When was the last time that you heard an executive say they viewed the organization's people as its true intellectual assets ... and mean it? Sandra Hofmann meant it, as CIO for a company called Mapics, and means it, as executive vice president and COO for The Turknett Leadership Group. That's why, at her previous company, she held the titles of CIO and "Chief People Officer" for the Human Resources department simultaneously -- and was perfectly comfortable in the two roles. CIOs are all about understanding the context of their company's business strategy, she explains; they must link the people to the strategy and to all the business operations, to deliver practical business results. And as a CIO, Hofmann found ways to do that.

So, how did a teacher of special needs kids find herself as a manager for Big Blue and later as a CIO? She is a great communicator, Hofmann explains, and this is still one of the most critical traits that a successful executive -- particularly a technology executive -- must cultivate, no matter how tough that may be. In the post-Enron, Sarbanes-Oxley era of business, Hofmann maintains an old-fashioned loyalty to "character," that mysterious virtue that the go-go '90s sort of left behind; cultivate executives with character, and you have not just managers, but leaders, she contends. And in case you are finding all this talk about character and virtue, well, a big "quaint," did we mention that Hofmann helped bring Mapics through a very troubled patch, avoiding numerous layoffs through innovative use of technology, even creating one of the first "virtual offices" of the era? The lady likes to think outside the conventional box, is comfortable with change, is comfortable viewing work through the prism of life. The lady is comfortable redefining what it is to be a "gadfly."

Bio

Sandra Hofmann is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Turknett Leadership Group, one of the oldest firms in the Southeast experienced in character-based leadership and organization development. Additionally, Hofmann is currently CIO-in-residence for the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a nationally recognized science and technology incubator helping launch and build successful Georgia companies through strategic business advice and connections. Before joining Turknett, Hofmann served as the Chief Information Officer and Chief People Officer at MAPICS where her leadership has resulted in recognition including Georgia CIO of the Year 2003 from Georgia CIO Leadership Association (GCLA) 2003 & 2004 finalists for Woman of the Year in Technology by TAG's Women in Technology (WIT). She currently serves on the boards of AeA, TechBridge, and the Society for Human Resource Management, and advisory boards of the United Way, TechLinks, and Information Management Forum.

Resources

Biography,  from the Turknett Leadership Group

"Chief Change  Officer" -- from CIO Magazine

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom  Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development  Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer
Larry Seyer, Music

What is "content-centric networking"? It's the way to remedy a fundamental problem of today's Internet -- that synchronizing and accessing information is such a difficult task, because current networking approaches are outdated. These approaches that were designed for the technologies of the 1970s focus on moving data packets -- identified by a geographically fixed, unique IP address -- instead of focusing on the information contained in them.

Now, Van Jacobson is developing a way to address this, and hopefully, bring trust back to the network as well. Through the content-centric networking research program he leads at PARC, Jacobson hopes to help the "security disaster" that today's Web presents to eBusiness, and to enable individuals far greater connectivity than they currently experience in an environment of firewalls and restricted perimeters. With content-centric networking, individuals and the enterprise may not have to exist on "virtual islands of connectivity" any more. Join us for a conversation with Van Jacobson, an Internet visionary and pioneer who's still exploring and developing ways to bring people and information together safely, and efficiently.

Bio

Van Jacobson is one of the primary contributors to the technological foundations of today’s Internet, and is renowned for his pioneering achievements in network performance and scaling. Jacobson leads the content-centric networking research program at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

Among his many accomplishments, Jacobson's strategy for transmission control protocols (TCP) helped solve the problem of congestion -- and is used in over 90 percent of Internet hosts today. Widely credited with enabling the Internet to expand in size and support increasing speed demands, Jacobson helped the Internet survive a major traffic surge (1988-89) without collapsing. Prior to joining PARC as Research Fellow, Jacobson led networking efforts as Chief Scientist at Cisco Systems and later Packet Networks. He also led the groundbreaking network research group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and its collaboration with the Computer Science Research Group at the University of California.

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom  Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development  Manager
Scott Ebner, Music, Audio Mixing, Web Developer

Most of the time, when we think about the important issue of privacy in a world where data is being gathered about us every day -- who we are, what we do, what we buy -- we probably think in terms of balance. Post-911, we want the security of passenger screening by airlines and the government, but we may not want them to read all about our traffic tickets or grades in school. We may like the convenience of buying groceries with a credit card, but not at the price of grocery chains tracking and analyzing our buying habits. We probably consider ourselves to be patriotic, but do we really like the idea that personal information about our kid is being gathered and stored in a mega-database accessible to both the government and private business?

As founder of the Computer Ethics Institute and an expert in the field of data management, Ramon Barquin does a lot of thinking about issues like these, too. But he doesn't necessarily think in terms of striking a balance between our wishes and our fears. He knows that various groups in our society, like the federal government or the marketing industry, are driven by their own agendas -- to protect citizens, to offer greater choice in goods and services -- but these may not always be our agendas as well. It's critical that each of these entities not allow their agendas to drive them across certain ethical lines. And in Barquin's view, the responsibility for this rests not only with our policymakers, but with all those entrusted with data.

Are we hearing groans coming from already-overworked CIOs right now? Remember, failing to "do the right thing" -- to invest in good data warehousing software and systems, and to devise and adhere to data collection policies that are of high ethical standards -- may result in "killing the goose that laid the golden egg," advises Barquin. Spectacular "lapses" such as the Choicepoint debacle result in greater consumer mistrust and more pressure on lawmakers to increase regulation, and oversight (reference Sarbanes-Oxley). The ability to gather data about customers is a real benefit for businesses, enabling more personalized customer service and greater consumer choice, he says. But consumer backlash due to lax data protection could dismantle all the capabilities that have been built into data warehousing over the years.

If your business enjoys the privilege of gathering and storing data about customers, tune in to this conversation with an expert who's built a career on not only utilizing, but protecting, that privilege.

Bio

Ramon C. Barquin, Ph.D., is the President and CEO of Barquin International. He is a former IBM executive and an internationally known expert in the field of knowledge management. Dr. Barquin co-founded and was the first President of the Data Warehousing Institute, the leading professional organization in the field. He also founded and heads the Computer Ethics Institute.

An electrical engineer and mathematician by training, Dr. Barquin has taught at MIT, the University of Maryland, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He edited the Prentice Hall series on Data Warehousing, co-edited two books on Knowledge Management in the public sector, and has published over 100 technical and management articles on information technology. He organized and chaired the E-Gov Knowledge Management conferences in 2000 and 2001, and has conducted executive seminars in electronic government and knowledge management for the Brookings Institution.

Resources

Barquin  International

PDF: Data  Collection and Analysis: Balancing Individual Rights and Societal  Benefits

The Ten Commandments of  Computer Ethics

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom  Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development  Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer

Long, long ago (it was the early 1990s, actually), in a place far away (well, Silicon Valley), an intrepid band of adventurers (former Apple employees) formed a company called General Magic, with the vision of delivering a true, virtual personal assistant to kings, princes, CEOs, and yes, to ordinary (and busy) folks like you and me. It was a noble goal, and a great vision; only, there was one problem: the Internet technology to support the vision just wasn't there yet.

But the vision behind General Magic was taken up by one equally far-sighted entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Patrick Grady, who began to invest quietly and steadily in various companies that could provide pieces of the vision, although never quite the whole. Then, in early 1999, came XML, which Grady saw as the possible lingua franca that could link all the disparate pieces into a unified marketplace -- a truly global virtual assistant. And, Grady's company, Rearden Commerce, was born.

Rearden Commerce, which aims ambitiously to be your own personal concierge  and save you beaucoup time and money, is the catalyst for an engaging and stimulating conversation between its founder and Tom Parish, covering the idea of services as commodities; the services economy and where the U.S. fits in; why Larry Ellison got it right about enterprise software, and got it wrong about Silicon Valley; the role of the government in kick starting broadband competitiveness, and a lot more. So take a little time to open your mind to new possibilities and tune into this interview with someone who really does think way outside the box, deep into the future that he and his company are trying to create today.

Bio

Patrick Grady is the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Rearden Commerce. A recognized pioneer in Web Services and On-Demand technologies, Patrick Grady has guided Rearden Commerce to a commanding leadership position within the Services-On-Demand market. Five years in development, the company has a large and growing patent portfolio and enjoys first mover advantage, with a host of name-brand enterprise customers and several major technology and marketing partnerships.

Resources

Presentation  from SuperNova 2005

Rearden Commerce

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom  Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development  Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer