Technology is Our Business

This is my first attempt to live blog. I am at the CIS Technology is Our Business event. I came here because I am curious about technology, and also entertaining the idea of either majoring or minoring in CIS. The announcer just said that we will get started in three minutes. I will keep blogging about the event as it goes on.

The people that will be speaking are:

Tom Koulopoulos. "When I am talking to you, I am talking to the future". How do adults answer the question how do you picture the world? Jetsons? Blue? Opening picture from Google Earth? That map on the wall from grade school? Stuff in motion...sattelites, cell phones, internet, networks. Every one of us is a technology geek, except it is not technology to us because we grew up with it. Technology is the "stuff that comes after". We erroneously think of CIS. It is "the glue that holds this world together". CIS is the cornerstone of leadership- "that superglue" of our society. It is no longer accounting. "Pick a lense that you want to wear for the rest of your life. Don't stop looking just because you are good at it". Core competency- what puts YOU in the 99th percentile? Get a mentor. You need someone that you can trust. What will the world be like in ten years? advanced, faster, different, connected, cool, ridiculous, innovation, depends on who wins tomorrow (VOTE!), chaotic, gone. We will define what it looks like. WE WILL.
Q: If you were a CIS major today, what technical skills would you focus on?
A: Understand some of the technology at a "nuts and bolts level". Immerse ones self in the language to learn how people who work with the language think. Will be at an advantage if you understand how developers thing. Next, learn what it means to manage a project from human side and technical side. Project management is very important and indispensable skills. Some courses on innovation. Innovation can be taught and learned.
Q: What global tecjhnological innovations do you see in the near future
A: More connected. Advancements in physical telepresences. Influx in consumer robotics. Implementation of technology in the human being.

Edwin Guarin. Writer about trends, consultant, innovation. Creator of Delphi Group. Technology has expanded manyfold and will continue to expand. Self driving cars?! Capactiy to purchase items that you see on TV via touch screen. Deep zoom demonstration: incredibly high resolution, gigapixel image, so can scroll in enough to see how many people are standing on top of a tower in the picture. If like what you see, text W4 to 23000. Speech recognition demo. Even technologu has some glithces, as we saw when Guarin said "click references" and instead of selecting references, word typed "click references"
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Carol Vallone. Demographics show that over the next four years, population is aging such that older population is increasing, younger people decreasing, shortage of people lacking technical skills in the work force. Engineers with business savvy. People who are technically competent and business background will be very valuable in the work force. Business perspective + consumer perspective. Future is in

Lisa Hoffmann. Went into IT because best paying jobs. Was struggled at coding ,excelled in management courses. Programming and coding is not IT for the future. Future for IT is leadership. Was successful because of superior presentation skills. Learning experience: being responmsible for a network, watching it fail, having investors threaten her life. Was recruited out of IT into business. Became business leader for fixing Y2K. After 9/11 went into operations, got very prominenet role. Don't necessarily need to love coding, but don't be afraid of outsourcing. Start at the bottom, work your way up. Coding + Project Management are key!

Joshua Marine. Works for Fidelity, corporate finance sector. Why should we choose CIS? It provides with necesasry skills that we can implenet first day on the job. On knowing business and IT: "If you can speak both languages, you will be at an advantage at your job". When there is a large busines problem, companies look to IT to figure out how to solve the problems.

Brian Heemsoth. One of the real misconceptions is that CIS entails coding. Can be as technical or not technical. Leverage technical skills from CIS program in conjunction with business core skills to solve real problems. Bentley was foundation to keep learning. Understanding of systems is important because technology is key to the future. Even finance and marketing people need CIS background.

Question and Answer section
Q: Since men seem to dominate technology fields, do women have more opportunity to attain leadership positions?
A: Yes. Lack of women in IT, therefore they are sought out.
Q: If you could go back to college and do one thing differently, what would it be?
A: Internship opportunities. Get experience in different careers. Don't avoid courses you hate- try to make yourself as well rounded as possible. Don't pass by any opportunity that comes. Take morecommunication courses. Networking is powerful! Take a course on presentation. Soft skills vs. Hard skills. Both are extraordinarily important
Q: What major would you recommend for a CIS major
A: Finance
Q: If you want to go into Marketing, which is preferable, major in marketing, minor in CIS or vice versa
A: Major in marketing with a CIS minor is preferable if you want to be in the marketing department