Program

Dave Codack will provide a briefing on CIOCAN actions toward raising and tracking the CIO Community’s awareness around Innovation and Productivity across industries and regions. CIOs will then have an opportunity to shape further actions via electronic survey.

Opening Address
Dr. David Foot, Professor Emeritus, Univerity of Toronto, and Author of Boom, Bust and Echo

David Foot is an outspoken and controversial demographics expert who can bring to life demographic statistics and make the aging of society relevant to any specific interest group. He explores how changing demographics, especially the aging of the massive boomer generation and the coming into the marketplace of their children, the echo generation, is redefining society’s needs.

Different generations in the workplace pose a challenge, especially in IT. The young are the champions of new technologies, yet their managers are from previous generations and know previous technologies. Aging workforces exacerbate these differences. Managing these changes and challenges is crucial to future business success. Change can’t be avoided, but it can be prepared for and managed. With an understanding of demographics, a business, an individual or a government has a strong foundation upon which to build.

Panel Discussion
Alignment or Alliance? Becoming the Business Rather Than Serving It

Technology is now embedded in the fabric of all organizations. Extending from email to accounting, no business can exist without the use of technology tools. But keeping the lights on (or five nines) is simply not enough. The key advantage for technology leaders of the future is unleashing innovation and entrepreneurism in a dramatic and explicit way. The IT leader of the future will understand and embrace innovation as part of their organizational goal set. What does an IT leader need to do to truly engage business “think”? This panel discussion will open up the issues and challenges that future leaders will need to address and provide evocative concepts to meet the future head on.

Moderator: Craigg Ballance, 2012 CIO Peer Forum Co-Chair
Panelists: Renah Persofsky, CEO, Strajectory
                 Kyle Reid, CEO, Broker Focus Digital
                 Shane Schick, Editor, ITWorld Canada

Bird of a Feather Lunch
generously sponsorsed by Fortinet
Theme tables set up with tent cards for participants to gather
and discuss issues based on the Agenda.

Concurrent Breakout Session
 Duncan Stewart, Director of Research, Technology, Media & Telecommunications, Deloitte Canada
presented by Allstream
Deloitte Predictions 2012: What's next for technology, media & telecom?

Join Duncan Stewart, Deloitte Canada's Director of Research, as he explores the top trends that will influence enterprises and consumers in 2012 and beyond. From big data to cheaper smartphones, Duncan will make detailed predictions on a dozen different trends, and sort out the hype from the real trends.

Concurrent Breakout Session
Jay Woo, COO, CAA 
presented by Q9 Networks
Delivering Results Through Business-oriented IT Innovation

As in many organizations, technology infrastructure at the Canadian Automobile Association (South Central Ontario) Group of Companies was treated as a “utility” to just keep the lights on.  Not only was cost management an issue, but the many and disparate data centres running uncoordinated business applications was inefficient, limiting the organization’s ability to take advantage of new business opportunities. In short, the CAA was finding itself hindered by technology rather than enabled.

By co-locating and centralizing the data centre infrastructure supporting CAA’s critical business systems, Jay Woo and his team were able to reduce overall computing costs, increase system reliability, and transform CAA’s business to deliver consistent profitability in its P&C insurance company operations. Today, IT is no longer seen as a barrier to innovation; rather it has earned a seat at the senior management table by driving new value for the organization.

In this session, Jay will share his inspirational story of meeting the technology innovation challenge – and how it unexpectedly earned him the role of COO where he now leads the business with the rigour and innovation of IT.
 

 

Networking Coffee Break

Plenary Speaker
                                Ken Kawall, CIO, Labour and Transportation Cluster,
Ontario Government
IT as the Strategic Enabler

Business and technology leadership are increasingly challenged to find enough resources, time or money to understand changing requirements and to deliver what is needed. CIOs see this every day. Yet we continue to cement our cost center role in the enterprise by fulfilling requests but not solving problems and by deploying technologies but not delivering expected results.

The real solution isn’t more money or time, but rather a new mindset that re-thinks the way we do things. Moving from technology leadership to a much broader role has challenged Ken Kawall, CIO for the Labour and Transportation Cluster, to move from CIO “thinking” into taking a more holistic approach which leverages technology to enable business outcomes within a large and complex organization. He will share his experience and insights as to what he feels are realistic and pragmatic approaches to support his journey in the pursuit of success.

                                   

Closing Address
Tony Chapman, CEO, Capital C
Business at the Speed of Life

End of Day Synthesis - What have we learned?
Conference Chairs

Reception
generously sponsored by Randstad Canada

Registration, Breakfast and Networking

Welcome and Opening Remarks
Conference Chairs

Opening Panel
CIO and Business Leadership: Where Do We Go From Here?

Is the road ahead for the IT leader to become more or less relevant? What skills will be needed and what types of opportunities may be available? What should you do to prepare yourself for the next chapter of your career or to have greater impact on the business in the existing role as CIO.

This session will not only expose some of the findings of recent and ongoing research into this fascinating and personal area, but will also engage discussion and debate about the realities and the intricacies of the way for you to deal with the issues.

Moderator: Mary Anne Ballantyne, 2012 CIO Peer Forum Co-Chair
Panelists: Ken Grant, Professor, Ryerson University, Owner, Strategos Management Consulting
                 Steve Heck, CIO, Microsoft Canada
                 John Mealia, Senior Client Partner, Korn/Ferry International
                 Lars Goransson, General Manager and Group Vice President, IDC Canada

Like many leaders at many companies, technology leaders and business leaders at Microsoft are constantly negotiating their relationship.

In this session, Walter Puschner, Vice President, Microsoft IT, will share concrete examples of tools and relationship techniques that have helped transform Microsoft IT into an organization capable of business leadership.

Topics to be covered:
• Reworking the CIO scorecard to align with business interests and reflect business-level metrics.
• Managing relationships between business leaders and IT in order to make join decisions and agree on accountability.
• Making conscious decisions about the role of the CIO and the composition of the CIO's team in order to enable that role.

Please join Walter for a discussion of how these areas of emphasis have played out within Microsoft and how they might help you in your organization.

Concurrent Breakout Session
Mark Decyk, Canadian leader, BAO Advanced Analytics and Optimization practice
IBM Canada Ltd.
Breakthrough with Business Analytics

IBM's 2011 CIO study indicated that Business Intelligence and Analytics was the most important way that CIOs will help their organizations increase competitiveness. Traditional approaches and architectures are being challenged by compelling new architectures like Big Data. Learn how to integrate new capabilities like social media analytics into traditional information management environments.

See how recent breakthroughs like the natural-language and reasoning capabilities of IBM’s Jeopardy-winning Watson computer will present disruptive opportunities in multiple industries.

Leading organizations are using analytics to outperform their competitors. IBM's recent work with MIT Sloan Business review highlights the widening gap between organizations that embrace analytics and those that do not. Learn how those leaders are achieving breakthrough results

Networking Coffee Break

Innovation, productivity and entrepreneurship are all terms we hear every day. Yet, the challenge of putting these into action – personally and within organizations – can be daunting for leaders. Building an innovation strategy that fully leverages technology assets with an entrepreneurial culture to amplify business and societal goals often requires thinking that transcends perceived barriers.

As the CEO of MaRS Discovery District, Dr. Ilse Treurnicht and her team work at the coalface of innovation – seeking to capitalize on Canada's rich foundation of ideas, discovery and talent to ensure that our knowledge economy continues to grow and thrive. She will provide her perspectives on the challenges and opportunities IT and other industry leaders face when positioning their organizations for success in today's fast moving global innovation economy.                                  

Bird of a Feather Lunch
Theme tables set up with tent cards for participants to gather
 and discuss issues based on the Agenda.