Implications of our ‘instant access society’ to be examined at Socitm 2008

The implications of our 'instant access society' in which customers and service providers expect information to be constantly and immediately available will be a recurring theme on the agenda for the Society of IT Management's annual conference taking place 12-14 October in Newport, South Wales.

The expectation of instant access has implications for mobile access, web 2.0 type interaction, channel management, information sharing, security, information assurance and many other issues that feature on the conference programme. 

Featured speakers in Newport include Conference Keynote Paul Sloane, best selling author, lateral thinking guru and founder of business consultancy Destination Innovation. Back by popular demand following an appearance at a previous event, he will be speaking about how innovative leaders inspire their teams and drive creativity.

Also speaking at the conference is the former Head of Accreditation at the Central Sponsor for Information Assurance (part the Cabinet Office), Harvey Mattinson, now a consultant for CESG an arm of GCHQ, with primary responsibility for risk management and IA professionalism and founder of the CCT Mark, he will be speaking about Information Assurance

Alex Butler is director of transformational strategy at the government's Central Office of Information. Being responsible for COI's interactive cluster, and consolidating core digital and contact skills she is perfectly placed to talk about Mobility and Innovation.

Donna Hall, Chief Executive at Chorley Borough Council, has a wealth of knowledge and experience to share with delegates following work across northern local authorities notably, Salford, Blackburn and Chorley. She is a member of the Communities and Local Government's National Innovation and will be speaking about the Local Government's Delivery Council of which she is also a member.

Prof. James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University will provide an overview of the future of virtual worlds and its relevance in the workplace. James has written many articles on the future of IT, and has contributed to The Economist, IT Week and spiked-online.com.  

In addition to the plenary sessions, delegates will be able to attend four out of the twelve parallel sessions. The choice will be from a wide range of highly relevant managerial or technical topics, including; customer access, service orientated architecture (SOA), business continuity, security, Web2 (e-democracy) and using geospatial information amongst others. Further information on the content of these sessions will be published on the Socitm website .

On Tuesday 14 October, delegates will be able to see presentations on the shortlisted entries in the Local Government IT Excellence Awards. The Awards are a collaborative venture between Socitm, SOLACE and Intellect, and aim to demonstrate how IT has been used effectively and innovatively to deliver best value public services.

Attendance at the conference is a qualifying activity under Socitm's CPD scheme. Delegates who attend the whole conference will gain five points and daily delegates two for each day attended, against an annual target of 20 points.

On the Monday evening of the conference, there will be a gala dinner. Major sponsors already confirmed for the conference are BeCrypt, Cam Management Solutions, IBM, Redhat, and Thunderhead. Other key sponsors are FrontRange Solutions UK Ltd and Siemens.

Full delegate bookings made before 18 July 2008 carry an 'early bird' booking discount.

Further details and online booking at www.socitm.net.

Further Information:

Vicky Sargent or Rob Adams, Socitm Press Office
Tel: 0845 094 5641 email: vicky.sargent@socitm.gov.uk or rob.adams@socitm.gov.uk