Forrester is hosting its annual IT Forum next month in Las Vegas, and I am looking forward to hearing what happens.  Despite the malaise in the economy and a general downturn in conference going over the past year, Forrester has put together an impressive event that is bound to yield some interesting results.

Some of the must hear speakers include:

Bob Moffat, senior vice president and group executive of IBM's Systems and Technology Group, will discuss how enterprises can create a dynamic infrastructure to drive efficiency now and prepare for the new economy.

Analyst Thomas Mendel from Forrester will be discussing theories in how the tech sector will change as we emerge from the recession.  Mendel believes that IT spending is to begin rebounding late this year. But the tech sector will have permanently changed, thanks to IT spending being more embedded in business cycles and thanks to consumer behavior affecting a larger share of enterprise IT decisions. Furthermore, the determinants of vendors’ value and differentiation will steadily move up the IT stack, to become based more on business process and vertical capabilities. These changes will affect the structure of the tech sector and reshape vendor-buyer relationships.

Several case studies should be very enlightening including:

Dana Deasy, CIO of BP, is presenting a study of how organizations can use the challenging economic environment to reinvent the role of IT within their organization. He will share his own experiences at BP, transforming the IT organization and how he is using the current business climate to further challenge boundaries.

We will also hear from David Barnes, the CIO of UPS.  Barnes has a contrarian perspective on IT.  He claims that UPS does not have a technology strategy — it has a business strategy for which technology is the enabler.   During the presentation, David intends to cover how IT decision making works at UPS, and how their #1 priority is to grow revenue.

One of the other key reasons I enjoy attending the IT Forum is for the networking and access to the Forrester analyst community.  There are ample opportunities to sit down one on one with the key analysts for each area of IT focus, and talk to them about their perspectives, what they are seeing in the marketplace, and what they expect in the year ahead.  Additionally, the evening networking events are great tools for shopping ideas as well as resumes.

I hope you are headed to Vegas next month for this event.  Whatever you do, be sure to share it with the Architecture & Governance community.