NYS Forum

NYS Forum's Annual Planning Session Highlights Importance of IT Greening, Emerging Technologies and IT Procurement

On Friday, July 11, 2008 the NYS Forum conducted its Annual Planning Session at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center in Albany, New York. Attended by over one hundred members active in one or more of The NYS Forum's Committees, the annual session generated lively discussions and creative programmatic suggestions for pursuance in the new program year that commences on October 1, 2008.

The session was introduced with a brief overview of all 2008-2009 committee accomplishments provided by JoAnn Bomeisl, Vice Chair of the NYS Forum's governing Executive Committee. The remainder of the session, including the committee-specific deliberations and reporting and the full group discussions and voting was facilitated by Jon Haverly of Keane, a member of The NYS Forum's IT Corporate Roundtable.

In the previous two years, business continuity was the topic receiving the most priority votes and as a result, The Forum's Online Business Continuity Health Check was completely revised and there has recently been follow-up with the State Comptroller and SEMO related to OSC's BC audit of selected state agencies and the collaborative role The NYS Forum will play in coming months. This year, the priority shifted to initiatives related to IT Greening, emerging technologies and IT procurement.  Across all of the projected 2008-2009 NYS Forum initiatives being considered, the one receiving the most priority votes was the IT Greening Committee's initiative to identify and work with the key persons in the state control agencies  (DOB, OSC, OGS) to establish a common understanding/approach to IT greening, it's benefits, and the relevant agency metrics for determining progress toward achieving "15 by 15".  The Emerging Technology Committee's initiative to conduct an in-depth educational session on policies and techniques to enable and support E-Discovery received the second highest number of priority votes and the IT Procurement Committee's initiative to conduct an educational session that focuses on best practices related to  RFP development and bid preparation received the third highest number of priority votes. In addition to having the highest number of priority votes cast for a specific initiative, the same three committees also collected the highest aggregate number of priority votes with IT Procurement receiving a total of 51, IT Greening a total of 37 and Emerging Technologies a total of 32.  The total across those three of the ten NYS Forum committees represented nearly two-thirds (64%+) of all votes cast.

The 2008-2009 outcomes of the Annual Planning Session for all committees are available at: http://www.nysforum.org/committees/20082009initiativesandaccomplishments.aspx. The 2008-2009 outcomes unique to each committee are also available at each committee's home page.