IT 360 Convention in Toronto, personal impressions

Thanks to Communitech of Waterloo, I got a free pass to the IT 360 Convention in Toronto.

It was well-attended, although I sensed that maybe there were fewer people and fewer displays at the Trade Show than last year.

I attended one free lecture by presenter talking about how costs can be cut in IT without damaging the company's position for recovery when the economy improves.

One major cost-cutting suggestion was to review all contracts and contractual relationships with suppliers to determine if what was being supplied met the actual needs of the company or were not exactly what the company required.  The speaker believed that there were substantial cost savings here.

The trade show featured many of the same vendors as last year, but this year I noted with interest an anti-spam email service and a Bangladeshi software development company.  I did not recall these two trade show tables from last year.

My review of the paid seminar lists left me with the impression that there was a lot of IT security being sold, but social networking, and cheaper telephony factored large as well.

Many people were on their cell phones talking to clients about solving their IT problems which kept in focus that fact that no matter how much we talk about IT, it's most important role is to solve business problems.

The event was well-organized and I highly recommend it for its excellent networking opportunities.

The Society of Internet Professionals was there and I was advised that membership in this organization is free through the group's website at http://www.sipgroup.org/.

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