May 2010

We are in the process of redesigning our Smart Resources feature -- and some of our other features --  to be more useful and timely for members. Stay tuned for those changes coming up in the next month.

Meanwhile, here are important reports, new books, events and global forums that will help CIOs keep pace with trends in outsourcing, enterprise 2.0 and professional development in the coming weeks.

• Sustainability Strategies: “Having trouble reconciling your desire to do good by the environment while also moving your company forward? In the new book, Earth Inc., Gregory Unruh offers specific steps to show you how to embed sustainability into everything your company does — profitably.” That’s the provocative preview for the recently released book, Earth Inc., from Harvard Business Press. Unruh offers a cyclical value chain — a chain that offers both sustainability and profitability, for now and for the future.

• Who’s in Charge? “As organizations engage in more complex, dynamic and creative work, they have to rely more and more on leadership from all levels” — not just those in power at a given time. That’s one assertion of a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, Leadership — It's (Much) More than Position, by Sue Ashford and Scott DeRue, professors at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business. Read the full blog here.

• Trends For Global Outsourcing: At a worldwide level, IDC expects that the IS outsourcing market will grow at a five-year compounded annual rate of 2.9 percent, reaching $128.4 billion in 2014. However, in the U.S. this year, IDC expects continued contraction of 2.1 percent to $36.6 billion, largely due to increased use of virtualization as well as alternative delivery models (e.g., cloud, software as a service [SaaS]), according to the research firm. The IDC Report: “Worldwide and U.S. IS Outsourcing Services 2010-2014 Forecast,” is available from Market Research here.

  "Players looking to compete successfully in the IS outsourcing market, also referred to as data center outsourcing, will radically need to change their business models to mimic that of a 'utility' (e.g., telephone), also referred to as cloud computing, SaaS and so forth," says David Tapper, VP, Outsourcing and Offshore Services at IDC.

•   Asian CIO Forum: How are top CIOs innovating for topline results in a mission-critical environment? What business strategies are they using to adapt to global customer and user needs? And how are they attracting more risk takers while retaining their best talent? Those are some of the topics that will be discussed at the 5th Annual CIO Asia Forum, scheduled to be held Sept. 28-29, in Singapore. The CIO leadership event aims at bringing together world-class IT leaders to discuss business transformation and the evolution of the CIO. For more details, click here.

• East Meets West: Eight of Berlin’s rising star companies were represented at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco held May 3-6. This was the largest delegation coming from Berlin for the event, and it included more than two dozen representatives from top Web companies, including Aka-Aki, a start-up and winner of the 2009 Webby Award for best mobile social network. Separately, the next Enterprise 2.0, conference is coming up June 15-17 at the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel. For registration details, click  here.