What is the business case for these programs in the absence of large scale litigations?
9:45 am	Workplace Infrastructure – Making it Work for You and Your Employees
Quail 1	Sponsored by Avanade Paul Houser Director, Technology Services State of Kansas - SRS Providing improved user capabilities and experiences while simultaneously improving IT’s visibility and manageability of the infrastructure and reducing the overall support cost to manage this same infrastructure may seem overwhelming; however, join us to learn how the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services was able to do all this and more. See how the department was able to rapidly execute a program to realize the following objectives: Realize productivity benefits of a more consistent messaging and collaboration platform Improve the overall visibility, manageability and security of the workplace infrastructure Create more consistency across the enterprise and reduce overall effort to support the infrastructure
9:45 am	Infrastructure Design Considerations for SaaS Computing
Quail 3	Sponsored by HP Eric Matt Sr. Systems Analyst SYSTEN, LLC Faced with the challenge of exponential growth, SYSTEN was tasked with upgrading their infrastructure to be affordable, scalable, and highly available. The most stringent requirement was to design a reliable infrastructure capable of expansion while remaining “online” to maintain a growing number of web users. This interactive session will cover: What is SaaS computing? Architectural Overview What considerations were given to performance prior to implementation? What techniques were used to size a new infrastructure without any historical usage data? How does a modular architecture provide redundancy and scalability? How does storage virtualization allow for rapid, uninterrupted growth? How was this project cost justified and what was the expected ROI? What future enhancements are being considered? Why?
11:00 am	Take Control of Your Desktops… Reduce Costs, Improve Management, and Increase Flexibility
Salon G	Jeff Dittmer IT Director DST Systems	Byron Clymer VP Infrastructure Services EMBARQ		Sponsored by VMware Terry Gill Senior Systems Officer DST Systems
	Attend this session to gain an understanding of why EMBARQ and DST Systems have decided to begin virtualizing the desktop. What are the financial and architectural benefits of virtualizing the desktop? What are the other high-level benefits? Lower costs by centralizing management, administration and resources Increase security by moving data from desktop devices into the datacenter Improve business agility with faster provisioning and user flexibility with universal access
11:00 am	Cost-Effective Measures for a Cost-Conscious IT World: "An Efficient Data Center Model"
Salon I	Costa Hasapopoulos VP, Global Solutions Hitachi Data Systems	Bill Mowris VP, Director IT Commerce Bank		Sponsored by Hitachi Data Systems Dan Shaw Systems Services Manager BlueScope Buildings North America
	Data centers are being challenged from both ends: on one side, demand for more storage capacity is growing; on the other, costs for increased power, cooling and facilities are escalating. Customers are demanding innovative, environmentally friendly solutions to streamline IT operations and control costs. At no time in recent memory is enterprise cost-containment a bigger factor, given our uncertain economic climate. Please join our panel for an informative discussion covering these key areas: Present and Future Data Center challenges Implementing more environmentally- friendly data centers Complying with environmental and compliance directives Driving down data center power, cooling and facilities costs Tiered Storage and Virtualization Technology Case Studies:
11:00 am	Business Continuity Planning Challenges and Current DR Trends
Quail 1	Atlas Lee Director of IT and Business Continuity Shook, Hardy & Bacon After the recent catastrophic events including 9/11, multiple natural disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and power outages that have plagued the Northeastern portion of United States over the past several years, companies are finally getting serious about continuity of services and business operations. Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) processes and procedures, if done correctly can help companies avoid and/or minimize loss of revenue, customers, market share, etc. This presentation will identify challenges that are a hindrance in developing a viable, actionable Business Continuity plan, and will look at some of the current trends regarding Disaster Recovery technologies processes and procedures that minimizes downtime. This session will cover the following: · Current State of BCP · Business Continuity Planning (BCP) Triggers · Challenges Of BCP Implementation · People--Human Impact · Process · Planning · Current DR Technology Trends · Discussion
11:00 am	Effective Relationships with Strategic Partners & Trusted Advisors
Quail 3	Sponsored by Beloit Solutions Christoph Sisson Digital Products Manager Walsworth Publishing Company Walsworth Publishing is a 70-year-old company that has prided itself on being an expert in the printing industry. In the past 15 years, however, it has been forced to become an expert at building and maintaining an IT organization, and has worked to become a leader in software development. You may ask, “A printer who develops FLEX applications for the web and who has an IT infrastructure to support thousands of users?” Yes. And, it has been strategic partners who have helped them navigate those treacherous waters while avoiding costly missteps along the way. In this session, we will focus on the following key concepts: How strategic partners can help you attain your corporate goals more efficiently, even goals you didn’t know you had. When it matters most, how you can extend your organization’s skill set quickly and cost effectively. How you can make sound and timely decisions, even when you’re not an expert.
11:45 am	Market Lunch Buffet: Chef’s Hand Crafted soup, Traditional Caesar salad, Green Bean Tomato Nicoise Salad, Boar’s Head Roast Beef Sandwich, Roasted Turkey in a Sun-Dried Tomato Tortilla Wrap, Hot Panini sandwiches to include Muffuleta & Turkey Panini, Assorted miniature quiche, House Made Potato Chips and Pickles, Assorted cookies & Pecan Brownies, Whole Bananas / Apples, Starbucks Coffee & Tazo Tea, Assorted Soft Drinks
12:45 pm	Strategic Virtualization – Think Big to Create an Adaptive Enterprise
Grand Ballroom	Jack Wilson Assistant Vice President Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company Virtualization has become a “hot topic” in IT circles. The question becomes, does the hype come anywhere close to reflecting the reality? Hear the stunning reality from an organization took the “Think Big” approach and has successfully made the complete Strategic Virtualization transformation (implemented and functioning in production for over two years). Learn the approach they took to overcome the technology and “cultural” issues, critical elements along the “roadmap” to success and learn from the Enterprise Architect’s experience the “must do’s”, the “avoid at all cost” and “better than anticipated” results. In this session we will discuss how strategic virtualization can streamline, simplify and remove layers of technology (including the “Vista issue”). We will consider this approach in contrast to the normal technology evolution, where new technology is usually layered on top of or along side of existing technology, creating an ever more complex and fragile infrastructure. How implementing a strategic virtual environment for the main reason of creating business value, business flexibility and increased productivity has significant other benefits in the areas of cost-savings, performance, manageability, security, business continuity, disaster recovery, standardization and governance. The flexibility and adaptability that the strategic virtualized environment creates, means that the infrastructure won't lag behind the business strategy. With a virtualized infrastructure in place, business strategies changes can now be accommodated without having to make changes to the infrastructure. Amerisure Insurance will be considered as the case study of a company that made the metamorphosis from a typical complex, inflexible, high cost, physically limiting infrastructure to a streamlined, flexible, efficient and agile virtual infrastructure. Once Amerisure made the initial transformation, other areas for further virtualization became obvious and desirable. This included, servers, mobile notebooks, information assets (documents, video, and audio), faxes and softphones. Take advantage of this opportunity to question and challenge the expertise of an experienced virtualization transformation expert.
1:45 pm	Planning, Adopting and Setting a Green IT Strategy
Salon G	Sponsored by Peak Uptime Monique Sendze IT Director Johnson County Library Increasingly, major users of IT in government agencies and corporate America are looking at how they can adopt a Green Strategy - not only for obvious reasons to be environmentally conscious and responsible; but more importantly, to make a meaningful impact on the company’s bottom line especially in these very uncertain economic times where many IT Leaders are faced with the mandate of cutting costs in their IT Operations.Power efficiency, virtualization and equipment refresh and recycling policies can all be included in a coherent strategy that will make sense for any company. Power Efficiency for the entire IT infrastructure, not just the Data Center. Some things to consider in a putting a Green IT strategy in place would include: Virtualization, a major initiative for reducing IT latency and redundancy Setting an effective recycling policy which the entire IT function can adhere to Considering Equipment Refresh cycles and TCO as part of an overall Green Strategy Maximizing the soft benefits of a Green Strategy, positive company PR and employee satisfaction
1:45 pm	The True Benefits and ROI of WAN Optimization
Salon I	Sponsored by Net Direct Ben Weinberger Chief Information Officer Lathrop & Gage Lathrop & Gage LLP is a full-service, national law firm headquartered in Kansas City, MO, with offices located from New York to Los Angeles. Like many businesses, Lathrop & Gage's technology infrastructure was highly distributed. For CIO Ben Weinberger, getting the most from his infrastructure and reducing expenditures was priority #1. Learn how Lathrop & Gage has re-architected their entire IT infrastructure through centralization, consolidation, and virtualization strategies. The speaker will examine how you can leverage these technologies to dramatically reduce CAP-EX costs and recurring bandwidth costs while still delivering a LAN-like experience for end-users and facilitating improvements for other applications such as voice and video.
1:45 pm	Application Integration Made Quick and Easy
Quail 1	Sponsored by Cast Iron Systems Leon Thomas Vice President of Technology Professional Veterinary Products, Ltd. According to industry research, application integration is one of the most time consuming, complex, and expensive projects IT will undertake. How can IT organizations leverage technology to dramatically reduce costs while increasing the speed and reliability of application integration? Come to this session to learn how Professional Veterinary Products (PVP), one of the nation’s largest animal health products distributors, leveraged a “configuration, not coding” approach to integrate disparate applications in days – not weeks or months compared to traditional approaches. Topics will include business and technical challenges, solutions evaluated, results and lessons learned.
1:45 pm	Security: Reducing the Risk of Attack without Spending A lot of Money
Quail 3	Randy Haufler Data Security Coordinator Stormont-Vail Healthcare Information Systems Organizations everywhere are being forced to reduce IT budgets due to the current economic slowdown. There’s never enough money or resources to fix all your computer security issues. There are things you can do to help reduce your risk of attack without spending a lot of money. See how the data security group at Stormont-Vail Healthcare is using a combination of purchased, outsourced and open source services and applications to enhance their data security. Topics: Outsourcing Security Functions Security Policies Open Source Security Tools User Education Threat Visibility Leveraging Existing Technology
2:45 pm	Scanning to SharePoint Capabilities: Unified Government’s Indexing Documents to SharePoint
Salon G	Sponsored by Choice Solutions Phil Lockman Dir., Dept. of Community Corrections Unified Government of Wyandotte County Managing content in today’s technology world is an ongoing process but company’s today must go a step further to insure content is controlled appropriately to reach their business goals and Uni fied Government of Wyandotte County is just doing that. UG has implemented scanning to SharePoint capabilities to help improve their records management process by eliminating the need to maintain retention and quality control process across disparate servers and applications. Deployment of 65 desktop scanners in 50 departments for at least one of their business processes allows UG to collect approximately 150,000 indexed documents monthly to SharePoint. The indexing process prepares these documents for permanent archiving and allows users to do custom index searches against their business process documents, greatly improving the accuracy and relevance of their search results. Phil Lockman, Director of the Department of Community Corrections for UG, will discuss in this session UG’s scanning to SharePoint capabilities and how the Community Corrections department allows probation officers to view their own case file documents electronically and have instant access to their individual documents. In addition, listen how the Treasury department scans motor vehicle registrations and renewals and saves documents directly to SharePoint libraries via a mapped drive.
2:45 pm	Achieving IT Cost Savings During and After the Downturn
Salon I	Sponsored by Corporate Contracts Steven L. Naylor FVP FHLBank Topeka Cost savings is the # 1 issue CIOs are facing given the current economic downturn. IT professionals are being challenged by their companies to do “more with less” despite a decreasing budget and a diminishing workforce. Steve Naylor, the CIO of FHLBank of Topeka, has found an answer to these challenges and adding true dollars to his department’s bottom line. In this town hall style breakout, Steve will describe how FHLBank of Topeka has been able to address cost savings by utilizing a third party in his IT procurement process. A group of experts assist Steve and his team in running the RFP process, contract negotiations and licensing issues. The addition of a 3 rd party negotiator has allowed Steve and his team to focus on running their business and not focus on the challenges of contract negotiations and licensing issues. Through this cost savings initiative, Steve has been able to add a significant amount of money to the bottom line and also insure a “best in practice” contract that protects FHLBank of Topeka from hidden or unexpected costs in the future. Steve will outline one particular project that utilized expert negotiators to assist his team. The project consisted of an RFP, price and contract negotiations for a software purchase. Steve will also explain the ROI and true run rate savings achieved by partnering with this team of expert IT negotiators.
2:45 pm	Migrating from Tape to Disk Based Backups - A Real Example
Quail 1	Sponsored by Data Domain Wes Owen Manager of Infrastructure Services HNTB Engineering In this session you will hear how one engineering firm migrated from decentralized tape backups at over 60 locations to a centralized strategy utilizing disks and de-duplication to increase reliability and recovery times while reducing costs.
3:45 pm	CIO Panel Presentation
Grand Ballroom	Join these industry leaders, moderated by CIO Magazine, in an interactive discussion and hear what issues are facing today's CIO's and learn how they are resolving them. This panel discussion provides a rare opportunity to hear first hand whats on the mind of these local executives. Areas to be discussed:: The impact of the economy on the organization as it relates to technology. What CEO’s want from their CIO’s Importance of Technology to your profitability. Technology. Business expense or Revenue Enabler? How do you know if you have good IT or bad IT? What real risks are lurking in your technology programs? How tech savvy are you
	Gudrun Neumann CTO American Century		Michael Rapken Executive Vice President & CIO YRC Worldwide
	Debe Gash Vice President & CIO Saint Luke’s Health Systems		Maria Mann Chief Technology Officer JP Morgan Retirement Plan Services
	Pam Popp CEO JP Morgan Retirement Plan Services
4:30 pm	Closing Remarks & Cocktail Reception
Grand Ballroom	Enjoy this complimentary cocktail reception featuring an open bar, hors d’oeuvres and conversation. Make this an important element of your attendance to the IT Symposium. The ability to network and collaborate with your peers in an open and no-hype environment will prove to provide long lasting value to your key business initiatives moving forward.

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Wednesday April 22, 2009

Overland Park Marriott

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9th Annual Kansas City IT Symposium

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