Wisconsin Technology News

What's IT worth? Northwestern Mutual Life CIO knows
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CIO Tim Schaefer thinks words do matter. He looked at the words IT used inside Northwestern Mutual Life, and felt they sent exactly the wrong message about IT's role in meeting business goals. So, over the last 18 months, these words are out: IT costs, internal customers, IT leaders, Alignment, IT systems, and "IT and the business." In are these: IT investments, external customers, business leaders, integration, service levels, IT assets, and "our business."

Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls
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Instant ads set the pace on the web
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Guest Column: Business and IT file for divorce
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Mark McDonald, a group vice president at Gartner, gave an amusing and provocative presentation at Fusion, a CEO/CIO forum in Madison, Wisc. on Wednesday. Just the idea of bringing together CEOs and CIOs in one place for two days is interesting in itself, and the conference drew a bunch of big name sponsors to the Fluno conference center near the University of Wisconsin business school.

IT companies optimistic towards growth, hiring prospects
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Robert Half released their latest survey of Chief Information Officers which found most where optimistic towards growth and hiring that gave insight into the IT environment. The IT Hiring Index indicated 9 per cent plan to add full-time information technology employees during the second quarter, the highest forecast since the second quarter of 2009.

NY set to replace IT consultants with state workers
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New York State has embarked on a plan to shift a number of jobs filled by IT contractors and consultants to the state payroll as part of an effort to save millions of dollars. As many as 500 new state IT jobs may be created under a new in-sourcing program that was recently approved by the legislature and backed by Gov. David Patterson.

CIO Executive Edge: Business and IT file for divorce citing irreconcilable differences
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The headline highlights an old and ongoing argument within IT that assumes that the business is perpetually disappointed by IT and that IT is consistently undervalued in the enterprise. While the argument is an old one, the basic assumption for more than 30 years as the business and IT needed each other and therefore they would find a way to make it work.

Phishing scam targets UW e-mail accounts
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How CEOs See Cloud Computing
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Google Maps adds biking routes for the intrepid cyclist
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After a long wait and more than 50,000 signatures on an online petition, cyclists will be happy to know that Google has finally added bicycle routes to Google Maps. In Google Maps, users can now find "Bicycling" in the tool's "Get Directions" drop-down box. After choosing the option, bikers can input two addresses and find the bike route that will get them to their desired destination.