BCS Elite group Collaboration and inclusion are the key words
for the British Computer Society's body of senior IT user
professionals.
IT user groups should work together more, according to David
Rippon, chairman of the British Computer Society's Elite group of
IT directors.
To demonstrate the point, he has put the heads of two other
user-focused groups - David Roberts, chief executive of the
Corporate IT Forum (Tif), and Ian Rickwood, chief executive of the
Institute for the Management of Information Systems (Imis) - on the
Elite board.
"I have always believed in trying to bring groups together and stop
them splintering," said Rippon. "But you can't make them - they've
got to want to do it."
Elite, a well-established not-for-profit, networking group of IT
directors, started life in the mid 1990s as a bridge to encourage
senior IT users to get involved in BCS activities.
It has always been free of charge to join, and members do not have
to be BCS members, but they do pay as they go at events - mainly
lunches and dinners.
The group has recently extended invitations to its meetings to
high-ranking non-IT users, senior BCS members, suppliers,
consultants and academics.
Explaining the rationale, Rippon said, "IT directors of supplier
organisations have always been valid candidates. However, there are
also senior people, such as major account managers with systems
houses or outsourcers who are managing bids worth millions of
pounds.
"They have much to offer the IT user community as they give a
different angle to the same problem," he added.
Lack of communication is often the root cause of many problems. "We
make it as clear as possible that there is no selling. If we
receive any complaints about overt selling then that person is not
invited again."
Rippon has relaxed views about the other user organisations: "The
Corporate IT Forum is very complementary and there is no
competition there and Imis doesn't really have an equivalent
group."
CIO-Connect, he said, has a different model, being a commercial
money-making organisation, with members paying a fee and a
different style of programme.
Rippon sees the NCC-Certus group as perhaps the closest competition
for IT users' time - although this again is a subscription-based
body. He is also aware of the popularity of the Real Time Club, the
long-established IT industry dining club.
Finally, Computer Weekly's CW500 Club is viewed as another
potential competitor for users' time, although the two
organisations enjoy joint events, including a packed meeting last
December on the topic of IT governance.
That spirit of collaboration paid dividends in 2001 when Rippon
worked closely with Imis and the local government IT managers' user
group Socitm to write a joint letter successfully urging Microsoft
to reconsider its new arbitrary software licensing regime.
www.bcs.org.uk/elite
What works best for IT: youth or
experience?
Is ageism rife in IT? Are you really past it when you get grey
hair? These are core issues to be addressed in a debate between
young and old IT professionals in an upcoming British Computer
Society IT Directors' Elite Group event on 4 June.
Former head of the Army's Logistic IS Agency, brigadier Alan
Pollard, and former head of UKERNA, Geoff McMullen, will argue that
experience is of fundamental importance to the successful
implementation of IT projects. Young turks James Hickson and Andrew
Brown, from the BCS Young Professionals Group, will strongly oppose
the motion.
"With the contraction in the industry senior people are finding
it harder to get jobs, and we're concerned that their experience
does not go to waste" said Elite Group chairman, David Rippon, who
recently made the switch from being IT director of Land Securities
to professor of IT infrastructure management at Buckinghamshire
Chilterns University College. "But at the same time the people at
the bottom are stifled because the older guys are still in their
jobs."
Contact:
speart@hq.bcs.org.uk
Elite future events
24 June Informal interactive evening with
Gordon Smillie, group director, Microsoft
16 September Day conference on IT security,
disaster recovery, fraud and espionage
3 December Lunch - new developments in
telecoms.