With the economy in a downward slide, and technology moving at an ever faster pace, business-IT executives face an increasingly challenging world. They must keep systems running, introduce architectural changes that will allow the business to be more agile and to operate at greater velocity, foster and fuel innovation, and help business adapt to the emergence of new market influences. And all this needs to be done faster, cheaper, better. These are exactly the topics that the 2008 Cutter Summit, to be held 5-7 May 2008 at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will focus on.
The Cutter Consortium Summit has become known as the most stimulating IT conference of the year, valued by its attendees for the direct access to the top thinkers in IT it provides.
The informal setting of this intimate gathering provides both attendees and speakers alike an opportunity to candidly discuss the challenges they face -- from technical concerns and strategies they're considering, to trends they're seeing in their own organization. The format and absence of vendor influence encourages personal interaction and debate, providing attendees with real-world advice they can put into action right away in their own organizations.
Summit 2008 features keynotes by top experts, panel discussions, an interactive Harvard Business School case, and hands-on seminars; networking at lunches, breaks and entertaining evening events; and one-on-one guidance and input from expert presenters who include leading professors from Wharton and Harvard Business School.
Details on the keynotes and hands-on sessions are below. For further information, visit the Summit 2008 Web site (http://www.cutter.com/summit/2008.html).
- Monetizing the Internet
Cutter Fellow and Wharton School Professor Eric Clemons helps demystify how IT can take a balanced, active, and forward-thinking role in developing revenue-generating Web 2.0 models that support your organization's business objectives. - CIO and CTO Forum
Harvard Business School Professor Warren McFarlan will lead this exclusive forum for CIOs and CTOs, designed to drill down on how to succeed despite the ever-increasing "faster, cheaper, better" pressures on today's business-technology leaders. McFarlan is not only an internationally recognized authority, but also an unparalleled master at this type of interactive session, which promises to be as entertaining as it is enlightening. - Enterprise Agility
Cutter Consortium Fellows Lou Mazzucchelli and Tim Lister uncover why so many organizations unwittingly fight enterprise agility -- replete with examples of companies that have constructed this roadblock -- and they'll illustrate the paths several organizations have taken to overcome resistance to change, risk taking, and innovation to become agile once again. - Employee Passion Inventories
DePaul University VP of IT and Cutter Senior Consultant Vince Kellen demonstrates how encouraging your IT teams to share their passions with their managers can result in decreased turnover and how well-aligned employee passions can set an IT organization on fire. - IT Enabling Business Innovation
Harvard Business School Associate Prof. Alan MacCormack delves into IT enabling business innovation, asking delegates to evaluate the reasons for the failure of two successive missions to Mars. The interactive Mission to Mars case study examines changes the space agency made that followed a faster, simpler approach to program design. - Design-driven Innovation
Professor of Management of Innovation, Politecnico di Milano Roberto Verganti focuses on the role that new technologies have in redefining the meaning of products and services, and consequently on the role of design-driven innovation in technology-intensive firms and technology suppliers. - What an Architect Does
Mike Rosen, Director of Cutter Consortium's Enterprise Architecture Practice, often gets asked is "What does an architect do?" In this interactive discussion, Mike will go beyond the day-to-day activities like attending too many meetings, and get to the heart of how architects bring value to their organization. - Stronger IT Governance through Financial Management
Cutter Senior Consultant Bob Benson lays out -- and teaches delegates how to use -- a framework for IT financial management and budgeting that will not only improve the financial impact of IT in their organizations, but also enables them to gain the support of the CFO and strengthen relationships with business unit management. - Master Data Management
Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Larissa Moss shares insights into how to play a strategic leadership role in overseeing enterprise-wide data integration programs and helping to direct organizations to commit to business integration (not just technology) to successfully manage their data assets. - Practical Business Architecture
Jim Watson, Cutter Senior Consultant, demonstrates why business architecture is more than just models and diagrams; it provides the broad starting point for the enterprise architecture (EA) process. He'll demystify business-IT alignment by looking at how alignment can be practically measured in IT systems and the EA Program. - Metrics for Agile Development
Cutter Senior Consultant Michael Mah answers the question, "How can you reliably and consistently collect metrics in your Agile software development environment?" in a hands-on session where participants are paired two-by-two to capture metrics and do productivity calculations. - Themes & Implications
Cutter Fellow Tom DeMarco will borrow the agile retrospective practice: reviewing what's been discussed and debated, then revealing his insight into the strategies, themes, and ah-has that emerge -- establishing a framework for applying those lessons.
For more information on Summit 2008, visit www.cutter.com/summit/2008.html. For press inquiries, contact Kim Leonard (+1 781 641 5111) or e-mail her at press@cutter.com. For more information on Summit 2008, visit http://www.cutter.com/summit/2008.html. For press inquiries, contact Kim Leonard (+1 781 641 5111) or e-mail her at press@cutter.com.