The eWeek Canada website recently published the article "Canada loses ground in global ranking of IT competitiveness". What are your thoughts on this article, and What can Canada do to stop its Fall in Global I.T. Ranking?

Comment on this Discussion Topic and be put into a draw to Win a Book of your choice from the CIPS/McGraw-Hill Online Bookstore: www.mcgrawhill.ca/cips. Winners will be announced this Friday Nov 4th.

Click Here to Comment on Facebook 

Click Here to Comment on LinkedIn

(1 winner will be selected from Facebook and 1 from LinkedIn)

Thank you to McGraw-Hill Ryerson for their support of CIPS' I.T. Professionalism Week (Oct31st - Nov 4th). http://www.cips.ca/ITProfessionalismWeek. The CIPS/McGraw-Hill Online Bookstore provides CIPS members with a 40% discount on selected McGraw-Hill computing titles and references. http://www.mcgrawhill.ca/cips

 CIPS Members, please let your friends and colleagues know about this promo

Become a CIPS Member this week (Oct 31^st to Nov 4^th) and be put into a draw to win a prize pack that includes a free book of your choice from the CIPS/McGraw-Hill Online Bookstore! 

Join today: http://www.cips.ca/membership 

Thank you to McGraw-Hill Ryerson for their support of CIPS' I.T. Professionalism Week (Oct31st - Nov 4th, http://www.cips.ca/ITProfessionalismWeek). The CIPS/McGraw-Hill Online Bookstore provides CIPS members with a 40% discount on selected McGraw-Hill computing titles and references. http://www.mcgrawhill.ca/cips

Organized by CIPS Alberta and supported by a wide range of local, national and international sponsoring companies, ICE: The Tech Conference is in its 29th year. The success of ICE is in its ability to inspire those involved in IT to become better professionals, connect delegates with peers and industry players and educate about the latest technology, business methods, trends and tools. Drawing from a blend of internationally known speakers and local knowledge, ICE offers eight motivational keynote presentations, nearly forty high quality break out sessions covering four different knowledge streams, extended length interactive tutorials and countless opportunities to network and share ideas. The upshot? The IT community in Alberta has access to the ingredients for innovation right in its own backyard.

This year, ICE: The Tech Conference will be hosted in Edmonton for two days (Tuesday, November 1st and Wednesday, November 2nd) and, for the first time, the third day will be hosted in Calgary.

All the details on keynote sessions, speakers and attendance details is available at http://www.iceconference.com.

By Stephen Ibaraki, I.S.P., ITCP 

I received an invitation in October to a special ceremony at the University of Victoria, where Dr. Calvin Gotlieb, is receiving his Honorary Degree on November 10 2011.

I expressed my regrets to the university and to Kelly that I am unable to attend since I am chairing long-planned sessions in New York during that week.

I am sorry that I am unable to be there, so I am writing this tribute to this great Canadian and aligned with my keynote that I gave in March celebrating Kelly's 90^thbirthday with over 200 guests at the University of Toronto.

Kelly is a computing pioneer, whose innovations and accomplishments helped lay the foundation for a worldwide industry, educational stream and profession. His contributions are so profound and their impact so diverse and in so many areas that the lasting value cannot be comprehended.

For the Canadian Information Processing Society or CIPS inspired by our founder Kelly Gotlieb. Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated "Your efforts have made positive and lasting contributions to Canada's economic growth and competitiveness." This all due to Kelly!

As you may have seen through recent issues of CIPS Connections, CIPS has embarked on a project to define a Common Body of Knowledge (CBOK).  An initial draft was distributed early this summer, which contained a list of topics and references.  Achieving consensus by the profession on a common body of knowledge is a key milestone and a consultation process was therefore started through an online outreach campaign involving the broader IT community.  The first 50 people to complete the survey were eligible to win 1 of 8 Future Shop $50 gift certificates.  The consultation wrapped up at the end of summer and the draw was completed. 

The lucky winners of a $50 Future Shop gift certificate are:

Alan Wheatley
Tiago Moreira
James Sweeney
Marilyn Juel Shaw
Collin Carbno
Frank Gallo
Nadir Belkhiter
Rhonda Murdoch

More than 150 survey entries were received and CIPS wishes to thank everyone who completed the survey.  The survey results will be analyzed by the CIPS CBOK Committee this fall and it is anticipated that the final CBOK will be presented to the CIPS Board this winter.

For more information on the CBOK project contact Gina van Dalen at gina@cips.ca

In August CIPS Nova Scotia announced that Alex Sanford of Acadia University was the recipient of the Dr. Stan Heaps Memorial Scholarship.

CIPS Nova Scotia has also entered into an agreement with the Nova Scotia Community College to provide two $500 scholarships to second year students enrolled in any concentration of the Information Technology program.  

[Click Here to Read More]

The International Professional Practice Partnership (IP3) Board met in Vancouver on October 20 and 21, 2011. The meeting was attended by representative from across the globe. Gina van Dalen, CIPS Manager Professional Standards, and Stephen Ibaraki , FCIPS, I.S.P./ITCP/IP3P represented CIPS at these meetings.  Since its inception in 2007, IP3 has made some great progress, and the focus of the Vancouver meeting was to build on this progress with the identification and agreement around a renewed business plan. Some of the major outcomes of the meeting were:

• Increase recruitment efforts to attract more IFIP Member Societies and organizations to IP3;
• Approval of revisions to various IP3 professional standards documents (e.g CBOK, Model Code of Ethics);
• Approval for the introduction of a new professional standard that defines the criteria for a Technologist;
• Establishment of a Working Group to explore the development of layered maturity model which will allow societies that are lower on the ladder of professional maturity to obtain ongoing assistance and encouragement from IP3 on their path towards accreditation;
• Definition of an IP3 Stream at the 2012 World Computer Congress (Amsterdam, the Netherlands).

For more information on IP3 visit: www.ipthree.org For more information on the 2012 World Computer Congress visit:  http://www.wcc-2012.org/

I'm Rick Claus, Senior Technical Evangelist with Microsoft Canada. I work on a team that is tasked with trying to help YOU by providing resources, answering questions and generally trying to set you up for success with Microsoft-based solutions.

What if I told you that you could enter a contest for a chance to win a huge technology prize package and get free online training at the same time?  You can do exactly that by entering the MVA contest and as part of the contest entry, register for Microsoft Virtual Academy.  It contains some fantastic FREE online training on hot topics for IT Professionals.

In addition, I wanted to ensure you are aware of a couple of other great resources that we created to help you in areas of professional development and access to software.  The TechNet Evaluation Center is a place you can download trials of some of our latest software like Microsoft® Office 365, Windows Intune and the release candidate of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012.  To go along with that free Office 365 training, download the free Office 365 eBook by Katherine Murray, which shows you can use cloud computing to get more done and collaborate more easily

How are we doing? If you ever want to give me or my team some direct feedback, feel free to email me directly at Microsoft Canada IT Pro Feedback, connect with me on LinkedIn or catch me online on twitter at @RicksterCDN.

On November 22th, The Art of Sales, Canada's largest sales conference will be coming to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Currently on tour are 5 New York Times Bestselling authors and leadership authorities including:

Seth Godin on Sales & Marketing Innovation

Barbara Corcoran on Sales Success & Personal Branding

Keith Ferrazzi on Relationships for Revenue Growth

Sally Hogshead on Persuasion & Influence

Jerry Greenfield on Values-Based Selling

Come join 1,200 professionals who will be participating across Ontario. For more information you can visit www.theartofsales.ca. CIPS members interested in registering can take advantage of our preferred corporate rates ($50 discount per ticket) by using promo code IT29 or by using this link:  http://www.theartofsales.ca/promo/IT29. Groups of three or more can save an additional $50 per ticket.

Cyber attacks don't need to look highly sophisticated anymore. In fact, hackers are purposely making them innocuous so that unsuspecting users will click without much immediate repercussion. This is a dangerous new way businesses and governments are being targeted, and security professionals are encouraging Canadians to educate themselves. Attackers are deploying targeted hacks, known as advanced persistent threats, which often remain undetected in a network and by the user to steal information. These threats also sometimes target specific people based on their job roles and responsibilities.

Tiffany Jones, Director of Public Sector Strategy and Programs for Symantec is presenting at this year's Privacy and Information Security Congress 2011 in Ottawa taking place between November 28^th and 29^th.

Her presentation is called:  "Know Your Enemy:  Understanding the Threat Landscape, Challenges, and Best Practices". Find out how Cybercriminals have forced security companies to rethink their policies and technologies in order to better combat threats.

http://www.rebootconference.com/ottawaPS2011/

Virtual Summit - November 29, 2011 - 10 am EST

Join us at this interactive virtual summit where you can discover how the power of a business productivity platform enables organizations to harness their people, relationships and vast knowledge base to drive innovation and manage risk.

If you are managing your company's IT strategy, are a key decision maker in Finance, Sales and Marketing, this is a unique opportunity for you and your organization to hear from subject matter experts, solution specialists and real customer examples on how the expertise of your people and the dynamics of teams, can help utilize information to drive better business outcomes and lower costs.

news@cips.ca or www.cips.ca