January, 2008

Graham Jones (Surrey, BC - IT Professional) Leading VANTUG I have written here several times about running User Groups and the important part that I believe that they play in the IT Community. When I took over as Leader of VANTUG a little over 6 years ago I had absolutely no clue how to run a User Group. In contrast to many UG Leaders, many of whom should be credited with and congratulated for starting...

Once upon a time, securing your IT environment meant sticking a firewall between your network and the Internet. These days there's a lot more to it. IT security needs to be implemented on multiple levels and actively managed which makes things a tad more complex. This month's IT Manager Podcast focuses on that complexity - why IT security has become so convoluted and how best to simplify without sacrificing...

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon professionals. In this blog, I interview Paul Kent , noted business and industry leader and a founding CIPS Fellow for his lifelong outstanding contributions to IT. With his considerable history of success and substantive impact to the industry and profession, Paul's insights are a valued addition to IT professionals and...

As part of the Heros Happen Here Launch activities, Microsoft and Seagate are putting together a comic highlighting the joys and frustrations of being in the IT profession. Check it out at www.ITdevcomics.com and tell them your funny or eye-rolling IT stories. They'll pick the best and create new comics from them. How cool is that! WWW.ITDEVCOMICS.COM

I'm always surprised by the number of people that aren't aware of the free resources and information available from Microsoft and that's why I highlight the IT Manager Webcasts available each month. However, don't forget to look at the Additional Resources section below - there are a ton of other webcasts available as well as the few that I highlight below as well as podcasts (good for listening to...

Last year we launched Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007. Not to be outdone, this year the big launch is SQL 2008, Windows 2008 and Visual Studio 2008! And this time around, we're doing thing a little differently. Rick put up a great post this morning explaining the approach we're taking. Please read his post to get all the details. Here's my brief summary of the 4 types of events along with when...

A little levity for your Friday morning... What might it be like to be the lone Windows 2003 server left in the Microsoft web server farm now that all the other servers have been upgraded to Windows 2008? The Windows Server team has put up a humourous posting and video of the life of that lone server. You can view the short video below (1:58) or read the entire post at http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver...

Business is getting more and more competitive and many organizations are looking to be able to get an edge by collecting data and analyzing it to make better business decisions. One company may want look at weather patterns to better stock their stores while another may need to analyze information to figure out how the introduction of a new product may cannibalize the sales of other products. The use...

  Stuart R. Crawford (Calgary, AB - Business Development Manager of IT Matters) What do you mean by Butterfly catching? Can you picture it in your mind, as the owners of your own small business consulting business, are you running around from idea to idea, just like a young child runs around catching butterflies in the garden? We all do it; it is very natural for entrepreneurs and owners of small...

  Stuart R. Crawford (Calgary, AB - Business Development Manager of IT Matters) In today’s world of instant gratification, short attention spans and lack of patience, the one-strike approach to dealing with business is becoming a main stream concern for many small business consulting firms. Add this onto the ongoing challenges associated with employee shortages and an ever increasing demand...

Adam Cole (Toronto, Director of Specialty Technology Solutions for McKesson Canada) Recently I talked about the value of networking. Personally I do a lot of professional networking through CIPS (the association of the Canadian IT professional). For CIPS upcoming 50th anniversary I wrote some bullet points on what I have got out of networking within CIPS... CIPS is amazing. For every measure...

While it's becoming more and more important to be able to connect and collaborate with partners, customers and organizations external to your own, it's IT's job to make sure this is done securely, without compromising company assets or systems. This can be a bit challenging. That's why I'm excited to see that the Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint has been released as Beta on the Microsoft...

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with leading professionals. In this blog, I interview Stacey Cerniuk , Founder, President and CEO of Annex Consulting Group Inc.; Top-Ranking Executive and IT/Business Leader. Stacey illuminates technology, business, job, and skill trends stemming from his unique and leading market position. If you look at his profile, you can see that's...

  Adam Cole (Toronto, Manager Applications and Development for McKesson Canada) To enhance the flavour of a dish one technique frequently used is that of reduction . Reduction is a process of boiling-off the filling but flavourless water. We live in a time where information is abundant but the mechanisms to filter and synthesize that information trail behind. Evidence of this is everywhere from...

I'm a little late with this as it's already January but you've still go time to register for the following IT Manager Webcasts as the first one isn't until January 10. Most, if not all, are recorded and available on demand after the live webcast date. Date Title Level Technology Host Link Thurs, Jan 10, 2008 11 AM - noon Pacific Time Application Platform: Getting the Right Build Management Process...

We're on the road again - it's time for the winter edition of the IT Executive Roadmap Tour . Last time we went out, we spoke about how to optimize your infrastructure and focused on virtualization, security and management. This time we'll be speaking about business intelligence , enterprise content management and unified communications and collaboration . It's a great way to connect with other IT...

Welcome to the first post of 2008! I hope you all had a good relaxing time over the holidays with friends and families. I know I did! Now it's time to get back to work... A few weeks ago, I asked what you thought of IT's apparent bad reputation , according to an article from CIO Insight and one of their readers' response to that article. I got quite a few reactions - this seems to have hit a nerve...