Feng Shui and the Yin & Yang of biz....

BANGALORE: Day two of the CIOL C-Change India CIO forum saw around 90 CIOs from across the country getting together for a day of gyan, technology sessions, networking and of course recharging their batteries at the Golden Palm Hotel and Spa in Bangalore. The morning kicked off with perspectives on CIO concerns and IT spending, from CyberMedia's editorial duo-Shyam Malhotra-editor-in-chief and Prasanto Kumar Roy, chief editor, Dataquest.

In his presentation, Malhotra urged CIOs to make use of IT tools like business intelligence, which can help add value to business. "From the traditional view of using IT to on costs, IT can be used as a business driver." He opined that business integration could happen effectively if business heads play a role in monitoring technology implementation.

This was followed by sessions on 'Computing in the future' by Girish Vasudevan, General Manager, IBM and 'Innovating storage', by BS Teh, MD, APAC, Seagate and a business strategy session on how a CIO can play a role as a business strategist.

The importance of disaster recovery and its role in ensuring business continuity was emphasized in a presentation by Pronish Prakash Jain, manager, business resilience and continuity services, IBM. This was followed by a panel discussion on the topic. Most of the CIOs agreed that DR needed to be viewed holistically with the management sharing responsibility along with the IT division.

The sessions and panel discussions on Linux in the Enterprise and Information security saw a lot of interaction and debate.

When the sessions ended, it was time for cocktails and entertainment. The mood was set for an Oriental evening complete with talks on feng shui, some astounding demonstrations of mind reading by Nakul Shenoy, spectacular Kalaripayattu dances, a tarot cum parrot astrologer and dancing. Spirits were high and if one thought CIOs were a serious lot, the myth was broken on January 28th at the Golden Spa Resort.