Talking Big Data & Warehouse Architectues at the CIO Forum and Executive IT Summit

I am starting this post at 31,000 ft on way home from Atlanta where I spoke at another CIO Forum and Executive IT Summit.  I also spoke at one in Seattle earlier this year.  These are well run events that are specifically for CIOs and senior IT executives.  I really enjoy hearing the exchanges among these peers who are facing many similar challenges, regardless of what their companies do.  Exchanges are often very productive  with cards exchanged for follow-on actions or continuation of the discussion.

Full disclosure: IBM sponsors this event series which will be held at 16 cities across the US and Canada in 2012.  The keynote discussion is about Big Data challenges and the new technologies for tackling them.    We also do a follow-on session on either Evolving Data Warehouse Architectures or Information Integration and Governance.    Today I was talking about the evolving architectures.. many of the points I’ve shared in my earlier posts.

Feedback has generally been positive, but even more so today, I thought.  I had discussions with IT leaders from higher education, marketing services, financial services, health care, and IT consulting services.  They all were talking about the need to evolve their environments to gain more insights from more types of information, and deliver it to business users faster.  It made me feel good about the focus we currently have with our clients.

But it also made me think that  we are not too far from having to figure out the next chapter in the story.  The only way to be among those leading the way forward, is to always be scouting ahead to see what is over the horizon.  The great thing about the computing business – at least over my career so far – is that we are never done inventing the future.

Note:  Another disclosure.. I am actually finishing and posting this a week later.   The holiday weekend with family and friends was too good, the need to connect and post this flew right out of my mind.