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Podcasts

January 2009
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Social collaboration via the Internet changed the direction of the 2008 presidential election. Whether you like it or not, social collaboration has begun to change the way major companies, such as Procter & Gamble, do business. Things will continue to evolve as more and more members of the net generation, young people comfortable with MySpace and Facebook, enter the work force. No one has better prepared executives for the future than Don Tapscott, author and chairman of nGenera Insight, a technology think tank that looks at new business models. Tapscott consistently identifies and explains the next business imperatives and defines the business models and strategies that the new imperatives require.

 

Published in 2006 and updated in 2008, his book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, has appeared on the New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller lists, and has been translated into 19 languages. Based on the largest investigation of strategic IT in business ever conducted, Wikinomics explains how businesses can tap the full potential of the emerging networked economy and its self-organized, mass-participatory communities.

Tapscott’s latest book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing the World, explores how the first generation to grow up with the Internet is redefining today's workplace, marketplace, schools, family and government—how they learn and work and what power and influence they hold. This is an indispensable message for all organizations that seek to turn the net generation’s talents and worldview to competitive advantage. Also based on a multi-million dollar research project, Grown Up Digital carries forward the groundbreaking ideas first expressed in Don's bestseller Growing Up Digital.
In this podcast, Tapscott talks about how the net generation’s embracing of Wikinomics will continue to transform the landscape of business and government, and what executives, such as CIOs, can do to prepare for the Wikinomics’ ideas companies might embrace from the net generation. Tapscott  also provides examples of how each one of the Wikinomics’ four principles can improve the current business climate.

 

Bio

Based in Toronto, Canada, Don Tapscott is an internationally sought after authority, consultant, author, and speaker on business strategy and organizational transformation. He served as founder and chairman of the international think tank New Paradigm before it was acquired by nGenera.  He is currently chairman of nGenera Insight. He has either authored or co-authored 13 books on the application of technology in business and in society.  Tapscott holds a B.S. in Psychology and Statistics and an M.S. in Education, specializing in research methodology. He also holds two honorary Doctors of Laws granted by the University of Alberta ad Trent University. He is an adjunct professor of management at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

 

Resources

Q&A: Book author Don Tapscott says corporate inertia prevents mass collaboration - Computerworld

Ten Talking Points for Davos - BusinessWeek

Obama’s Ace in the hole - BusinessWeek

 

Production Credits

Elizabeth Ferrarini, Producer
Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host

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1,694 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: collaboration, innovation, net_generation, podcast, social_media, strategy, wikinomics
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Fortune magazine has called the 40-year-old Society for Information Management or SIM the IT field's top professional group. In fact, Robert Keefe, CIO of the $1.8 billion dollar Mueller Water Products, attributes his successful career in IT to his involvement with SIM. Keefe is SIM's current president.

 

Membership in SIM is open to qualified senior IT professionals, academics, and consultants. SIM currently has about 3,600 members in 36 U.S. chapters. (Yes, each SIM chapter does due diligence on each prospective member.) SIM's offerings fall into several categories: information exchange through chapter meetings, educational programs, and chapter-sponsored venues, such as the MIT Sloan School CIO Symposium. SIM also holds an annual conference called the SIMposium.

 

About 16 years ago, Keefe went through SIM's year-long Leadership Forum. He says, "At the time I took the course I wasn't a CIO. I quickly landed a CIO position and then had my company join SIM's Advanced Practices Council."  Each year about 300 professionals attend monthly Leadership Forum classes in 10 major cities. Keefe says, "These people have good IT skills and business acumen, but this program helps them to think outside of the box."  The course curriculum blends about 40 different pieces of media, mostly books ranging from The Old Man in the Sea to The Innovator's Dilemma.

 

The Advanced Practices Council, another SIM educational program, consists of about 40 member companies that contract with academics to do IT research. The research can range from a look at new, emerging technologies to different segments of IT leadership. Recently, Boston University delivered a paper about the competitive levers for leading innovation in the 20th century. Keefe says, "It's not all about technology but how business models are changing. For example, google.com gives away a search engine, but charges for it through advertising. How do compelling changes in the marketplace like this one translate into decisions that a CIO must make?"

 

Keefe says that SIM is a great environment for senior IT professionals to share ideas. He says, "You can network with people at the meetings or you can contact anyone in the directory. As you get to know more and more people, you'll find someone who has done what you're asking about.  We have a growing virtual community as well."

 

Each year SIM surveys its members about the top 10 concerns on their minds. For the 2007 survey, the three top concerns included: attracting and retaining good IT professionals, making sure IT professionals develop good business skills that enable them to understand the business strategy, and properly aligning the needs of the business with services IT can effectively provide.

 

In addition to speaking about SIM in this podcast, Robert Keefe also gives his perspective on key IT management issues.

Bio
Since 2008, Bob Keefe has been senior vice president and CIO for Mueller Water Products. Before Mueller, he was vice president and CIO at Russell Corporation. He also has held senior IT positions at ConAgra Refrigerated Foods, Kraft Foods, and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Keefe begin his career as a scientific researcher with Brookhaven National Laboratories. He earned his MBA, with distinction, from Pace University and holds a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Oswego. He is active with Atlanta’s technology community assisting with United Way's Tech Initiative, Women in Technology's outreach program, and TechBridge's non-profit advocacy.

 

Resources
CIO Values - Information Week
Incoming SIM President Says IT Faces Woes at All Levels - Computerworld
CIOs Leverage Job Skills, Earn Big Bonus - SearchCIO.com

 

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
AlarmMusic.com Production Music Library for Broadcast, Film, Video & Post Production

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1,437 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: best_practices, education, it_investments, it_management, leadership, podcast, strategy
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When Dr. Jerry N. Luftman established the information systems graduate programs at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, he didn't envision that it would someday become one of the world's largest, with more than 1,000 students. Most of the graduate students have at least 10 years of professional experience. The effective alignment between IT (or IS) with the needs of the business has become a critical part of the curriculum and a major research area for Dr. Luftman. Students put themselves in the tactical role of a CIO, and then in the strategic role where a CIO builds business strategy driven by IT.

 

During the past 20 years, many processes have evolved to improve the over arching relationship between IT and the business. Business service management or BSM has emerged as an important concept for improving availability and performance. It's also a complement to the IT Infrastructure Library or ITIL. BSM tries to ensure that IT processes are in harmony with the business processes so IT can improve the business's services. Specifically, BSM looks at what affect each of the different services and the technologies supported by IT can have on the business.

 

Dr. Luftman says that BSM has become necessary because today's systems are tightly integrated with each other. He says, "You have a myriad of different hardware and different software technologies, such as Web servers, databases, file servers, middleware, and virtual servers. If there's a problem with any of these things, how can you stay out in front to be more proactive, to be responsive to our business, and to be able to minimize the impact it might have on the business. That's where BSM comes in."

 

Bio

Dr. Jerry N. Luftman is the executive director of graduate information systems (IS) programs, and distinguished professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. Before establishing the IS graduate programs at Stevens, Dr. Luftman had a 23-year technology and product management career with IBM.

 

The Society for Information Management (SIM) sponsors Dr. Luftman's annual study about IT trends, which has served as an industry barometer for the past 10 years. He also has served on the executive boards of several companies and organizations, such as SIM and The Conference Board. He has written dozens of journal articles about IT, and is author of Competing in the Information Age: Align in the Sand, Competing in the Information Age: Strategic Alignment in Practice, and Managing the Information Technology Resource: Leadership in the Information Age.

 

Resources
A Dialogue with Business on the IT Curriculum for the 21st Century and Its Impact on Talent Management - Society of Information Management
Jerry N. Luftman News from Fierce CIO
Competing in the Information Age:Strategic Alignment in Practice - Oxford University Press

 

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
AlarmMusic.com Production Music Library for Broadcast, Film, Video & Post Production

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2,080 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: best_practices, bsm, business_service_management, governance, it_infrastructure_library, itil, it_management, podcast, service_level_agreements
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The first generation Web focused on pushing out content in a one-way mode. In contrast, Web 2.0 provides a very dynamic, highly interactive user experience, similar to consumer Web sites, such as amazon.com or ebay.com. Steve Papermaster, chairman and CEO of nGenera, a company that offers a platform for transforming next generation enterprises, says, “You don’t notice the technology. Instead, you’re completely tied in with your environment. It’s like you become one with it.”

 

Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0 technologies taken one step further,  includes a portfolio of newer, mostly on-demand technologies designed for the enterprise. These technologies could include open source, on demand software as a service applications, or other types of on-demand cloud-based applications and services. Papermaster says that the key question is how do these new technologies impact and power capabilities in the enterprise? He says, “You need to understand the business benefit and the economic benefit before you seriously start to deploy them.”

 

Papermaster’s company has established itself as one of the forthcoming providers of next generation enterprise applications to major companies. In fact, Rob Carter, CIO of FedEx says that nGenera’s collaborative platform enables companies like FedEx to develop new business models and to stay ahead of the competition.

 

In this podcast, Papermaster talks about some of the business models that Web 2.0 can produce for global companies that deploy it, but also the new types of business models their customers can derive from dealing with it.

Bio
Since the founding of nGenera (previously BSG Alliance), Steve Papermaster has been the company chairman and CEO. His other entrepreneurial experiences include the following: chairman, CEO, and or board member for Powershift Ventures LP, Perficient, Inc., Vignette Corporation, Per Se Technologies (acquired by McKesson), Tipping Point Technologies (acquired by 3Com), BSG Corp., LabNow Inc., and ROME Corp. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Papermaster to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Papermaster also received an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He has a BBA in Finance from the University of Texas.

 

Resources
nGenera Makes Acquisition- Beyond Search
BSG Alliance Changes Name to nGenera Corporation, Releases Business Innovation Platform for Next Generation Enterprise - eMediaWire
Technology Executives Talk About the Problems of SAAS in the Enterprise - Always On Summit at Stanford University

 

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
AlarmMusic.com Production Music Library for Broadcast, Film, Video & Post Production

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1,905 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: best_practices, collaboration, innovation, it_management, net_generation, next_generation_enterprise, on-demand_service_delivery, podcast, software_as_a_service, strategy, web_2.0