Discussion: An informal and interactive discussion with today’s search industry leaders. Find out: what they hear from prospective clients, what skills are needed to be successful, why do CIO's loose their jobs, what are prospective employers looking for, how do you get on their radar screens, which resumes get their attention, what is the future state of the CIO. This is your chance to hear it from the experts.

Discussion: Several of the biggest and most successful companies in the world are transforming their businesses through a new paradigm in strategic sourcing.

They believe that organizations of the future will be global value networks that focus only on processes that give them competitive advantage...and work with strategic partners for the rest. Think of it as the "virtual enterprise". These organizations are flexible and free to experiment, amplifying new opportunities and discarding them if they do not work, without much cost or loss of time.

In this session, you will learn about how they do this - the strategic and operating principles they employ, the best practices they use, and the eye-opening results they get.

Business Problem: This session will be focused on addressing the ever-growing issue of data privacy and the need for companies to find ways to implement data privacy solutions. Included in this presentation will be tips for developing and implementing a plan and solution.

IT Solution: Using data masking and process management, in addition to encryption. Data Privacy breaches are making headlines, as organizations scramble to protect the confidentiality of their critical customer and business data and protect their brands. According to Gartner, 70 percent of data breaches are internal to corporations in the non-production environments of Development, Test, QA, and Training. While many organizations today, rely on encryption strategies to ensure data privacy protection, this has been shown to leave large volumes of data vulnerable. In this presentation we will examine how organizations can take a proactive approach to combat security threats, ensure customer confidence and privacy, while also supporting compliance with local, state, national, international, and industry-based privacy regulations. Join us to learn how you can ensure the security of your data and your brand!

Discussion: Current and former employees have exploited vulnerabilities in internal policies, practices, technology, and management trust, conducting damaging attacks against employers' systems. CERT's research, The Insider Threat Study conducted jointly with the U.S. Secret Service, and research sponsored by the DOD Personnel Security Research Center, analyzed over 150 insider cyber crimes. This research indicates that management decisions sometimes yield unintended consequences magnifying insider attack risk. Lack of tools for understanding insider threat, analyzing risk mitigation alternatives, and communicating results exacerbates the problem. Our MERIT (Management and Education of the Risk of Insider Threat) project is developing such tools. MERIT, a system dynamics model and management simulator, uses empirical data from previous research, helping policy makers, security officers, information technology, human resources, and management understand the problem and assess risk based on simulations of policy, psychological, technical, cultural, and procedural factors. The presentation focuses on sabotage, fraud, and theft of information cases from our previous research. Attendees will leave with data and best practices for raising awareness in their own organization.

Discussion: The purpose of the roundtable is to provide expert insights into Vista so that attendees can be armed with this information and manage your about the upcoming Vista migration effort. The popular saying “What are the 2 things you can’t avoid? Death and Taxes!” has been changed. Now we have 3 things that can’t be avoided as IT professionals, Death, Taxes and Vista! Thank you Bill Gates! Information is the best way to confront our fears. During this session we will shine some bright light on Vista and its future impact on our IT world.

Discussion: This panel will look forward and discuss the issues facing CIO including Real Time Infrastructure, Web 2.0 and how the design and delivery of software will change over the next few years including Open Source, Software as a Service and thin clients. Additional topics for discussion include Obtaining Value from Decades old Legacy Systems including ERPs, Is SOA Real or a Marketer's Delight?, Risk Management as it pertains to both Security and Compliance, Mobility and Collaboration for Flexibility, IT Governance for Business Alignment, Outsourcing/Offshoring and Globalization-Are there limits?, Impact of Virtualization, New directions in the Internet and others. Come join us for a look at your future and to enjoy the extensive audience interaction.

Discussion: Recently Google made a bid to buy spectrum from the federal government to force the FCC to deal with opening the airwaves to competitive interests throughout the United States. Speculation now runs rampant as to whether or not the upcoming auctions of vacated TV spectrum will be a boon or bust to businesses wishing to see more deployment of advanced Mobile/PDA services? The panel will discuss how these potential developments may impact your business processes and/or technology deployments in the Pittsburgh metro, regional and national areas. The audience will be encouraged to offer its viewpoints as well.

Discussion: According to the Council on Competitiveness, High Performance Computing (HPC) is a critical part of the innovation infrastructure for the twenty-first century. To out-compete other nations, we have to out-compute them. Economic research has shown that deploying IT technology is transformational in many industries. The emergence of supercomputing tools, first for national security and later within industry, has been a powerful enabler for increased innovation and productivity. A big challenge now is to bring the power of supercomputing to small and medium-sized businesses. This is where most of the growth in our economy comes from. This session will include a general introduction to HPC technology and capabilities as well as industry examples of how HPC is currently being used and its potential application to support business and fuel innovation.

Discussion: Business have long been concerned about their ability to survive natural disasters. The added potential of terrorism has magnified these concerns. This panel will discuss business survival from both a national (DHS) (85% of critical assets are in the hands of private businesses) and corporate perspective. The panel will also present the activities and perspectives of unique regional professional, security organizations.

Discussion: It does not matter if IT is strategic or operational, if IT does not deliver value to the enterprise it will be reduced (removed). Today’s presentation will explore current business, economic and IT trends and how IT may be positioned to deliver value to the enterprise. Trends will include mistakes to avoid, tips for success, business alignment (BPM), outsourcing (BPO), any time any where delivery of services, future directions of the Internet(s) and reporting structure.