Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1037
www.iltanet.org 86 Peer to Peer inside ilTA T he day started, not with a technologist, but with a lawyer. Neville Eisenberg, the managing partner of a leading London firm, spoke eloquently about what he and other lawyers expect from IT, especially in lean economic times. Neville stressed the importance of IT to business and the equal importance of IT professionals developing and honing relationship management skills, as well as other core business skills. From an economic perspective, partners certainly want their technology leaders to optimize by doing more with less and managing costs; and, of greater importance, partnerships want their technology teams to innovate by coming to them with ideas on how technology can be applied to increase productivity and efficiency. And delivering on innovation is fundamental to the credibility of the IT organization. DIVIDE AND CONQUER Following Neville's keynote address, the INSIGHT event split off into two tracks — Practical and Strategic. Many attendees wished they could split themselves up in order to attend all sessions in both tracks (I'll count myself among that group). In the first hour, attendees chose between a practical session on Open Source ("A Get Out of Jail Free Card?) and a strategic session on the future of virtualization. One attendee of the Open Source session described herself as "scribbling madly" throughout the session. It truly was practical, providing specific ideas, tips, and tricks for leveraging open source solutions today — both optimizing and innovating. The virtualization panel focused on "how we got here" on virtualization, how server virtualization has matured and become mainstream, and why storage virtualization and desktop virtualization technologies remain challenging. MORE GREAT STUFF The next hour featured perhaps the most talked about session of the day: "Walking with Partners". Sarah Mumford, both a partner and a manager at her firm, provided attendees with insight into the salient characteristics of partners and what the implications of these characteristics are for those of us who support partners day to day. The vocabulary of Red, Yellow, Blue and Green People became the lexicon for the day. on March 31, delegates and vendors from around the u.K. and ireland — plus some special guests from across the pond — gathered at the hilton london tower bridge for a full day of education and networking. the theme was optimise and innovate — a timely theme in light of the economic climate. HINDSIGHT INSIGHT INSIGHT 2009 IN by Joy Heath Rush Sidley Austin LLP