October 30, Seminars and Round Table for CIOs

The Rise of the Semantic Enterprise: Exploiting Semantic Web 3.0 Technologies within Today’s Enterprise


Workshop Leader: Mitchell Ummel, Consultor Senior de Cutter Consortium

The Internet is undergoing a rapid transformation from a web of hyperlinked documents to a web of semantically linked data. The potential change to our approach in developing enterprise systems in a Semantic Web 3.0-based world is now being explored. We may define an era paralleling, but also closely trailing, the rise of the Semantic Web as the era of the Semantic Enterprise (SE). A SE is any public or private company (large or small), government agency, or organization, who successfully exploits Semantic Web 3.0-based technologies for enterprise applications. These technologies include (but are not limited to) the W3C-endorsed Semantic Web technologies RDF (and variants), OWL, and SPARQL. The defining architectural frameworks which enable the SE can be referred to as the Semantic Enterprise Architecture (SEA). Among the topics to be explored in this half-day workshop include:


· How best can your company utilize Semantic Web 3.0-based technologies for applications within the enterprise today, and what are some of the Semantic Enterprise applications which are seen as having highest and most compelling business value?
· What are challenges and barriers hindering the Semantic Enterprise today, including but not limited to, security, privacy, and data ownership/governance?
· How will our eventual embrace of Semantic Web 3.0-based technologies in the Semantic Enterprise change our approach to Enterprise Architecture (business, data/information, application, and technology architectures)?
· In the Semantic Enterprise, how will massive "fact stores" (expressed in RDF within OWL-based ontologies), navigated by inference engines and fueled by expert systems or neural networks, someday replace our traditional Decision Support Systems which are today based on static logic and rigid business rule engines?
· How will our approach to traditional relational or object data modeling, Master Data Management (MDM), and overall information architectures necessarily evolve in the Semantic Enterprise?
· What specific initiatives or measures should forward-thinking CIOs and Architects be taking today to take advantage of the opportunities the Semantic Enterprise presents?

Course Outline (half-day workshop)
1. Primer and Introduction to Semantic Web 3.0, Ontological Engineering (OE), and Linked Open Data (LOD) - History, Definitions, Terms, and Core Defining Principles
2. Exploring the Business Case for the Semantic Enterprise - Opportunities, Costs, Benefits, Risks
3. Semantic Enterprise Architecture (SEA) - Introduction, Core Defining Principles, and Compare/Contrast Traditional EA Frameworks and Methodologies
4. Case Study – Semantic Widgets, Inc. (fictitious SE) - Exercises, Team Breakout Sessions, Presentations, and Group Discussion

Mitchell Ummel is a Senior Consultant with Cutter's Enterprise Architecture practice and President of UmmelGroup International, Inc., a US-based business and technology management consulting firm. Mr. Ummel is a visionary who is most well known for championing practical application of innovative but lightweight IT process improvement methodologies into today's culture within large organizations. In recent years, he has enjoyed advising state governments and private-sector enterprises in their planning and architecture for large, multimillion-dollar business and technology transformations.
Mr. Ummel's IT experience spans 25 years and includes service in a variety of CIO, executive management, training, coaching, mentoring, and consulting roles for government, telecommunications, electric/gas utilities, monitored home security, health insurance, regulatory/licensure, law enforcement, justice, and a variety of Internet-based product or services companies. Earlier in his career, he served as a state of Kansas agency CIO, where he contributed to the inception of the Kansas statewide technical architecture, helped define next-generation project and portfolio governance processes, and led technology initiatives enabling electronic health surveillance records management, vital records security/privacy, national bioterrorism response, GIS integration, and public health and environmental informatics among local, state, and federal stakeholders.
Mr. Ummel holds advanced degrees in mathematics and computer science from Fort Hays State University. He is a graduate of, and contributor to, Kauffman Foundation's Entrepreneurial Leadership and New Tech Venture Development Programs, is a frequent speaker at national business and technology conferences, and is a member of the Project Management Institute. He can be reached at consulting@cutter.com.

Fill the Governance Gap: Build Trust and Partnership with Business Leadership

Robert Benson

Workshop Leader : Robert Benson, Consultor Senior de Cutter Consortium

Too often the CIO is not a key partner in making basic business decisions that greatly impact IT. It can be vendors selling large solutions directly to the CEO or CFO. It can be individual business unit executives that demand “their” unique solution. The CIO is left out of the decision process, and the CIO can be left with implementing, justifying, and operating software that don’t fit in with the rest of the IT activity. The CIO may not have any influence in making these important decisions.

The huge gap is in governance and joint decision-making about key IT issues. CIOs require effective governance processes – and these have to have business leadership support as well. This half-day workshop focuses on understanding the problem (the gaps in governance and trust/partnership between business and IT leadership) and understanding the range of possible solutions to successfully address the problem. The result is a simple governance toolkit that CIOs can employ, to produce the required trust and leadership partnership.

Outline

1. The Trust and Leadership Gap

a. Why the CIO is left out

2. Possible approaches to fill the Gap

a. Business Planning Decisions

b. IT Planning Decisions

c. Justification and Value Decisions

d. Financial Decisions

 

3. The practical problems in addressing the problem and these approaches

4. Getting Business Leadership Attention

Robert Benson is a Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium's Business-IT Strategies practice and a Principal with The Beta Group. He applies more than forty years of academic and corporate experience to assist companies and government agencies with understanding the business value of information technology (IT), strategic and financial IT management, strategic IT planning, effective IT application development, and IT governance. Since 2001, he has written numerous Cutter Executive Reports and Business-IT Strategies E-Mail Advisors, and has consulted for and conducted workshops with Cutter clients in the USA, Mexico, and Poland.

Mr. Benson has been instrumental in the development of portfolio management methods and strategic and financial management methodologies based on Information Economics used by companies and consulting organizations around the world. He has conducted executive seminars and management courses on these subjects throughout the world, and consulted with over 100 companies and organizations in twenty countries.

Mr. Benson taught Computer Science and Information Management at Washington University in St. Louis for 40 years, where he also served as Associate Vice Chancellor for Computing and Communications and in other executive positions. He also has taught Information Management at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, for 20 years, and is member of the faculty there.

He is coauthor of several books and numerous articles and monographs, including From Business Strategy to IT Action: Right Decisions for a Better Bottom Line, Information Economics: Linking Information Technology and Business Performance and Information Strategy and Economics: Linking Information Systems Strategy to Business Performance. He can be reached at consulting@cutter.com.

 

 

Round Table for CIOs

Benchmarking, Outsourcing, and Service Levels; What CIOs Need to Know presented by Michael Mah

Tim Lister

Roundtable Leader : Director of Cutter Consortium's Measurement & Benchmarking practice and Senior Consultant with Cutter's Business Technology Trends & Impacts, Agile Product & Project Management, and Sourcing & Vendor Relationships practices

Driving out costs, shortening cycle time, and accessing outside talent has led many IT organizations to outsource in the last decade as part of their business strategy, especially for software applications. In this environment, reliable indicators are essential for CIOs to understand whether these alliances are performing well or not.

This workshop examines survey data from Cutter research on the satisfaction levels of IT organizations who have outsourced. Are their expectations being met? How do they measure? We will explore what industry data reveals for speed, cost, and quality, and describe simple and easy to understand techniques to establish productivity benchmarks necessary for negotiating service levels between suppliers and clients. This workshop describes essential practices for CIOs who need reliable frameworks for managing the relationship, and for knowing when and when not to outsource.


October 28 || October 29 || Agenda

 

 

 
Seminars and Round Table
  • Atendees will be able to choose the seminar they will like to attend
  • The round table moderated by Michael Mah only for CIOs
  • Companies that participate in the Summit will be alloud to buy separate seats to the workshops