Newslette Header

SIM Memphis Quarterly
Volume 8, December 2010
About the Newsletter
 
The Memphis Quarterly SIM Newsletter is designed to share information about its members, upcoming meetings and other events, to reflect on recent accomplishments, and to provide information about SIM.  It will also focus on opportunities to serve the chapter as well as to participate in SIM Memphis' philanthropic activities. 
In This Issue
Community Outreach Update
Membership News
SIM: Membership Has Its Privileges
Pipeline Problems?
SIM Holiday Party 2010
SIMposium 2011
The Future of IT 

November 13-15
 Orlando, FL 

 For more information on SIMposium 2011, go to the event website.

SIMposium 2010 Presentations are available HERE and a video reviewing highlights from the 2010 event can be found HERE.
Upcoming Chapter Meetings 

Thursday,
January 6, 2011
Crescent Club
6075 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38119
 
 
MILE: Memphis Institute of Leadership Education

Speaker:
Austin Baker, President EServ

5:30pm - Social gathering
6:00pm - Dinner
6:30pm - Chapter Business
6:45pm - Program
8:00pm - Adjourn


Upcoming Meetings:
Feb 3
March 3
Need Access to simnet.org?
  

 
You need to have access to simnet.org to download presentations and access the wealth of information available to you as a member of SIM.

Send a request directly to the main SIM inbox
[email protected] or call the main SIM line at 312.527.6734
 
Quick Links
 
SIM Memphis 
 
SIM International 

SIM MEMPHIS
 2011
Board of Directors


  PRESIDENT
Rick San Roman


VICE-PRESIDENT
Tim Meek


SECRETARY/TREASURER
Steve Schaefgen
 
MEMBERSHIP CO-CHAIRS
Susan Caldwell 
 
John Oglesby
 
PROGRAM CHAIR
Jana Markowitz 


 COMMUNITY OUTREACH CHAIR
Dennis Norton


MARKETING CHAIR 
Christi Daigre 

 STRATEGY SERIES CO-CHAIRS
Dick Vandenberg 
Della Adams

SIM International Liaison
Rick Pride 


Want to know more about the Regional Leadership Forum?

Check out the

2011 RLF Registration is


Other Cool RLF Sites:

DFW Reunion Group Site
  
Dr. Julie Ness Bell, author and teacher

Read about RLF Speaker Jay Mahoney and Graduate Sven Gerjets
Have SIM Memphis News to Share for the Next Quarterly Newsletter?
 

Please email
Christi Daigre
Newsletter
Contributors



Susan Caldwell
Diane Coons  
Christi Daigre 
Brian Janz
Jana Markowitz
Kevin Morgan 
Dennis Norton
John Oglesby 
Rick San Roman
Stephen Schaefgen
Dick Vandenberg 
 

Are You an Industry Expert?

 

If you are interested in being a source for the media, complete the SIM Ask the Expert Media Application and become a SIM industry expert and spokesperson to work with the media.


Want to Review a Presentation
 from the 2010 Strategy Series?

Available materials from the 2010 Strategy Series are posted on our site when you login to SIMnet.org or click HERE.

 Help us Grow: Nominate a Prospective Member

 

Do you know of local IT leaders (in most organizations the CIO or CIO equivalent and direct reports) who are not SIM members but should be?
The Membership Committee would like your input! 
 
eMail us with the name, company, title, contact information (phone & email), and other relevant information - like why you feel the person should be a member and what you think would be the best way to approach them.  

John Oglesby:  [email protected]
Susan Caldwell:  [email protected]
About SIM
 
Established in 1968, the Society for Information Management (SIM) is the premier network for IT leaders.  SIM is comprised of more than 3,600 members including CIOs, senior IT executives, prominent academicians, and foremost consultants.  Through its 31 chapters, SIM provides resources and programs inspired by IT leaders for IT leaders that enable CIOs to further develop their leadership capabilities and those of the emerging leaders in their organizations. SIM provides the premiere collective voice to advocate policy and legislation on behalf of the IT profession.
2010 Year in Review
by Dick Vandenberg
 
I recommend the process of constructing a written review of an organization's accomplishments on an annual basis as an opportunity to assess just how much our chapter has accomplished over the course of the year, to celebrate our successes, and recognize those who led the charge. It reminds one of how much can be accomplished by committed individuals with a common set of goals.

MIT
To start off, SIM Memphis contributed the concept of a Members In Transition training and development program to all of the SIM chapters at the annual Summit in Chicago. Several other chapters have joined in to add content to the program that was created by Susan Caldwell and Jana Markowitz.  This program will soon be rolled out to the entire SIM community.

SIMposium
When SIMposium came around in October, Susan was recognized for this and her other contributions with the Medium-sized Chapter Leader of the Year award. The Memphis chapter had THREE nominees for this award - John Oglesby and Rick San Roman were the others. Our chapter was also recognized for having the most attendees for a chapter our size. Thanks to Sue Conklin for a job well done as our SIMposium liaison.

Outreach
Dennis Norton headed up our outreach efforts and his team did a remarkable job. For Teen Tech Camp, Rick San Roman and Ed Charbonnet were inspired to work with SAP to develop a supply-chain model for the Teens and show them how IT helps build the products they use. Also contributing to TTC were Steve Green, Diane Coons, John Oglesby, Kevin Morgan, &  Jana Markowitz.

Kevin Morgan, with the able assistance of Judy Brown, Jana Markowitz, Jana Branham, and Judy Simon, produced a fine Career Day at the University of Memphis. These same folks, with the help of Dan Brandon, continued our participation in the selection of scholarship recipients at LeMoyne Owen and University of Memphis.

Executive Strategy Series
Steve Schaefgen spearheaded the delivery of an excellent program for the second year in a row. He tapped Jana Branham for Sponsorship, Steve Green, Venue, Rebecca Jones, Marketing & Communications, and Tony Rooney for Programs.  We were also very pleased to have SIM member Brian Janz as facilitator for the event. 

Programs
Jana Markowitz filled up our calendar with great speakers. Think back... which of these stimulated you to make a change? Which ones had you talking about them the next day?
  • The Economic Outlook for 2010, Dr. Marshall Gramm, Rhodes College
  • Implementing Visualization to Drive Quality, Scott Gillam, FedEx Services
  • Cutting Edge Legal Issues Impacting IT, Ted Raynor, Burch, Porter & Johnson
  • Risk = $$ --- What's Your Appetite? Dean Permenter, The Hospitality Security Consulting Group
  • Data Visualization at the City of Memphis, Della Adams, GIS Program Manager
  • Digital Asset Management, Bob Johnson, CIO Rhodes College
  • Best Practices for MIS Integration following Mergers and Acquisitions Dr. Fred Niederman, MIS Professor, Saint Louis University
  • Driving Change in Organizations, Dr. Craig Petrun, MITRE
  • Managing Vendors, David Meyer, ClearEdge Consulting
  • Roundtable, Judy Simon and Jana Markowitz, Facilitators
  • And finally, our Holiday party was a big, tasty success

Membership
Susan Caldwell and John Oglesby headed up membership, and with the help of Jana Branham and Steve Green they are working to enrich the membership experience. They actively communicate with potential new members, new chapter members, and members we haven't seen for a while.


Treasury
John Lewis once again guided us and shepherded our funds. This was John's eighth year of service, and I'd very much like to thank him for his contributions both as Treasurer and as a trusted advisor to the chapter leaders.  This is John's last year as Treasurer, and all of us on the Board want to thank him immensely for his contributions over the years.

 

Marketing 
Christi Daigre not only produced regular newsletters packed with information, she helped us put our brand on marketing materials for the Strategy Series and giveaways for the Chris Kerstell golf tournament.


Liaison to National
Rick Pride continued to shoulder the job of ensuring alignment between our chapter and the National Board. Rick also mentored a startup chapter in Nashville, TN.

I want to thank the outgoing board and committee chairs for all of their contributions this year. It is an honor to have served with them. And to all SIM Memphis members I wish a happy and prosperous New Year!

Dick Vandenberg
Immediate Past President  

 

Community Outreach Update
by Kevin Morgan and Dennis Norton

SIM IT Career Day Event: What a Success! 

On November 11th, the SIM IT Career Day event was hosted by the University of Memphis and experienced a record crowd of 114 attendees, nearly doubling the prior year's 63 attendees.  This year, SIM developed a unique partnership with the student organization AMIS to market the event around campus. This relationship encompassed an organizing committee partnership with the students, allowing them to get involved with planning of the event. The AMIS students generated buzz about the event around campus by handing out flyers and guest speaking in 13 business courses.

About SIM IT Career Day
This is the 3rd year that the Memphis Chapter of the Society for Information Management has organized the event.  This year's headline sponsors consisted of AT&T, Presidio, SIM, Cisco System, Corner Office Consultants, RHI, and IBM.  These organizations' generous contributions helped in making this event such a success.  The students not only took home a wealth of information about a career IT, but a few of them walked away with a Flip Mino Camera, Blackberry, LG Smartphone, Kindle and iPod.

Similar to prior years, the event focused on:
 Industry perspectives from IT executives in a variety of fields
 Statistics on hiring and IT career trends
 Recruiter's Perspective on what employers are looking for
 Why the students should choose a career in the field of IT
 A Roundtable and Q&A Session
 Meet and Greet with the speakers and SIM members in attendance
students at career day
(Student participants for Career Day 2010.)

Speakers at the Event
The event's master of ceremonies was none other than our very own Ed Charbonnet.  Ed has become an institution with the program adding his humor and charismatic dialogue to the event. The speakers line-up this year consisted of the following IT executives:

 John Lewis, CEO Semmes-Murphey - Health Care (SIM Member, 2nd Year)
 Adam Shirley, ATT - Mobility
 Stephanie Drouillard, Robert Half - Industry Trends
 Susan Caldwell, Corner Office Consultants - Perspective on How to Land a Job (SIM Member, 3rd Year)
 Steve Montgomery, Presidio/Cisco - Networking and Engineering
 Della Adams, GIS Program Director, City of Memphis - GIS and Government IT (SIM Member, 1st Year)
 James Lee, Accenture - Consulting

Notably, John Lewis and Susan Caldwell were both returning speakers to the event, and once again hit a home run on their respective topics. 
Susan Caldwell and Ed Chabonnet
(Ed Charbonnet introduces speaker, Susan Caldwell)


Special thanks to the IT Career Day steering committee that spent many hours planning this wonderful event.
 Jana Branham, ACH Foods
 Jana Markowitz, The Collective Mind
 Judy Brown, University of Memphis
 Judy Simon, University of Memphis
 Margaret Schultz, University of Memphis
 Kevin Morgan, McDonald's USA

To see more pictures of the event, click here.
Membership News
 
New Members!
 
Welcome to the following new members:

Venu Cherukuri, Manager, Business Process Improvements. Buckman International
Susan Crenshaw, Vice President Business Processes, Buckeye Technologies
Paul Grassel, Manager of Global IT Computer Services, Buckman International
Scott Herren, Manager Network & Computer Systems, Buckman International
Dave Miller, Vice President Software Quality Assurance, FedEx Services
Brent Nair
, Deputy CIO, City of Memphis
David Schooley, Director iDevelopment, ALSAC/St. Jude

Welcome to SIM Memphis!

========================================================
Members in the News! 
 
Mark GillensonCongratulations to Mark Gillenson, Professor of Information Management Systems at the University of Memphis and SIM Memphis chapter member.  Mark was recently interviewed by WREG News Channel 3 about "Electronic Pickpocketing."  The story focuses on how RFID technology enables thieves to steal personal information, including credit card data.
                          Click here to view the whole story.
========================================================
Enhanced Program:  Members In Transition!
 
As mentioned in Dick's 2010 in Retrospect, Memphis has joined in a national effort to provide a comprehensive program for members in, contemplating, or preparing for career transition.  The program will consist of two main sections:  preparing for a job hunt and the hunt itself.  The preparation stage builds on the Memphis Chapter's MIT program (click HERE for details) and is targeted to be rolled out nationally in Q1.  The "hunt" stage takes up where the Memphis program left off -- namely providing help and support for the job search itself.  A virtual networking group to help with the "hunt" is already well-established by several of the east coast chapters.  A Yahoo Group, SIMJobPosts, is the mechanism for providing support, access to connections, and the sharing of opportunities to SIM members.  There are also weekly conference calls available to those who join the group.
 
SIM members, regardless of employment status, are eligible and encouraged to join; this is an opportunity for those not in transition to help those who are.  All members will receive an invitation to join SIMJobPosts.  Joining is strictly voluntary.  When you receive the email invitation, to join:
1. Click the link and it will take you to Yahoo Groups.
2. If you do not have a Yahoo ID - sign up for one. Create a user ID and Password. During the signup process, Yahoo will ask you to create an optional Yahoo e-mail account. This is not required, as posts can be sent to any e-mail account you would like.
3. Once you have your Yahoo ID - hit the button to join the group.
4. Edit your group profile to indicate how you want to get messages sent to you:
   A. You can select daily digest or
   B. You can select individual e-mails

If you have any questions or concerns, contact:
Susan Caldwell at [email protected]
or
Jana Markowitz at [email protected]

 

SIM: Membership Has Its Privileges
Get the most out of your membership -- watch this column for future articles on your SIM Membership Advantages

By John Oglesby


Did you know that SIM sponsors an IT journal (MISQE) and that a free subscription is included in your membership?


Did you also know that you can subscribe to the academic journal MISQ (MIS Quarterly) at $100 per year.  Print and online versions are available.


So what are these publications and why might they be valuable to you?


MISQE
MISQE is a journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research that practitioners may find valuable.  Sponsored by SIM, the Association for Information Systems, and Indiana University, it is published quarterly and offers unique insights, thought leadership ideas, engaging stories, useful conceptual frameworks, research reports and cases that are based on in-depth studies.  It is affiliated with MISQ and offers these types of content:


Executive Research
These articles present original research and offer lessons, frameworks, explanations, and recommendations relevant to practice, similar to what you might find in Sloan Management Review. Unlike much academic literature, these articles do not necessarily emphasize theory, but do identify prior literature that enriches their findings and recommendations.


Cases
Case research articles provide rich stories of a specific organizations' management and technological initiatives. The articles not only tell the story, but also provide analyses of events and their outcomes. The annual SIM competition papers that are published in MIS Quarterly Executive provide good examples of such articles.


Research Reports
Research Reports summarize findings and insights from recently completed, but as yet unpublished, research studies.  Studies eventually intended for publication in traditional academic journals are often published here first. These reports provide timely insight into emerging issues in IT management and are likely to provide more data than analysis or theory. Preliminary findings offered from these data often provoke hypotheses, further debate and research, or tentative recommendations for action.


MISQ Digest
Digest articles revisit research that has already been published in MISQ or other academic journals and reframe it specifically for practitioners (by focusing on managerial practice rather than theory), who are likely to find the results relevant to their current practice.


Editorials
MISQE also publishes editorials identifying important issues or inviting debate on topics of interest to both researchers and practitioners.


Your free subscription to MISQE provides access to all this content, including back issues dating to 2002, with search capabilities to help discover desired content.  Articles from the 4Q10 issue of MISQE include:

  • "Getting Customers' Ideas to Work for You: Learning from Dell how to Succeed with Online User Innovation Communities"
  • "How Large U.S. Companies Can Use Twitter and Other Social Media to Gain Business Value"
  • "Key Issues for IT Executives 2010: Judicious IT Investments Continue Post-Recession"

Access your free MISQE subscription by signing into the SIM web site at www.simnet.org and then entering "MISQE" in the Community Search bar on the right side of the page. Then click the link on the resulting page that reads, "To access the current issue click here."


MIS Quarterly
Whereas MISQE is intended for practitioners, MIS Quarterly is a peer-reviewed journal intended primarily for academics.  This means that the research results and conclusions published here are extremely rigorous since they are heavily scrutinized by top researchers that hold the work to very high standards.  The objective of MISQ is to enhance and communicate knowledge concerning the development of IT-based services, the management of IT resources, and the use, impact, and economics of IT with managerial, organizational, and societal implications. Published quarterly by the University of Minnesota MIS Research Center, it also addresses professional issues affecting the IS field as a whole.


While you'll find the content of MISQ quite scholarly and theoretical, these articles can nevertheless provide keen insight into important issues regarding IT and IT management.  Here is a sampling of articles from the Dec. 2010 issue:

  • "Improving Employees' Compliance Through Information Systems Security Training: An Action Research Study"
  • "The Impact of Information Technology and Transactive Memory Systems on Knowledge Sharing, Application, and Team Performance: A Field Study"
  • "Price Effects in Online Product Reviews: An Analytical Model and Empirical Analysis"

You can access your discounted subscription (cost: $100) from the SIM web site online store.  Sign on to www.simnet.org. Click on "Online Store" at the right of the top menu bar, then in the Search bar select "Journals" and click "Find."  You'll see MISQ (March 2011) listed at $100.  The March 2011 issue is the first issue of the year and your subscription will cover the entire year.


We hope you'll visit MISQE regularly and perhaps start discussions on particularly engaging articles on the SIM Memphis LinkedIn site at: SIM-Memphis on LinkedIn. 


Pipeline Problems? What is the Current (and Future) State of Memphis' Technology Workforce?
by Dr. Brian Janz
 
Brian Janz
As technology leaders in the Memphis Region, we all have experience in dealing with the technology-capable workforce in the Memphis Region, and understand better than most how critical it is for the local economy to have ready access to a skilled workforce.  Our chapter's successful Teen Tech Camp embodies our belief that one of the more promising ways to secure this critical human resource is by developing the pipeline within the region, rather than importing it from outside the region.  But what is the health of this current pipeline, and what can be done to better equip the regional educational system to develop a more technology-capable student for the future?
 
 I am joining forces with an interdisciplinary research team from the University of Memphis to seek funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct a comprehensive research study on the current and future state of the Memphis workforce in terms of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills.  A particular focus will be on the alignment between what the local business community (that's us) needs, and what the regional educational system (K-12 and college/university) is doing to meet those needs.
 
 While the NSF funding for this research is a long shot, one way to make the research more useful and relevant to us (as well as making the grant proposal to the NSF more compelling), is to have support from the local business community.
 
What "support" means in this case is two things:
1. That you would be willing to spend a little time (no more than an hour) with the research team in an interview to get your perspective on the current state of your being able to secure appropriately skilled employees from the local workforce, and
2. That you would be willing to encourage your peers and subordinate managers to participate in a short survey related to this topic.
If you would be willing to support this research effort, please contact me to let me know.  If the research team is successful in securing the NSF grant, the research will be conducted throughout 2011.
Thanks in advance for your willingness to participate in this important research effort!

SIM Holiday Party 2010 - Food, Friends and Fun!

This year's SIM Holiday Party was held at the Brushmark in the Brooks Art Gallery and was another fun-filled event. SIM Memphis chapter members had the opportunity to socialize and reconnect with fellow members and their significant others. The venue and food selection was wonderful!! Thanks to Jana  Markowitz for all of her efforts to ensure a wonderful evening for the group! 

holiday party pic 1

Holiday party pic 2

holiday party pic 3holiday party pic 4

holiday party pic 5

Holiday party pic 1