The First Wake-Up Call

John Johnson, Vice President and CIO, Intel, started the day by discussing his role as CIO during a difficult transformation for Intel's IT department. Years of company growth meant significant expansion in Intel's IT department-which topped 7,500 employees in 2005. January 2006 put a stop to this growth as Intel's chief competitor announced a stellar quarter-indicating that the company had finally caught up with Intel. The announcement was a wake-up call for Intel. Intel's CEO decided that Intel needed to reduce the company's spending and number of employees. Johnson led the transformation of Intel's IT department, which included the difficult tasks of releasing 2,000 employees, cutting applications and reducing infrastructure. He did not just focus on achieving greater efficiency in the short-term, but also on finding sustainable efficiency. This meant improving workflows, establishing effective IT governance and ensuring that the funding was there to support these changes. After two years of tough choices and strong leadership, Johnson produced significant savings for Intel and is now helping the IT department return to "full health".

The Second Wake-Up Call

Warren Causey, Vice President, Sierra Energy Group, took some time to review his 2008/2009 CIO report. After interviewing approximately 60 North American CIOs, Causey found that many CIOs are "dancing along the cliff". The first cliff facing CIOs is comprised of many ongoing issues in the utility industry-including aging infrastructures, aging workforces, projected electric supply shortages, environmental pressures, skyrocketing fuel costs and the global warming conundrum. At the same time, another cliff is rapidly developing with the housing market collapse, economic dislocation and the potential for a worldwide depression. This means that utilities will likely defer all, but essential expansion. However, these cliffs provide an opportunity for utilities to use IT as a way to save money and reduce costs. Even with the tough economic climate, the ongoing challenges facing the industry will require utilities to make some progress on their smart grid and intelligent utility efforts, but these will focus on the fundamentals, including AMI. 

Meetings of the Minds, Part Two

Morning roundtables enabled participants to continue the roundtable dialogue from day one and take a deeper look at the challenges and opportunities discussed throughout the conference. 

Smart grid and intelligent utility: Participants considered the smart grid and intelligent utility efforts today versus tomorrow. Today, many efforts focus on providing people with greater access to existing information through efforts like business intelligence and connecting consumers with valuable information. Participants also had their eye on the future, considering the many possibilities for utilities to better connect with and serve their consumers. For example, participants considered everything from how consumers might use information in ways no one has yet imagined-similar to the internet revolution-to how utilities could help consumers use electricity to produce fuel for hydrogen cars. 

Operations and IT: The discussion turned again to building better connections through personnel that can bridge the IT and operations groups-often called business analysts. Regardless of the person's specific title, IT groups need personnel that understand business processes to ensure successful joint projects between IT and operations. The discussion about using personnel to bridge the divide between IT and operations, also brought up a discussion about both groups "stealing" employees from one another. Participants agreed that people "being stolen" from IT should prod IT departments to ask how well they are serving the operations groups. 

The CEO and IT: Several participants acknowledged that even regular meetings between a CEO and a CIO do not mean that clear lines of authority are set or that IT is viewed strategically. For CEOs who are not engineers or IT-savvy, their concerns could be as mundane as maintaining smooth operations. CIOs who report directly to other C-level executives discussed how CEOs often make assumptions about IT's authority that is effectively undermined by the company's organization. But there is hope. Participants reported that some corporate boards or governance committees are starting to look at IT strategically and influencing the CEO's perspective.

Lunch Brought Good Food . . . and KITES

During lunch, Mike Smith, Senior Vice President, Sierra Energy Group, and Warren Causey presented the 2008 EnergyBiz KITE (Knowledge, Innovation, Technology, Excellence) Awards. The 2008 KITE Awards expand upon the "CIO of the Year" award program launched in 2006. The 2008 EnergyBiz KITE Award winners were:

• CIO of the Year — Large Utilities: Michael Carlson, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Xcel Energy, Minneapolis, Minn.
• First Runner-Up, CIO of the Year — Large Utilities: Eduardo Bresani, Chief Information Officer, Toronto Hydro, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• CIO of the Year — Small Utilities: Wanyonyi Kendrick, Chief Information Officer, JEA, Jacksonville, Fla.
• First Runner-Up, CIO of the Year — Small Utilities: David Johnson, Chief Information Officer, Chattanooga Electric Power Board, Chattanooga, Tenn.
• Business Impact — Large Utilities: Ray Bummer, Chief Risk Officer, Allegheny Energy, Greensburg, Pa.
• Technology Innovation — Large Utilities: Paul De Martini, Vice President of Advanced Technology, Southern California Edison, Los Angeles, Calif.
• Technology Innovation — Small Utilities: James Eitsert, Engineering Supervisor, Northeastern Rural Electric Membership Cooperative, Columbia City, Ind.

Last Demands for the CIO Summit

The remaining afternoon sessions focused on demand response. Art Rosenfeld, Commissioner, California Energy Commission, first provided an overview of demand response activities in California. In particular, Rosenfeld covered the three necessary components for demand response and utility modernization: AMI, dynamic tariffs and automated response technology or enabling customers to respond to price automatically. Rosenfeld then joined a panel that included:
• Darren Brady, COO, EnerNOC
• Charles Parson, Director of Demand Response, Cooper Power Systems 
• Author Vos, CTO, Comverge

The panel covered a variety of demand response topics, but agreed that a key to long-term success of demand response and the broader smart grid is to avoid "islands of technology". Standards are key-both on the equipment side and in the back office-for the broader adoption and ultimately success of demand response. 

 

Finishing off Knowledge2008

After sessions concluded, participant relaxed and enjoyed a warm Friday afternoon in Napa Valley and a golf tournament at the Chardonnay Golf Club on Saturday morning.

As participants finished out their golf games, Knowledge2009 was already in the works. Watch for details in the next few months. For any questions about the Knowledge2008 and Knowledge2009, please contact Jana Koehn.


 

Knowledge2008

October 15 - 18, 2008
Marriott Napa Valley
Hotel & Spa
Napa, California

Sponsored by:

Host Utility:

Partnered/Co-Located with
Technology Advisory
Council (TAC) to:

Produced by:

Presented by: