CIO PeerGroup Minutes

OC CIO Minutes January 12, 2012

2012-01-17T15:05:00.000-08:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
January 12, 2012 meeting

Present: Jim Sutter, Joe Desuta, Jeff Hecht, William Zauner, Jon Hahn, Subbu Murthy, Jon Grunzweig, Ashwin Rangan, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of topics and speakers through August:

2/9/12 10 Career Management Mistakes Susan Howington
3/8/12 New Security Challenges Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown
4/12/12 Mobile Device Security David Mann, Neudesic
5/10/12 Global Company IT Challenges Rich Hoffman, Avery Dennison
6/14/12 Big Data Paul Gray, Claremont (Emeritus)
7/12/12 Developing IT Teams Jon Grunzweig, Majestic Realty
8/9/12 Mobile Application Development Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Coll

Topic: 2012 CIO Survival Tip

Jim Sutter first gave a version of this presentation about 10-15 years ago and was recently asked to update it for a SIM presentation. The challenges for a CIO have changed over the years but one that always is at, or near the top, is the challenge of being perceived to ADD VALUE. This is strange as it is widely accepted that IT – technology in general - has added significant productivity benefits to our industrial economy. But close to home the CEO is always concerned whether he is getting value for his/her IT expenditures. Not that IT is alone in this analysis. All corporate functions are under cost pressures, and why should IT be different? IT has issues that are unique – rarely will the real needs be contained to one user department, and department VP/managers are reluctant to commit to hard savings. Jim’s slides 8 and 9 show IT to have three levels of clients (CEO/Management Committee; Department VP/Management; Associates/individual users) , and provides three types of services (Strategic thinking; Operational Services/Data/ Network/desktop/remote devices support; software development projects and delivery). The impact and expectations are very different depending on who you are and where you fit within the organization. The major take away message here is to make sure that you, or someone within IT, schedules time with each level and type of user. The amount of time and effort will vary depending on the state of affairs but always find time for a minimum level of interaction. The second take away is that everything is measurable in its own way, and so benchmarking is not only possible but very important, whether you do it within the organization, within your industry, or with the best of class companies. There is an amazing amount of data out there, and most of it is fairly accessible. Jim's slides are at:
http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

This was a very interactive session and thoroughly enjoyable. Each member was asked to share what he felt was his most important survival tip, or effective benchmark effort.

William works for the largest company in the alternative dispute resolution industry. They do a survey every 2/3 years but it is difficult to get at the real data. His most effective survival tip is to be paranoid. He makes certain that he visits every office once a year to listen to requirements first hand.

Jon likes the idea of doing more benchmarking and is interested in developing a survey approach. He currently subscribes to Gartner for IT expenditure information, especially for companies in the hi-tech manufacturing/semiconductor arena.

Jim mentioned that in the past, Deloitte was active involved in developing benchmark data in the auto industry.

Ashwin recommended reading an INTEL paper on their website analyzing the ROI on IT development projects.

Joe mentioned that the real estate trade association puts out lots of reports on benchmark data.

Jon ‘s best survival approach is to put the time and effort into touching base with all levels of users from the CEO down.

Subbu felt that there was 3 types of value – real, perceived, relative (used for continuous improvement approaches)

OC CIO Minutes December 8, 2011

2012-01-11T13:44:00.000-08:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
December 8, 2011 meeting

Present: Joe Desuta, Jennifer Curlee, David Mann, Jeff Hecht, Sean Brown, Keith Golden, Jim Sutter, Dave Phillips

We started the meeting by developing the Round Table list of topics, speakers and dates for 2010. The following is a list of topics and speakers through August:

1/12/12 CIO Survival Tips Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Grp.
2/9/12 10 Career Management Mistakes Susan Howington
3/8/12 New Security Challenges Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown
4/12/12 Mobile Device Security David Mann, Neudesic
5/10/12 Global Company IT Challenges Rich Hoffman, Avery Dennison
6/14/12 Big Data Paul Gray, Claremont (Emeritus)
7/12/12 Developing IT Teams Jon Grunzweig, Majestic Realty
8/9/12 Mobile Application Development Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Coll

Topic: Google Apps

Joe started by giving us a brief introduction to First Team Real Estate – 2,300 employees of which 1,800-2,000 are independent agents. When he took over as CIO they were having problems with email reliability, and he choose Google over Microsoft because of the availability of tools, reliability and cost. He had just attended, by invitation, a Google conference in Mountain View with 350 other users and much of his material is from that conference. Google apps is cloud-based email, productivity and collaboration software. He mentioned the challenges for messaging, collaboration, remote and mobile access. Google offers a new approach – cloud + Internet + web browser. The tools for today’s worker include gmail, talk, groups, calendar, docs, Google cloud connect, sites, video, and Postini. Google apps keep getting better with more frequent releases, improved productivity, and dramatically lower costs. Reliability in 2010 was 99.984% . He listed a selection of the businesses, which have gone Google. Joe’s slides include more information for each tool and more detail regarding First Team Real Estate. His slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

This was a good presentation and a very interactive session. I encourage you to read Joe’s slides again to get more of the details.
See you on Jan 12, 2012 at 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at 18301 Von Karman, Suite 5000, Irvine, CA

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 11-10-2011

2011-11-28T09:35:00.000-08:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

Present: David Mann, Phil Scott, Sean Brown, William Zauner, Jon Grunzweig, Subbu Murthy, Keith Golden, Jeff Reid, Joe Desuta, Jim Sutter,

Dave Phillips

The following is a list of future topics and speakers:

12/8/11 Google Aps. Joe Desuta, First Team Real Estate

Please send me your suggestions for topics and speakers for the first 6 months of 2012.
Topic: Social Media

David Mann introduced Phil Scott, Neudesic, to present the topic – Phil has CIO responsibilities at Neudesic. Attached is a copy of his presentation slides that are well worth reading again. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook meet some of the needs of users but not those of most businesses. Individuals want to be able to connect with people on an opt-in basis, easy user interface, large audience conversations, and grass roots empowerment. Businesses want to know each user, leverage LOB systems, respect for records management policies, content moderation and extensive reporting capabilities. There are many social media options. In a cloud-only environment you have systems like Yammer, Salesforce or Microsoft’s Office 365. In an on-premise single system, you could use Sharepoint, Newsgator, Jive or Socialcast. Neudesic’s Pulse is another option for both environments providing a collaboration fabric to leverage existing investments to allow users to follow and comment on without learning a new UX. Social media can exist in the cloud, or on premise. The market trend is Sharepoint, and the need to support video properly. Future challenges include needing to address user adoption, provide location-based services, more integration with messaging tools and using HTML 5 as the mobile platform. To get started with social media, Phil’s advice is to identify internal champions, limit the change imposed on users, and avoid brave new world scenarios.

We asked the group if IT was taking the lead on social media usage in their environments, or is a user group such as Marketing pushing it.

William said that IT has obtained domains on Twitter and Facebook, but it is Marketing that has taken the lead in using social media within the business.Jon described his environment as old school, with older employees with little interest in using public social networking. IT is pushing using Sharepoint.Subbu said that budget constraints didn’t allow much experimentation. The focus is to fix the infrastructure. Marketing is taking the lead in social networking.

Keith said that they are implementing CRM, and looking at the next step. There are small pockets of interest but IT will be out in front.
Jeff is working closely with Sales and Marketing on the use of Twitter and Facebook. They are looking at Sharepoint but not moving very fast.
Joe indicated that Sales and Marketing are taking the lead, but not making huge progress. IT is looking at Google for social collaboration.

Jim observed that at, one client, it was HR taking the lead in this space, using mainly Twitter and Facebook. A few years ago, IT made a big investment in Tibco, and now they are looking at Sharepoint.

Thank you, Phil and David, for a lively introduction to an interesting topic.

OC CIO Minutes October 13, 2011

2011-10-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
October 13, 2011 meeting

Present: Sean Brown, Charles Wilson, David Mann, Subbu Murthy, William Zauner, Keith Golden, Jennifer Curlee, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of future topics and speakers:

11/10/11 Social Media David Mann, Neudesic
12/8/11 Google Aps. Joe Desuta, First Team Real Estate

Please send me your suggestions for topics and speakers.

Topic: Trends in Business Analytics

We welcomed Charles Wilson, Director of Business Analytics at RJT Compuquest, to his 1st OC CIO Round Table, to introduce the topic - his presentation is attached. His focus was on the changes in business and in business analytics. The operating environment is focused on coping with risk, complexity and regulation, while the customer/employee expects the company to cope with the demands of mobility, social media and openness. Slide 4 lists the risk events encountered in the past few years in areas such as political, financial, compliance, strategic, operational and environmental. The next few slides touch on the technology innovations, comparing the way it was (having to move data from one environment to another in order to do the analytics), and the way it is with in-memory data analytic technology. The cost of inventory carried is still a good indicator of understanding the market, and returns and allowances of how well the product fits the customer requirements. The integration of what happens at the front line, through transaction analysis to the financials and reporting requirements is key. Charles spoke to the importance of context and master data enabling analysis. It seems that only 10% of the people within an enterprise use business analytics, mainly because of performance and cost. His slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio

We asked the group how many employees they have working on business analytics.

William said that he has one person dedicated to business analytics. He has a fairly well defined set of analytics, and they provide very useful information to their customers. It is hard to get political and technical market information.

Jennifer also has one person dedicated to producing business intelligence, plus people within Finance who are assigned, and customer service staff to control the quality. They discovered a fairly high degree of fraud on selling through the Internet. Their integrated ERP system is very useful, plus a replication read only source.

Keith complimented Charles on his presentation. They are not yet at that level, as they are still focused on integrating their systems and cannot do much in BI/BA yet. He is making changes in IT to enable them in the future.

Sean also thought it was a great presentation. From a SAP perspective, they find that the direction of using in-memory sources is the way to go.

Subbu said that there was a difference between micro and macro analytics. He has found that CIOs tend not to use these tools internally. His goal is to build analytic tools for the CIO/IT space.

David said that there is a team within Neudesic concentrating on BI/BA. In the medical area, they are working with hospitals to use analytics to prevent repeat treatment. He agrees that context is king!

OC CIO Minutes September 8, 2011

2011-09-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
September 8, 2011 meeting

Present: Hicham Semaan, Jim Sutter, Sean Brown, Jeff Hecht, Keith Golden, Jeff Reid, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of future topics and speakers:

10/13/11 Business Analytics trends Sean Brown/Charles Wilson, RJT Compuquest
11/10/11 Google Aps. Joe Desuta, First Team Real Estate
12/8/11 Social Media David Mann, Neudesic

Please send me your suggestions for topics and speakers.

Topic: Microsoft Update

This is the second time that Hicham has shared with us his take on Microsoft progress and direction, based on his attending their Partners Conference, held this year in LA. There were 15,000 attendees, representing 8,000 - 9,000 partners worldwide. His overall take on Microsoft is that despite being a very successful company, they are being challenged on several fronts, and their market niche – PC/desktop software for business – is under attach from several different angles and companies. The do seem to own the “connect” environment for gaming control replacement. Linc, their unified communication product is very strong, It makes connections very easily, has built in video conferencing, and is better than VOIP. Hicham is looking at replacing his phone switch with it, but acknowledges that it would be hard to run a call center using it. The question of reliability is still an issue. It runs on Windows. His slides looked at IT today, and into tomorrow, and how Microsoft will affect that. Slide 2 touched on transformation – how to manage consumerization at home and in the office (he has a slide which spells out Microsoft’s strategy), moving to the cloud (slide 5) and enhancing productivity (a strong point for Microsoft, see slide 6). His 7th slide pulls it all together. These provided a platform for a very active discussion – I think it took us 45 min to get through the first 2 slides! Another successful presentation because it shares with us the direction that Microsoft is headed and Hicham provides a filter through which we can reflect on how it might affect each of us. His slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio

OC CIO Minutes August 11, 2011

2011-08-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
August 11, 2011 meeting

Present: Ashwin Rangan, Jeff Hecht, Jim Sutter, Jon Hahn, Joe Desuta, David Mann, Sean Brown, Andy King, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of future topics and speakers:

9/8/11 Microsoft Update Hicham Semaan, Quickstart
10/13/11 Business Analytics trends Sean Brown/Charles Wilson, RJT Compuquest
11/10/11 Google Aps. Joe Desuta, First Team Real Estate
12/8/11 Social Media David Mann, Neudesic

Please send me your suggestions for topics and speakers.

Topic: Mobility

Ashwin acknowledged that a lot of his presentation was borrowed from Simon Guest, Neudesic, from his mobility roadshow. There are 80,000 activations per day counting both AT&T and Verizon, and Microsoft has spent $1B actively marketing Window Phone 7. This causes problems with what to do with the older devices – refurbish them or mine for metals. Also you would think that you could run out of new customers but people are buying 2 or more for various reasons. Symbian has 40% share of the OS worldwide, with Android at 18%. In the US, Android has grown to 33% share in 12 months, with Apple making a steady ascent. Check out Ashwin’s slides as he lists iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Microsoft summary numbers – interesting reading. In terms of application development, is it best to write once for all devices (Open Source - HTML5), or target for your particular device? It’s the same old problem. The device feature matrix is interesting – again I recommend you spend some time studying the slides in Ashwin’s handout. They are at:
http://www.slideshare.net/occio

We asked the group to share with us their biggest challenge with mobility.

Jeff’s biggest problem is that they are in a regulated industry, and security is the challenge. Everyone wants to have their own type of device so they have to pilot them to determine which devices can run on their networks, and allow only those devices which meet basic standards.

Jim related that his client's biggest challenge is to accommodate all their innovations – the field people want to do competitive analysis on their smartphones. They are also thinking about having their own ap store.

Jon’s biggest challenge is user support, as the devices come from all over the world. He has no mobile aps as yet.

Dave’s challenges include the variety of platforms because they work with many different clients, and how to implement the gatekeeper concept so that everything developed for one client stays that way. Nuedesic has invested heavily in mobility.

Joe stated that mobile aps are not on his radar as yet. He has a nice suite of applications, which might not migrate to the mobile environment that easily.

Sean said that as a SAP partner they have invested heavily in mobility. There is a lot of proof of concept activity going on.

Andy said that they are a Blackberry user, with a legacy ERP system. They will be evaluating the integration of desk top PCs, to tablet, to iPod

OC CIO Minutes July 14, 2011

2011-08-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
July 14, 2011 meeting

Present: Jennifer Curlee, Jim Sutter, David Mann, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of future topics and speakers:

8/11/11 i-pad and mobility Ashwin Rangan

Please send me your suggestions for topics and speakers for September through December.

Topic: IT as a Service

Jennifer started by quoting IT costs as a % of revenue – Gartner states 3.5% (4.3% of operating expense) whereas Computer Economics states it’s more like 1.5% to 1.8% of revenue. IT costs per user are down from $8K in 2006 to $7K in 2010. Forrester claims that it would be much better if IT costs were stated in terms of service items users understand (like email, web hosting, etc.) rather than in IT units like servers, storage arrays, etc. Chargeback/allocation is useful because it helps contain cost, demand accountability, transparency, value and impact of IT. The challenge of establishing of a chargeback/allocation system is that what’s included as IT costs varies from company to company. What you might like would be simple to understand, accountable, fair, predictable and controllable. Various chargeback models are based on either or all of direct costs, % usage and/or subscription fees. Jennifer’s handout contained many examples of the different methods. If you want a service based pricing approach, it should be based on a measured unit of service, supports a price to value relationship, and requires a service catalog to provide a framework for IT as a business within a business. To get started you must produce a catalog of services, estimate TCO per unit and establish a pricing structure. Jennifer included samples of infrastructure chargeback from BizCloud catalog, and from Amazon. To support such a system you have to have chargeback tracking tools, which she also listed.

Thank you, Jennifer, for an excellent presentation and handout. We had a very interactive discussion throughout maybe because of rather than in spite of the small turnout. It’s a topic that we could revisit again soon. It certainly reminded us of the struggles we had in the past trying to implement such systems, whether to distribute costs, or at least control costs and/or influence usage.

OC CIO Minutes May 12, 2011

2011-06-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
May 12, 2011 meeting

Present: Jeff Hecht, Keith Golden, Jim Sutter, Jeff Reid, Jennifer Curlee, Jon Grunzweig, Joe Desuta, David Mann, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of future topics and speakers:
7/14/11 IT as a service Jennifer Curlee
8/11/11 i-pad and mobility Ashwin Rangan

At the meeting, the members agreed to suggest topics and speakers for September through December.

Topic: Cloud Computing update

Jeff Hecht started out with a great slide showing why some companies are for and some are against cloud computing. At its best, cloud computing enables IT to be more responsive to business needs, and more efficient, but it requires a cautious rethink of IT. You can’t move applications to the cloud without understanding the completely different environments. Maturity of key elements such as virtualization, SOA, and broadband networks has made the cloud viable. There are many reasons to embrace the cloud such as low start-up costs, consolidation, scalability, reliability and DR. Check out the IDG slide for drivers of cloud initiatives within companies. It allows you to optimize the cost of capacity. But there are many reasons to be wary of cloud computing, and none more than security and compliance – 74% of IT management does not believe the costs savings outweigh the security considerations. There are 4 models – private cloud (single entity), public (open to all), hybrid (a mingling of both), and community cloud (supporting several organizations with like interests) – and 5 key characteristics (on-demand self service, ubiquitous network access, location independent resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and pay per use). There are 3 delivery models – SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. I thoroughly recommend that you read Jeff’s slides to get more detail on the concepts, terminology, and especially the concerns about security, threats, and countermeasures. The scale of the cloud providers is amazing – see slides on Microsoft, Google and Amazon, and be careful to read the detail in the SLA agreements. This was an excellent presentation. Jeff lists the many links to more material on this subject.

We asked the group to share with us their experiences with cloud computing to-date.

David Mann said that his company has a company, which provides services in the cloud computing environment, but they have not yet started to use the cloud for internal mission critical applications

Joe said that since this was his 2nd day in a new job, he is not absolutely sure but feels safe to say that they are doing nothing in the cloud as yet, but are interested in it and it will be something that they will consider.

Jon said that they do use Storage as a Service, and other simple SaaS, and are talking with Microsoft. They are investigating options and will probably use Azure for development.

Jennifer said that they are looking at anything that will reduce in-house IT resources. They are looking at putting email in the cloud, and other options. They are ITAR compliant, which means that they cannot use a service from an overseas location

Jeff Reid is using SaaS and Salesforce.com. They are generally very open to this, but at the same time are concerned about the risks and security issues. He feels that the cloud killed Iron Mountain

Jim’s only exposure to this has been when he was on the Board of a start-up. He can see that it would be attractive to a same company, but is trying to envision a larger company relying totally on the cloud.

Keith said that he is in constant contact with cloud service providers. His 5-year road map visualizes extensive use of the cloud, and he is trying to work out how they get there from here. He is evaluating CRMs – the sales VP does not like Salesforce.com. Other divisions are starting to sign up for cloud services.

Thank you, Jeff, for an excellent presentation and handout. It can be found at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

OC CIO Minutes May 12, 2011

2011-05-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
May 12, 2011 meeting

Present: David Mann, Joe Desuta, Brian Zrimsek, Jeff Hecht, Brad Reece, Jon Grunzweig, Sean Brown, Jennifer Curlee, Subbu Murthy, Keith Golden, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of future topics and speakers – note the change in June and July:

6/9/11 Cloud computing update Jeff Hecht
7/14/11 IT as a service Jennifer Curlee
8/11/11 i-pad and mobility Ashwin Rangan

At the June meeting we will be selecting topics and speakers for September through December.

We welcomed Brad Reece, Edwards Lifesciences, and Brian Zrimsek, Irvine Company, to their first meeting.

Topic: Enterprise Social Networking

David Mann quoted Wikipedia and defined a social network as a structure tied together by a common interest. An enterprise social network is essentially putting the consumer facing technology behind the firewall. Traditional corporate communications tools tend to exclude rather than include, ignore business systems, and always are a step behind. A better model would share ideas more readily, leverage existing applications, and empower users to get things done now. He has an interesting slide on adoption patterns of email, chat, blogs & wikis, and social networks, which are really taking hold. Facebook has 661M users as of 4/1/11 (10% growth in 3 months), 150M mobile users, and the average user spends 13 hours per month. Twitter has 175M users, 65M tweets per day (up from 16M in 4/09). Enterprise social networks rarely fail, but use selectively to begin with, and find a leader to champion the effort. Context is king; data is cheap. Use you social platform to unlock system data and business events. Allow users to put data into context. Choose a safe starting point. Social tool players include Yammer (SAAS model with connection to the Active Directory), Newsgator (Sharepoint), Chatter (Salesforce.com) and Neudesic Pulse – a detail feature comparison is available. Those of you who want the competitive analysis, contact John Vogeley, General Manager of Pulse product: cell: 949-307-5195, John.Vogeley@neudesic.com. Things to look for include multiple delivery models, security, mobile platforms, system integrity, platform and architecture.

We asked the group to share with us their experiences with enterprise social networks.

Subbu found that the demand for this capability came from Marketing, not IT, and he is trying to find a governance and compliance model to fit, because it is not just within the enterprise. The CIO is following, not leading, and the technology is changing. He urged care in selecting the trial product and trial project.

Joe is presently consulting with a small company, and he wondered what size company does it make sense to try this. The general opinion of the group was that it can work in companies of 10-20, and can easily grow with success.

Jeff has used Pulse, with mixed results. It is good on a project, where instant sharing of information is very useful. He has not found a real negative, although younger people tend to gravitate to using social networks more than the older employee.

Brad has been using social networking tools for about a year. His company’s approach is very scientific and thorough but it turns out that the selection of a particular tool is not that important.

Jon said that his effort to use social networking is at a stalemate. Half the company employees are over 50, so the use of social networks will be driven by IT and will involve mostly the younger employees.

Sean complimented David on an excellent presentation, and he welcomes the use of social networking tools in an enterprise. It will allow the younger employee to grow and is a great development tool.

Jennifer is using a blogging tool because her inside sales force need to communicate better with their external counterparts. They are going to be using Salesforce,com. They have fired an employee for misusing Facebook for spreading derogatory remarks about a fellow employee.

Thank you, David, for an excellent introduction and handout. David's slides are at
http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

OC CIO Minutes April 14, 2011

2011-04-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
April 14, 2011 meeting

Present: Joe Desuta, Ashwin Rangan, Jim Sutter, Jeff Hecht, Subbu Murthy, Hicham Semaan, Jennifer Curlee, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of future topics and speakers – note the change in June and July:

5/12/11 Enterprise social networking David Mann
6/9/11 Cloud computing update Jeff Hecht
7/14/11 IT as a service Jennifer Curlee
8/11/11 i-pad and mobility Ashwin Rangan

Topic: The value of QA

Joe Desuta used the Wikipedia definition of QA – the systematic monitoring and evaluation of an activity to improve the probability of attaining a quality product or process, but it does not guarantee the outcome. QA as an IT function is not limited to software - any testing falls under QA. It is hard to quantify the ROI. It is relatively easy to find bugs in the features, but how does one put a value to that? How do you QA performance and/or data errors? Testing takes time and tends to delay the release but it is important when problems with the new release or product affect clients (or worse in a regulated industry), not just internal staff. The value of QA varies significantly, depending on the size and type of company, as does the ratio of tester to developer. Should the test team be part of the development team? Who is responsible for data integrity? The approach to QA is changing, from the traditional waterfall method (which makes a lot of sense when going to a new release of a package), to a more agile method where QA occurs a lot earlier and is part of the development team, sometimes part of the requirements team, where you can define for testability. Testing for security is becoming part of the requirements. The trend in QA is to use script free approaches, and to use testing tools in the cloud, tools which are more supporting of the Agile approach. Joe included the magic quadrant for integrated software quality suites.

We asked those present to share with us their experiences with QA.

Hicham wondered about the performance testing issues of QA. QA adds value by improving the product by finding errors before it is deployed, but is this enough?

Jennifer is a fan of QA but feels that it could add more value if it focused also on improving documentation and training.

Jeff is also a fan of QA but has in the past tended to include that effort as part of the development team.

Ashwin is now part of a heavily regulated industry, where testing is mandatory, with a track and trace requirement. About 10% of the 7,000 employees are in QA. In IT he has a 6-person QA team doing code testing, and an independent IT team involved way ahead in the protocol definition effort.

Jim said that he might be a bit out-of-date on this issue. He was on the board of WaveMaker, which was sold to VMWare and which saw a huge improvement going Agile. The winery tends to not have a separate IT QA group, as quality is not as big an issue as performance. He noted that in the auto industry, defects per 1,000 is used as a measure to quantify quality.

Subbu noted that one could be surprised by defects in things that you would assume were error free. He mentioned that social security numbers are not unique!

Thank you, Joe, for the interesting introduction and the handout. Joe's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

OC CIO Minutes March 10, 2011

2011-03-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
March 10, 2011 meeting

Present: Jeff Reid, Keith Golden, Jennifer Curlee, Jeff Hecht, Sean Brown, David Mann, Tony Aldemir, Ashwin Rangan, Joe Desuta, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Ashwin’s guest Tony Aldemir, Edwards Lifesciences, to his first visit to the OC CIO Round Table. The following is a list of future topics and speakers:

4/14/11 The value of QA Joe Desuta
5/12/11 Enterprise social networking David Mann
6/9/11 IT as a service Jennifer Curlee
7/14/11 Cloud computing update Jeff Hecht
8/11/11 i-pad and mobility Ashwin Rangan

Topic: Outsourcing

Jeff Reid started by defining terms, making the distinction between outsourcing, off-shoring, near-shoring and remote infrastructure management (RIM). The total value of outsourcing contracts in 2010 was $62B, a 6% growth per year – 8 of these were mega deals of $1B or more. India still leads by a large margin, but China is catching up, with the Philippines also growing. Jeff also listed cities by nation as big outsourcing centers. For outsourcing, he listed some of the pros (lower costs, increased efficiency, focus and corporate profits) and cons (increased PM complexity, loss of control and IP vulnerability). For off-shoring, the US pros include increased corporate profits, and the cons include unemployment, loss of industrial base and high trade deficits – the developing countries benefit, which is good if there are reciprocal agreements. He noted that the City of Costa Mesa was considering outsourcing several business services and functions, and he quoted the proposed cost savings and other benefits. The reasons for outsourcing include cost restructuring (move to variable costs), improved quality (with SLAs), service contracts, access to best practices, access to knowledge and a pool of talent. The reasons not to outsource include the outsourcer tends not to work directly for the process managers, loss of quality, language/accent difficulties, culture gaps, security and effect on employee morale. The set-up time for the switch to an outsourcer can be longer than expected, especially if both parties are not equally prepared. Communication is key; ability to create SLAs is important; training and repeat training is needed; the legal contract is important but doesn’t guarantee success; the issues don’t go away, just change; continuous change management is important; so is governance. Jeff attached a page or two on how to get started.
Jeff mentioned that most of his experience with outsourcing was from prior jobs – his new employer does not do very much, except with a local company.

We asked those present to share with us their experiences with outsourcing.
Keith said that he is not outsourcing IT at the moment – his current challenge is with manufacturing in Mexico. In the past he was involved mainly with task outsourcing. His main concern is when you outsource, knowledge retention is a problem.

Jennifer is looking to outsource as much as possible. She is down to 3 people in her development group, and is looking for skills in small measures.

Jeff Hecht said that they do a lot of business process outsourcing, such as claims processing. They acquired a company out of Dallas, which did a lot of outsourcing. The weakest area is QA. A great deal of IT is outsourced to China and India, where they found it very important to align the teams – the in-house contact(s) with the remote supporting staff, team by team. 24 by 7 support is outsourced, and the head of the remote staff was here for 3 weeks.

David echoed what Jeff said. His new employer provides outsourcing services to clients who demand both on-shore and off-shore services. They are US-based but have 100 people in India.

Tony said that they are in the process of outsourcing their upgrade to the JDEdwards ERP system. It’s a big enough job with the primary responsibility assigned to a core team within IT, supported by a major effort offshore. The reason for this approach is to mitigate the risk and protect against staff and knowledge retention issues. There is a timing tissue, a target schedule and a concern about change management.

Ashwin said that his direction is to do more and more off-shore, and to only do things here that add value. The timing is the only issue. He has had good experiences with outsourcing both at Conexant, where they started with IT and Y2K, proved that it was a viable approach, and by 2006 had outsourced 1200 design engineers at 4 locations in India. His experience with B of A was even more expansive outsourcing to 32 centers.

Thank you, Jeff, for the introduction and the handout, which I recommend to all those who did not attend then session. They are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio

OC CIO Minutes February 10, 2011

2011-02-26T15:09:00.000-08:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
February 10, 2011 meeting

Present: Keith Golden, Ashwin Rangan, William Zauner, Cameron Cosgrove, Subbu Murthy, Jennifer Curlee, Sean Brown, David Mann, Mike Weller, Joe Desuta, Dave Phillips

We thanked Keith Golden for his presentation and welcomed Mike Weller to his first visit to the OC CIO Round Table. Several members volunteered to introduce future topics:

3/10/11 Offshore outsourcing update Jeff Reid
4/14/11 The value of QA Joe Desuta
5/12/11 Enterprise social networking David Mann
6/9/11 IT as a service Jennifer Curlee
7/14/11 Cloud computing update Jeff Hecht
8/11/11 i-pad and mobility Ashwin Rangan

Topic: The evolving role of the CIO

Keith Golden started by reviewing the changes over the last 50 years, both in computers, applications and the demands on the person in charge. The title changed from DP Manager, to MIS Director, to VP Systems/Computer Services, to CIO, where the “I” stands for Information (or Innovation, Integration, Irritation) to Career is Over. The role is a combination of innovator, turnaround specialist, operations/process expert, business leader and strategist. The CIO must align with the business and business strategy, develop leadership and people skills, anticipate and drive change, cultivate board level influence, partner more, spend less and deliver. Technology keeps changing, and the CIO has to keep abreast, or loss out to bright young users who are familiar with the latest mobile technology options. The customer is asking for BP optimization, using new technologies like cloud computing. The ensuing discussion touched on the need to set the right expectations within the enterprise, and report against that. How should the CIO change to adapt to the future? Who should the CIO report to? How integrated should “integrated” be? Many of the CIOs present had their own ideas. Keith's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

David thanked Keith for a very good presentation. He agreed that it is a changing role, and if we don’t change, we will become obsolete. His aim was to become business partners, part of the strategic team, which just decided that they wanted to focus on the business, and not on running IT. They have just outsourced the running of IT to the company they hired to help develop their applications.

Jennifer Curlee is part of a small manufacturing company, which is in a downturn situation. The workload for IT has increased but not the budget, and so IT has to outsource as much as possible. As CIO she focuses on the strategic objectives.

Subbu also thanked Keith for his presentation. A CIO is facing a challenge as the user and business is becoming more knowledgeable. Thus a CIO has to become more innovative, and must gain the trust of the other executives. The CIO has to develop the skill set of a CEO, collaborate with other CIOs in like situations, and come up with an IT scorecard to report progress.

William Zauner said that he felt that the role of CIO would continue to be important in technology companies for at least 5 years. In other companies, the role will become less important and they will outsource most of the function, because of the availability of the applications and the technology options such as cloud computing. Now SAP can be
Installed in companies of 10 people on the cloud.

Joe sees CIOs becoming trusted partners and advisors to their CEOs, who tend to be hands-off on technology options, especially in smaller companies.

Mike agreed especially as users become more self-sufficient, more technology literate. The role of the CIO will become one of being the navigator.

OC CIO Minutes, January 13, 2011

2011-02-04T16:59:00.000-08:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
January 13, 2011 meeting

Present: Hendrik Gerryts, Paul Gray, Jeff Reid, David Mann, Jon Hahn, Jon Grunzweig, Stephan Birnbach, Keith Golden, Bob Houghton, William Zauner, Jim Sutter, Jennifer Curlee, Jeff Hecht, Dave Phillips

Our thanks to Hendrik Gerryts, RJT Compuquest, for making the presentation on BI.

It was nice to see Paul Gray, IS Professor Emeritus, Claremont, on a rare visit. We welcomed Jon Grunzweig, Majestic Realty.

2/10/11 The evolving role of the CIO Keith Golden
3/10/11 Offshore outsourcing update Jeff Reid
4/14/11 Cloud computing update Jeff Hecht

Topic: Business Intelligence

Hendrik gave several definitions of BI – techniques used in spotting, digging out, and analyzing business data; technologies which provide historical, current and predictive views of business operations; DSS by any other name; bringing the right information at the right time to the right people in the right format. The chart on page 4 of his handout is good. He gave a short history of BI, starting with a 1958 article by Hans Luhn, and the relationship between a BI system and a data warehouse, based on Forrester definitions. BI can be applied to measurement, analytics, reporting, collaboration and knowledge management within an enterprise. There are many keys to a successful BI strategy, including choosing the right C-level sponsor (not the CIO), common data definitions, understanding what the user/business needs, and choosing the right tool and systems integrator. He also included a list of CSFs for the implementation of BI. He quoted a Gartner paper from 2009 on the future of BI – I’m not sure the members totally bought into the predictions, but the following trends seemed reasonable. By 2014, one third of BI will be delivered through mobile devices, analytic processing will use in-memory functions, and more of the spending will be on system integrators not software vendors. The last 3 slides contain a list of BI products which contain a reporting tool, BI vendors and a 2 by 2 chart showing challengers and leaders.

We asked those present to share with us their experiences with BI.

Paul Gray, who wrote the first book on BI, is a member of INFORM, an applications group which does OR and analytics. IT tends not to be into modeling or analytics. This is an opportunity for IT to get involved with OR to become closer to the end user.

Jeff Reid reminded us that he has just started with a new company, and they are not heavy into BI as yet. They have a data warehouse application, and are trying to consolidate data more efficiently. They are a SAP shop and will look at compatible tools.

David Mann said that they had no BI implemented as yet either, but plan to this next year. They will aim to use the tools to provide them insight into patient loyalty, claim analytics, and fraud detection, and are interested in the use of mobile devices.

Jon Grunzweig said that he works for a private company in the office/retail/industrial warehousing business, which has just completed a 2-year study of BI tools and applications, but lacked a user sponsor/investor driving the effort. They went through a process of building a portfolio analysis capability using Microsoft BI tool set, but it wasn’t until the owner started to understand the potential that they gained traction within the company – a great case study.

Jon Hahn said that he also had just started with a new company (since May), and his near term goal is to modernize all the systems. BI comes relatively low on their priority list at the moment, but they do have one BI application for reporting purposes.

Stephan Birnbach said that he has a tale of what not to do with $1M. They ended up with a COGNOS application with low adoption. IT took over ownership of the system, and never gave it back to the user. They do have an analytics application in use.

Keith Golden is also only ¾ months in a new job. His predecessor purchased COSNOS but it will take a full year of basic blocking and tackling to get it effectively implemented. Yesterday, they listened to a presentation by Microsoft on their tools but it seems that Excel and a spreadsheet approach will be still in major use.

Bob Houghton spoke about his years at Western Digital, DDI and RealtyTrac - all three had implemented BI. A CSF is to get business ownership of the effort. The biggest fight he had was from within IT in the choice of the “right” tool, but if you do it right then it becomes indispensable.

William Zauner said that they use a DW and an application called Business Objects, which is a good tool other than single sign doesn’t work. The DW applications are pretty extensive and they have some analytics capability. The presentation tool (Excelsius) and its mobile application are loved by the executives. The biggest problem has been to get one version of the truth - one definition of the data.

Jennifer Curlee took over the reporting, after she convinced the CFO and his people that there was a better way, using the BI tool to report the data from the DW. There are still two versions of the displayed data, and she has to deal with a friend of the CEO who has other reporting ideas.
Jeff Hecht explained that this was their 3rd attempt at a BI project. They will use Microsoft tools, and they have several of the problems that are common to most of us – multiple ownership of the data and multiple legacy systems. Several years ago they built a dashboard application, but the owners never really bought into it, and one version of the truth is still a major problem.

OC CIO Minutes December 9, 2010

2010-12-21T16:41:00.000-08:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
December 9, 2010 meeting

Present: Cameron Cosgrove, Subbu Murthy, Jim Sutter, Joe Desuta, Jeff Hecht, Sean Brown, Jeff Reid, Jennifer Curlee, Dave Phillips

We toasted Paul Gray, IS Professor Emeritus, Claremont, on his 80th birthday on 12/8.

Our thanks to Sean for supplying an egg and bacon breakfast for those who wanted it.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics through April 2011:

1/13/11 Business Intelligence update Sean Brown
2/10/11 The evolving role of the CIO Keith Golden
3/10/11 Offshore outsourcing update Jeff Reid
4/14/11 Cloud computing update Jeff Hecht

Topic: The lack of standards in mobile computing

Cameron Cosgrove started by giving a quick overview of First American Financial – title insurance and escrow co., $4B, 900 offices, 12,000 US employees, 4,000 abroad. They have 4.500 cell phones now consolidated to 3 carriers, each with I account and pooled minutes – 90% Verizon; AT&T is the back up carrier and iPhone support; Sprint has their push-to-talk walkie-talkie for the security team. The 4-person support team supports 196 different devices – no standards prior to consolidation in 2008. Eliminating the yearly upgrade saves $235,000. To get the full flavor of Cameron’s presentation, please check his slides. In summary, there are standards issues – Active Sync follows their security policies; Active Directory account settings cause support problems and First American security policy demands password resets every 90 days. Blackberry devices require more support – potential savings if they could eliminate them. Their security standards include all devices must be registered to send/receive mail; mobile users need rights in Active Directory to sync to exchange server; all devices are encrypted; passwords have 4+ characters; auto wipe after 10 password attempts; device must lock after 10 min. inactivity; ability to remote wipe a lost/stolen device; removable storage is disabled; ability to push updates to device. After consolidation, the support team audited all accounts (creating a master wireless database) and cancelled hundreds of terminated users, for initial savings of $432K. They continue to do monthly audits, which result in substantial savings. Warranty replacement rebates amount to $12K per month. Savings from zero usage devices is $150K/year. Their ongoing team goals include being proactive in reducing costs, providing excellent levels of service (in the US and globally), maintain accurate database (can’t rely on vendor records), and partner with the business.

The discussion was free flowing and very active. The general impression was that the presentation was very effective and stated in straightforward terms – well worth reading for those of you who were not in attendance.

OC CIO Minutes, November 11, 2010

2010-11-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
November 11, 2010 meeting

Present: Subbu Murthy, Jim Sutter, Joe Desuta, Keith Golden, David Mann, William Zauner, Jeff Hecht, Sean Brown, Jennifer Curlee, Hicham Semaan, Dave Phillips

REMINDER: The next OC CIO meeting will be at the new RJTCompuquest office, 18301 Von Karman, Suite 5000, Irvine, CA 92612.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics through April 2011:

12/9/10 Lack of Standards in mobile computing Cameron Cosgrove
1/13/10 Business Intelligence update Sean Brown
2/10/11 The evolving role of the CIO Keith Golden
3/10/11 Offshore outsourcing update Jeff Reid
4/14/11 Cloud computing update Jeff Hecht

We welcomed Joe Desuta to his first meeting.

Topic: IT Dashboards

IT has responsibility for many different functions within a company – for example, project management, change management, problem ticket management, helpdesk management, and asset management – all currently managed by separate tools or systems.
Subbu suggested that there is real value to be gained from integrating the reporting of status through a dashboard view of significant progress in these major categories, while providing the ability to drill down for detailed status of any particular project or problem area. The rationale for this includes facilitating better governance, providing transparency, resource management and integrating across multiple tool kits. The pragmatic approach to building dashboards is required, one that is ITIL compliant, modular, using commonly available platforms like MicroStrategy, IBM Cognos, OBIEE, and QlikView. Subbu compared the perfect life of a CIO versus the real world challenges of balancing budget vs. priority, wants vs. needs, resource vs. budget, infrastructure vs. applications, now vs. later, and business value vs. IT costs. It depends on which stage of maturity the CIO has evolved into – is he/she focused on operational efficiency as the technical expert, or has he/she learned the business and is now focused on strategic effectiveness as a Business Process expert, or has he/she become the market expert and focuses on revenue, on being entrepreneurial. The IT dashboard would look significantly different depending on which stage of maturity the CIO has evolved into. Thinking about IT as a multifunctional entity, where access to status in each area would be of value to the CIO, provoked an active discussion amongst the group!
We asked those present to share with us their use of dashboard technology to stay on top of various activities.

Jeff said that they don’t have any type of integrated tools to review progress but do have separate tracking tools, such as the helpdesk ticket open/closed status. Jeff focuses on tickets that are open too long. They also care about customer satisfaction and track that separately. They also have alerts regarding resource usage, and a green/yellow/red alert system for projects. He liked the idea of being able to drill down.

William also said that they don’t have an integrated dashboard but since they are a small shop, he stays in touch with project status by human contact. They do have a dashboard for the phone system. They also use a great BI tool, Xcelcius, to track judges current business and projections.

David M. agreed that they track most of this through the use of disjointed systems. He liked this approach. They have a time tracking system which tracks time charged to projects, but does not do a good job of tracking individual resources.

Keith is just taking over as CIO in a new company, and it is hard to get to grips on problems, to become aware of what is going on. He is stressing accountability, and is focusing on getting the underlying systems working before implementing a dashboard.

Joe is not at a stage where this approach fits. He just finished a project using Salesforce.com, where which method you use to display status is important. The ability to drill down is also very important.

Jim said that at one of his clients, the CIO does not have an integrated view on purpose. They take the view that they do not want to be separate from the company, and use the same tools as accounting for budget tracking, HR for personnel tracking, PMO tracking tools used by plant engineering (who do have a form of dashboard).

Hicham said that they do have a complex dashboard system tracking budgets, spreadsheets and tickets - all built in Excel – and would love to have something like this for the whole company. He is not sure where he would start – in IT, or elsewhere in the company.
Subbu - thank you for a great presentation and discussion. The slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

OC CIO Minutes October 14, 2010

2010-10-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

1993-2011
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
October 14, 2010 meeting

Present: Jim Sutter, Cameron Cosgrove, Hicham Semaan, Jeff Hecht, Sean Brown, Jeff Reid, Keith Golden, Jennifer Curlee, Tina Haines, Dave Phillips

REMINDER: The next OC CIO meeting will be at the new RJTCompuquest office, 18301 Von Karman, Suite 5000, Irvine, CA 92612.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics through April 2011:

11/11/10 IT Dashboards Subbu Murthy
12/9/10 Lack of Standards in mobile computing Cameron Cosgrove
1/13/10 Business Intelligence update Sean Brown
2/10/11 The evolving role of the CIO Keith Golden
3/10/11 Offshore outsourcing update Jeff Reid
4/14/11 Cloud computing update Jeff Hecht

We welcomed Cameron Cosgrove, First American, and Keith Golden, Econolite, to their first meetings. Each briefly described their responsibilities – Cameron is the CTO and VP in charge of the infrastructure at First American, and Keith just recently took over as CIO at Econolite, a traffic management company founded in 1933.

Topic: Next Generation WANs

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, predicted that the future would be WiMax and LTE, driven by demographics (the Internet generation), the multitude of Internet devices, and the demand created by apps and content. WiMax (World Interoperability for Microwave Access) is not new; it is based on IEEE 802.16, and provides a wireless alternative to Cable or DSL for the last mile without digging. WAN – MAN provides mobile support for a city wireless network, which includes telephone, TV and the Internet. Jim’s slides show a diagram and actual pictures of what it looks like. The potential applications include providing portable mobile broadband connectivity across cities and countries, supporting data, VoIP and IPTV services (triple play). It can be used to provide Internet connectivity as part of a business continuity plan, and a network to facilitate machine-to-machine communications such as Smart Metering. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution – surprise! Upgrading from 3G to 4G mobile communications technology – essentially a mobile broadband system. High peak upload and download rates, and sub 5 ms latency for small IP packages. Mobile TV can become a competitor for TV broadcast. Worldwide support for mobile users depends on the deployment of 1G, 2G and 3G technologies, using 3GPP standards. The natural path from 3GPP (GSM and HSPA) seems to be LTE. Jim listed all the organizations that have worked on this evolution. We will run out of fixed IP addresses next summer (IPv4). IPv6 will fix the problem but is not compatible with IPv4, so ISPs will continue to provide the translation. Jim included several slides on IPv6 details – the take home is to make sure you buy IPv6 compatible HD/SW. There is a significant difference in the latency of LTE over WiMax. Jim’s slide 26 is a good illustration of how all this fits together, and he adds some industry forecasts. What this means to CIOs is more reach, richer applications, more capable branch offices, potential cost reductions and more demand!

We asked those present to tell us about their experience with WiMax ad LTE.

Cameron said that he has no experience with either, as they have not started to use WiMax or LTE. They will make 4G cards available, but he does not think that this will add much to cell phone usage. He does negotiate with vendors for I year bulk rates as they have a high volume – Verizon is their primary vendor.

Hicham thanked Jim for his presentation on a very timely topic for him. He needs guidance, as they always have to add more T1 lines to support their 6 offices, and their class attendees, 55% of whom connect remotely from home. What is a good solution for him? Sean agreed to put him in touch with a good WAN consultant.

Jeff H. said that this is all for connecting more bandwidth at the desk of the mobile workforce. Who knows, but LTE might be too slow in a few years time. Sprint is their primary carrier, and the have WiMax available. As they are an early adopter of WiMax, they may hit the wall before LTE.

Sean also thanked Jim for an excellent presentation. Sean has a friend who works for Hyundai, and they are big into using microwave towers. He also suggested that for our Christmas meeting on 12/9/10, we should have a more extensive breakfast, and wanted to know who was interested in that idea.

Jeff R. also thought that this was a very timely topic for him. He is relatively new in his current position and the WAN contract is coming up for renewal. They have 200 employees in the US and 400 in China. They primarily use Sprint, and some ATT for international travel, despite poor ATT reception locally.

Jennifer just returned from a conference in Orlando. They are in 6 separate locations all within line-of-sight of each other, and they use everything, including T1s. They are trying to simplify their world. They use Verizon, T-Mobile and recently stopped using Sprint.

Jim, thank you for a great presentation, and for displaying command over the technology. Jim's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

See you on November 11, 2010 at 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at 18301 Von Karman, Suite 5000, Irvine, CA 92612.

OC CIO Minutes September 9, 2010

2010-09-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
September 9, 2010 meeting

Present: Hicham Semaan, Sean Brown, Jennifer Curlee, Jim Sutter, William Zauner, Joe Cracchiolo, Dave Phillips

REMINDER: The next OC CIO meeting will be at the new RJTCompuquest office, 18301 Von Karman, Suite 5000, Irvine, CA 92612.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics through November 2010:

10/14/10 Next generation WAN Jim Sutter
11/11/10 IT Dashboards Subbu Murthy

In a week, I will be emailing you requesting topics and speakers for the next 6 months. Please give some thought to what you would like to see discussed and which topic you will be willing to present.

Topic: Microsoft Road Map

Last month, Tina Haines reminded us that the 1st desktop computer was the Altair 8800, which was the platform on which Allen and Gates developed their software and launched Microsoft 35 years ago. Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, brought us up to date with a report from Microsoft’s worldwide partner conference held recently in Washington, D. C. He started with a movie featuring Kevin Turner, the new COO at Microsoft, speaking to the direction that Microsoft is committed. He predicted that we are headed to a new world in which everyone and every device will be connected. Microsoft is committed to moving from the packaged software business to a subscription services business on the Cloud. Believing in big, bold goals, Microsoft will be supporting continuous smart Cloud services for smart devices, with no customer involvement in upgrades. Cloud services will be of two varieties – consumer services, and commercial services. Microsoft won’t change – they will continue to innovate for the long term, and are committed to execution excellence. At this time, 70% (and growing) of Microsoft’s employees are working on Cloud services, and they are investing $9.5 B in that effort - 20% of revenue. (Turner might have a future in sales!). Hicham punctuated the movie with his own observations and comments, which was very effective. He followed that up with select slides from various presentations at the conference, some of which are attached. He noted that lots of big companies are already using their Cloud services, whether it be Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, or Infrastructure as a Service. Hicham's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

We asked those assembled for their reaction to Microsoft’s road map.

Jim said that at the winery, they use Microsoft’s Cloud CRM and have had some performance issues. There is limited functionality, and a lack of intuitiveness. He noted that the presentation at the partner’s conference was designed to persuade them to go and sell this approach. It’s more an AND, not OR.

Joe was most impressed with Microsoft’s commitment to Cloud services. 70% of the development folks working on Cloud services, growing to 90%, is impressive.

William was shocked that Microsoft was going so completely to the Cloud.

Jennifer was surprised because they are going through a renegotiations with their Microsoft partner, and there was no mention of the Cloud. The Cloud is attractive to her as it allows them not to have to upgrade each desktop.

Sean noted that talk of the Cloud is very familiar. As a SAP reseller, the big push is to go to the Cloud.

Thank you, Hicham, for the presentation and very effective use of the movie and slides. To view the video, use this link but you might have to be a partner to view…:

http://digitalwpc.com/Videos/VisionKeynoteVideos10/3/KevinTurnerkeynote

See you on October 14, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at 18301 Von Karman, Suite 5000, Irvine, CA 92612.

OC CIO Minutes August 12, 2010

2010-08-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
August 12, 2010 meeting

Present: Tina Haines, Sean Brown, Vinu Gurukar, Jeff Hecht, Jennifer Curlee, Jim Sutter, Ashwin Rangan, Dave Phillips

RJTCompuquest are moving their offices at the end of August. The next OC CIO meeting will be at the new RJTCompuquest office, 18301 Von Karman, Suite 5000, Irvine, CA 92612.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics through October 2010:

9/9/10 Microsoft road map Hicham Semaan
10/14/10 Next generation WAN Jim Sutter

We still need topics and speakers for November and December.

Topic: What’s “new” at the Desktop

Tina Haines started at the beginning – the 1st desktop computer was the Altair 8800, made by Ed Roberts, who died on March 31, 2010. It retailed for $439 in 1975. It was the platform on which Allen and Gates developed their software and launched Microsoft. The Apple Computer was established on April 1st 1976. Gartner says that there are more than 1B PCs in use (9.6 % are MACs), heading to 2B by 2014; 180M will be replaced this year, and 35M dumped in landfills. Tina’s slides contain distributions by region and corporate purchasing trends. There are a variety of end user devices in play, from desktops, laptops to smartbooks, netbooks, to a variety of smart phones. A Google executive forecasts that smart mobile devices will make PCs “irrelevant” in about 3 years – our group did not agree – but Gartner does forecast about 1.2B in use by 2013. iPADs do fill a need in corporations, and the number shipped is growing, but there is no enterprise device management at this time. The factors driving change include the need for mobile access to everything, especially with SaaS, cloud computing, virtualization, and the promise of broadband everywhere. Green technology consciousness is also driving change especially in manufacturing where 70% of PC life cycle resources are used. This is driving the growth of Zonbu – a small 5 lb. PC which sells at $280. TCO is a factor as costs increase with age, especially after 3 to 4 years, when you might be thinking of refreshing, and the lower energy consumptions of laptops might be another reason to drive the move from desktops to laptops. Some of Gartner’s predictions are interesting – by 2012 20% of businesses will own no IT assets; Facebook will become the hub for social networking; by 2013 mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device; by 2014, 3B of the world’s adult population will be able to transact electronically. The prognosticators are divided on whether PCs will disappear, especially any time soon.

We asked those assembled for their reaction to these trends.

Jennifer is looking at Windows 7, and finds that many of their desktops have to be upgraded if they want to use the Windows 7 software capabilities. Otherwise they will have to stay with the old. What will probably happen is a mix and match. They are also looking at outsourcing their Help desk but not sure that will help, because they often have to go and see the problem to fix it.

Jeff was concerned about security, but Windows 7 does come with inscription. Laptops use less power but cost more. Monitors are the biggest part of the cost of desktops. There are problems with smart phones, so they won’t be pushing IP emails to anyone on iphones. Jeff mentioned HIPPA requirements, and the security agreements that they have to sign.

Carmella suggested that these concerns vary by industry. Their concern is to provide the widest possible access for all of their students.

Ashwin was last with B of A, where everything was locked down. They had rigorous device control, and you could only have access to certain devices. But things change quite quickly and iphones were introduced 3 years ago. The quality of voice modems in mobile phones has to improve for them to be perfect as input devices. At Edwards, there is no concern for TCO, and are not thinking about phones as a computer replacement device. They are standardizing on Windows 7 in a 3-year replacement lifecycle.

Vinu added that the divide is between content creation and content consumption, and that may decide what type of remote device you need.

Jim said that at some companies, the infrastructure person is in charge of both mobile devices and desktops. In those cases, the view of the future is Windows 7 mobile. The mass of data is created elsewhere and is heavily transaction oriented. Others may consume the data for analysis.

Thank you, Tina, this was another great presentation and very active discussion. Tina's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio

OC CIO Minutes July 8, 2010

2010-07-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
July 8, 2010 meeting

Present: David Mann, Jennifer Curlee, Sean Brown, Jim Sutter, Jeff Hecht, Hicham Semaan, Dave Phillips

RJTCompuquest are moving their offices to a new building near the airport at the end of August. We will let you know the location as soon as we know the moving date – the August 12th meeting will still be at their old office.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics through October 2010:

8/12/10 What’s new at the desktop Tina Haines
9/9/10 Microsoft road map Hicham Semaan
10/14/10 Next generation WAN Jim Sutter

We still need topics and speakers for November and December.

Topic: Agile Methodology

David Mann opened with the declaration that people were more important than whatever process or methodology you select. However it is good to have a process of choice. Examples of System Development Life Cycle process groups are Agile (MSF for Agile, Scrum) for adaptive processes, and Waterfall for more predictive processes. Agile is more suitable for new product development where the scope gradually emerges and evolves. Waterfall is more suitable for maintaining mature systems with mature business models. Agile means flexibility, not about rushing things, an initial vision and ROM, followed by a number of short sprints (iterations), full customer involvement, frequent check points and releases, multi-track (not sequential assemble line phases), focusing on delivery. It does not mean chaos – many micro-waterfalls, less formal change control after every sprint, and good documentation. Agile is about changing scope and requirements to improve ROI, changing plan and processes to reduce costs, changing solutions for design and performance, changing QA to improve quality, changing deployment to enhance SLA, and adjusting to external changes. Agile is about embracing change. Jim expressed concern about the effect of changes on deployment, especially if it changed the user interface and implied major training changes. David’s handout contains slides showing the difference between the Waterfall approach and the Agile flexible multi short sprint approach. Agile does require a mind-shift. It is more about fixing the budget, developing the scope within that budget, with strict control over adding features, and more flexibility over deadlines. It does imply a change culture, and an environment that accepts occasional failure. Jennifer said that they are downsizing with budget cuts so Agile is very attractive – allowing them to deliver product changes within a strict budget environment. David’s slides contain definitions of roles and responsibilities within the MSF for Agile methodology, and I recommend that you spend some time reading the details.

This was another great presentation and very active discussion – so much so that we ran out of time for the usual round table exchange. Dave's slides are at:
http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

OC CIO Minutes June 10, 2010

2010-06-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
June 10, 2010 meeting

Present: Jeff Hecht, Jeff Reid, Jennifer Curlee, William Zauner, Sean Brown, Jim Sutter, David Mann, Dave Phillips

RJTCompuquest are moving their offices to a new building near the airport in about a month. We will let you know the location as soon as we know the moving date – the July 8th meeting will still be at their old office.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics through October 2010:

7/8/10 Agile methodology David Mann
8/12/10 What’s new at the desktop Tina Haines
9/9/10 Microsoft road map Hicham Semaan
10/14/10 Next generation WAN Jim Sutter

We still need topics and speakers for November and December.

Topic: Comparing Social Networking Sites

Despite his disclaimers (see handout), Jeff presented many useful facts and figures about the social networking scene. Facebook dominates, with MySpace, YouTube and Twitter following far behind. Many of the rest I had never heard of! The estimated population of Facebook by Fall 2010 will be 500M. Jeff included several interesting slides on age distribution of users - not as young as you might think – 25% are between 35 – 44 years old, although it does vary by site. Bebo appeals to a young group (44% less than 18); 64% of Twitter users are 35 or older, as are 61% of Facebook users; average Linkedin users are 44. These sites have obvious commercial potential but what about loss of productivity, what are the controls for usage at work, impact on network bandwidth, and hijacking. The inability to control access and the resulting privacy issues are a major concern. Facebook’s “opt out” approach to privacy is a concern, and Google has a similar problem. What access limits are reasonable for businesses? What are sensible business goals for using social networks? One is to use the tools to build a powerful network of users, customers, contacts and friends. Remember that profiles are for people, pages are for businesses. Jeff’s company launched a new B to C business in 2009, and hired a marketing company to develop a presence on Facebook and Twitter. At the end of his handout, he listed several links and references to the material he presented. This was another excellent presentation.

We asked the members which sites they used and why.

Jeff Reid uses Linkedin all the time for personal and professional networking and found it to be very useful. It helped in making and keeping contacts. He also joined Facebook and Twitter to find out more about them but does not use them very much.

Jennifer uses Linkedin, and belongs to a professional organization user group. She also became a Facebook user, and has concerns as a friend uses Facebook extensively, with 1000s of friends, and she has had to caution all her friends against posting pictures of their kids and families on line.

William does not have a personal Facebook account but has one for the business just to capture the name. He does use Linkedin. A family member regards him as the bad guy in his house since he curtailed the use of Facebook!

Sean complimented Jeff on his presentation. He does use Facebook just to stay in touch with the family. He uses Linkedin a lot professionally. He found the social networks to be amazingly useful when following the Chile earthquake.

Jim said that he is an indiscriminative joiner of social networks because he didn’t want to be called an old fuddy-duddy! Among those that he has joined are Plaxo, Zing, Facebook (very good), and Linkedin (very good and has an “opt in” for security).

David also complimented Jeff on his presentation. He is also a user of Facebook just to stay in touch with the family. For security, his solution is just changing the data when you want to opt out.

Jeff's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 5-13-2010

2010-05-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
May 13, 2010 meeting

Present: Carmella Cassetta, Sean Brown, Jim Sutter, Andy King, Tina Haines, Jennifer Curlee, Vinu Gurukar, Jeff Hecht, David Mann, Hicham Semaan, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics from June through October, 2010:

6/10/10 Social networking site comparisons Jeff Hecht
7/8/10 Agile methodology David Mann
8/12/10 What’s new at the desktop Tina Haines
9/9/10 Microsoft road map Hicham Semaan
10/14/10 Next generation WAN Jim Sutter

We still need topics and speakers for November and December.

Topic: IT Governance

Quoting Weill & Ross and Gartner, Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, defines IT governance as the processes that ensure effective and efficient use of IT in support of the business – demand governance is primarily a business management responsibility; supply governance is primarily a CIO responsibility. It typically includes IT investment strategy, business and IT alignment, architectural and infrastructure decisions, processes and controls, and oversight. She included a great chart showing a process for building business alignment. Governance is an iterative process. It starts with investment guidelines, a capabilities assessment, and evolves into Enterprise Portfolio Management (EPM). Carmella includes portfolio frameworks in her handout. Investment strategies can be categorized into “must do”, “should do”, and “like to do”. She shared with us the IT investment governance model, project approval and change management flow charts they use at Corinthian Colleges. Her handout also includes the guiding IT architectural principals, oversight and project metrics. Cassetta explained that implementing a governance process at Corinthian Colleges was an opportunity to form one from the ground up, as there was nothing in place when she took over as CIO. She was able to use her experience at Ingram Micro and Barnes & Noble, but things changed when they went public and a new management team took over. I recommend that you read her handout in detail. This was an excellent presentation and can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

The following is a summary of points made during the discussion.

Hicham mentioned that since his is a small shop, they have an undocumented structure in place, and responsibility rests with the individual. He enjoyed the presentation and will implement a more defined decision making process.

David complimented Cassetta on an excellent presentation, and everyone concurred. They do not have a formal governance process in place. They started a steering committee but this has disintegrated into a complaints session. They do try to align IT and the business, and the process could be better defined and adapted to the culture.

Jeff liked the definition of the process, and believes that it is a question of maturity. In 9 years, the company has expanded 4 times, and now they have 5 businesses that run fairly independently, although 4 of the 5 share a common infrastructure. This was the same in the prior company he worked at – 6 separate businesses with a common infrastructure.

Vinu saw a lot of similarities between his company and Jeff’s, although there has been a movement from regional management to 4 business units using shared services. They have multiple steering committees, each of which meet 2 or 3 times a year.

Jennifer went through the process of forming a steering committee, consisting of managers who report to the various executives. They meet quarterly and every project is categorized as engineering (high priority), ERP, infrastructure (they don’t get to vote on these). She still touches base very regularly with each of the executives on an informal basis.

Tina has implemented a governance process in 2 companies, one successfully and the other not so. They defined capital expenditure limits, and implemented steering committees. They used a scoring system to identify the relative merits of each project, and focused on the Top 10, although there was an exceptions meeting.

Andy has implemented a steering committee to resolve supply and demand issues. Having a governance process is a big help. Having the CEO involved is also a big help. Top of the list are bug fixes; quick wins come second; planned projects are scheduled annually.

Jim recalled that Xerox loved the formality of a governance process in a very competitive environment. Rockwell was the opposite – very down to earth, less formal processes, the word “strategy” was never used for IT projects, but they did have a steering committee. The winery adopts a portfolio management approach, multi year project planning and budget implications. The strategy is to buy rather than build, although this does involve legal and time delays.

Sean said that in a prior position, he work for a lady who embraced technology, and who became very involved with the governance process. She was promoted because of her commitment to technology, and eventually made it to CEO.

Great presentation and handout, and a great and active discussion.

See you on May 13 , 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 4-8-08

2010-04-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
April 8, 2010 meeting

Present: Dave Phillips, Sanjeev Sobti, Tina Haines, Vinu Gurukar, Joe Cracchiolo, Jennifer Curlee, Sean Brown,

The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics in 2010:

5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta
6/10/10 Social networking site comparisons Jeff Hecht

We still need discussion topics and volunteers for the rest of the year.
Check the updated spreadsheet for unassigned topic suggestions.

Topic: Developing and IT Strategy

Dave Phillips conveyed Rich Hoffman’s apologies to the group for not been able to introduce the topic for discussion, but he had to attend a meeting in Europe. In the early ‘90s when Rich was CIO at Yamaha, he hired Dave to assist in the development of their IT strategy. It’s a topic near and dear to Dave, and to this CIO Round Table, which has explored the issues several times in the past. When he joined Stanford University in 1970 to become Director of the Campus Computing Center, Dave’s first assignment was to head up the project to develop a long-term strategic computing plan for the Stanford community. He spared the group the agony of reading the tomb that was produced but shared with them the letter that Bill Miller, the VP Research and Provost, wrote and distributed to the deans, department heads and principle investigators at Stanford, spelling out the scope of the project and its importance. It was and still is essential to get executive management sponsorship of such a project. When Dave started the Peer Consulting Group in 1988, one of his first assignments was to lead the development of an IT strategic plan for Fluor Daniel, and the handout contains several pages from different reports and presentations involved in that project, to ensure that:
- the executive sponsorship is visible to the management of the company
- the scope and value of the project is defined
- it is driven by business requirements
- it is developed in a reasonable time frame
- it is flexible enough to accommodate change
The Critical Success Factors approach was selected to identify the business drivers, and he described how this approach was implemented at Fluor. These CSFs were used to determine the applications strategy, which in turn provided focus for the individual strategies for data, systems acquisition, hardware, communications networks, etc., for the project environment and the global company. Be careful not to underestimate the effort required to produce the list of CSFs, and the IT strategies. Dave then touched on prior presentations to this group on this topic. On April 8, 2004, Richard Cormier, then CIO at Edwards Lifesciences, agreed that the business should drive the strategy but that technology is expanding the options for revenue growth. He identified several approaches to developing an IT strategy including Michael Treacy’ Business Process Focus Model, where leaders choose one of 3 core business process (operational excellence, product leadership, or customer intimacy) to focus on. On Oct 13, 2005, Subbu Murthy started his presentation by asking what is strategy, the “how” to get to the vision. Then you can use frameworks like John Zachman’s Framework for Enterprise Architecture to define the “what”, the initiatives and projects that need to be completed. On April 12, 2007, Jeff Reid described Conexant’s approach to IT strategic planning and he too listed several process methodologies to help you develop an IT strategy, including Weill and Broadbent’s approach. He stressed the advantages of selecting a process that matches the business and its culture.

In the general discussion, a number of points were made. It pays to know where you are today relative to your competition, and to identify what are your business requirements for change. Within IT, and early step might be to produce an inventory of software and hardware. Within the business, separate the business processes into major categories, such as those supporting operations or manufacturing, those which affect sales/distrbution/customers, and those used by the supporting service organizations. If an ERP system appears to be needed, identify the benefits and problems that would be solved. If you go that direction, take advantage of the best practices that are codified into the system. Using the All in One approach can reduce the time to implement a new ERP system. Perhaps a phased approach to implementation works better for you.

Now that she is on the recruiting side, Tina has noticed a movement away from implementing ERP systems, towards defining business information strategies.

Jennifer says that IT works horizontally across the organization, often acting as the catalyst to resolving differences between departments, so it’s important that the CIO develop alignments and good relationships with other department managers.

See you on May 13 , 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 3-11-10

2010-03-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
March 11, 2010 meeting

Present: Jeff Reid, Mike Siersema, Andy King, Jennifer Curlee, Hicham Semaan, Jeff Hecht, Vinu Gurukar, Carmella Cassetta, Jim Sutter, Joe Cracchiolo, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Mike Siersema, CSC, to the meeting as our guest subject matter expert. The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics in 2010:

4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy (Open discussion)
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta
6/10/10 Social networking site comparisons Jeff Hecht

We still need discussion topics and volunteers for the rest of the year.
Check the updated spreadsheet for unassigned topic suggestions.

Topic: On-Demand / Cloud computing

Jeff Reid, Clean Energy, introduced our quest - subject matter expert, Mike Siersema, who is a senior technical director at CSC. Copies of his presentation slides were not available at the meeting but are attached, as is a Gartner paper on the subject. You can find a number of white papers on cloud from CSC at http://www.csc.com/lefreports. Mike started by asserting that market forces are driving IT delivery from in-house integrated technology to outside providers assembling and managing it. Cloud computing is one promising way, which is forecast to grow from 5% in ’09 to 10% by ’13 of worldwide IT spending. The NIST definition is “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” The fundamental characteristics include on-demand self service, accessed via the Internet, and paid for on an “as you go” based on use. Certain types of IT services lend themselves to this model more than others, such as email, test environments, Amazon.com, AWS, salesforce.com. It appeals to both ends of the spectrum - Government departments are big users and so are start-ups. Usage can be classified as SaaS, infrastructure services, storage, application software platforms, business process services and testing environments – all with significant growth forecasts. The key challenges to cloud computing adoption are security, compliance, control, performance, vendor lock-in, integration, availability and connectivity. This can be summarized as a lack of trust, which CSC address with their Cloud Trust Protocol services - see Mike’s slides for more detail. Probably the best approach for most companies is to have an orchestrated hybrid of public clouds and private clouds. I recommend you take the time to read Mike’s presentation slides for more detail.

Jeff Reid, Clean Energy, just recently joined his company, which has under-spent on IT in recent years. They are not using cloud computing yet but are starting to move in a major way. Cloud computing is an attractive option, as is virtualization. At Conexant they were aware of the promise of cloud computing, especially as they acquired and spun off many companies.

Andy King, Exemplis, thanked Mike for his presentation and for clarifying the differences between SaaS, etc. and cloud computing in general. This will come in handy as he prepares a presentation to his various user divisions on the pros and cons of cloud computing for things like project management, storage, etc.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they are a small manufacturing company in 5 separate buildings, all within 2 miles of each other. They have 350 email accounts and 80% of the email is internal. They do have Internet network problems so should they be using cloud computing solutions, or virtualization? They are looking at using cloud computing for DR.

Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, said that they use applications like CRM and email in the cloud. They agree with all the listed concerns such as low security but are using the cloud where there is a low need for integration, and for public services, such as Sharepoint. The ROI is very good but he is not sure how easy the cloud vendors will let you move to using another vendor.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, looked really hard at using cloud computing, and would like to use it for email, Sharepoint and CRM. He feels that there are still problems with DR and archiving. Security and integration are major problems. Still, the ROI is compelling.

Vinu Gurukar, Edwards Lifesciences, said that they are dipping their toes into cloud computing for things like project management and Salesforce.com. His IT guys are being invited to industry meetings on the subject. He would love to have nurses and Doctors use the cloud for data capture. Security is a problem.

Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, said that they have outsourced their infrastructure to ACS, and would like to get an application up quickly on the cloud in a test environment. Something like gmail and Google apps for their students. They are worried about their lack of leverage with the gmail vendor.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, said that there is not a lot to report from his client - Microsoft CRM is being used by one division. Web sites that are customer facing are hosted outside the firewall. He recently sat through a full day of project review for 2010 and there were no green or no cloud projects in sight. He is on the board at WaveMaker which offers a development environment that deploys applications to the Cloud. He mentioned an article in the CIO Magazine, where Bechtel’s CIO reported that the list prices for Amazon’s cloud service (EC3) were less than his new center.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, thanked Mike Siersema for a good presentation. The customers for cloud computing are those who are moving rapidly, as you can bring things together quickly at low cost.

Thank you, Mike, for a very interesting and interactive presentation.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 02-11-10

2010-02-22T16:46:00.000-08:00

1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
February 11, 2010 meeting

Present: Jim Sutter, Scott Campbell, Sanjeev Sobti, Jeff Hecht, Jeff Reid, William Zauner, Hicham Semaan, Vinu Gurukar, Jennifer Curlee, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Sanjeev Sobti, Virco, and Vinu Gurukar, Edwards Lifesciences, to the meeting. The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics in 2010:

3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta
6/10/10 Social networking site comparisons Jeff Hecht

We still need discussion topics and volunteers for the rest of the year.
Check the updated spreadsheet for unassigned topic suggestions.

Topic: e-Collaboration, and the role of Web 2.0

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, started by identifying business pressures, like globalization, the green initiatives, and cost cutting, which encourage e-Collaboration. His 3rd slide lists business drivers and the IT developments that enable them. For instance, globalization was enabled by the Internet, Wide Area Nets, e-mail, etc., all to support business growth. The strategy depends on whether the company strives for customer intimacy, or product innovation, or operational excellence, which determines whether they invest in people, product development or process improvement. He took us through a series of slides that describe process as requirements and business rules, supported by applications/software, which need an infrastructure/platform to run on. But it’s never that easy! The 21st century organization tends to have less hierarchy, more teams and empowerment (it’s OK to break the rules!), and is network-based. There are many workshop support products like Lotus Notes/Exchange/Outlook and blogs, wikis and social networks. There is a new generation of software, which is platform independent and Web 2.0 based. Web 2.0 facilitates connections, relationships, context and helps resolve ambiguities. There is a growing adoption of Web 2.0 by companies such as Texas Instruments and Stormhoek Vineyards – check Jim’s slides for more information on these and other applications. Jim's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

Each attendee was asked to share with us their use of e-Collaboration and of Web 2.0.

Scott Campbell, First American Trust, said that there is a culture at First American that seems to exclude collaboration at any level, and so use of these kinds of tools is not encouraged. He really enjoyed the topic – it was a good refresher for him in how to collaborate with others to your advantage.

Sanjeev Sobti, Virco, described his company as a manufacturing company of 2,000 people and you would think that collaboration would be natural. This is not so – in fact the individual departments seemed to be against the concept.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they use lots of collaboration tools such as wikis and blogs, but not many of the popular ones. There is a lot of collaboration with their offshore partner, but with little control so there is some concern about exposure of information when using public Web 2.0 tools. HR is not for it, and has developed a policy statement against it.

Jeff Reid said when he was at Conexant, they made heavy use of collaboration tools such as IM with their India and China partners. They did not make much use of the social networking tools. At Toyota Material Handling, everything was locked down. Now he has opened a Twitter account just to become familiar with the tool and its potential use in a corporation.

William Zauner, JAMS, said that Operations chose not to encourage use of collaboration tools, but not so in IT where they use them fairly extensively. They use My-page on Sharepoint for the department. He thanked Jim for the presentation.

Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, that they encourage the use of the tools, such as IM, Sharepoint, Facebook, and Twitter. They found that they needed more structure to be effective. It can be very productive but he sees both sides of that issue, and is concerned about potential time wasting. They also put training tools on the web. They have had problems with people at home using work tools to respond to questions.

Vinu Gurukar, Edwards Lifesciences, said that since they are a medical device company, they are highly regulated. The R&D department wants to collaborate with many people, but all they have is email and twitter messaging. The industry demands validation and regulation. Another challenge is the recognition by HR that use/availability of these tools can be a good attraction and retention feature for hiring new talent. How do blogs, wikis, and the like, fit best into this environment?

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, that they do use a wiki-based tool within each department, but HR wants to block the use of any tool at home if someone is on sick leave or on a leave of absence. They do block the use of social networking sites at work, and also have software to track usage by keystrokes. They do use blogs for marketing products and to conduct forums.

Thank you, Jim, as always for a very good presentation and handout.

See you on March 11, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 01-14-10

2010-01-18T09:45:00.000-08:00

1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
January 14, 2010meeting

Present: Robert Bobojco, Scott Campbell, Larry Godec, Jennifer Curlee, John Mooney, Hicham Semaan, Andy King, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, William Zauner, Sean Brown, David Mann, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Scott Campbell, First American Trust, and Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, to the meeting. The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics in 2010:

1/14/10 IT alignment with the CEO/business Sean Brown/Robert Bobojco
2/11/10 e-Collaboration, with web 2.0 Jim Sutter
3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta

We still need volunteers for the rest of the year. Check the updated spreadsheet that I will send to you in the next few days for unassigned topic suggestions.

Topic: IT alignment with the CEO/business

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, introduced Robert Bobojco as our guest speaker and subject matter expert. Today’s economic climate presents an opportunity for IT to evaluate its alignment with the business. The question is HOW – how do we develop a strategy which is aligned? How do we get the CEO and CIO to be aligned? How do we get a statement of direction? How do we document alignment? Alignment is a continuous process, and a perception that can be measured. If IT is not aligned, it is regarded as a cost (which can be reduced), not as a business enabler. Business strategy is about growth, customers, market, competition, operational efficiency, performance analysis and decision support. IT strategy is about platforms, budget, TCO, vendors, initiatives, projects, resources and skills. We need a translation process to support the business strategy in a structured, methodical way, to create IT strategy, objectives, initiatives, projects, solutions and capabilities. But IT strategy not only supports the business and the market and customers, it must also anticipate technology enhancements, and software and hardware vendors release strategies and capabilities.
Robert’s slides lead us through an alignment process and I recommend that you take the time to review them in detail. If you follow the process that he describes, you can end up with a proactive IT, working on tangible improvements, which are outward focused, and become regarded as a business enabler and partner. It is up to you to take the initiative. Robert's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

I asked each attendee to tell us if they were aligned with the business and if so, what was the most important step or problem that they had to overcome to become aligned.

Larry Godec, First American, felt that his IT department is aligned with the business, and with the CEO. In the last 6 months, First American created a business strategy document. The one reference to IT was the IT infrastructure strategy and resulting cost savings from embracing the virtual server concept. Robert’s presentation was very good and it reminds Larry to go back to each Division president to make sure that IT understands their goals and objectives, and is positioned to support them.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, has divided up IT into groups reflecting the way the company is organized – one supporting the customer interface, another the manufacturing groups in the company, and herself and local staff supporting the financial and management group, including the CFO and the CEO. The biggest problem thwarting the alignment process is the reluctance of the divisions to talk with one another.
John Mooney, Pepperdine University, agreed that alignment is a process, not an event. Playing catch-up is not good, so sometimes you are ahead of the game, and sometimes you are not, so it’s very important to build a highly agile capability within IT. It doesn’t work well if IT takes total responsibility – a division should own the project(s) designed to support it, and be enabled by IT.

Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, said that he wears two hats in his company – CEO and CIO. As CEO he sees that he is part of the problem! The CIO’s problem is the need to communicate with the other executives, to develop relationships, to become friends, so that everybody understands that we are all on the same side of the table when it comes to solving problems.

Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that he has found that the more his IT department is aligned with the business, the less stressed he is. The biggest problem he has is to get face time with the CEO to make sure that he is aligned. Then he has the problem of staying aligned with each business group. He liked the presentation and the formality suggested by the process that Robert described.

Jeff Reid said that the biggest problem he found with alignment was the change of CEO. The new man always changes the business strategy, objectives and plan, which means that IT has to be nimble to get back in alignment. The process is a continuous one as companies either sell parts of the company, or acquire new companies, and expect IT to be able to handle both options with relative ease.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that his company is a very interesting place to work at, as the owners are forever acquiring things, or changing things. They don’t have a formal strategy, but they do have underlying principles – always focus on customer service, be the best at what they do, and keep improving. As a result IT has to focus on being nimble, agile and to implement infrastructure changes in anticipation of need.

William Zauner, JAMS, hopes that his IT function is aligned with the business. They do go through an annual budgeting and plan cycle, which starts with presenting a draft to the CEO for discussion. They need to do a better job of making sure that they aligned with the other divisions and business managers. For some reason, it becomes the responsibility of CIO to make sure this happens.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, thanked Robert for an excellent presentation. He has found that the best way to make sure you are aligned not only within the company but also within the industry is to reach out to other organizations to see what they are doing, and feed that back within your own organization. It takes work but is worth doing.

David Mann, Word & Brown, also thanked Robert for his presentation – he got a lot out of it. He thinks that they are aligned but it takes a lot of work, not only on the technical end of things but also the political aspect, because everyone is trying to compete within the company for relatively scarce resources. Open communications becomes the key.

Scott Campbell, First American Trust, said that he is responsible for supporting the commercial banking division in First American, and they have recently got a new President, so the issue of alignment is immediately before him. He enjoyed the presentation especially the tangible, structured nature of the approach, and the need to meet and work at a peer level with the other division managers to make sure that they are meeting their requirements.

Thank you, Robert, for a very good presentation and handout.

See you on February 11, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 12-10-09

2010-01-17T16:54:00.000-08:00

1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
December 10, 2009 meeting

Present: Chris Andreozzi, Jennifer Curlee, Michael Tasooji, William Zauner, Sean Brown, Joe Cracchiolo, Carmella Cassetta, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.

We have volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:

1/14/10 IT alignment with the CEO/business Sean Brown
2/11/10 e-Collaboration, with web 2.0 Jim Sutter
3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Hecht/Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta

We still need volunteers for the following:
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)

Topic: Unified Communications (UC)

Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix, gave us a great interactive demo of what UC is, as you will see from his slides “What UC is what U get”, or more or less! It used to be that video conference was all U got, but now we have office voice mail, phone voice mail, office e-mail, texting, instant messaging, social media communiqués, etc.. Depending on what communication and messaging systems you integrate, UC could make it better. Basically, UC makes real time systems (like instant messaging) share information with e-mail and voice mail over the same network, using VoIP to cut down on traditional phone bills, and reduces travel costs. Not all organizations are seeing the ROI – perhaps because they don’t know how to attach a $ figure to them - but lots are seeing real benefits. I recommend you take a look at Chris’ slides and read the article in the Sept. 15th CIO magazine. To start a UC project, you will need at minimum Microsoft Active Directory, at least 1 server

A number of the members had experimented with UC projects. Joe Cracchiolo used Office Communicator for internal use, and Microsoft MPLS for external usage. William Zauner looked at Cisco a few years ago, but settled on Shoretell because the licensing costs were far less. He is impressed with Microsoft products for the integrated solutions. Care must be taken with Exchange as the growth is huge – you need to set voicemail retention policy early on.

Thank you, Chris, for a great interactive presentation. Chris' slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

See you on January 14, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 11-12-09

2009-11-30T19:50:00.000-08:00

1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

Present: Jerry Thode, Jeff Hecht, Tina Haines, Jeff Reid, Jim Sutter, Sean Brown,
Joe Cracchiolo, Subbu Murthy, Dave Phillips
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

We are still looking for volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
IT alignment with the CEO/business
IT Governance
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
On-demand computing
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)

Topic: Multisourcing and Vendor Managed Systems

Jerry Thode i-staff, started by stating the many reasons for and myths of multisourcing. The myths include - it is independent of business strategy; it will reduce costs; it will manage itself; the best price wins; the skills for managing external services are the same as for internal services. There are good reasons for multisourcing including access to specific skill sets, and flexibility and agility to do multiple projects without adding permanent staff. It pays to develop relationships with more than one source, and to establish rules for governance. Keys to success include focus on business value, on functional optimization and standardization. He described a number of case studies. He then went on to talk about VMS – vendor managed services – customized programs to improve effectiveness of some or all of a company’s contracting, procurement and management processes of external services. This includes professional payroll services and a virtual bench. He described the evolution of service, and the VMS management process and measures of success, including SLAs and reports. This was an interesting, interactive presentation and discussion – thank you Jerry for a lively introduction. Jerry's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

We asked each of the members present to relate one experience with multisourcing or vendor managed systems.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, talked about a payrolling experience that he had 9 years ago. At that time he worked for a start-up that was starting to grow too big to handle the function by themselves, but too small to hire a full payroll staff, so they all became employees of a payrolling service company. It worked well for a while. A lot of what Jerry talked about resonated with Jeff, especially some of the myths. Putting a 3rd party VMS company between you and your vendors tends to takes away from the relationships that you form with each vendor.

Jeff Reid, formerly of Conexant/Toyota, said that some of the myths are right on. In his experience, the financial group gets involved and the contract is awarded to the cheapest vendor, which makes all the myths true. He has had to go in to a new company and renegotiate contracts so that both sides benefit from the relationship.

Tina Haines is big on relationships, and recalls the early days of using Wipro. They tried to cut out using all the middle people. Things did not go smoothly, and they had to hire all those people back again. The result was that they used the same people for years.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, remembers doing business with BMW in S. Carolina for several years. He developed a great relationship with BMW staff over time, until a VMS group got in, and all his personal relationships were lost. He was not getting enough intelligent feedback, but he had to learn to adapt to the new process.

Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said that this was his bread and butter. He is starting to work with VMS groups, but is not going to replace the traditional outsourcers. Staffing can be web based, but project outsourcing works better with personal relationships.

Thanks again to Jerry Thode, i-staff, for his presentation which can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 10-8-09

2009-10-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
October 8, 2009 meeting

Present: Tina Haines, Jennifer Curlee, Sean Brown, Jeff Reid, William Zauner,
Jim Sutter

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

We are still looking for volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
IT alignment with the CEO/business
IT Governance
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
On-demand computing
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)

Topic: IT Organization Trends

Tina Haines, Meggitt Electronics, introduced the meeting and provided a comprehensive handout. Tina provided significant background on organizational thinking and OD thinking. Quotes from Andy Grove, Peter Drucker, Parkinson, and Werner von Braun spiced the material. Elements of OD theory affect:
Behavior
Motivation
Performance
Teamwork and cooperation
And, inter organization relationships.
She pointed out that despite all the organization styles defined and adopted over the years, most still tend to be quite hierarchical. She gave the pros and cons of the hierarchical, matrix, flat, and federated approaches. She led a discussion on decentralization verses centralization, followed by some thoughts on 21st Century trends (Globalization, Diversity, and Flexibility). She pointed out that best practices were difficult to nail down, despite efforts by ITIL and others. Some laws to guide us in the New Rapidly Changing environment:
If you understand it, it’s obsolete.
Strategy: If it’s static, it’s obsolete.
Training: If it’s certified, it’s obsolete.
Understandably, a discussion followed.

Future workforce dynamics were examined that supported material presented in prior meeting regarding the changing demographics and the expectations of Gen Y entrants in the workforce. Among the statistics Tina cited: “there is a huge amount of expertise walking out of the economy. In 2010, 3 people will leave the economy for every person that enters it; by 2012, 4. By 2016, 6 people will leave for every new worker that joins. These are staggering realities”. More lively discussion.

Tina reported on the results of her recent survey of Peer Group members. Sixty-two (62) percent report to the CEO. A fine presentation and excellent handout material. Thanks Tina.

William Zauner, JAMS, commented that his organization is a combination of Federated and Flat. He underscored the longevity that he and his fellow executives have and the resulting trust and cooperation that characterizes JAMS. The issues he deals with have to due with resource limitations and responding to aggressive ideas of independent lawyers and their technology initiatives.

Jenifer Curlee, Surefire, described her portfolio management approach to organizing IT work. The resources are organized by function within the business. She co-locates IT resources in these functions and sets tight architectural standards and guidelines. Given the various priorities of different areas of the business, significant negotiation is an on going part of the job.

Jeff Reid, formerly of Conexant/Toyota, pointed out that he has experienced all flavors of the organizational styles described. He has reported to the CFO, and the CIO. He has seen companies get flatter as they are forced to reduce size. Throughout, the key to success and effective operation is trust, mutual respect, and relationship building.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, in his consulting work, has dealt mostly with IT organizations that were highly centralized and stated that this seems to be a trend in leading companies. Rockwell operated in four very distinct industries, providing significant challenges in providing corporate IT services and governance.

Thanks, again, to Tina Haines for leading a top-notch discussion. Tina's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 9-10-09

2009-09-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
September 10, 2009 meeting

Present: Mitch Morris, Jim Sutter, Jennifer Curlee, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, Tina Haines, Subbu Murthy, Sean Brown, Sharon Solomon, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

We are looking for volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
IT alignment with the CEO/business
IT Governance
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
On-demand computing
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)

Topic: e-Discovery – Data retention and other related topics

Mitch Morris, IAPMO, started this very interactive discussion by stating that document retention means many things to many people, depending on rules and practices defined by their industry or as part of the definitions contained in SOX, HIPPA, and COBRA. If you are not mandated by federal or state law, it is very important to define your own policy, which will make e-discovery much more efficient. In this way, you can define how long to keep ”old” data, reduce the amount and governance of data you need to store for all types of storage devices (hard disks, servers, mobile devices, e-mail, tapes, off-site storage, etc.). e-Discovery deals with discovery in civil litigation of electronic stored information (ESI), which is very different from paper because of volume, transience, persistence and the metadata, which usually accompanies the data. This was the subject of 2 amendments to rules 16 and 26 of Federal Rules of Civil Procedures, 12/1/06 – please refer to Mitch’s handout for the precise definitions. Responding to an attorney’s broad request for data (a data witch hunt) can have serious financial, time and resources impacts. The best advice is anticipate the possibility and work with your legal department to define a response process. Do not to respond directly to the requesting attorney but work through your own legal department to narrow down the data requested, and the time frame for developing an estimate and doing the work. The members present had a variety of experiences with trying to be responsive to requests for information, on the one hand, and not overwhelming the IT organization on the other hand. There is also a confidentiality aspect to this subject so we will not identify the precise organization and experience. Most organizations have had some experience with trying to respond to request for e-discovery. One organization had 2 e-discovery legal actions, and so they had to define the search parameters and the financial impact before responding to the request. They now have 1 person in IT as their litigation point of contact. They also have purchased a device to archive all their email. Another organization makes sure that their response policy is contained in all the contracts with their outsourcers. Mitch mentioned the Sedona Conference, which is an annual conference set up to define legal and operational guidelines for responding to such requests. He included a 2-page summary of the best practices, recommendations and principles addressing electronic document production – it lists the top 14 best practices. Fundamentally, lawyers don’t fully understand IT yet, nor the impact of their requests on IT. It is important for your company to have a data retention policy.

Thanks again to Mitch for an informative handout and for the interactive discussion.

Mitch Morris' handout is at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 8-13-09

2009-08-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
August 13, 2009 meeting

Present: Carmella Cassetta, Tina Haines, Jim Sutter, Jeff Reid, Sharon Solomon, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available. Carmella introduced this topic by conference call from Toronto, where she was attending a meeting at one of her regional centers.

Topic: ERP Implementations – lessons learned.

Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, began by doing a situation analysis – 106 locations, 3 regional centers (Toronto, Tampa, and Santa Ana), growing through acquisition, $1-1.5 B revenue, 10,000 employees, 7 different systems and technical environments, no data standards, past ERP implementations failed. She summarized the reasons for an ERP – common information flow throughout the organization, effectiveness, efficiency, lower TCO, organizational alignment, optimized business processes, integrated financials, technical obsolescence. It was a $45M investment, but she had executive commitment, support and participation, without which any ERP implementation will fail, and a business strategy and discipline to align BP changes to match a vanilla package implementation. Other common reasons for failure include poor project management, poor estimates of time and resource requirements, not cleaning inconsistent data prior to implementation, cultural rejection, poor change management, inadequate training, and customizing the software. Because of these, the stats show 35% of ERP projects are cancelled, and only 10% are completed on time and within budget. To ensure success, identify each CSF and develop a plan to support each of them. For example, identify the project as a business driven project (not an IT project) by identifying the executive sponsor, creating a cross-functional team to formulate business needs up-front and identify the strategic priorities, and to support the changes in company culture, structure and processes. CCI’s ERP project was named UNIFY. Carmella has several slides on other CSFs, including a Gartner one which suggested accepting “best practice” ERP for your industry (in CCI’s case, CAMPUSVIEW), and minimize customizations. CCI’s approach did many things right, including tying success to business bonus and performance plans. She has several slides in her handout detailing the UNIFY project in its 3 phases, the role of the executive oversight committee, and the PMO. She hired a consulting company, PRTM, to help her with the project organization and structure, and to support CCI throughout the 3-year implementation. I thoroughly recommend that you review the handout and the slides on CCI’s approach. To summarize, Carmella shared with us some lessons learned at this stage of the project – 60% complete, 40 sites to convert over the next 6-8 months, within 10% of original budget, schedule delay of 6 months waiting on software enhancements. The organization is responding well, with several keys to success. The hardest parts include getting the right balance of training (before and after installation), don’t underestimate the difficulties of change, waiting on customization, maintaining good communications and business alignment over 3 years, and keeping to the cost estimates. Her slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio/cio-council-erp-update-081309 .

Tina Haines congratulated Carmella on an excellent presentation, and on her leadership throughout the project. Tina has been involved with implementing ERP systems 4 times, with probably the most successful being one centralized in Singapore, supporting 40 business units and 110K employees. She recently was involved with converting a UK company into the US system, using in-country resources, which became a problem because they wanted to optimize the system.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting, complimented Carmella on a very good presentation and project. He suggested that CCI offer a course on Project Management, focusing on ERP implementation best practices. Many years ago, before they had the benefit of best practices, Rockwell tended to “learn as we go”. His Winery client used the ERP implementation to try to unify the company, which were historically split in two. They selected the JD Edwards system as the base system, but the project was nowhere near as well managed as CCI’s. They allowed many modifications to be made to the order entry system. They also wanted best of breed solutions for other systems. Three years ago, they dropped maintenance and now are starting to inch closer to Oracle’s ERP.

Jeff Reid thought the presentation was excellent, and wished he had listened to it before he started his first implementation. Many companies go through agonies with an ERP project. He noted that PRTM worked out well for them. He will use this as a checklist for his next ERP implementation project.

Sharon Solomon also complimented Carmella on a great presentation and project leadership. Support from the top down is very important. She remembers her first ERP project – they were 10 months into the project when another company acquired them, and she was selected to be on the N. A. leadership group for the implementation. She made sure it was business driven, and that they developed an effective monthly communications meeting because the rumor mill can be very destructive. When they acquired another company, they were able to convert them very quickly to the new ERP system, working closely with top management.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, thought the presentation was excellent and he took lots of notes. Enhancements to Campus View did cause problems. Getting the users to be part of the selection process is important. He remembers working for an Asian company whose philosophy was “change or be beheaded”. He agrees that its important to find a partner to help manage the project, use best practices, and to help with change management – they have used Sharepoint to help them do change management.

Thanks again to Carmella for an excellent introduction and handout.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 7-9-09

2009-07-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
July 9, 2009 meeting

Present: Sharon Solomon, Subbu Murthy, Jeff Reid, Jennifer Curlee, Andy King, Sean Brown, Tina Haines, William Zauner, Jeff Hecht, David Mann, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

Topic: Personal Networking.

Sharon Solomon enjoyed preparing the introduction. She started by defining terms - personal networking, social networking, and the services that support these in addition to email and instant messaging. The most popular worldwide (and dangerous?) is Facebook, followed by MySpace and Twitter (although we were having a difficult time trying to define the value of it!). The most widely used professionally is Linkedin. There are many more! See Sharon’s handout for a more complete list. There are many reasons to use networking, not least of which is when you find yourself “in transition”. Other types of networks include alumni, employment, company, industry, vendors, hobbies, friends, family, etc. When using these social networking tools/services there are issues with privacy and currency of personal information, potential for misuse, and risks. When using Linkedin there are Do’s and Don’ts – take time on the profile, summary and bio to accentuate your strengths, use recommendations carefully. Effective networking depends on your willingness to contribute, and how effectively you use your network to form a personal advisory board. You can use it to create your own brand – business card (with photo), tag line, bio, elevator speak, resume, career portfolio and social network profile. There are many network groups and professional organizations that you might consider joining – see handout for lists, and for reading recommendations and source materials.

Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said there are many reasons for businesses to use networking as well as personal, including business content generation, market leadership positioning, customer relationship support, customer service support, community building, content monitoring, and decision support. It is important to go with the intension of contributing. He spends 10-20 hours a week networking.

Jeff Reid thanked Sharon for her presentation. He preferred face-to-face meetings to Facebook. He has used Linkedin extensively and finds it very good, and has opened a Twitter account, without much success. He does have a new business card with photo.

Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, also thanked Sharon for a great introduction. He uses Linkedin for business, and suggests that we open OC CIO peer group network on Linkedin. He also uses Facebook daily for fun, communicating with friends past and present. He recommended http://www.cnbc.com/id/31849843 for Social Networking's 'Naked' Truth - Tech Check with Jim Goldman.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, thought that this was a great subject, and is a big user of Linkedin. He noted that during the US Open Golf tournament, Ian Poulter used Twitter a lot to keep everyone informed of his actions during rain delays. He questions the value of Facebook but uses it to find friends from the past.

Tina Haines, Meggitt Electronics, said that much to her surprise, she got a lot out of this discussion. She, like Jeff, much prefers the face-to-face contact, and is not convinced of the value of electronic networks, although she sees that Linkedin must be very useful to search people. Based on the state of her company, she is now in transition herself and will have to become familiar with all these services.

William Zauner, JAMS, said that the only networking service he uses is Linkedin. He does a lot of face-to-face networking through business groups and children’s activities, like AYSO, etc. This session has been very useful and he also thanked Sharon for her efforts. It highlighted his concerns about stuff on the Internet never goes away, and so Facebook could be dangerous long term.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, echoed his thanks to Sharon. He is on Linkedin and a university network, but is not a huge user – more comfortable face-to-face – maybe it is a generational thing. He repeated his concerns about the younger employees not getting much interface with their management and thus not learning how to become a manager. He is a big user of instant text messaging

David Mann, Word & Brown, complimented Sharon on her presentation. As technology leaders, we are always looking for ways to use technology to advantage, and he has used Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, but not yet Linkedin. He likes the idea of using these network services for business intelligence.

Thanks again to Sharon for the very good introduction and handout.

See you on August 13, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 6-11-09

2009-06-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
June 11, 2009 meeting

Present: Sean Brown, Greg Gillis, Jim Sutter, Sharon Solomon, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, Jennifer Curlee, David Mann, Andy King, William Zauner, Carmella Cassetta, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Greg Gillis, SAP, to the meeting to assist with the presentation.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

Topic: Cloud computing update.

This is a popular topic and is the lead article in the June 1, 2009 CIO Magazine – Cloud Control. Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, started with an informative video, http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdBd14rjcs0. Cloud computing is a dynamically scalable computing resource, where virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. It incorporates infrastructure (IaaS), platform (PaaS) and software (SaaS) as a service. IDC forecasts the Cloud computing market to grow to $42B by 2012, from $16B in 2008, and will consume 25% of the total IT budget. It’s becoming popular as a pay-as-you-go option because of increased bandwidth, faster and cheaper hardware, virtualization and web services protocols. Users can avoid capital expenditures, and consumers are billed for what they use as a utility (like electricity), or subscription (like a paper). There are little or no upfront or termination costs, and services are provided with service level agreements. Despite differences of opinion on what Nicholas Carr has to say, there are names worth watching in this space. Founded in 1994, Amazon is one of the innovators in Web-based computing, offering pay-as-you-go access to virtual servers and data storage space (see Sean’s handout for more detail). Prominent customers include NY Times and Eli Lilly. Another major force is Salesforce.com, founded in 1999, with its set of CRM tools and a platform for building web applications. Google is a big player offering Google Apps, and a simple Web site creation tool, Postini. While the company’s main focus is search, no one knows the Internet quite like Google. And never underestimate Microsoft. The Pros of the Cloud include fast start-up, scalability, business agility, faster product development, and no capital expenditures. The Cons include bandwidth can become expensive, application performance could suffer, data integrity, you could be too big to scale, and human capital may be lacking. To mitigate this, you can demand SAS 70 compliance. Gartner lists several issues which potential users of Cloud computing should be aware of, including the location of the data storage units, data segregation and availability, disaster recovery, long-term viability of the vendor and how to recover your data if the vendor becomes unable to respond. Sean's presentation is at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, said that he has limited experience with Cloud computing, although he is on the Board of a small vendor that offers a development environment on Amazon. Lots of Silicon Valley start-ups use the Cloud approach. He agrees that there are issues including integrating with other IT services used, and management problems, especially for small company CIOs when trying to solve service problems. One of his clients is looking at this especially since they have found a predictive maintenance SaaS provider to enhance their J D Edwards systems.

Sharon Solomon enjoyed the presentation. It makes you think about what do you need in your environment, and how best to supply those services – part Cloud and part in-house. She worked in a heavily regulated environment where they had to be very careful with protecting against unauthorized access to data, but they did use Salesforce.com

Jeff Reid also does not have much experience with SaaS, and he has lots of questions, similar to those you have when considering outsourcing. How open are these vendors to audit? Last month, he introduced the topic of Virtualization but talked about it in terms of in-house use of virtual resources. Cloud computing adds another wrinkle to that discussion, and it depends where you are in your business cycle.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that it depends on where you are in your business cycle and on where you are with each of your applications. They are looking hard at outsourcing Exchange to a Cloud vendor. He likes the availability (24X7X52), DR, etc. Integration is an issue. You still need expertise to run the Cloud computing and to manage the network.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they outsource their storefront, which is transaction based. They are starting to use SaaS where they don’t have in-house expertise, like using Avatax (?) for Tax. They are finding problems with the interface between it and SAP, and are having performance problems. They have had to segregate the services.

David Mann, Word & Brown, complimented Sean on his presentation. They are seriously evaluating the ROI of Cloud computing, and last year looked at Salesforce.com. The balance is between time-to-market vs. integration. They have decided to go with Microsoft CRM, as it gave them more options than Salesforce.com.

Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, added his compliments on the presentation, and reflected on how company culture affects these decisions. It is not their style to use Cloud computing, but they will crawl, walk then run with it. They might go with Salesforce.com, but don’t like subscription services – they prefer capital expenses to operating expenses.

Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, also thought it was a good presentation. They use SaaS for Emergency Call-in, and are seriously looking at Cloud computing for things they are trying to test. It depends on the data, the application, whether it is informative, not transactional in nature.

Thanks again to Sean and Greg for the very good introduction and informative handout.

See you on July 9, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 5-14-09

2009-06-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
May 14, 2009 meeting

Present: Jeff Reid, Steve Kronebusch, Andy King, Jim Sutter, Jennifer Curlee, Jeff Hecht, Sharon Solomon, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Steve Kronebusch, Sidepath – Simplifying Networks, to the meeting as a subject matter expert to provide technical backup where needed.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

Topic: Virtualization – server, storage, desktop, application, network.

Jeff Reid said that preparing this introduction proved to be very enlightening. He had some experience with virtualization at Conexant using VMWare, and more at Thornton Holdings where they ran into problems with compatibility between the virtualization software and their Great Plains, Citrix and Microsoft software. The official response from the vendors was “we can’t support you”, but unofficially they would put them in touch with many of their users who were running VM. Before virtualization, a given application ran on a specific hardware and OS software platform. Virtualization decouples the components, allowing sharing of resources, increased utilization (decreases future costs), lessens management overhead (still necessary, and capacity planning is important), reduces power consumption, and reduces response time for creating new virtual servers (to 30 min. or so). The areas of virtualization include servers, storage, desktop, applications and networks. The VM software turns hardware into software instances, which the Hypervisor maps to the physical server, router, switch or storage. The Connection Broker software allows a user to connect to his/her own virtual desktop of data and services, like the thin client concept. There are several virtualization packages – VMWare (market leader), Microsoft Hyper V (relatively new), Citrix Xen (building on their thin client experience), Virtual Iron (Oracle just bought them). This presentation is focused on VMWare and Compellent. VMWare breaks the dependency between OS and the hardware, allowing a large number of virtual machines to share a single pool of server resources, increasing utilization thus decreasing costs. Compellent breaks the dependency between servers and storage, by virtualizing all disks into one pool of storage, accessible by any server, reducing cost and wasted of storage capacity. This combination dynamically balances computing and storage resources based on business needs and predefined rules. It allows you to setup, test and implement DR with no downtime and less cost and complexity. It enables cost effective high availability for applications (and data protection and recovery) on virtual machines by combining snapshots of files and automatic restart of virtual machines in case of server failure. You can run multiple desk top OS (Mac, XP or Vista OS) on the same machine. Cisco has allowed workers to choose from a handful of laptops – about 25% choose Macs. Jeff’s handout covers this in more detail along with general thoughts and advice. A virtual management tool is required (VMWare’s is VCenter). Get your staff certified. Do an assessment. Review your current data backup and recovery processes. Power consumption will reduce but will increase in spots because of footprint density and you might need hot air removal. It is worth looking at and there are compelling reasons for implementing virtualization. His slides can ce found at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio.

Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that they use VMWare in a test environment. It gives application developers a playpen (pig pen!). They are relatively small in number (10 people), and so there is not a compelling reason to go virtualization. He complimented Jeff on his presentation, and now has more energy to plan for more.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, also thanked Jeff for the thoroughness of his presentation, for which Jeff thanked Steve for his assistance. Jim does see a problem with taking this to the BoD – great IT story, but why didn’t we do this before. At one of his clients, they went to Vista with all new hardware, more laptops than desktops, never went to XP, and didn’t find a cost reason to go thin client. Looking back to his many years in the business, he remembers vividly the very large mainframe, and all its complexity. Now we are back to more of the same!

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they are relatively small (25 servers) and welcome virtualization to cut expenses. They went to a Xen server, deferred management tools, and will go gradually to virtualization. Her concerns revolve around performance and the network.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they have gone virtual for all their developers (50 in both locations). It provides high availability and many alternative environments. He is able to make the case for cost avoidance. They provide a virtual desktop environment for their offshore developers, as they don’t want proprietary software to go offshore. They use best of breed solutions, and they can start with a low risk, low cost entry point. It provides for more productivity, and for staged test environments. It is great for websites, especially low volume sites.

Sharon Solomon complimented Jeff for a great presentation. At Watson Pharmaceuticals, they had a 3-year plan to go virtual, and presented it to the CFO. Remember that this is a very regulated environment, and so backup, DR and rollout were very important.

Steve Kronebusch, Sidepath, thanked the group for inviting him to participate and he enjoyed the meeting. It is not often that he gets to hear the discussion from the CIO’s point of view.

Thanks again to Jeff and Steve for the very good introduction and informative handout.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 4-09-09

2009-04-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
April 9, 2009 meeting

Present: Paul Gray, Jeff Hecht, Carmella Cassetta, Jennifer Curlee, Jesus Unzueta, Sean Brown, Chris Andreozzi, Mitch Morris, David Mann, Dave Phillips

The revised schedule of topics and speakers (through September, 2009) is listed in Attachment A. Check to see if and when you are presenting the introduction.

Due to an injury, Paul Gray made his presentation over the speakerphone from home, with Sean Brown operating his slide projector.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

Topic: Telecommuting – techniques, practices, and policies

In introducing the voice of Paul Gray to the group, I mentioned that Paul had presented this topic to the OC CIO Round Table in December 1995, and it has been a topic that has been revisited a few times since then, both here and in the Bay Area CIO Round Table. Paul mentioned that he co-authored his first book on the subject in late 1974, with Jack Nilles, and he still uses Nilles’ definitions:
Telecommuting - moving the work to the workers, not the workers to the work, more than 1 day per week. Early attempts included relocating the work place to satellite offices close to home. (Teleworking - any form of substitution of IT for work related travel)
Over the last 35 years it has been a mixed bag. It can improve worker productivity (American Express, British Telecom, IBM, concierge at Hyatt-Regency, Santa Clara). Workers are more amenable to overtime. It saves companies money ($5,000 per employee), reduces absenteeism, and reduces traffic congestion. Helps the environment, and is an incentive to attract and retain workers. It does require careful planning from management and cooperation from all employees, because teleworkers need a desk/office when they do come in to the office (hoteling) at least 1 to 2 days a week. Telecommuting is not for everybody – some people need the discipline of coming in to the office every day. You still have to manage the remote workers and establish productivity metrics, and there are set-up costs involved (equipment, supplies), and safety concerns (Dell sends out a 2 man team to set-up properly to begin with). There are teleworker challenges – how to not become invisible, to maintain a high enough profile, to not work 24 hours a day, to still learn about promotions and interesting project opportunities. A Steelcase survey of 700 workers found that of the 46% allowed to commute, only 32% do. The technology has improved and it is getting much easier. Paul ended by listing the 10 rules for a company considering telecommuting option:
- make sure that the $ savings calculation is sound (Paul included a Savings calculator in his handout – see attached)
- get HR involved
- insist on a separate home office and provide help line support
- provide a dedicated land line
- cover the teleworker home office costs
- pilot telecommuting with strong workers, not marginal employees
- involve workers in meetings, even if they have to come in to the office
- remote employees are NOT available at all hours
- conduct casual conversations with all employees, remote or local
- consider them for plum assignments, make them 1st class citizens

We asked each of the members present if they supported telecommuting.
Paul's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they do not formally support telecommuting, but still have a few that do in IT. They do not have many of the more formalized support procedures. There is a lot of resistance from management because of the productivity issue, data security, and personal liability issues. He worries about how employees get to learn management skills if you don’t see them in action. They do use offshore resources for development projects.

Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix, said that he is worried about the safety liability issues. They recently implemented the Cisco Home Office product for a company, and it’s expensive ($25,000 per home office, plus backend infrastructure). He used to telecommute to Houston, spending 2 weeks per month on the road. Now he owns a company, and sets the rules. Sales people can telecommute; engineers work in the office. Key is the character of the individual, and the availability of good metrics. He is worried about the loss of synergy, but there are big savings from hoteling.

Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, said that they do it informally. Some of the executives are very passionate about not working at home. They are starting to do it more formally, especially as they need the space. They treat it as a perk, and only pay part of the costs (not the Internet). They do support distance learning.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that there is a bias against telecommuting in a manufacturing environment. They do need to build the infrastructure to support it, as they have 6 facilities within 2 miles. She has her office in the same building as the other executives, and they do support some aspects of hoteling. Within IT, they do allow trusted employees to telecommute.

Jesus Unzueta, Convera, said that their executives can work wherever they want, and in IT, setting up the infrastructure to support it is expensive. Everyone gets a laptop but they pay for their own Internet connection. It’s important to get HR involved because not every job can be done from home. Business analysts need to be close to their customers and available when needed, depending on which part of the company they are supporting. It’s often up to the individual executive to set the rules.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, said that if you work from home, and have young children, its important to get a baby sitter. Business consulting involves 5-10% face time, and 90-95% solution generation. Strategic discussions need to be face to face, but many of the day-today decisions can be done over the phone. However, in these days of economic uncertainty, it’s important to maintain a good relationship with your boss, and that quite often means face-to-face time.

Mitch Morris, IAPMO, said that he has seen full companies managed remotely – it is totally dependent on the organization’s culture. It also depends on what the individual worker is trying to do. In IT, you do need hands on for some aspects of break fix support. When he is providing consulting support, he tends to work at the client’s office.

David Mann, Word & Brown, agreed with Jeff in saying that management does not support telecommuting, but they do work with offshore resources for development projects, which is starting to change minds. It is because development projects have specific deadlines and deliverables, which can be measured. So most of the work can be done remotely, but the P.M./business consultant has to interact with the client.

Thanks again to Paul Gray for presenting the introduction from home and for the handouts.

See you on May 14, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 3-12-09

2009-03-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
February 12, 2009 meeting

Present: Shannon Muniz, Sean Brown, Andy King, Jeff Reid, Randy Miller, Jennifer Curlee, William Zauner, Jim Sutter, John Pringle, Samir Doshi, Jeff Hecht, Mitch Morris, Dave Phillips

The revised schedule of topics and speakers (through September, 2009) is listed in Attachment A. Check to see if and when you are presenting the introduction.

We welcomed our guest speaker, Shannon Muniz, Artemis Sales/SSD, who traveled from Florida to be with us today, and Samir Doshi, Telecomers.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

Topic: Reducing Software Licensing and Contracting Costs

Shannon Muniz, Artemis Sales/SSD, started by identifying the challenges in IT contract negotiations, including not having enough qualified people on staff to handle the load, and dealing with automatic renewal of contracts. Typical software license issues include no enterprise agreements and many duplicate agreements, no volume purchase agreements and the effect of M & A, consolidations and divestitures. In-house procurement staffs can’t keep up. Access to trained negotiators with strong legal backgrounds, who understand licensing issues, and what’s important to vendors, is a big plus. As an example, Shannon went on to describe the approach that her company uses to attack the problem, which includes the following:
- Free consolidation on software inventory and contracts
- Free analysis and creation of a strategic plan
- Renegotiate selected contracts for a % of the cost savings
She distributed a sheet that listed the trigger events, which include new hardware selection, upgrades, expansions, audits, M&A, and expiration of existing terms and renewals. She also described a number of success stories, which resulted in big savings, some in the SC area. She also handed out a letter (attached) they typically send to CIOs who are interested in their approach and services. He charts are at:
http://www.slideshare.net/occio
We asked the members present to identify their biggest problem when dealing with contract and licensing issues.

Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that this topic was very timely. Second to people problems, software licensing is one of the biggest problems he has to deal with. He has just cancelled an ERP maintenance contract with Visual. In this declining economy, he is pessimistic, as his company tends not to measure the benefits of the installed base of software, only the costs.

Jeff Reid, ex-Thornton Holdings, said that at Conexant, they had an issue with Oracle. He inherited a contract that he clearly was not going to use and wanted to renegotiate. Oracle sent in a supplier auditor who tried to say that they owed $2M. They ended up having to pay $20,000.

Randy Miller said that since we are in Oracle bashing mode, when he was with Toshiba ABS, they paid maintenance for many modules that they didn’t use. He was impressed with the savings that Shannon quoted – 75% savings is a good deal at any time. By the way, the current Oracle Ts & Cs are on their web site.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, has found that negotiating with vendors takes a lot of her time and often involves also negotiating with 3rd party companies. Microsoft Information Worker needs Sharepoint. They are dealing with a Microsoft VAR, which complicated the negotiation. In the end, they had to get Microsoft on the phone as well as the VAR.

William Zauner, JAMS, said that they had the same problems with Microsoft that Surefire has, perhaps because they are both middling sized companies – in the range between $200M - $500M. If you are really small, then it doesn’t matter as much. They do have an advantage because they have in-house counsel, who reviews all contracts.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, said that a CIO has enough on his/her plate not to have to get bogged down with contract negotiations. Why the software industry doesn’t have standards in this area is beyond him. At Rockwell, they were blessed with an in-house IT counsel. At the winery, they are on their 3rd counsel in as many years.

John Pringle said that his comments are from the vendor’s perspective, in his case Oracle. Everything is negotiable, especially towards the end of a quarter, or year. The last quarter was the worst in 15 years. The most difficult contracts had to do with hosting, SLAs, and audit which when done seriously, can be a big income opportunity.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they now have an in-house counsel, which took some getting. Now, he doesn’t have to worry about the negotiation. Of course, they wait until quarter/year end before they start to negotiate. They mainly buy tools, not packages as they write most of their own applications.

Mitch Morris, IAPMO, that he didn’t really understand contracts until he started to work with lawyers. It’s an area that gets overlooked because of the complexity. He thinks that a CIO has to step up to the plate because of the money involved with IT contracts, and decisions like buy vs. build, and contract management.

Samir Doshi, Telecomers, said that this is where his company specializes in – telecom contract management. He does for telecom contracts what Shannon does for the rest of IT contracts, and with a similar approach – first a free audit, then an explicit optimization and expense management program. He only gets paid out of the savings realized in the management and administration of the telecom costs. He handed out a 1-page description of the services his company provides.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, added that there seems to him a lot of value to be gained from having an in-house counsel, with a strong legal background and familiarity with IT contracts to be the one doing the negotiation, not just a lawyer who reviews contracts.

A good meeting - thanks to Shannon Muniz for introducing the topic and for leading the discussion on a very timely issue in today’s economy.

See you on April 9, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 2-12-09

2009-02-21T16:31:00.000-08:00

1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
February 12, 2009 meeting

Present: John Pringle, Jeff Reid, Sharon Solomon, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips

We started the meeting with a review of the discussion topics that gained the most votes for the coming year, and a draft schedule of speakers for selected topics. Please review the attachment that lists the topics in the order of voting preference and availability of speakers. Check to see if your name is listed as a speaker – if not please contact me ASAP to volunteer. I am looking for volunteers to prepare the introduction to:
Data Retention and Classification, e-discovery - Aug 13, 2009
ERP Implementations – lessons learned - Sept. 9, 2009
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

Topic: IT Human Capital – Generation Y

John Pringle handed out copies of his presentation (attached) and he used it as a guide to a very interactive discussion. I suggest you open his presentation and refer to it as you read these notes of a very fluid discussion. John's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio . He stated out with a definition of Gen Y – 76 million of them, born 1977-90, 1 in 4 live with a single mother, 3 in 4 with working mothers, online 87%. Check his definition of Gen X, Young Boomers and Old Boomers! Most adults use email and search, but the older you are the less likely you are to use the Internet for anything else beyond e-commerce – less than 20% of adults use SNS (social networking services), and few use online entertainment. It’s not clear how many Gen Y use traditional email, preferring to use IM and cell phones. John had several pages of Gen Y defining characteristics (and the implications for employees), although this could change in the current economic climate. We discussed a few of these, such as their feeling entitled (looking for challenging work), thrive on change (can handle changes), love instant gratification, needy (want constant feedback), high expectations (for themselves, their bosses and companies), question everything (creative independent thinkers), don’t expect to work for the same company for long, work hard for long hours, live and breath technology. We talked about what motivates Gen Y’ers – things like technology innovation, supervisors who listen, flexible schedules. They will stay if they have challenging work, a chance to show off, to live a well balance life and a casual dress work environment. John listed the top web sites that they will visit, including KaZaA (music download) and Facebook. Non-certified skills that increased in value in the 4th quarter of 2008 include NetWeaver Portals (SAP EP), PHP (server-side HTML embedded scripting language for web developers), Apple OSX/Tiger/Leopard and ITIL. He also listed 10 technology developments for the future. Then he gave us a test – if you want a list of the “right” answers, send me an email. John also included a list of his sources for your review.

See you on March 12, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 1-8-09

2009-01-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
January 8, 2009 meeting

Present: Sharon Solomon, Mitch Morris, Sean Brown, Jennifer Curlee, Jim Sutter, Dave Phillips

The New Year started slowly as several members were unable to make it at the last moment, including our scheduled speaker, Randy Farner, Vitreous Solutions. In place of the normal presentation, we had asked members to come to the meeting with one technology prediction, and to briefly describe how it might affect our future.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

Topic: Technology Predictions

I started the discussion by selecting Memristor as my technology prediction. Since the dawn of electronics, we’ve had only three types of circuit components —resistors, inductors, and capacitors. But in 1971, UC Berkeley’s Leon Chua theorized the possibility of a fourth type of component, one that would be able to measure the flow of electric current: the memristor. Now, just 37 years later, Hewlett-Packard has built one.
What is it? As its name implies, the memristor can “remember” how much current has passed through it. And by alternating the amount of current that passes through it, a memristor can also become a one-element circuit component with unique properties. Most notably, it can save its electronic state even when the current is turned off, making it a great candidate to replace today’s flash memory. Memristors will theoretically be cheaper and far faster than flash memory, and allow far greater memory densities. They could also replace RAM chips, as we know them, so that, after you turn off your computer, it will remember exactly what it was doing when you turn it back on, and return to work instantly. This lowering of cost and consolidating of components may lead to affordable, solid-state computers that fit in your pocket and run many times faster than today’s PCs. Someday the memristor could spawn a whole new type of computer, thanks to its ability to remember a range of electrical states rather than the simplistic "on" and "off" states that today's digital processors recognize. By working with a dynamic range of data states in an analog mode, memristor-based computers could be capable of far more complex tasks than just shuttling ones and zeroes around.
When is it coming? Researchers say that no real barrier prevents implementing the memristor in circuitry immediately. But it's up to the business side to push products through to commercial reality. Memristors made to replace flash memory (at a lower cost and lower power consumption) will likely appear first; HP's goal is to offer them by 2012. Beyond that, memristors will likely replace both DRAM and hard disks in the 2014-to-2016 time frame. As for memristor-based analog computers, that step may take 20-plus years.

This was one of the 15 predictions listed in CIO Insider, Oct 31, and PC World, Oct 29. Others include Quad Core (multiple core CPUs), the Nehalem chip (Graphics Board GPU), USB 3.0, wireless power transmission, Windows 7, Google desktop OS, and cell phone GPS.

Sharon Solomon came armed with several predictions: Gartner’s Top 10 for 2009, as listed in CIO Magazine Michael Bullock blog, including virtualization, cloud computing, web oriented architectures, enterprise mashups, networking systems, BI and Green computing. Neal Weinberg, Network World, had 9 hot technologies for 2009, including 802.11n, which means that wireless LANs are now viable. Unisys rolled out 5 predictions for 2009 including 3 on IT automation, service delivery and infrastructure management. Apple also had 6 including iPod 3.6, iPhone SDK, Macbook Air and their new OS 10.6 Leopard.

Jim Sutter shared with us some of the following Tech Republic’s predictions:
IN: IT pros with business skills - OUT: Technical certifications
IN: Web-based applications - OUT: Build-it-yourself custom software
IN: Automating processes to save money - OUT: Long-term projects
IN: Macs in the enterprise - OUT: Upgrading XP machines to Vista
IN: Virtualization - OUT: Infinite racks of small servers
IN: Core i7 - OUT: The Pentium brand
IN: Thin clients - OUT: A laptop for every knowledge worker
IN: WiMAX - OUT: Metro Wi-Fi
IN: Ubuntu - OUT: Red Hat
IN: Business Intelligence (BI) - OUT: SNMP data overload
IN: Telecommuting - OUT: The 8-5 work day
IN: HP laptops and desktops - OUT: Dell laptops and desktops
IN: Multifunction server appliances - OUT: Best-of-breed network devices
IN: Smartphones - OUT: Desktop-replacement notebooks
IN: Video conferencing - OUT: Air travel for a single meeting
IN: More internships - OUT: Filling open positions
IN: Conserving energy - OUT: Building IT for future growth
IN: WAN acceleration - OUT: Dark fiber
IN: 3G broadband - OUT: Frame relay
IN: Netbooks - OUT: Desktop PCs
IN: Microsoft Office on the Web - OUT: Azure, Live Mesh, and Windows Live
IN: CIOs with minimal tech background - OUT: CIO as lead engineer
IN: IT/business integration - OUT: Centralized IT departments

Mitch, Jennifer and Sean were active in the discussion without presenting specific technology predictions. This was a fun session.
See you on January 8, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 12-11-08

2008-12-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
December 11, 2008 meeting

Present: Joel Manfredo, John Mooney, Subbu Murthy, Randy Farner, Andy King, Jeff Hecht, Jennifer Curlee, Jason Dedrick, Sean Brown, Paul Gray, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Jason Dedrick, UCI, to his first meeting.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

Topic: Green IT

Joel Manfredo, County of Orange, started by showing technology trends as identified by Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Gartner and Forrester, highlighting amongst others Cloud Computing, Consumers as Innovators, Mashups, Web Platform (SaaS) and Green IT. Another slide showed the hype cycle for technology trends with Green IT at the peak of inflated expectations (see Gartner slides in Joel’s presentation). He then showed the Wikipedia definition of Green computing – the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently, especially in power management and materials recycling. A Deloitte slide showed the influence of regulation over time, combined with economic and social pressures. An EPA Green Power Partnership slide showed the ranking of 53 Fortune 500 companies green power usage, led by Intel Corp at 1,300,000 kilowatt-hours per year. He touched upon renewable energy, green buildings and energy conservation. He defined the LEED building rating system – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, where you can be rated platinum, gold, silver and certified. He also defined the Energy Star program – a joint EPA and DoE program, which addresses both business and home efficiency guidelines, and showed an interesting projection of energy usage. He showed a complex Green IT taxonomy chart, and a chart showing technology enablers to Green IT. He listed Gartner’s10 key elements of a Green IT strategy, including switch it off when not in use, and move from “always on” to “always available“ in the data center. The Energy Stack slide was interesting. Joel ended with the Cisco connected workplace slide, showing the cost savings from the shared workplace design. A great presentation by a subject matter expert - I recommend that you take another look at his presentation slides. They are at : http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

We asked members to tell us what they are doing about Green IT.

John Mooney, Pepperdine University, said that he has been focusing more on IT sustainability rather than on Green IT. He belongs to a consortium called the European Center for Sustainability Leadership, and they had a meeting last week at the UN to define principles of responsibility. Green IT is one of IT management’s areas of responsibility as it influences technology, social and environmental strategies. He sees IT management becoming business practice leaders. He recommends that we switch paradigms from “reduce usage” to “do not use” in the first place.

Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said that he is involved with open innovation and invited Joel to meet with the group. In general, he found that CIOs tend towards empire building - bigger budgets, staffs and data centers, and were anti outsourcing and SaaS. CIOs are not graded on energy consumption, although he did note that the Dupont CIO is chief sustainability officer for the company.

Randy Farner, Vitreous Solutions, said that according to the Wikipedia definition he has always been green – most service for least cost. Business demands service. When business demands green, the CIO will change. It is a simple value proposition.

Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, agreed that from a corporate perspective, he has to align with the business, and he hasn’t heard anything about green from the business. Common sense tells you that green is good and you have to become conscious about what it takes to become more green, but it hasn’t trickled down yet. He complimented Joel on his presentation.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that it is all about ROI. He doesn’t have a mandate to be green – he has a mandate to provide service, and he brought in blade servers to be efficient, not green. He has been looking at software to shut down systems and PCs but building management is not interested in doing their bit.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they are a small company, and as such are always interested in saving $. She buys towers not stacks. They have a conflict between outsourcing and IP vulnerability. They keep the lights on because of security, and business continuity demands that they always have excess power for backup. Even so, they try to be green but are having problems with HVAC reliability.

Jason Dedrick, UCI, thanked Joel for a very interesting presentation. He is working in a new research area of carbon productivity, as it affects IT, the business as a whole, and the economy. They are studying any level of carbon usage, and on how IT affects energy usage, and not just at the cost side.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, was sorry that he was in and out during most of the presentation due to a conference call to a solar energy company. He found the pieces that he heard to be very interesting, and took note that the light in the conference room was too bright.

Paul Gray, Claremont (Emeritus), was working on the office hotelling concept in the early 90’s, and attended a conference on the subject in Orlando although he recognized that they used a lot of carbon just to fly there and back! With reference to Joel’s Cisco example and IBM reports, they showed that it didn’t and shouldn’t matter which office space one used when working in the central office and not at the home office. He and John Mooney agreed that to change behavior one needs incentives.
Thank you, Joel, for

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 11-13-08

2008-12-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
November 13, 2008 meeting

Present: Andy King, Tina Haines, Sean Brown, Jim Sutter, William Zauner, John Pringle, Dave Loomis, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Dave Loomis, ex-Barnes & Noble, IBM, and Siemens to his first meeting.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.

Topic: IT Policies

Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, defined a policy as a statement of intent intended to influence and determine decisions, actions and other matters, for example: a company’s personnel policy. Reasons for having IT policies include prevention of abuse of IT resources, protection of owners and employees, provide guidelines for IT management decision making, integrate with corporate governance, and to meet regulatory, legal, and ethical requirements. Andy had a couple of slides defining where IT policies fit in an organization. Andy listed every IT policy he found - about 33 in total – and focused on the 7 major policies that Northwestern University have developed. These include policies on security, network/infrastructure, hardware, software, residential network, email and external vendors. Each of these can be expanded to multiple sub-policies. He showed us how the security policy expands into 9 sub-policies. I recommend that you refer to Andy’s presentation slides for detail listings. Andy also circulated examples that he gathered from organizations as varied as a mature indutrial (1 long legal 14 page policy document), several universities policies statements, and a government IT policy. He also listed reference items such as http://www.itgi.org/ (IT Governance Institute), and the British Standard ISO/IEC 38500:2008 on corporate governance of IT

We asked members to tell us what IT policies they have or would recommend.

Tina Haines, Meggitt Electronics, in the continuum of time, they have developed sets of IT policies, but they are not very well coordinated. The company has 35 IT groups which they are just now pulling them all together. The first step is to develop a common set of standards. They intend to develop policies regarding protection of data, security of equipment, email, etc. They are also attempting to install rigorous IT change control and DR. They do have accounting policies in place.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, said that they have a very limited set of IT policies in place. Customers have their own and their consultants have to abide by those policies. They find that it is quite difficult (3 or 4 days) to gain access to customer’s computing resources because of the access policies in place.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, said his philosophy over the years has been fewer policies are better than too many, and if the current financial crisis is anything to go by, having policies in place doesn’t seem to guarantee proper behavior. Policies should capture a set of rules, and IT policies should be part of corporate policies, just like HR policies. When he was at Rockwell, he had the same person who drafted IT strategies in charge of drafting IT policies

William Zauner, JAMS, relating to the handout document, agreed that one paragraph could easily turn into many pages of legal policy. He had an outside council work with the HR department draft the HR policies. What he tries to do is fix behavior rather than define policies on things like password protection, and intellectual property protection when external contractors are involved.

John Pringle, ex-RCMT, said that they did not have many policies until SOX compliance became an issue. A manual was developed and they all had to sign a document to acknowledge having read the manual. To control internal usage of the Internet they use a content filter. They also have asset management policies. More and more customers are requiring their consultants to comply with their policies. The top security issue is access to data.

Dave Loomis said that when he worked with Siemens, they had to comply with the customer’s policies. They also controlled internal Internet access using technology, and were rigorous in controlling what you had installed on your computer, and in installing antivirus software. Quite often, the executives were among those who got caught. They insisted that new employees attended training as a condition of employment.

Andy King, Exemplis Corp., added that they also have all new employees sign a technology use policy as a condition of employment, which is tied into the corporate strategy.

Thank you, Andy, for a very good presentation and handout. A copy can be found at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

See you on December 11, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 10-9-08

2008-10-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

1993-2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
September 11, 2008 meeting

Present: Jim Pick, Paul Gray, John Pringle, Carmella Cassetta, Andy Stameson, Tak Fujii, Jim Sutter, Andy King, Jennifer Curlee, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips

Paul Gray introduced our guest speaker, Professor James Pick, University of Redlands, as our subject matter expert and author of several books on the topic. We also welcomed Andy Stameson, ex-CIO at FileNet, to his first meeting.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

Topic: GIS – Its time has come for business

Jim Pick, University of Redlands, defined Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a database of attributes, spatial information, and a linkage between the two. Jacqueline Tyrwhitt began using overlays for land use planning in 1950. Ian McHarg carried it much further and published “Design with Nature” in 1969. Also in the late 60’s, ESRI (HQ in Redlands) developed a software package, Arcinfo, and GIS was born. Military R & D eventually developed satellite systems for Global Positioning Systems (GPS). GIS moved into the business environment in the early 1990’s. Jim showed several examples, including a routing and scheduling application for a business fleet (see his presentation slides for other examples). The family of spatial technologies also includes RFID, sensors, handheld devices (such as PDAs), and LIDAR (light detection and ranging) for laser 3-D profiles. There are legal and ethical issues with using spatial technologies – including privacy and eligibility. GIS has moved towards web and mobile platforms, and almost everyone is familiar with Google Earth and Yahoo maps. Jim gave many other examples. GIS is starting to be integrated with ERP systems, especially with Oracle ERP, and in the energy (oil) value chain. It is also being used as a strategic business weapon (e.g. at Rand McNally) and it needs to be aligned with the IT strategy. Jim described at some length the use of GIS at Norwich Union. It is coming to the point where most companies should evaluate GIS and its potential. The management issues include cost vs. benefit (ROI). Should the GIS group be part of IT? In-house or outsourced? When should it be integrated into the ERP systems (not yet a smooth process)? Jim’s slides contain much more information and I recommend that you take the time to review them. They are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

We asked members to tell us what they are doing with GIS.

Paul Gray, Claremont, complimented Jim for a very comprehensive presentation. Paul’s knowledge is limited but he has reviewed favorably several of Jim’s books. Claremont is starting to get interested and have a few education projects – young Ph.Ds are good as missionaries. So far, it seems that people have problems viewing things spatially.

John Pringle, ex-RCMT, said that he is somewhat familiar with GPS tracking on boats as a component of marine technology. He has been thinking about the privacy implications when you start to link GPS/GIS to social networks.

Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, can see how this has implications for the transportation industry, tracking trucks and delivery status. She is less certain about its use in student related activities. One issue is what is the ideal background for people who want to go into GIS? Is it a background in IT, or government, or geography? ESRI alumni may be the ideal!

Andy Stameson, ex FileNet, said that they had started to look into these technologies at FileNet. They were trying to link Salesforce.com with GIS to get a better feeling for the ideal territories for sales and service.

Tak Fujii, Olson Company, said that since they are in housing development downtown, they have used GIS for years for mapping purposes. Now that Google Earth is readily available and very useful, they have started to use it in place of more expensive tools. They overlay demographic data and infrastructure data over the physical picture. Google is putting pressure on ESRI.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, recalled that Rockwell had an early contract to build the first constellation of GPS satellites. He remembers meeting Jim Pick years ago and taking him on a tour of Rockwell Semiconductor (which became Conexant). Gallo Winery is a big user of GIS in the vineyard to track application of fertilizers, etc., and in marketing to track selling demographics. Adding an RFID tag to each case is costly (50c)

Andy King, Exemplis Corp., expressed two thoughts – this was a very informative presentation, especially as he has been thinking about how to introduce it to his executives for personal navigation aspects, and to find where books are available. The second was to his Boy Scouts troop in place/addition to the map and compass exercise.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, also had two thoughts. He is working with a small company, which is thinking about going public, and they want to track drill bits, combining positioning and soil characteristics. GIS is also a plus for any CIO to present innovative ideas to his/her management where it might add value.

This was a very good presentation by Jim Pick, supported by a good handout and list of references.

See you on November 13, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 9-11-08

2008-09-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
September 11, 2008 meeting

Present: Paul Gray, Omar El Sawy, Joel Manfredo, Jeff Reid, Kirk Minami, Randy Farner, Randy Miller, Rich Hoffman, Steve Wallace, Jennifer Curlee, David Mann, Jeff Hecht, Sean Brown, William Zauner, Jim Sutter, John Pringle, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Kirk Minami, Aviana Global, and Steve Wallace, Hansen Beverage, to their first meeting.

We reminded members about the evening event of September 17th from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. on SaaS, sponsored by SAP and RJT Compuquest.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

Topic: Analytics - Maximizing the ROI from the BI investment

Paul Gray, Professor Emeritus at Claremont Graduate School, defined BI systems as a combination of data gathering, data storage, knowledge management with analysis to evaluate complex internal and competitive information, and present quality results in a timely manner. See slide 5 for the relationship of BI to DSS/EIS, data mining, OLAP, data warehouse, Web 2.0, CRM/DB marketing, and GIS. It is not sufficient to look back at internal performance data, or past competitive results. It is important to provide analysis tools to produce “what if” scenarios and make the analytic tools and results available to many in the organization, not to just a few planners. Paul showed examples of Web 2.0 bashups, combining many sources of data. Web 2.0 user-friendly interface allows for widespread use of such systems. The challenges include data quality, common data definitions and having the right infrastructure. There are many implications for the CIO (see slide 17). CI (competitive intelligence) is a systematic and ethical program for gathering, analyzing and managing external information about your competitors, which can affect your company’s performance. There are many sources of CI, such as government databases, online data, interviews and the media. The problem is not lack of information but the ability to use it effectively. There are many vendors of BI systems (see slide 25). There are many BI managerial issues – it’s about understanding your own position and performance, your customers and your competitors, and disseminating that knowledge to many people in the company. The technologies for BI and CI are getting better, as part of a better DSS capability. Paul attached a list of references, including “Successful Business Intelligence”, by Cindy Howson, and a review of “Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning” by Tom Davenport & Jeanne Harris.

Paul's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio

We asked members to share with us their experiences with BI and Analytics.

Omar El Sawy, USC, thanked Paul for his presentation. He took a stab at defining the difference between BI (focused on presenting the data from various sources) and Analytics (trying to use tools to gain insight from the data). He saw lots of integration between process workflow data and intelligence, which changes the way ROI is viewed as more part of the process. The science of exceptions is becoming better, but there is a lot of skepticism out there on the ROI of analytics.

Joel Manfredo recalled when he was in the leasing business in 1996, he was focused on the long process, from concept to building to leasing and you could be dead before you knew it. He was focused on collapsing the cycle time, and used BI tools to help. He also was interested in analyzing demographic data, using Cognos for reporting, which is invaluable in retail, like Starbucks, although it didn’t seemed to stop them from opening a store on every corner!

Jeff Reid, Toyota Material Handling, said that they used the SAP tool to get at their data. So far they pull together data from 4 of the 7 or 8 processes, and intend to extend it to all the processes. Fundamentally, it’s about getting the right data at the right time to the right people, so that better decisions can be made.

Kirk Minami, Aviana Global, shared with us information about a project he is working on in manufacturing. It is an early warning detection system, analyzing data from customer problem call logs to spot problems with the manufacturing process that might be causing units to fail, and to indicate what early steps can be taken to solve the problems at inception. The payback is huge.

Randy Farner, Vitreous Solutions, recalled from his experience with the Auto Club and Mercury. They used data mining a lot to analyze data on their Terradata platform, and the results were very good for CA. The Auto Club used a rich array of tools to help them drill down.

Randy Miller remembered fondly his days at Toshiba ABS, where he worked with Steve Wallace’s wife on a BI project using Cognos. In that project, 85% of the sales were made in the last 3 days of the month, and so the reports were produced every hour and studied intensely. The CI tools produced reports on the competition but despite the forecasts, this did not seem to influence change.

Rich Hoffman said that DW and SAS seem to have been around forever. Maybe Analytics is a new wrinkle. In the auto industry they have used BI for many years, tracking things like real time comparison shopping on the web, customer retention, conversion, faster failure diagnosis, repair order tracking, etc. He has noticed of late that they won’t hire the necessary Ph. D’s to do the job properly, and won’t spend the effort to cleanse the data.

Steve Wallace, Hansen Beverage, said that this discussion was very timely as they are going through a maturation cycle, which will affect processes, systems, and their global reach. In the past, they only reacted to BI – now it is part of the equation, and they are developing lots of pockets of CI, which will enrich the reports.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they have just finished implementing an ERP system, with the help of a consulting company, which they hoped was going to push them into BI, document management, etc. Unfortunately, they have found that they products are only interfaced, not integrated with one another, and data definitions are not consistent. This turns out to be an opportunity to start a new DD project, and to drive that effort deep into the organization.

David Mann, Word & Brown, said that they too are starting a major initiative, including BI. The major challenge is to define the ROI, and this presentation and discussion will help. They are blessed with having12 to 22 years of data to mine

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, thanked Paul for his presentation and said that Paul forgets more about this subject than he will ever know. The focus of their initiative is to present data in a better way, one that adds value to the data, but it’s hard to get people to believe that better information with result in better decision-making. Our executives have a hard time believing that a computer will make a better decision than they can.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, said that his company is making a significant investment in BI, and in becoming experts with the SAP analytic product and tools. They are aiming to generate real time ROI from the use of these tools.

William Zauner, JAMS, said that his company has a customized BI system. Each of their judges is treated as a mini profit center, and they use analytics to their competitive advantage as part of their recruiting strategy. The next phase is to use Business Objects to do “What if” studies to change the business focus.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, said that the Gallo Winery used a host of BI tools, like Cognos, to help them with strategic pricing each weekend. They are in the process of moving to the OutlookSoft product, because of its Excel look and feel. They have also consolidated their BI efforts, and now have a director of BI in IT. He liked Paul’s mashups for CI and is helping start-up companies get a handle on their competitors by tracking contacts on Linkedin, etc. to find out who knows who in the other companies.

John Pringle, RCMT, said that he was the DSS manager in MacDonald Douglas many years ago. He now uses a tool called DIVA to track KPI, performance tracking by sales person, dashboards, charts etc – when you visit John’s office you see them posted all over the walls.

This was a very good session, thanks to Paul’s presentation and excellent handouts.

See you on October 9, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 8-14-08

2008-08-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
August 14, 2008 meeting

Present: Mike Allen, Joel Manfredo, Larry Godec, Tina Haines, Bob Houghton, Randy Farner, Jeff Hecht, Mitch Morris, Carmella Cassetta, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Mike Allen, The Irvin Company, as our guest speaker, and new member Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, to her first meeting.

We reminded members to reserve the evening of September 17th from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. for the SaaS special event, sponsored by SAP and RJT Compuquest.

Please check Attachment A for the list of topics chosen for the rest of the year, the dates of each meeting and the person who has volunteered to prepare the introduction.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

Topic: IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

Joel Manfredo, ex-CIO at the Irvine Company (TIC), introduced Michael Allen, Director of Process Excellence, and described the context for the ITIL initiative at TIC – poor change control. Mike described ITIL as a framework of 11 common sense, service oriented principles – it is the What, rather than the How. Created by the British Government in the ‘80s to address inefficiencies with providing IT services, it is now at Version 3, which was released in June 2007. There are 5 core books entitled: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. ITIL Service Strategy is about the practice of service management, principles, strategy, economics (IT financial management, ROI, service portfolio management, demand management), organization culture, technology and operations. ITIL Service Design is about service design principles and processes – service catalogue management, service level management, capacity management, availability management, service continuity management, information security management, supplier management, application management, data and information management, requirements engineering, and design considerations (organization, process and tools). ITIL Service Transition is about transition principles and processes – transition planning and support, change management, asset and configuration management, release and deployment management, validation and testing, evaluation and knowledge management. ITIL Service Operation is about principles and processes - event management, incident management, request fulfillment, problem management, access management, monitor and control domain management. It is also about functions like service desk, technical management, IT operations management, and application management. ITIL Continual Service Improvement processes include the 7-step improvement process, service reporting, measurement, ROI for CSI, and SLA management. To operate IT like a business, it behooves you to embrace ITIL principles to provide reliable, available and serviceable IT services and infrastructure. It leverages Deming’s PDCA model. Widely accepted in Europe, it is quickly moving into the US market. Mike recommended starting with one aspect of your IT operations that needs improvement. TIC started with change management to add structure to a somewhat chaotic environment by dedicating resources in 2004, and the metrics show the value. Mike’s handout lists what they have done – self-assessment, 5-year plan, incident and problem management, configuration management and IT service continuity. I recommend that you read his entire handout to get a better sense of all that they have accomplished. The slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio

We asked members to share with us their experiences with ITIL.

Mitch Morris, IAMPO, told us that his environment is still very immature with respect to IT. He is evaluating ERP systems with the intention of replacing custom software. He is also trying to educate both management and users in the need for IT policies and procedures. In past positions, he has implemented many ITIL concepts.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said before listening to the presentation, he would have said that they did nothing with ITIL. He now realizes that they do a lot in areas like demand management. The need for availability is increasing, and they need predictable procedures to handle change management. The business is still very immature, as it grows from 200 to 1000 employees, and they tend to be sloppy about a lot of things. But the business is starting to be more demanding so his first step will be to do a self-assessment.

Randy Farner, Vitreous Solutions, said that at the Auto Club and Mercury, they have implemented many ITIL procedures in name, but not in spirit. Problems keep reoccurring, and there is little route cause analysis. What he likes about ITIL is that it gives you a checklist of processes and procedures that one should implement to run IT as a business.

Bob Houghton, DDI, said that at Western Digital, with 26,000 all over the world, the need for such a process was recognized so that they could communicate the cost of poor IT practices. Implementing IT services based on the ITIL model brought the cost of IT per drive down from 26 cents to 6 cents. At DDI, they are coming out of bankruptcy, and had just failed a SOX audit in change control. They had to use ITIL to get some structure.

Tina Haines, Meggitt Electronics, initial reaction to ITIL was “what’s in a name”. But since she has been working with her new division in the last 18 months, mostly in the UK, she has came to see that ITIL is very much accepted as a body of work which is supportable. Their problem today is that they are in a very profitable aerospace industry, and have tended to become lazy. So it is good to have a foundation for providing IT services. ITIL is in demand by both the government and their customers. She complimented Mike and TIC for doing a really good job of relating process maturity to the business.

Larry Godec, First American, is a big fan of ITIL. They have implemented many ITIL concepts and find that it is an excellent foundation for IT service provisioning. With the demand for high availability, it has become absolutely necessary to control changes, and manage demand. Unfortunately, with the budget cuts due the real estate crunch, he has had to reassign his ITIL full time resource. He is contemplating bringing him back to do another assessment.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, said that they are not ITIL compliant. It would seem to him for this to be critically important for all CIOs to know how compliant they were to the ITIL principles in all aspects of providing IT services. If they don’t know, then they need to do at least do a self-audit, if not hire a company to do one, like TIC did.

Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, said the first thing they did was address change management. They were able to show $ savings from implementing ITIL principles. When she joined Corinthian Colleges, they had multiple years of failed SOX audits. After implementing change management, they have moved to address incident management. Listening to Mike, she realizes that there is another whole level that they need to address. They are at best at 50-60% of where they should be.

This was a very good session, thanks to Mike’s presentation and a very lively discussion.

See you on September 11, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 7-10-08

2008-07-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

1993-2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
July 10, 2008 meeting

Present: Omar El Sawy, Joel Manfredo, Jeff Reid, Randy Miller, Tina Haines, John Pringle, Jim Sutter, Joe Cracchiolo, Sean Brown, Paul Gray, Jeff Hecht, Bill Baker, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Bill Baker, the new CIO at Arbonne, to his first OC CIO Round Table.

Please check Attachment A for the list of topics chosen for the rest of the year, the dates of each meeting and the person who has volunteered to prepare the introduction.

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

Topic: The Future of IT & Business Scenarios for 2013

Omar El Sawy, USC, divided his presentation into 3 parts: IT-savvy line managers in 2013; Top 10 Omarisms; and Whither uber-CIO? It’s not about technology - it is how the use of technology is an enabler, a transformer, how people adapt it to their needs, and take advantage of the relationship between IT and the business. IT has become part of the fabric – boundaries between IS and BP (think SOA), and work and life (think mobiles and Blackberrys) have become blurred. Line managers are IT-savvy, and manage with IT. Omar shared with us slides depicting the strands of IT-enabled management, and the Yin & Yang of managing with IT. A McKinsey report (12/07) listed 8 business technology trends to watch, from managing relationships and interactions (Web 2.0, open source), to leveraging information through analytics/BI, to managing value chains. Omar suggested 3 possible scenarios for managers in 2013: business as usual (with some disconnect between the business and IT); rise of the global “BizTech” manager; emergence of the “Eco-globalistic” manager. He then moved on to his 10 Omarisms:
- consumerisation of IT (Web 2.0 is just the tip of the iceberg)
- personalization and customization through “rich digital identity”, where advertising becomes recommendations from friends
- open source will permeate all aspects of managing enterprises
- digital rights laws will be turned upside down to benefit the user
- mobile devices will have multiple personalities
- multiple personality IT-enabled supply chains
- business models for services through digital platforms
- in 2013, web services and SOA will be the prevalent IT application architectures
- proliferation of hybrid 3D virtual worlds
- “emerging” countries will become “high growth” economies, not “catch-up” economies
Read Omar’s presentation slides for more detail. He then went on to describe various models for the uber-CIO in 2013:
- HUMMER: the transformational all-terrain CIO, part of top management
- PRIUS: innovative, lean CIO-plus, focused on new products and marketing
- OLDSMOBILE: traditional shrewd CIO, efficient, cost conscious, reports to CFO
- MINI COOPER: hip web 2.0 CIO, customer-centric, emerging technologies focus
- TATA: super efficient, cost-conscious CIO, reports to CFO, lots of outsourcing

We asked the members to describe their view of the future of IT and the CIO.

Joel Manfredo reminded us that he came from the business into IT. He still believes that business analysts should be in the business unit. The future of IT in 2013 will be web 2.0/3.0 based, and the business models have yet to emerge to take full advantage.

Jeff Reid, Toyota Material Handling, said the most important IT contribution will be social networking, like Linkedin. The successful CIO will be more like a Prius, although looking back at his time at Conexant, the CIO had to move back and forth depending on the direction of the business at any particular time.

Randy Miller, reflecting on his search of a new opportunity, finds that specific technical skills, such as SAP implementation experience, and industry knowledge are the two most important qualities to get past the gatekeeper and on to an executive search’s short list of candidates. Only then do you get to try to impress the hiring CXO.

Tina Haines, Meggitt Electronics, said that in the aerospace industry, the CIO is most valued as the element which keeps the company glued together - not sure where that fits within Omar’s 5 varieties of CIO. A good CIO helps develop the company strategy, and is valued as the transition agent.

John Pringle, RCMT, feels that the financial health of the company will determine what type of CIO will succeed. In the last 5 years, there was lots of money to spend on new projects. The next five years does not look that rosy. In his mind, the major IT issue of the next five years will be security.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, thanked Omar for his thoughtful presentation. When CEOs are asked what they are looking for in a CIO, they invariably say they want a team player, someone who can work with the other members of the management team, and who is an effective technology leader. Promotions to CIO from within a business unit are usually not well received by the IT technical staff.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, reflected on the fact that times are changing, the economies of business are changing, which will result in how things get accomplished, more than what is accomplished. New technologies will provide a variety of different approaches to getting things done.

Paul Gray, Professor Emeritus at Claremont, had several comments. He suggested that young new CIOs are willing to try anything – older CIOs learned from their parent’s memory of the depression not to take chances. Maybe if the depression we are in hits hard, attitudes might change. It takes 40 years for new technologies (like the PC) to really blossom, and even then senior people in industries, like medicine, are still uncomfortable using computers. The latest Government manpower forecast shows a reduction in the number of programmers required.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, also liked Omar’s presentation but suggested that he missed one CIO model – the one where the CIO becomes the CEO/CIO – the one who has the technical vision and the ideas and strategies about how best to move forward. He is the one who hires the best people with the appropriate technical knowledge to implement his ideas. In the end, it is the people who become the keys to success.

Bill Baker, Arbonne, had the luxury of working with some of the biggest IT groups and successful CIOs when he was a consultant. He joined Arbonne a few months ago and they sell to consultants who use their products. Arbonne is about $1B in sales and sell 100% through the web. They are similar to an Amway, and sell skin products, etc., to distributors. IT is driving the strategy, and is heavily involved with product marketing.

Our thanks to Omar, who as usual did a great job in introducing the topic, and preparing the handout.

See you on August 14, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:

940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 6-12-08

2008-06-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
June 12, 2008 meeting

Present: Larry Godec, Jeff Reid, William Zauner, Tak Fujii, Randy Farner, Rich Hoffman, Jim Sutter, Jennifer Curlee, Joe Cracchiolo, Subbu Murthy, Sean Brown, Jeff Hecht, David Mann, John Pringle, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

Topic: Business Continuity Program

When Larry Godec, First American, worked at Nissan, he put together a BCP for them following 9/11. When he joined First American, he built on those ideas to put together an Emergency Response (ER), Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BC) program, in response to the Florida hurricanes, which wiped some of their offices in FL off the map. The ER ensures the safety of employees and the security of facilities. The DR restores the technology infrastructure following an event. The BC ensures the preservation of revenue through continuity of operations following an event. They have about 1400 offices in the US, and they have organized the program by region. Each region (now 10) has a business line continuity officer (BLCO), whose function includes documentation of BP flows, identifying recovery teams, each with fully defined tasks, recording all critical contact data, posts all material on the unit’s Sharepoint page, and facilitates annual review of plans and tabletop testing. The corporate office role (in Corporate Security) is to integrated plans, train BLCOs, perform periodic assessments and report to executive management. Read Larry’s handout to get a more complete feel for the four phases involved in the planning process. An event is defined as 40% workforce shortage, technology and facility unavailable, and critical vendor failure. The plan requires that you define objectives and the command process, identity recovery teams and detailed tasks, define the communications strategy and complete documentation. Larry’s handout shows samples, templates and storage. They use LDRPS, a system by Strohl, to manage the plan.

We asked the members to describe their BC plan, if any, and to highlight the most important problem they had in dealing with this issue.

Jeff Reid, Toyota Material Handling, said that they do not yet have a BC plan. Their problem is a lack of organizational maturity. Formed in 2003 and built for speed, they have too many other things to fix first, such as developing an IT governance approach, and a DR approach. At Western Digital they had both a DR and BC plan. At Conexant they had developed a BC plan, but when Jazz was spun off, it changed everything. That highlights the major challenge – trying to stay current with all the business changes.

William Zauner, JAMS, said that they do have a DR and BC plan and had a building in downtown NY, which was affected by the 9/11 attacks. However, they have found that the small problems cause most of the BC events. Recently on the same day, they had a bomb scare which shut down their DC office, and a fire, which affected their backup office in Boston. What they have found to be critical are the people, judges and phone systems, not the computer systems and infrastructure.

Tak Fujii, Olson Company, they are a small company but do have a BC and DR plan in place as the owner put a lot of emphasis on them. However, only the DR system is kept up-to-date. The BC has not been tested for 4 years, people have changed and contact data is out of date. Thus the IT department becomes the BC resource, by default.

Randy Farner, Vitreous Solutions, agreed with Tak that the IT group used to be the default group – no one in the business seemed to care. Things changed at the Auto Club after the Houston hurricane. They developed an emergency response team, with joint ownership by the business, HR and IT.

Rich Hoffman, ex-HISNA, said that plans are great but in the end, it’s the people who are the most important element. He mentioned a talk given by the CIO of the city of New Orleans, who said that when Katrina hit all their plans were rendered ineffective. It soon became survival first, food and water second, and everything else a distant third. At Yamaha, they did some planning but never put it into the job description, and so no one was made responsible. At Hyundai, when the roof fell in, they had to keep people out, and didn’t have an 800 # for employees to call to find out the latest status.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, agreed with my opening comments that BC seems to be a great opportunity for the CIO to show business acumen and executive potential. He mentioned how Dave Kepler at Dow Chemical is now Chief of Business Sustainability, responsible for not only IT but for all Dow’s Green activities and raw material availability. At Rockwell’s auto parts company, which was contracted to provide sunroofs to VW in 35 seconds after receiving the order, BC has a totally different meaning. In IT they had a back-up data center in Dallas until changes in the world political climate (when the Berlin Wall came down) caused a major business reduction. They eventually phased out the back-up center and went with Sunguard.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that BC has all sorts of implications for a manufacturing company. They have started on a BC project, headed by a retired business executive. IT is working on a DR plan first. They store all documents on Iron Mountain. Their defined event is a 7.9 earthquake.

Joe Cracchiolo, FluidMaster, said that they built a BC/DR plan 5 years ago. It has become an IT responsibility. Their event envisions that most of the current staff will be engaged in saving their own family unit. Their major problem was how to build a plan for someone from the outside to execute. Another fact is that the technology has changed significantly since they first built a plan, and through the years, the IT challenge is not as significant. Being out of action for 12 hours is not a real problem, but it can affect customer confidence.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they do have DR (plan and tested), using Sunguard as a last resort. They don’t have a BC plan. They have tried to think through 3 scenarios – HQ gone, Data Center gone, and both gone. There is a difference between some availability, and a complete disaster. In the end, it’s the people who will make the difference.

Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said that 90% of disasters need a DR plan, not a BC plan. The changes in technology allow for shared services, and building a DR will be much cheaper. A lot of it is common sense, and paying attention to the potential problem goes a long way to solving it. It should be a regular agenda item, not an annual event. He favors using scenario planning.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, agreed with the CIO from New Orleans. When real disaster hits, it’s survival first, then food and water. A massive event is unlikely, so plan to recover from smaller events that will happen.

John Pringle, RCMT, said that they do have a BC plan, which was as a result of becoming SOC compliant. They are a regional office, and rely on corporate for back up. Their major need is to have an ability to print checks. They back up their Oracle clients with Sunguard. They devised a 3-tiered approach for each client and all their clients opted for level 1!

This was a great topic, and a lively discussion. Thank you, Larry, for a great introduction and handout.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 5-8-08

2008-05-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
May 8, 2008 meeting

Present: Rich Hoffman, Paul Gray, Andy King, Rich Cormier, Joel Manfredo, Randy Miller, Jim Sutter, Joe Cracchiolo, Mitch Morris, Jennifer Curlee, Jeff Hecht, Sean Brown, Subbu Murthy, John Pringle, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

Topic: Virtual workers – does it matter where you work from?

Rich Hoffman, ex-HISNA, was going to present his introduction remotely to see if it affected the quality of the presentation and subsequent discussion. But in the end, he arrived in person to present his list of questions to the group (see attached). The 1st few questions are about how many employees are virtual today (even if you exclude field and service personnel)? It’s hard to find a definitive answer but, according to Joel Manfredo, IBM is 40% virtual, and has saved $350M in office rental from workstation hotelling. SUN is almost too successful, and many of their staff do not want to go in to the office as almost no one is there, except 1st year employees who are not allowed to telecommute. What kind of jobs can be/should be done from home? Jobs that are measurable, independent, unsupervised (like claims processing, contract administration, Helpdesk), that don’t involve much face time with customers. What companies are using virtual departments? Does it depend on where they are located? London used to have 30% of all UK office workers commuting to downtown locations, so they had to disperse for logistic reasons. Prudential had a central office downtown LA but the neighborhood changed and they ended up with two locations in the valley. Does working from home come naturally to boomers? No. To Gen X? Yes – they even text each other in the same office! How do you get virtual workers to care about the company? They won’t unless they are treated right – see John Pringle’s comments from last week. Paul Gray found that they can’t work offsite all the time – they need to spend some time together. Rich expressed the opinion that only customer facing jobs had to be onsite – business analysts, client principles, process specialists/owners. Other jobs such as operations/production environment could be done offsite, but in 1st world countries, if you are concerned about downtime or business continuity (see Larry Godec’s topic next month). Rich handed out a Virtual Workplace Do’s and Don’ts from Business Week, which is very good. In summary:
Do’s: Get good gear; encourage small talk; help them stop; create office space for when they come in to the office; set goals.
Don’ts: neglect training; assume it’s a fit for all employees; lose track of people; forget face time.

We asked each member to talk to his/her approach re virtual workers.

Paul Gray, Claremont (Emeritus), co-wrote the 1st book on this topic with Jack Nilles years ago. They found that people could work at home/telecommute a lot of the time but not all the time. Whether a company was successful or not depended whether the management was for or against it. They found that to be successful at universities, it had to be interactive. He did it successfully at Stanford in the 60’s, but no one would go for it at Claremont.

Andy King, SitOnIt Seating, said that it depended on the culture. If you can define the deliverables, then it can be successful. You have to have the right mix, because it is not fun being the employees in the office fielding all the questions when most of the other employees are telecommuting.

Rich Cormier, Edwards Lifesciences, said that it could work depending on the job. They have used telecommuting centers, and have warehouses offsite. To get some of the community interfacing and human connecting, people from different companies would get together.

Joel Manfredo said that he was a member of the Lotus learning space council. They had no issues with telecommuting people staying engaged. Companies like SUN and GSA are deep into it. They have characterized each job, and each person, as suitable or not. Productivity for the right job and person goes up.

Randy Miller, Toshiba ABS, said that they did not have a formal policy regarding telecommuting – informally, it depended on the person and the position. They would allow it to keep the knowledge of the employee. When they conducted an employment engagement study, they found the virtual worker to be very demanding.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, said that the general trend was to become more virtual. The Winery is very traditional and discourages telecommuting. At Rockwell, they tried telecommuting but insisted that everyone had to be in the office on Mon. and Fri. and during “core” hours. He found that at USC, the trend was against it as they were very team and relationship oriented. That doesn’t seem to matter at UCI.

Mitch Morris, IAMPO, said that telecommuting works for those who want it, depending on the company and culture. There is still the question of how best to manage those who are virtual. IAMPO has a policy against telecommuting.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that when they were a small company, everybody came in to work. Since 9/11 they have grown at 60% and have 6 facilities. Manufacturing is done onsite. IT employees are working remotely, and at odd hours. They use tools like “Go to Meeting” to keep in touch.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that their HR is very much against telecommuting. He has no problems with individuals working at home. He took some classes on TV and it worked out well. He encourages employees to do the same. Working remotely works for certain kinds of jobs, but no all. He wonders how individuals become managers if all their experience is being a virtual employee.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, finds that certain administrative functions can be done remotely, but they operate as a team to respond to client needs, and they find that having everyone in the office most of the time works better for them.

Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said it depends on the 4 Cs – the culture (trusting that the worker will perform); communication (ability of the worker and manager, and tools); cost (balancing the savings in office space vs. cost of network, etc.); and collaboration skills.

John Pringle, RCMT, agreed in depends on the culture but he warned that employers would have to become more flexible because unemployment is less than 2%. We will have to do more of this, rather than less. At RCMT, 80% of their Oracle practice is done remotely. In the past, it was for cost reduction reasons. In the future, it will be to accommodate human capital flexibility demands.

See you on June 12, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:

940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 4-10-08

2008-04-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
April 10, 2008 meeting

Present: John Pringle, Larry Godec, Joe Cracchiolo, Rich Hoffman, William Zauner, Sean Brown, Randy Farner, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

Topic – Attracting and Retaining IT Talent

John Pringle, RCM Technologies, gave us a short history of his company as a qualification for addressing the subject – 37 years in business, 3,000 consultants globally specializing in engineering and IT, 200 IT employees in the Western Region. He gave an overview of the US human capital market – more tech. opportunities than qualified people to fill them because baby boomers are retiring, fewer university IT graduates, and companies are creating new IT jobs faster than they are exporting. IT employment is at an all time high – almost 4M, driven by business growth, user support and system upgrades. We might be in for some uncertainty as in March, there was a decrease, after 32 months of growth; RCM Technology’s business is down, except in support of mid-sized companies. He gave us a summary of the CA market, mainly based on 2006 data (see John’s slides attached). There is a new breed of employee – more demanding, diverse, technically astute, less likely to believe employer has their best interest at heart. They expect more than a job, more balance. To manage this talent, you need an applicant tracking, recruiting, web-based requisition and harvesting management system. Focus on employee initiation and on boarding, covering reporting structure, standards, position and project scope, and administration. Incentive and compensation management is important, as is employee self-service and communication. To attract and retain talent, start with pursuit of the best and brightest, treat employees fairly, create a good environment, work together as a team, and provide on-going training. He listed the top 10 paying job positions, and the most sought after skills (see his slides). He had some general tips for managing your career in IT, and the value of networking. The long-term trend is for the IT professional to more actively manage his/her career, anticipating that you will have many (8-10) position/careers in your lifetime. John listed his sources on the last page of the handout.

We asked each member to talk about their staffing strategy, and the balance between full-time employees, temporary consultants, outsourcing and offshoring.

Larry Godec, First American, said he had a succession plan for his senior management positions. His use of offshore resources is currently at 40% of total, and his new management wants that to grow to 60% to reduce costs. He is converting most of his consultant positions to full time employees.

Joe Cracchiolo, FluidMaster, said that they do not have an offshore strategy, but they do have a contractor strategy – hire full time to steady state, and staff peaks with contractors. They also have a training strategy even if does encourage some to leave after they have upgraded their skills.

Rich Hoffman, ex-HISNA, said that every company needs a resource strategy, and that it varies by company, timing and culture. Cummings went offshore to find talent, which was not as available in the Mid West. GE had a 30/30/30 strategy, with 30% onshore fulltime, 30% offshore fulltime and 30% outsourced. HISNA is using more subcontractors to keep the permanent headcount steady. Even Deloitte staffs their projects with 80% subcontractors.

William Zauner, JAMS, said that they use contractors for most of their projects. Full time employees form the core of their staff. Their strategy is to hire college graduates and to train them, with the expectation that they will likely last no more than 3 years.

Randy Farner spoke to his experience at the Auto Club and Mercury. He noted a commoditization of IT resources, where true productivity gets lost. The corporate mentality is in the numbers, but it is very hard to buy the super star. There must be a right mix because you cannot subcontract or outsource everything.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, said that he works with many companies in the area on resourcing their IT talent pools. He advised the group to look at the HI B talent pool – you can find good talent and if you can lock them into a green-card process, you will build loyalty. Also investing in training and using the latest technology is good for employee retention

We thanked John Pringle for an interesting presentation and handout.

See you on May 8, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:

940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260. Attachment A
April 10, 2008
1993 - 2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
Notes

Purpose: To provide a forum in an informal setting for senior IS executives to exchange ideas with their peers on key issues of interest to the group.

Goal: To get to know each other and to feel comfortable discussing issues and solutions.

Format: Select one topic per meeting; have one member be responsible for a 30-minute introduction, and have each participant come prepared to present not more than 5 minutes on how they are approaching the issues in their environment.

Time: 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.

Place: The RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

Date: 2nd THURSDAY of each month

Schedule for the meetings through August 2008:

DATE INTRODUCTION TOPIC

1/10/08
Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix
VoIP
2/14/08
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group
Web 2.0
3/13/08
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest
Offshore outsourcing
4/10/08
John Pringle, RCM Technologies
Attracting / Retaining IT talent
5/8/08
Rich Hoffman, HISNA
Productivity - does where you work from matter?
6/12/08
Larry Godec, 1st American
Business Continuity Planning
7/10/08
Omar El Sawy, USC
Future of IT
8/14/08
Tim McClain, The Irvine Company
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

(See voting spreadsheet for other topics to consider)

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 3-13-08

2008-03-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

1993-2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
March 13, 2008 meeting

Present: Sean Brown, William Zauner, Randy Miller, Tak Fujii, Joel Manfredo, Rich Hoffman, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

We welcomed Tak Fujii, The Olson Company, to the OC CIO Round Table.

Topic – Offshore Outsourcing

We thanked Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, for agreeing to introduce the topic for discussion at the last moment. No sooner did Sean start his presentation by defining terms that Rich challenged the first definition, and after a little discussion we tended to agree. Outsourcing is more than the act of obtaining IT services; it is the transfer of responsibility (but not accountability) to an external firm for the provision of an IT service. Offshore outsourcing adds complexities to that transfer. There are many potential advantages for offshore outsourcing, but be clear WHY you are considering this option. Sean listed some of the advantages, including an available cheaper talent pool, domain expertise, and world-class providers with infrastructure. There are disadvantages too, including differences in language, culture, 20% greater management overhead, and IP security risks. The best approach is to hire someone who has experience in offshore outsourcing, including helping you think through the WHY, creating an RFP, sending it to many vendors who fit your needs, negotiating a rigorous contract, contemplating both the transition in and out of the contract, defining appropriate service level agreements, and including penalties for lack of performance. Practices that pay off include making sure that you go offshore for the right reasons – don’t outsource a mess, or a broken process. Choose your model carefully – will it be a captive operation (an offshore subsidiary, like the B of A model) or a contracted service? Get your people on board, including your management – takes lots of communication because your people can make it happen, or not. Be prepared for serious investment of management time and money. Sean included lists of Do’s and Don’ts, and of the major players in the game. He also gave a list of countries providing services, dominated by India but including lots of other countries. Gartner lists 5 critical steps – set objectives, judge the current situation, analyze the market, identify risks, and evaluate options. Sean’s presentation slides are attached. He also distributed 2 handouts, which are available on-line:

DER management: Offshore lessons learned http://www.dermanagement.com/archives/9

CIO Magazine: 10 Outsourcing Predictions for 2008 http://www.cio.com/article/print/166108

We asked each member to share with us his experience with offshore outsourcing.

William Zauner, JAMS, said that they had not done any offshore outsourcing but he was very interested to learn from others the dos and don’ts involved. He has outsourced network support to a company within the USA.

Randy Miller, Toshiba ABS, shared with us his experience with Patni Computer Systems, India. He had to fire their project manager because of his very belligerent attitude, and the rest of the Patni team walked off the job - he got little timely support from the company. He had checked out the company rigorously and they have a good reputation, but he neglected to check out the project manager. Make sure you include a termination at will clause in the contract.

Tak Fujii, Olson Company, said that the company is small and privately held. The Board has asked him several times about outsourcing to India, and they have done a trial run with a good project, and a well-defined spec. They have successfully outsourced their infrastructure and network support, and the Helpdesk to Sigmanet in Ontario.

Joel Manfredo, ex-Irvine Company, said that they have very limited experience with offshore outsourcing. They did use Deloitte to implement SAP, and they used some offshore resources. They do outsource their Helpdesk to Everdream, which is being purchased by Dell.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, said that RJTCompuquest is partly an India-owned company. They do offshore BPO to their Indian office, so they do have skin in the game.

Rich Hoffman, ex-HISNA, said that they did use offshore companies for fixed priced contracts. You have got to be good at writing contracts. He has nothing against using offshore resources provided it is measurable better than other options, but be careful with the contract. There are significant cultural and legal differences. He would never run critical applications offshore. He was talking with GE about their approach to offshore outsourcing, and they also recommend against using offshore operations to run business critical applications.

We thanked Sean again for a very interactive discussion, good slides and the handouts.

See you on April 10, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:

940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 2-14-08

2008-02-25T20:12:00.000-08:00

To: OC CIO Participants

From: Dave Phillips, Peer Consulting Group

Date: February 20, 2008

Subject: Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

Copy: CIO Participants

Attached are the February 14, 2008 meeting minutes, and a copy of Jim Sutter’s presentation slides. Past meeting minutes and proceedings are posted to http://www.peergroup.net/, the Peer Consulting Group website.

The next CIO Breakfast Round Table will be on Thursday, March 13, at 7:00 a.m. at RJTCompuquest, 940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. The topic for this meeting will Offshore Outsourcing and Fred Degley, RJTCompuquest, will introduce the topic. E-mail tdavidphillips@cox.net, by March 12th, 2008 to confirm your attendance.
CIO Round Table Peer Group

Chris Andreozzi, Knowl. Centrix
Bruce Blitch, Tessenderlo Kerley
Mark Brinton, SCE
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest
John Buccola, Panavision
Michael Connolly, IBM
Rich Cormier, Edwards Lifesci.
Joe Cracchiolo, FluidMaster
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire
Esther Delurgio
Omar El Sawy, USC
Randy Farner
Tak Fujii, Olson Company
Larry Godec, First American
Paul Gray, Claremont (Emeritus)
Bob Greenburg, Nissan
Jon Hahn, Telmar NT
Tina Haines, Meggitt Electronics
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown
Rich Hoffman
Bob Houghton, DDI
Paul Jones, SCE
Andy King, SitOnIt Seating
Joel Manfredo
Tim McClain, Irvine Company
David Mann, Word & Brown
Fred Magner
Bill Mao, OCTA
Randy Miller, Toshiba ABS
Brian Montemagni, Aviana Global
John Mooney, Pepperdine
Mitch Morris, IAMPO
Subbu Murthy, USourceIT
Gregg Parker, Ultigon
Dave Phillips, Peer Consulting Grp
Jeff Reid, Toyota Material Handling
John Pringle, RCMT
Steve Smith, Medtronic Minimed
Sharon Solomon, Jacuzzibrands
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Grp
Ken Venner, Broadcom
Paul Volkman, Keenan & Assoc.
William Zauner, JAM
1993-2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
February 14, 2008 meeting

Present: Jim Sutter, Jeff Reid, Esther Delurgio, Paul Gray, Rich Hoffman, Joe Cracchiolo, Sean Brown, Jeff Hecht, David Mann, Jennifer Curlee, Brian Montemagni, Mitch Morris, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

We welcomed Brian Montemagni, Aviana Global, to the OC CIO Round Table.

Topic – Web 2.0

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, started by defining Web 2.0 key principles: the Web as a platform (just like Unix); data (content) as a driving force; an architecture of participation; open source development; content and service syndication; the end of software application release cycles; leveraging the power of the long tail. Comparing Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, Jim listed several examples including Ofoto (1.0) > Flickr (2.0); mp3.com (1.0) > Napster (2.0); Britannica online > Wikipedia; personal websites > blogging; screen scraping > web services. Web 2.0 is a transition from information silos to information sharing, from designed to customizable (i.e. iGoogle), from “1 to many (publication)” to “many to many (conversational)”, from authority to consensus (i.e. The Wisdom of Crowds). Jim had several slides describing blogs as examples of conversational, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) as an example of syndication, Wikis as examples of consensus, and social bookmarking as an example of sharing. Web 2.0 might be a disputed term as there are no real boundaries – it’s a moving target with no release versions. There is no disputing the growth of the Internet, and Jim had several slides to show this. eBusiness is easier than ever, and startup is cheap. The core competencies of Web 2.0 companies include services, not packaged software; trusting users as co-developers; and harnessing collective intelligence. The web has become a participating experience. New challenges include sharing control, competition everywhere, ideas everywhere, privacy vs. transparency, sustainability, and performance. Jim’s slides (http://www.slideshare.net/occio) contain a wealth of information and I encourage you to reread them.

We asked each member to share with us his/her experience with Web 2.0.

Mitch Morris, IAMPO, said that they are not doing anything with Web 2.0 at IAMPO, but in prior consulting assignments he built a lot of applications for almost nothing. For startups, it is a great way to go and gives you an opportunity to show how well you can respond. One problem: HTTP needs to get better.
Brian Montemagni, Aviana Global, did not think that Web 2.0 was a fit for Aviana but they do a lot of work directly with clients. One of the problems is how to maintain a competitive position, how to build a better mousetrap. The Web 2.0 bubble is overblown with high expectations. The companies that retain value will be those who evolve the quickest.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, has a set of products, and the bulk of sales are to the military and police. The web site has to focus on these special circumstances. They are looking at redoing their web presence to target specific segments. A problem with the current web site is that it provides lots of information, and its content is being used by knock offs. Is it wise to sell your product on-line?

David Mann, Word & Brown, said that he had not used Web 2.0 yet but it is in their technology road map. They are starting to think about it, and he thanked Jim for bringing him up-to-date. They might start with creating a Wiki for their corner of the market to share knowledge with their broker network, to develop partnerships.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, added to David’s remarks by saying that they have such a mix of customers, some of whom have evolved over the last 20 years. The older constituents are a very different group of people from the newer, all-singing, all-dancing customers.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, also thanked Jim for a good presentation. They do a lot of work with clients with large IT organizations, which have invested heavily in infrastructure. Web 2.0 provides a new way, but it will take a paradigm shift. It also provides RJTCompuquest with a new channel to do business.

Rich Hoffman, ex-HISNA, saw this as a way to use TV to do the branding, and the web to do local selling and marketing. The CIO must use the new technology. New stats suggest that over 50% of those who watch TV also have laptops searching the web at the same time. So the branding could be done on TV while the buyer is doing competitive analysis on the web. Of course, you must have confidence in your product to sell on-line. Hyundai is at Web 1.5, as they do support competitive analysis on-line.

Paul Gray, Claremont (Emeritus), had several points. There are legal problems about leaving Facebook. He was the 1st to put a Wiki together for his class at UCI, which worked out well as students couldn’t copy one another without it being obvious. Wikipedia has had problems with unsubstantiated comments, especially in biographies. Delphi/”Wisdom of Crowds” (James Surowiecki, 2005 Paperback $14.00 list ($10.17 at Amazon) is a natural evolution.

Esther Delurgio is active in SCORE/small business consulting which uses Web 2.0 extensively. She is also active in a woman’s investment group, who use Goggle for on-line education. She notes that Obama is using the web effectively in his campaign. She also uses the web for on-line bidding for travel.

Jeff Reid, Toyota Material Handling, and Joe Cracchiolo, FluidMaster, had to leave early before getting their turn to speak.

Brian Montemagni, Aviana Global, said that Aviana do a lot of work directly with clients. One of the problems is how to maintain a competitive position, how to build a better mousetrap. The Web 2.0 bubble is the latest, full of promise and high expectations. The companies that retain value will be those who evolve the quickest.

We thanked Jim for a great presentation, which contained a wealth of information.

See you on March 13, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:

940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260. Attachment A
February 14, 2008
1993 - 2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
Notes

Purpose: To provide a forum in an informal setting for senior IS executives to exchange ideas with their peers on key issues of interest to the group.

Goal: To get to know each other and to feel comfortable discussing issues and solutions.

Format: Select one topic per meeting; have one member be responsible for a 30-minute introduction, and have each participant come prepared to present not more than 5 minutes on how they are approaching the issues in their environment.

Time: 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.

Place: The RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

Date: 2nd THURSDAY of each month

Schedule for the meetings through August 2008:

DATE INTRODUCTION TOPIC

1/10/08
Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix
VoIP
2/14/08
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group
Web 2.0
3/13/08
Fred Degley, RJTCompuquest
Offshore outsourcing
4/10/08
John Pringle, RCM Technologies
Attracting / Retaining IT talent
5/8/08
Rich Hoffman, HISNA
Productivity - does where you work from matter?
6/12/08
Larry Godec, 1st American
Business Continuity Planning
7/10/08
Omar El Sawy, USC
Future of IT
8/14/08
Tim McClain, The Irvine Company
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

(See voting spreadsheet for other topics to consider)

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 1-10-08

2008-01-19T16:44:00.000-08:00

1993-2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
January 10, 2008 meeting

Present: Chris Andreozzi, Kim Troxel, Jim Sutter, Sean Brown, Jeff Hecht, Joel Manfredo, Subbu Murthy, Rich Hoffman, Joe Cracchiolo, Mitch Morris, Gregg Klang, John Pringle, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

We welcomed new members Joe Cracchiolo (FluidMaster) and Mitch Morris (IAMPO), and guests Kim Troxel (KnowledgeCentrix), and Gregg Klang (Sprint) to the OC CIO Round Table.

Topic – VoIP

Chris Andreozzi, KnowledgeCentrix, described the market place for VoIP by referring to 2 Cisco slides (see Chris’s presentation slides which are attached)
Individual consumers and the enterprise represent 2 different types of needs and expectations. Companies like Vonage, the cable companies and Skype go after the consumer market, while Cisco, Microsoft, Nortel, Avaya, Mitel and Asterisk go after the enterprise market. It is not clear that the feature set available/suitable for the enterprise is as rich as the one available to the consumer. The enterprise demands much more but it is not clear that it can prevent the infiltration of consumer technologies. The ROI can be elusive especially now that long distance telephone costs have come down. The major savings are in moves/adds/changes and you gain advantages from application integration (UC – Unified Communications), removal of human latency and in support of business continuity (BC) solutions. He described a recent project where they were able to realize most of the benefits – 40 locations, 250 employees, leveraged SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) for BC, moved contact center to Costa Rica, and adopted a complete UC solution. What is UC? It is the integration of disparate communications systems, media, devices and applications. This includes fixed and mobile voice, email, instant messaging, desktop and advanced applications, IP-PBX, VoIP, presence, voice mail, fax, audio video and web conferencing, unified messaging and voicemail, and whiteboarding into a single environment offering the user a more complete but simpler experience. No one vendor really provides this yet but this is where we are heading. Chris then compared the offerings from Microsoft and Cisco (see slides). Again he wished they were more compatible. The challenge for the IT department is to use best of breed from each, understanding the hidden costs of integration. He described KnowledgeCentrix’s qualifications, business relationship with those vendors, (and with Citrix and VMWARE), their solutions and success/growth.

We asked each member to share with us his/her experience with implementing VoIP, and the major reason driving that implementation.

Mitch Morris, IAMPO, said that he has been involved with 2 implementations of VoIP. In one case, it was to support an international organization needing reception in any location. There was no immediate ROI, but it was worth the effort as it was function driven. The second implementation is a fully integrated Cisco system, with lots more function than they will use to begin with. Again this was not driven by a positive ROI.

Joe Cracchiolo, FluidMaster, said that in one division, they were able to upgrade their switch and save $50,000. However, corporate is sticking with a uniform call center, as it has been hard to justify a positive ROI.

Rich Hoffman, ex-HISNA, said that about a year ago they implemented a Cisco VoIP solution in the new KIA building, and it worked great. The finance company, HMFC, will be implementing VoIP soon, and it is justified totally on moves/adds/changes as they have a heavy turnover of staff. Hyundai will not be making that move in the immediate future.

Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said that 5 years ago he was involved with a $500,000 VoIP failure using Avaya – compare with success at the consumer level with Skype for $150. Even though the industry has matured, he warned to treat this as a major project and manage it appropriately.

Joel Manfredo has implemented Cisco VoIP twice and both times, ROI was not a problem. With the Irvine Company, it was justified on moves/adds/changes. There is an issue with 911 – they implemented a 9911 alternative. Employees are less reliant on the desk-top, unless they work in the call center. He noted that Cisco went after the big companies first; Microsoft went after the small ones.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that VoIP has eliminated all long distance costs – they have implemented 5 digit dialing to all locations. They won’t be replacing the PBX in the homeoffice as there is no ROI. He is not sure that the features justify VoIP, but the sales staff are much more efficient. He likes it from a DR perspective.

Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, remembered savings lots of $ in the 80’s going to digitized voice over T1 lines. Dow Chemical does most things very well in IT but it cost them big bucks implementing VoIP several years ago. At the Winery, all international traffic is VoIP – some savings but not much, and they are interested in the Microsoft approach to unified communications.

John Pringle, RCMT, said that they had implemented VoIP across 35 offices in the US, and they enjoy unified messaging, video conferencing, and a positive ROI (10-15%), but it was not driven by ROI but by features. He can’t wait to get off their PBX.
Gregg Klang, Sprint, thanked Chris for the presentation. He warned about paying attention to the underlying infrastructure. Avaya is a big player in the VoIP implementation space, followed by Nortel. Hybrid solution sets are popular. The drivers are convergence, and mobile handsets. The ROI is mostly in the moves/adds/changes.

We thanked Chris for a great presentation and interactive discussion.

See you on February 14, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:

940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 12-13-07

2007-12-15T14:49:00.000-08:00

1993-2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
December 13, 2007 meeting

Present: Howard Eaton, Bob Nishi, Jeff Hecht, Rich Hoffman, Esther Delurgio, Jim Sutter, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

We welcomed Howard Eaton and Bob Nishi, R360G, to the OC CIO Round Table, and thanked them for making the journey down from Santa Barbara. It was unfortunate that several members who had indicated their intentions to attend the meeting were unable to do so at the last moment. They missed a very interactive session.

We also thanked Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, who at short notice made their conference room available to the group. Sean has joined the group as a permanent member.

Topic – CIO effectiveness / 360 measures

Before introducing Howard to the group, we talked about the evolving role of CIO and how he/she has to be effective in relating to the executive group, in dealing with his senior management peers in the organization (the VPs of Operations, Sales, Marketing, Distribution, etc.), as well as managing a service organization providing reliable and effective IS. Now as the product or service content involves more and more technology, the CIO also has to interface with clients and their organizations.

Howard 1st slide dealt directly with the evolving role of the CIO from a tactical provider of services to one of providing more and more strategic leadership. In fact, in his view, the CIO is in one of the best positions to provide strategic leadership to the organization, and warned against being smothered by the service role. The CIO will be assessed for both roles – meeting user expectations in the provision of services (lagging indicators), and providing leadership in the strategic role for a better future organization (tapping into the wisdom of the organization). Bob mentioned a book worth reading called “The Wisdom of Crowds”, by James Surowiecki. Jim and Rich were not sure that being the agent of change is necessarily a long-term employment strategy for the CIO. Esther argued that it is important for the CIO to provide ideas for change to the CEO/COO, and related some of her history. The group noted that even though the CIO may be heavily involved with identifying opportunities and the project management, the leadership/sponsorship of change must come from the top. Howard went on to talk about various 360 assessments – ones that measured leadership, and other key competences; ones that focused on team building; others on emotional IQ and EQ (executive quotient). He mentioned one that Zehnder International had developed and used to evaluate 25,000 CXOs. He then focused on how the CIO can effectively leverage his/her position for the greater betterment of the organization. He believed that a CIO has both the opportunity and responsibility to do so. One way to do so is to promote the use of an organizational 360 assessment of all units that comprise the enterprise, which provides reports that detail the gap between the strategic and tactical systems. Follow this up with working sessions that identify and prioritize the issues for C-level revue and approval, and manage the implementation. Again the group warned against IT/CIO becoming the sponsor of such an effort – that has to come from the executive branch of the enterprise – but the CIO could become a catalyst and the energy behind the scenes. Howard’s last slide showed the result of such a assessment for one of his clients that showed the differences, in 9 dimensions, between how the CIO/IT group saw themselves versus other C-level departments in the enterprise.

This was a topic that the group could relate to with passion and we ran out of time to hear individual experiences with using 360 type assessments in their organizations. In assessing a CIO’s effectiveness we have to define what success means to the individual – longevity in position? Change agent? Promotion to CEO/COO? The group felt that if profit/expenses were the primary issues, the CFO is promoted to CEO. When the primary issue is sales, the SVP of Sales or Marketing is promoted. When the issue is legal, the SVP of Legal tends to get promoted.

Several other books were recommended as worth reading:
“The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson (why the future of business is selling less of more);
“Blue Ocean Strategy”, which promotes the importance of using ‘fair’ processes for change.

Good session – thank you, Howard and Bob.

See you on January 10, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:

940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260. Attachment A
December 13, 2007
1993 - 2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
Notes

Purpose: To provide a forum in an informal setting for senior IS executives to exchange ideas with their peers on key issues of interest to the group.

Goal: To get to know each other and to feel comfortable discussing issues and solutions.

Format: Select one topic per meeting; have one member be responsible for a 30-minute introduction, and have each participant come prepared to present not more than 5 minutes on how they are approaching the issues in their environment.

Time: 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.

Place: The RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

Date: 2nd THURSDAY of each month

Schedule for the meetings through August 2008:

DATE INTRODUCTION TOPIC

1/10/08
Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix
VoIP
2/14/08
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group
Web 2.0
3/13/08
John Buccola, OnCure Medical
favorite gadgets/"favorite websites"
4/10/08
John Pringle, RCM Technologies
Attracting / Retaining IT talent
5/8/08
Rich Hoffman, HISNA
Productivity - does where you work from matter?
6/12/08
Larry Godec, 1st American
Business Continuity Planning
7/10/08
Omar El Sawy, USC
Future of IT
8/14/08
Tim McClain, The Irvine Company
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

(See voting spreadsheet for other topics to consider)

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 11-8-07

2007-11-27T14:34:00.000-08:00

To: OC CIO Participants

From: Dave Phillips and Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group

Date: November 15, 2007

Subject: Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

Copy: CIO Participants

Attached are the November 8, 2007 meeting minutes. Minutes are also at http://www.peergroup.net/, the Peer Consulting Group website.

The next CIO Breakfast Round Table will be on Thursday, December 13, at 7:00 a.m. at HISNA, 111 Peters Canyon Road, Irvine, CA . The topic for this meeting will CIO Effectiveness / 360 Measures and Howard Eaton, R360G, will introduce the topic. E-mail tdavidphillips@cox.net, by December 12th, 2007 to confirm your attendance.

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1993-2007
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
November 8, 2007 meeting

Present: David Mann, Jeff Reid, John Pringle, Jennifer Curlee, Subbu Murthy, Esther Delurgio, Rich Hoffman, Randy Miller, Randy Farner, Jim Sutter, Michael Thorton, Scott Campbell, Bob Case

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

We welcomed Randy Miller, Vice President, and CIO, Toshiba to his first OC CIO peer group Roundtable.

Topic – SOA ( Service Oriented Architecture)

Randy Farner, Mercury, described the effort undertaken at AAA to integrate many legacy systems (VB, Pl/1, CICS,COBOL, MsDos) on to a .net framework using an SOA approach. He described their experience as a very successful way to make a rich set of applications available to a wide range of users, in an up-to-date, web environment. He pointed out that SOA means several things: Business services, Architectural style, and a Programming model. It fosters reuse of services that improve time to delivery and lower cost. It also enforces standards such as XML. The effort was a large undertaking, beginning in 2004 and employed 30 – 50 outside contractor/consultants.
Agents at AAA now consult one large display containing all the information regarding a customer instead of having to log onto multiple systems. Productivity and systems performance are difficult to measure, but the tools to do so are improving. Randy’s and his team took a selective approach to wrapping the legacy applications, which he emphasized was an important success factor. Most critical was governance and the senior level sponsorship they received. He stated that “success is proportional to how high in the organization the sponsorship is.”
Clientsoft exposed the services and the team built and automated test scripts. In Randy’s view, done properly, SOA delivers on the promise of EAI and componentization. An IBM handout outlined best practices in undertaking an SOA.

Jennifer Curley pointed out that her environment at Surefire includes the Epicor ERP suite and provides a Service Connect feature that is used largely to support internal users. It is not a comprehensive framework, and Jennifer would be concerned about her own staff’s degree of knowledge to tackle a complete SOA architecture at this time.

Esther Delurgio implemented several pilots intended to foster reuse. She asked about training. Randy said that it began with the consultants – who trained trainers. Contractors also provided ongoing training. The learning curve is not as steep if you have people who have an object-oriented background.

Subbu Murthy, UsourceIT, built an IT Diligence Model that was able to expose perceived ROI. He pointed out that while a calculated ROI may not be achieved, there is still value in pursuing SOA because it fosters change and innovation.

Scott Campbell, First American, stated that they were a Microsoft shop and were interested in the real benefits of an SOA initiative. He asked for measures of both savings and performance. American does not have an SOA framework and worries about system performance in a large, heavy transaction oriented environment.

David Mann, Word & Brown, has brought in SOA consultants. The partnership is just beginning with Neudesic, who specialize in M/S (.net) environments and the SOA framework. W & B will use up to 30 consultants in the effort.

Randy Miller, Toshiba, asked for the best way to identify opportunities. He worried that his team might not be able to identify or define the right services. He pointed out that in recent years, he has replaced the old legacy environment with a new Oracle suite of software and that most systems at Toshiba are very contemporary. He is pursuing areas to connect the Oracle applications to the web.

We thanked Randy Farner and his team for a very comprehensive review of SOA.

See you on December 13, 2007 – 7:00 a.m. in the HISNA conference room at:

111 Peters Canyon Road, Irvine, CA 92606.
It’s the KIA Motors building at the end of Peters Canyon Road next to the 5 Freeway. Peters Canyon Road is off Walnut between Jamboree and Culver, near the 5 Freeway. Park in the Visitors parking lot, near the 3 flags, and walk to the glass lobby.

minutes - October 2007

2007-10-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

1993-2007
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
October 11, 2007 meeting

Present: Omar El Sawy, John Pringle, Joel Manfredo, Esther Delurgio, John Buccola, Bob Houghton, Larry Godec, William Zauner, Randy Farner, Rich Hoffman, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, “www.peergroup.net”, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

We reviewed the results of the voting for topics for 2008, and several members volunteered to prepare introductions. Check Attachment A to confirm the date and the topic that you volunteered for – let me know ASAP if this date will not work for you.

We thanked Professor Omar El Sawy, USC, for stepping in at the last moment to introduce this topic, and Rich Hoffman, HISNA, for hosting the event at this very nice new KIA Motors facility.

Topic: How consumer electronics innovations are ahead of the Enterprise: implications for CIOs

Omar El Sawy started by listing innovations such as blade servers, virtualization, ERP, CRM, BI, SaaS, Laptops, SOA, Office 2007 that the IT department has introduced in recent times. User centric innovations started with end-user computing and PCs in the 80’s; Internet browsers, online purchasing, travel reservations, etc. followed in the 90’s. The role of IT started to change from providing the infrastructure for connection, to providing an IT environment, to becoming part of the enterprise fabric. Consumer centric innovations since 2004 include VoIP (?), mobile phones, SMS, instant messaging for the Millennial Generation (those born since 1982, to whom email is so 5 min ago!!), social networking sites, and virtual environments, wikis & blogs, easy videoconferencing, open APIs and mashups, Google flight checks, HD TV, iPods, iPhones, high end multimedia handhelds… Nowhere is this seen more that in the home, with advanced home entertainment, wireless, implicit SLA for usability and functionality, and integration of functions. What are the implications for CIOs? What should they do: resist; embrace; experiment incrementally; enable the home/road as the hub for employees; outsource. There are many issues for discussion. Let’s start with privacy and security, SaaS a la Google, compliance, and demands for support. The discussion soon focused on the effect that these digital natives – children of technology – who will drive the usage of technology whether it is disruptive, like IM, or not. The business, the IT department and tech support are all in react mode. Products are driven by technology - the newest automobiles are full of electronics. The virtual world, virtual space and Second Life avatars will become commonplace. The average age of game players is 30, not under 20, as might be imagined. The discussion was wide-ranging and interactive!

To close, I asked members to share with us his or her biggest concern, or challenge, that they face with integrating these new technologies into their infrastructure.

Bob Houghton, DDI, is most concerned about the health of his employees – 7X24 availability, and the demands of being on call all the time even at home, and the effect of that on family life.

Joel Manfredo is concerned about the cost of second life adoption, avatars and the hardware infrastructure needed to support this.

John Pringle, RCM Technologies, said he was worried about security, the potential to exploit the vulnerabilities, and availability.

Randy Farner is worried about management of the information generated by all these devices, hardware usage and control.

Rich Hoffman, HISNA, thanked Omar for a great presentation. He was also worried about security, the 7X24 support expectation, the effect on employee health, the availability of multipurpose PDAs, and the challenge of knowing what employees were working on in the office. He has had to terminate a few people for working other company assignments while on the job at HISNA.

William Zauner, JAMS, is worried about productivity, and the difficulty in knowing what his employees are working on. They have banned the availability of uTube in the work place. He remarked that the most explosive growth in the legal business comes from e-discovery, as most IT departments save everything – all emails, etc. It’s important to have an email retention policy.

We had a very interactive meeting, and enjoyed Omar’s presentation and his ability to lead the discussion.

See you on November 8, 2007 – 7:00 a.m. in the HISNA conference room at:

111 Peters Canyon Road, Irvine, CA 92606.
It’s the KIA Motors building at the end of Peters Canyon Road next to the 5 Freeway. Peters Canyon Road is off Walnut between Jamboree and Culver, near the 5 Freeway. Park in the Visitors parking lot, near the 3 flags, and walk to the glass lobby.