* Your chance to let us know what you’re interested in
When speaking with ITers, it never ceases to amaze me how little time IT staffs have to investigate new tools and technologies that could help them do their jobs better.
In some organizations, the purchase of management tools often comes down to selecting those that the ITer is already familiar with because they used them in a previous job. Another approach is to do a cursory search to pick a tool that will solve a burning need. It’s not uncommon to hear comments like, “I wish I had known about that tool or technology sooner – we really could have used this.”
Interestingly, I’m on the other side of the coin. Being an industry analyst, I’m barraged by information about management tools of all kinds, shapes and sizes. There simply are a lot out there that can remedy a plethora of IT ills. But how do you find them? And there are also related issues that you have to figure out on your own, so how do you learn about them?
As we approach the end of the first quarter of 2005, I’m interested in finding out about the kinds of management tools or technologies you’ll be looking to investigate and buy for the remainder of this year. I may use selected topics and feedback from you, our readers, as fodder for future articles. This will be particularly true of topics that our readers seem to have a lot of interest in.
For example, are security tools of interest, such as identity management, policy management, application security, and compliance? Is the management of service-oriented architectures (SOA) something you’ll be dealing with this year? Are configuration management databases on your plate? What about automation? Or virtualization? The list goes on.
I’d also like to hear about the hot topics buzzing around in your IT organizations that you’ll be dealing with this year. For example, is IT governance a hot button you’ll have to wrestle with? Is integration of tools consuming your time? What about ITIL or Six Sigma? Or upgrading your IT organization’s level of maturity? Is your company steering toward On-Demand or Adaptive Enterprise? Or are you just trying to keep the fires down to a manageable level?
Whatever the management issues, tools or technologies you’ll be wrestling with this year, whether they’re pretty basic or bleeding-edge, please drop me a line to let me know what your interests look like. Send your ideas to mailto:rasmussen@enterprisemanagement.com with the subject line “2005 TOPICS”.
You may see your topic discussed in a future article this year. And please, no vendors – only topics submitted by ITers will be considered. Thank you in advance for those of you who will send in your ideas. I can’t wait to see the topics that you’re interested in.
