Please plan to join fellow CIO Forum members and invited guests at the meeting of the Mid-Atlantic CIO Forum on December 15, 2005. The Forum provides an environment committed to fostering excellence in business and Information Technology. It is a non-profit organization founded by CIO's for CIO's. The topic for the December meeting is Application Development.

At our mid-December meeting, our first speaker will be Rod Smith, IBM's Vice President of Emerging Technologies. He leads a team of IBM enterprise architects and application developers who evaluate rising, in-market technologies and is a recognized industry expert in advanced application development strategies and tools. Rod will address application development since the rise of the Internet, vis a vis strategic and emerging tools, strategies and their impact on IT application development functions. He will share his experiences and views on Java, j2EE, Web Services, and Open Source software, Open Standards and Open Systems-based computing environments. Rod will discuss how these technologies and standards evolved when compared with their promises and expectations; what do the notions of Social Networking, Application Wikis, and what the continued rise of the Open Source movement offer.

The second portion of the program consists of a panel of senior IT management who will share their experiences, lessons learned and discussion of challenges they have experienced or observed in current application development projects. The panel consists of Hans Keller, Chief Technology Officer of the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Mark Tognetti, Vice President, Enterprise Architecture, PHH Arval and Dennis Courtney, CIO, SM Consulting, Inc. The panel will present viewpoints from different vantage points which will provide a more kaleidoscopic discussion of application development. They will look at current innovation, strategies, experiences and challenges in web application development, in-house application development as well as outsourced development, use of current and leading edge technology, and the effects of current application development technology and movement on the application development function, on portfolio management, on development of IT resources, and application integration.

The meeting starts at 8:00 AM and is held on campus at Towson University. Brunch and lunch are provided. The meeting runs until noon, with lunch following. Pre-registration is required. Meeting logistics will be emailed to you after you register. We would love to have you participate. To register, please contact Donna Scarbrough at dscarbrough@towson.edu or 410-704-4252.

To make inquiries about this meeting or about membership in the Mid-Atlantic CIO Forum, please contact: