The growing business/IT alignment at all levels of the
IT department is reflected in the business orientation of several
major user-focused conferences planned for next year.
Business focus and value to the bottom line is the common thread
linking three conferences spanning different areas and levels of
IT. The Communications Management Association annual conference in
early February; the main IT security show and conference,
Infosecurity, towards the end of April; and the ship-borne IT
Directors Forum in mid-May all attest this trend.
The IT Directors' Forum, on board the cruise ship Aurora from
17-20 May, has settled on its core themes. The first, examining the
concept of the IT entrepreneur, aims to acquaint IT directors with
techniques that they could normally only learn in other
disciplines, such as marketing, sales, product development and
finance.
Getting results is another theme, and this session will focus on
new techniques for measuring the immeasurable, and new tools for
making projects run smoothly.
IT directors can also get individual coaching sessions at the
conference as part of the staff and career theme. In the same vein,
IT directors will form small, facilitated self-help groups to
discuss their successes and failures from five angles: results,
staff management, new initiatives, projects and business
intelligence.
With insourcing becoming more of a vogue, the IT Directors Forum
will look at how to break away from incumbent outsourcing suppliers
and bring IT back in-house. The presentation will outline the eight
steps to do this successfully.
According to research by the organisers of the annual
Infosecurity show, which will take place from 25-27 April,
compliance, audit and governance are the three biggest management
headaches for IT security directors .
Other areas of concern, which will also be featuring in the
Infosecurity exhibition and conference programme, include reducing
the cost of security, maximising the value and return of security
spend, and securing links with the internet.
Issues of growing concern to IT security professionals include
the security implications of identity management, mobile computing,
remote working, wireless technology, denial of service attacks, and
automating security.
The Infosecurity exhibition and conference, organised by
Computer Weekly's sister company Reed Exhibitions, is the largest
annual IT security event of its type in the UK. Alongside the
exhibition will be two conference streams, one of business
strategy-oriented IT security seminars and debates, and the other
more technically focused.
The Communications Management Association annual conference will
focus on the conver- gence of communications technologies,
applications and services and how they will transform the
enterprise. The conference will run from 8-9 February.
The hot topics telecoms and IT managers will discuss include the
future of voice over IP - is it a key business enabler or just
another IP application? Delegates will discuss whether to build or
buy voice over IP systems and how to make the business case for
them.
The conference will also review the promise of next-generation
networks, including wireless and peer-to-peer networks, in terms of
their effect on the business, and whether they promise business
gain, or business pain.
A special keynote session on mobile security sports the
provocative title "Mobile security - critical issue or non-event?"
The session will explore wireless Lan security, best practice
disaster recovery and enterprise security management and identity
and access management.
Fixed-mobile convergence and the value of unified
communications, linking areas such as VoIP, e-mail, collaboration,
document workflow, web conferencing and voicemail, is another hot
topic.
End-users' ever increasing demand for flexible working and
managerial strategies, and the integration necessary to support
this, come under scrutiny on the second day of the conference. The
business emphasis will be on increasing productivity while reducing
costs.
www.itdf.co.uk
www.infosec.co.uk
www.thecma.com