Latest Update
Volume II Issue II - July 2009
Center Structure and Governance Aligned with New Strategic Goals
The Center's roles as a system agent, partner broker/consolidator, and an independent producer have been formalized with the establishment of three Strategic Leadership Teams and an alumni Board of Advisors. As shown in the chart below, the Center has five main focus areas/strategic goals:
Although each strategy focuses on a different audience and area, the overall vision embraces the interrelated efforts of them all. The Center invites you to participate on a Strategic Leadership Team.
Contacts are: for strategy 1 (education to business needs alignment), Bruce Lindberg; strategy 2 (grade 9-14 student outreach & IT awareness), Kate Southwick; strategy 3 (initial job success/career development): alumni outreach, Sharon Boerbon Hanson; college student: Kate Southwick; strategy 4 (continuing professional development and security programs), Mary Texer. See Projects & Programs for information on strategy area 5.
To better align the Center for Strategic IT & Security's name with our mission, the Center is conducting a branding exercise, expected to be finalized in fall, 2009.
Strategic Leadership Teams & IT Alumni Board
The "MnITcareers" Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) works on implementing programs and projects that increase interest in, and awareness of IT careers for high school and college students. The team comprises students, instructors, and career counselors from secondary education, post secondary education as well as IT professionals.
Members reviewed results of their online survey and ranked the strategies for pursuing their goals. They are identifying their "stop/start/continue" ratings of projects using the GPS approach: Goals + Planning = Success.
The IT Industry Strategic Leadership Team-primarily IT industry leaders-provides insight and advice to the Center on ways to meet strategy 4 through developing and providing products that enhance individual career and organizational success in IT. A strategic business plan that will guide future efforts is under development.
The Education to Employment Alignment Strategic Leadership Team formed to address strategy 1. After an initial meeting to establish their business model, members launched a research survey to ascertain the best methods to meet their goals. Your ideas, thoughts, and voice can be part of this important initiative by completing the online survey.
The Center is collaborating with alumni and foundation directors serving Twin Cities-area MnSCU colleges on how to best serve their alumni within the Twin Cities IT Alumni Association (strategy 3). An alumni Board of Advisors serves as the strategy team for this initiative. Their first workshop "Interviewing Presence for IT Professionals" will be held Weds., 23 September, at MCTC Whitney Hall Library 3000 at 6:30 PM.
Are you a MnSCU school alumni? Register to attend the free workshop.
Industry Initiatives
Mary Texer, director of IT Industry relations, has been focusing her energies on partnering with the Center's members to develop opportunities for technology professionals to grow their skills to meet both current and future challenges.
Materials are being finalized for the IT Leadership Academy. This 5-1/2 day classroom experience is designed to move the thinking of new IT leaders and high potential candidates from tactical to strategic; from a project orientation to an overall business orientation. A pilot session will be held in the late fall with a full rollout to follow.
Security expert Gunnar Peterson, principal consultant with Arctec Consulting Group, taught three very successful sessions of a two-day class, "Fundamentals of Secure Application Coding." Additional classes will be taught this fall, as well as new classes addressing advanced topics. If you would like notification of the scheduling, contact the Center.
Leadership
Bruce Lindberg, executive director, facilitated the first annual Minnesota CISO Executive Summit, an invitation-only event held in conjunction with the Secure 360 2009 Conference, which the Center co-sponsored.
Bruce is pulling together members of the higher education community to discuss creating the Minnesota Higher Education Consortium. The organizations goals would include discovering and creating ways to lower the cost and raise the quality of technology for public and non-profit organizations.
Thank YOU Presentation
As a thank you for all the support and effort given to the Center by its business associates and volunteers, we will be inviting all supporters to a complimentary August 19 presentation on the "why, how and what of social media." Social media is the buzzword du jour. But what does it mean? Beyond all of the hype, how can seasoned professionals use these tools to connect with clients and sell the cause? The Geek Girls (left), , will give an overview of the social media sphere and discuss how to integrate social media into a marketing strategy. They'll also walk through real-world examples of businesses, people, and organizations finding value with these tools. Be sure to SAVE the DATE on your calendar now. Invitations will arrive in your inbox soon.
Student Relations
This past spring, Kate Southwick, director of student relations and partner collaboration, along with a team of representatives from the Center, engaged approximately 125 students with an interest in IT at Washburn, South, and Alternative Schools in Minneapolis during career fairs. Hands-on interaction generated much interest as students identified computer components and discussed IT careers and educational pathways.
The Center collaborated again this summer with Upward Bound to connect Arlington high school students with IT professionals at Beckman Coulter, a bio-medical technologies manufacturing company. Fifty students toured the Chaska facilities on July 8 and participated in job shadowing, touring the systems integration lab and IT department, and hands-on activities with software validation and development.
On June 17, Minneapolis high school students came to MCTC to learn computer security during the MCTC Summer Windows on the World (WOW) program. The students participated in a two week long "Career and College Experience" with various activities in five different career fields. Firasat Khan, the Center's security project manager, taught students the importance of being knowledgeable computer and Internet users through the "S.H.I.E.L.D." program. Through the S.H.I.E.L.D. components (Security Smarts, Hardening Hardware, Internet Interactions, Electronic Ethics, Layered Lockdown, and Digital Defense), students learned about encryption, secure passwords, detecting phishing email, and components of setting up a secure network.
Our student web site, MnITcareers.org, is more useful and user friendly and has evolved into a gateway to discussions and information on all aspects of IT careers and education. A series of user tests with a diverse group of students led to the restructure of the MnITcareers site. New content will be added during August, so the site will be ready for students returning to school in the fall.
A new benefit to students engaged with the Center is the creation of the IT Student E-bulletin. The Center began sending the E-bulletin periodically during the spring to keep IT students apprised of current and upcoming job search and IT career networking events, scholarships, IT news, and career and job search tips. All students have the opportunity to receive this bulletin simply by contacting Kate Southwick.
Communications
Sharon Boerbon Hanson, associate executive director, is completing "101 Ways to Dead-end Your IT Job," a somewhat tongue-in-cheek booklet dealing with social skills (or the lack of) that can shape an IT professional's career for the better (or worse).
StrategicIT.org has undergone a restructuring. The site now focuses on the Center's governance and operational models, and serves as a springboard to our strategy-focused Web sites. MnITcareers.org, for students and alumni will be joined soon by Web sites dedicated to Industry and Alignment efforts.
Security
Firasat Khan, security project manager, led the initiative for the MnSCU Information Security Training Program for campus technical staff that is now live with multiple e-learning courses available to IT staffers across the system. There are 24 courses in various stages of planning, development, and delivery. Non-technical staff and employees can request access to these courses through the chief information officers at their institutions. More information is available at http://its.mnscu.edu/security/. This site also presents information about the encryption training offered through the Center to IT employees in MnSCU and employees of the State of Minnesota Office of Enterprise Technology (OET).
The Center is also planning to develop a comprehensive suite of services for private businesses and educational institutions. The Center has built and launched an IT Knowledgebase that currently has information to support implementation of encryption tools. This is expected to expand into other IT areas. The knowledgebase is available at http://www.strategicit.org/kb/
For more information on these trainings and for registration information, visit www.strategicit.org/encryptiontraining.shtml
Secure360 2009 Conference
The Center played a major role in planning, implementation, and web support for the spring 2009 conference, "Full Circle of Security Preparedness." The Center's efforts helped make this year's conference the most successful event ever in both attendance and sponsor participation.
MAPP Career Choice Assessment
This assessment, scheduled to be online in August, will help students determine which IT career is most suitable for them by indicating how their talents and preferences fit a variety of IT jobs. Twenty-five IT careers (as defined and described in O*NET) will be ranked according to the motivations and personal interests indicated by the student's responses to survey questions. Student's receive a unique password (available through Kate) to get started with their individualized assessment.
2009 MHTA Conference
The 2009 conference had the largest attendance ever with almost 1000 participants, some of whom came through Center-sponsored scholarships for professionals-in-transition. Owing to Center input, MHTA hosted Sylvia Ann Hewlett (left), economist and founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy as a keynote speaker and in addition, a breakout session focused on retaining women in science and technology careers. In her Keynote, Hewlett spoke about how Minnesota can meet workforce goals through stopping the exodus of women in science and technology. At the break out session a panel of women from Medtronic, Adventium Labs, General Mills and 3M discussed policies and practices their companies employ to retain women.
Minnesota IT Workforce Collaborative
The Minnesota IT Workforce Collaborative is a voluntary network of people from business, professional associations, education, non-profit and governmental agencies who work together within the auspices of one of three taskforces or on a project team, to increase the capabilities and number of IT professionals working in Minnesota.
The invitation to join the Minnesota IT Workforce Collaborative remains open to all who would like a role in making a difference to Minnesota's economic future. Contact the Center at strategic.it@metrostate.edu.
The Demand Taskforce has been conducting a survey of IT professionals with the goals to establish current and future skill needs as well as relay the importance of certain experience and knowledge in the hiring process. The information gathered through this survey will be used in the effort to better align learner experience and academic training with business needs.
Other Demand taskforce projects include researching certification programs and aligning those to IT "roles and responsibilities" (job specifications) within Twin Cities-area businesses, researching higher education institutions and the IT programs available, and discerning the number and level of degrees granted yearly from higher education institutions. The taskforce has set a main goal to become a resource for agencies and individuals when they research a career in the IT field.
The Supply Taskforce is researching the latest available data concerning degrees awarded in IT fields in MnSCU, private, U of M, and for-profit institutions to discern those producing the majority of IT graduates to set a baseline for later effectiveness comparisons.
The Transitional Workers Taskforce has sent a survey to transitional worker counselors with a goal to provide information that will inform their key milestones: To establish and improve communications with the HR and hiring managers on skills needed for the position; help workers in transition obtain skills; help find and fill job openings.
The High School Outreach Project, "Discovering IT," headed by Grant Ecker of General Mills, has been updated to a more universal presentation. A line up of Twin Cities' businesses have committed to engaging with the presentation this fall.
Updates
Left to right, back row: Geoffrey Hankerson, Web developer; Bruce Lindberg, executive director; Firasat Khan security project manager; Nicholas Bawek, student worker; Altamish Osman, student worker; front Mary E. Texer, director IT industry relations; Ama Anika, office manager; Kate Southwick, director student relations, partner collaboration; Sharon Boerbon Hanson, associate executive director, marketing & operation;
Ama Anika, office manager, recently added certification in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access software to her list of skills and abilities.
Geoffrey Hankerson, chief web developer, has initiated a content management system for all Center Web sites, making the process of updating easier and quicker. The upgrade also allows new functionality such as discussion boards and BLOGs. Geoff was instrumental in producing the Secure360 Conference Web site.
In June, the Center welcomed new student worker, Altamish Osman, a Metropolitan State University student. Altamish currently is enrolled in the Computer Science program and will transition to Computer Information Systems in the fall. He and current student worker Nicholas Bawek will work on a number of security, student outreach, web development, and industry relations projects, as well as assume numerous other duties.
Darren Dannen, chief security officer, safely home from serving in Afghanistan, accepted a position as CTO with University of Minnesota Physicians, a nonprofit clinic group. The entire Center staff wishes him the best success in his new job.
Advance IT Minnesota is a member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and managed by Metropolitan State University, equal opportunity employers and educators. © 2009, all rights reserved.
