Cloud computing – buyer beware

I am finally getting a chance to get caught up after my somewhat hectic travel schedule outlined in my previous blog. While I was in the UK, I had the opportunity to meet with a number of journalists - I encouraged them to move beyond reporting on technology as technology to focusing more on the business decisions that the business needs to make about how they will actually drive and sustain value from their use of technology. This article, by Warwick Ashford in Computer Weekly, is a great example of the balanced view I would like to see.

Speaking Schedule

As you can see, the "fixed" portion of this site (on the right hand side) needs a little updating - my (all in the family) support person is somewhat consumed with another project right now so I am updating my near term speaking schedule in this blog.

I am heading back down to Australia next week where I will be keynoting the ISACA Oceania CACS Conference in Sydney on Sept 8th, then facilitating a discussion at a CIO Breakfast the following day, the 9th.

I will be in Brisbane on the 11th and 12th presenting at an ISACA Brisbane Chapter luncheon on the 11th , and then participating in a number of other events in the evening and the morning of the 12th.

I will be in Nicosia, Cyprus, on Oct 8th presenting at the 3rd Information and Telecommunications Conference.

I will be in Scottsdale, Arizona on Oct 27th, participating in the first morning of ISACA's IT Governance Forum.

In November, I will be Facilitating an ISACA Toronto Chapter workshop on the 12th then heading to the UK where I will be speaking at a number of events including:

• An Institute of Charterd Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) dinner on the 17th


• Cranfield University's School of Management IT Leadership Forum on the 19th


• A workshop for the Computer Users Association, Charity IT Directors and Charity Finance Directors on the 20th, as well as an ISACA London Chapter event on the evening of the 20th

I hope to see some of you at these events.

Finally - Val IT 2.0!

My previous blogs indicated that I have been somewhat consumed (an understatement!) working with ISACA/ITGI on the 2.0 version of Val IT. I am really pleased (and incredibly relieved) to tell you that the Val IT Framework 2.0 and a companion Getting Started Guide are now available for free download from the ISACA http://www.blogger.com/www.isaca.org or ITGI http://www.itgi.org/websites.

Pls download and review these documents - I would really appreciate getting your feedback - after all, none of us have the monopoly on truth!

A Turning Point?

Well, I am just coming up for air after a hectic travel schedule and being heads down getting the next version of Val IT (2.0) ready for release (coming this June!). I did take time yesterday to participate by video link in an Executive Breakfast in Brisbane Australia. One of the other participants, Peter Carr from Longhaus felt that maybe the breakfast marked a turning point - I hope that he is right.

Realizing Benefits Realization

After arriving from a much delayed trip back from Singapore that started with a cancelled flight and moved on to many other tribulations I realized that I had scheduled an interview with Allen Bernard at cioupdate.com - although not quite on the planet, I apparently did manage some degree of coherence as it resulted in a very good article that I think captures the essence of the IT value problem. The article ends with a quote from Erik Dorr of the Hackett Group relating to Intel where he says "What Intel is doing is not rocket science, it's pretty much the basics." and Allen concluding with "...of course, the basics, which always seem so easy to understand and yet so hard to put into practice, are where most people fall short. Complexity can be exotic and therefore exciting, but the "basics"? Not really." Right on!!

Dealing with the IT label

I have long held that we have a labelling problem with IT in that anything with the label attached is thrown over the transom to the IT function when, in many cases, what we are really dealing with is a business issue. HP now seems to have also come to this conclusion - they are, to quote Howard Solomon in the 3oth April edition of IT World Canada, "dumping the moniker" of "information technology" and moving on to "business technology". Ann Livermore, Vice-President of HP's Technology Solutions Group says: "The age of information technology as we know it is over, the shift to business technology enables CIOs to weigh and measure their investment in terms of business outcomes."

It Is The Business Stupid

I was interviewed way back in July by Sue Bushell who was writing an article for CIO magazine. We had a great conversation but I had forgotten all about it until yesterday when an Australian colleague of mine sent a link to an article by Sue which he had seen in CIO Australia. Ignoring the fact that I am quoted, it is a great article - it is a real pleasure when a journalist "gets it".