NYS Forum

Web Development Seminar Remains a High Priority

Monday, March 8, 2010.  
The "Writing for the Web" Seminar developed by The NYS Forum's IT Accessibility Work Group again demonstrated it's high value by drawing another capacity class of participants to a morning session at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York.  Nearly one hundred professional staff charged with developing and maintaining New York State government's web pages attended this very popular and informative session.

Kristin Albright of the NYS Division of Parole and Kathy Farrell of SUNY Empire State College presented the half-day seminar that included group discussion and hand-on exercises:  Key topics included:

• The needs of skilled and unskilled readers;
• Clarity and conciseness;
• How to phrase headings and links; and
• How to organize information more effectively.

The presentation is available at: http://www.nysforum.org/events/itaccessibility_3_8_2010/

The Forum's Small/Medium/Local Government Work Group Launches Five Session Series on Strategic Planning

Thursday, March 4, 2010.  This morning at 411 State Street The NYS Forum's Small/Medium/Local Government Agencies Work Group launched a special five session course in public sector strategy development. Karen Pratt, Director of the Office of Information Technology for Washington County and Co-Chair of The Forum's Work Group introduced the Work Group leadership involved in creating the series (http://www.nysforum.org/committees/smallmediumagencylocalgov/) and Forum IT Corporate Roundtable members Mike Donovan, CEO of NYSTEC, and Tim Jaques, Partner at Line of Sight, who will be series presenters. The goal of this course is to provide Small, Medium, and Local government agencies with the knowledge, tools and guidance necessary to successfully develop a Strategic Plan.  During the intervals between sessions participants will have an opportunity to actually begin and potentially complete a Strategic Plan based on the competencies and knowledge gained in the previous sessions and work with their agency peers and leadership.

The five session series is being attended by over 20 state and local government information technology, project management and business analyst leaders and series topics will cover:

March 4th, 9:00 am - Noon - The Strategic Planning Process

March 18th, 9:00 - 11:00 am - Setting Course

April 1st, 9:00 - 11:00 am - Measuring Performance

April 15th, 9:00 - 11:00 am - Defining Success

May 6th, 9:00 - 11:00 am - Publishing and Managing the Plan

NYS Forum Executive Council Hosts Alan Lebowitz, Director, New York State Office of Taxpayer Accountability

On Friday, February 12, 2010, at its monthly meeting The NYS Forum hosted a presentation by Alan Lebowitz, Director of the NYS Office of Taxpayer Accountability.  The meeting was held in the Huxley Theatre in the NYS Museum in Albany, New York.

Dr. Melodie Mayberry-Stewart, NYS CIO, introduced Alan Lebowitz and announced that on that morning, the second annual NYS information technology report entitled "NYS Information Technology Year in Review Report for 2009" was to be released. Dr. Mayberry-Stewart noted many of the accomplishments over the previous year that are spelled out in greater detail in the report.  That report is available at:
http://www.oft.state.ny.us/assets/documents/IT2009YIR.pdf
Dr. Mayberry-Stewart underscored the strong relationship and support that her office enjoys with that of Allan Lebowitz of the NYS Office of Taxpayer Accountability.

Alan Lebowitz provided an overview of the mission of his office and underscored The Governor's charge to the Office to save taxpayer dollars and provide property tax relief by shrinking government, reducing costs, eliminating waste, and increasing transparency.

Mr. Lebowitz articulated the four key strategies being pursued by his office including:

• Elimination of waste, fraud and abuse;
• Shared State services;
• Local government savings and efficiency, and
• Local government mandate relief.

Inherent to those strategies Mr. Lebowitz described the work of the Council on Shared Services, created by Governor Paterson to address six areas most appropriate for consolidation.  Those are:

• State and local purchasing;
• Human resources staff and services;
• Technology hardware, applications, systems and networks;
• Customer service provision and support;
• Asset management (including real estate) and
• Financial management (contracting, collections, inventorying and management systems).

In the technology arena, Mr. Lebowitz cited current and near-term plans to consolidate state agency e-mail systems, centralize data services, deploy VOIP, consolidate licensing issuance systems, and aggregate more technology equipment purchasing.  Specific to consolidation and aggregate purchasing, Mr. Lebowitz mentioned the work of a team created by The Governor including his Office, The Office for Technology, The Office of Regulatory Reform and selected state agency CIO's.  This team will address the consideration of appropriate standards so as to eliminate the redundancy of multiple purchase, training and support contracts and as a means for affecting far greater leverage with the State's aggregate purchases.

Mr. Lebowitz concluded his remarks with an invitation for anyone with cost-saving ideas to contact his office to share them.

The details regarding the basic strategies being pursued by The Office of Taxpayer Accountability and the work of the Council on Shared Services presented by Mr. Lebowitz are available at:  http://taxpayer.ny.gov/

NOTE:

The March 12th monthly meeting of the NYS Forum's Executive Council will feature the annual presentation by the NYS Office of the CIO/OFT.  That meeting will be held in the Huxley Theater at 8:30am.

On Friday, March 26th A Special Meeting of The NYS Forum's Executive Council and IT Corporate Roundtable will feature a presentation by Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito, Chairperson of the NYS Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations.  That meeting will be held in the Huxley Theater at 8:30am.

Also coming:

February 24: Webcast - Emerging Trends and Threats for 2010
February 25: Seminar on Creating Accessible PDF Documents
February 25: IT Contract Debriefing Roundtable
March 4: Strategic Planning Collaborative Sessions

The Forum's IT Greening Work Group Hosts Seminar on PC Energy Reduction

On Thursday, February 4, 2010 The NYS Forum's IT Greening Work Group presented a seminar entitled "Practical Examples of Satisfying Goals for PC Energy Reduction". The seminar was held at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center in Albany, New York and was webcast  to allow local government leadership and staff to benefit from the presentations.

The seminar provided attendees with the opportunity to hear what steps others have taken to overcome the challenges they faced to ensure PC energy use reduction from the perspectives of  procurement, measurement, and implementation

Peter Hilton, of the NYS Office of the State Comptroller and Co-Chair of the IT Greening Work Group, introduced the session and the panel of presenters.  Presenters included:

• Don Greene of the NYS Office of General Services, who addressed energy savings requirements that are included in the State contract specifications for aggregate purchases of desktop and laptop computers.
• Christian Grieco of Time Warner Cable, who discussed the use of a low tech process to baseline current energy consumption and project potential energy and cost savings.
• Brian Duffy of The NYS Office of the CIO/OFT, who discussed the approach that his agency took to implement PC energy management and described the challenges encountered and lessons learned to date.

The presentations made at this seminar are available at:
http://www.nysforum.org/events/itgreening-2-4-10/

The NYS Forum, Inc. and The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience (ICOR) Offer Business Continuity Management Seminar in Albany, New York

On February 2nd in Albany, New York a three day seminar entitled "Essentials of Business Continuity Management" was kicked off by leadership of The NYS Forum and ICOR.  The Forum and ICOR are not-for-profit educational organizations and joined in this endeavor to address what has been in the planning by The Forum's Business Continuity Work Group for several years.  Tom Luther, formerly (since retired) of the NYS Office of the State Comptroller and Co-Chair of The Forum's Business Continuity Work Group provided a welcome to the attendees.  Mr. Luther was instrumental in leading the work to develop the course content and the partnership with ICOR.

The seminar is being offered to twenty four New York State employees responsible for and/or actively involved in business continuity planning in their respective New York state agencies.  The three day program provides the knowledge needed to develop an actionable business continuity program for state agencies and provides the foundation necessary for new and current professionals interested in seeking business continuity certification and/or a career in a business continuity program in their own state organization.

Lynnda Nelson, ICOR President, indicated that "the partnership that led to developing a course specifically shaped by The Forum's Business Continuity Work Group, is a fine example of how practical education and training needs can drive creation of programs that are fully addressed to meet those needs."

Gregory Benson, NYS Forum Executive Director, indicated that "this seminar was the culmination of work that was initiated and spanned several years.  It began soon after 911 when business continuity planning was consistently ranked as a first priority by Forum membership and continued in that position for many years.  The persistence of those associated with The Forum's Business Continuity Work Group, in particular our previous Chair Tom Luther, the current Work Group leadership and members, and the ICOR commitment to working with us, all contributed to making this first seminar a success.  We are hopeful that we can offer more of these valuable seminars in the future and are confident that those trained at this session will be a valuable resource to other state agency staff."

For further information about The NYS Forum and the Business Continuity Work Group, visit: http://www.nysforum.org/committees/businesscontinuity/

NYS Cyber Security Director Addresses The NYS Forum's Executive Council

William F. Pelgrin, Director of the NYS Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination (CSCIC) addressed The NYS Forum's Executive Council at its monthly meeting on Friday, January 08, 2010, at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York.  

Mr. Pelgrin began his presentation with a review of initiatives at the national level and cited several types of malicious cyber tactics that are gaining prominence.  He also stressed the importance for New York state to have close working relationships with the Federal physical and cyber security organizations and underscored that the working relationship between New York and Federal organizations had never been better.

Mr. Pelgrin spent considerable time reviewing the work and resources of CSCIC and spoke specifically about the vulnerabilities inherent to phishing and the use of various social networking tools.  He also reminded those in attendance that the draft policy on the use of social media (P09-001) had been released for comment and that comments are due by January 29, 2010.

CSCIC has a variety of resources and tools available for state and local governments and information concerning those resources and contact information is available at: http://www.cscic.state.ny.us/

NOTE:
The NYS Forum's next Executive Council meeting is Friday, February 12, 2010 and will feature a presentation by Alan Lebowitz of Governor Paterson's Office of Taxpayer Accountability.  The meeting will begin at 8:30am in the Huxley Theatre in the NYS Museum Building in Albany, New York.

Forum Seminar Addresses The Role of A Business Analyst

On Tuesday, December 15, 2009 The NYS Forum's IT Skills Development and Project Management Work Groups co-hosted a seminar entitled "Becoming a Successful Business Analyst".  The seminar addressed how good business analysts develop stakeholder relationships and work with stakeholders to elicit, analyze, document, communicate, and manage requirements through a project life cycle.

James Nicol, Co-Chair of the IT Skills Development Work Group provided a welcome and introduced of the panel of presenters.  Presenters and their topics included:

• Caryn Quinn of Technodyne on "What Makes a Successful Analyst?"
• Paul Franz and Angie Musa of NYSTEC on "The role of the Business Analyst"
• Katheen Barret, IIBA President on "Business Analyst and Project Management Roles: How They Interact and Interrelate"

The seminar was adjourned by James Nicol.

Presentations made at this seminar are available at: http://www.nysforum.org/events/BA_12152009/