My first (and certainly not last) TAGITM

My first (and certainly not last) TAGITM


I recently had the opportunity to attend the Texas Association of Governmental Information Technology Mangers (TAGITM) 2018 Annual conference in San Antonio. I have previously attended a TAGITM regional event but this was my first time attending the annual conference. Having had some time to reflect on the event my two biggest takeaways are as follows:

  • Feedback: I knew from previous experience that TAGITM integrates vendors in all of the events and education activities that occur at their conferences. This integration was critical in setting the conditions that allow for the most important thing vendors can get from customers and potential customers at these conferences… Feedback. Hearing feedback, positive and negative, from IT professionals on how they feel about the solutions your selling is invaluable; and IT pros have no problem telling you that your baby is ugly. I was able to hear from some customers I spoke with about the challenges the experienced in trying to implement Splunk as a Security Event Information Management (SEIM) system. Having taken that feedback and reexamining how I market Splunk for security use cases, I now understand the importance of Splunk’s SMB based Essentials Apps that are built to simplify implementation and can communicate this understanding to future clients.

 

  • There’s too much to do: At this conference I met IT professionals from cities and counties both large and small; some ran the IT department by themselves and others had departments as large as 40. The one thing they all had in common was they didn’t have enough manpower for everything they were called upon to accomplish; and there’s only 30 hours in a day! Cima’s managed services offerings that we can now offer through DIR contract exist to help this problem. For less than the cost of one additional FTE our Managed Services can be leveraged for Helpdesk, Backup, Security and many other areas. Our services are flexible and we have a lot of experience working with cities, counties, and independent school districts in Texas.

 

I appreciate the efforts of everyone who worked to put on this conference and am looking forward to next year!


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