Highlights from CHIME’s 2004 Spring CIO Forum
Challenge, Insight, and Opportunity

CHIME’s first major networking and educational event of the year, the 2004 Spring CIO Forum, was a resounding success! 370 attendees gathered at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL to enjoy CHIME’s unique brand of networking and education. Thanks to all attendees for making this one of our most successful Forums ever. For those of you unable to attend, a summary of highlights follows:

On Saturday, golfers played the course at the MetroWest Golf Club. MetroWest, voted the number one Orlando golf course by the readers of Orlando Magazine, provided a relaxing background for attendees to relax and reconnect. Saturday wrapped up with a welcoming reception for all attendees at Orlando’s Rosen Centre Hotel.

Sunday began with keynote speaker Uwe Reinhardt, Ph.D. Dr. Reinhardt examined the current state of the US healthcare delivery system, declaring these turbulent times “the decade of IT.” He presented a possible model for what healthcare may look like in the future, in which ability to pay is directly proportional to quality of care. In this model, which he termed the “age of the consumer,” healthcare will be but another consumer good. He described the potential effects this system would have on the IT industry and the potential challenges and opportunities this would present to current and future healthcare CIOs.

eBay VP and Chief Information Security Officer Howard Schmidt followed with a presentation on the critical issue of security in today’s rapidly changing world. He reviewed the trend toward developing formal security guidelines and rules of interaction. He said that organizations should recognize that people, processes, and technologies are not solutions unto themselves; instead, organizations should view them as equal players in the security landscape. He focused on the importance of centralized policy management and warned against the steadily increasing threat of workers accessing company servers through home access and remote devices.

Following a networking luncheon, Alden Solovy of Most Wired Magazine moderated a joint presentation by CEO/CIO team of Dennis Barry and John Jenkins of Moses Cone Health System entitled “CEO/CIO Synergy for Organizational Success”. CEO Dennis Barry spoke about the critical business need for IT and the importance of CEO recognition and support of IT initiatives. He said CEOs must recognize IT as a strategic asset that should be aligned with overall organizational strategy, resulting in increased productivity and decreased costs. He related some frustrations he’s experienced with IT as a CEO, including the need for better software, underutilization of costly systems, more effective implementation and training, and vendor problems – but stressed that the way to handle these issues is with increased communication and collaboration. CIO John Jenkins followed with some of his own observations on the subject. He related that part of the key to their success as a team is frequent formal and informal communication that results in a universal understanding of direction and goals. While admitting there is no silver bullet solution, both said that mutual respect, awareness, communication, and working toward a common goal are the main ingredients in a successful relationship.

The day came to a close with a dynamic presentation by Charles Dwyer, Ph.D. In “Achieving Organizational Power Through the Art of Human Influence,” Dr. Dwyer provided a fresh view of how individual human behavior can affect organizational dynamics. Dr. Dwyer maintains that humans attempt to influence others from the moment of their birth. As we age, however, it becomes more costly and more risky to influence people because it can potentially compromise our safety and likeability. As leaders, CIOs must effectively work with and influence everyone from subordinates to peers to superiors. According to Dr. Dwyer, the three keys to successfully influencing people are 1) asking for help, 2) giving recognition, praise, and thanks, and 3) taking 100% responsibility for every communication breakdown. He also related that while most people believe that behavior is a group phenomenon, it is actually an individual one; therefore, since groups are merely a series of individuals, behavior must be influenced on the individual level.

The annual Spring Forum raffle was held immediately following the Forum. Our congratulations to the following raffle winners:

A Panasonic SV-AV30 Multi-Function Digital Recorder/Player (sponsored by CTG):
Richard Berran, Director – IS at Fremont Area Medical Center in Fremont, NE

A Tablet PC (sponsored by Motion Computing):
Mark Andersen, Senior VP & CIO at Yale New Haven Health System in New Haven, CT

A 20” LCD Television (sponsored by CHIME):
Steve Riney, VP & CIO at WakeMed in Raleigh, NC

Thanks to all who attended for making this Forum another outstanding CHIME event. We look forward to seeing you at the Fall CIO Forum in October!

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