Align IT With Business

By Natalie Boike

The upcoming SHARE conference in Anaheim, Calif., (Feb. 27–March 4) is aimed at helping IT workers better align their departments with business needs, all with an eye towards continuing costs. “The thought behind the topic is to ensure we’re not losing sight of the relationship between IT and business,” explains SHARE President Janet Sun. “Over time IT has gotten a bad wrap as being inwardly focused and using new technology without focus on the business. I don’t think that’s always true.”

Related subtopics include IBM’s the zEnterprise System, virtualization, application technologies and architectures, and security and privacy. Each subtopic will relate back to the main theme. For example, Sun says virtualization sessions will outline not only how the technology can make better use of existing resources, but also how it can be a cost-effective approach to delivering new services.

“A lot of our sessions focus on user experiences and draw out best practices, from real-world practitioners,” Sun says. “We believe our attendees will take information from SHARE and it will help them contain costs and better align with business objectives.”

Keynote Sessions

As usual, SHARE has lined up three keynote speakers who will discuss wide-ranging IT topics.

Anjul Bhambhri, IBM VP of Big Data Products, will be discussing how the industry is changing to handle larger amounts of data and larger numbers of data queries. Sun says Bhambhri will discuss some of the technologies used in the IBM Watson supercomputer, which is slated to perform in a “Jeapordy!” challenge airing on Feb. 14, 15 and 16.

Dayton Semerjian, general manager at CA Technologies, will discuss the next generation of mainframe management. Additionally, IBM VP of Social Business and Collaboration Solutions and Social Media Evangelist Sandy Carter will outline how attendees can better leverage social media.

Other Highlights

New to SHARE is a conference within a conference targeted to IT executives, called ExecuForum. Held Feb. 28–March 1, discussions and roundtables are designed to deliver true best practices from executive-level peers that have applied or are about to apply strategies within their own environment. For example, topics scheduled for discussion include securing and managing mobile devices, and social media and its impact on IT, Sun explains.

SHARE will also continue its online virtual conference. Those who can’t physically travel to the event can access four days of quality streaming content and six months of archived on-demand access to recorded sessions. Sun says on-site attendees will still gain the most benefit. “Face-to-face networking and communication is one of the historic strengths of SHARE, but SHARE online is a good way to join the community,” she says.

For more information or to register, visit www.share.org.

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Email Natalie at [email protected]