Happy New Year from the AITP Board and new 2011 officers! I will be the 2011 ATIP Honolulu Chapter President and look forward to serving the AITP community along with the board to bring you informative and valuable monthly luncheons, periodic workshops and most important a sense of community with the IT ranks in Hawaii.

Being with IBM, my passion is technology but we have seen the influence of technology reach every part of the business and our daily lives. That said I think IT professionals have a critical need to take time to understand how their role impacts and interfaces with the business.

In 2011, AITP Honolulu will help bring focus to this idea, the Business of IT, by having IT sessions in every major industry throughout the year. We think this strategy will bring the best speakers to you as members versus just focusing on what new thing may be on the table.

Also this year we want to welcome the addition of the AITP University of Hawaii student chapter led by the ITMA club at Shidler College. We are ironing out a few more details but formalizing our connection to the next generation of IT leaders is something we hope each and every one of you will be able to benefit from.

Lastly, I want to ask for your help to give the board and me your feedback on how we can help you and the IT community in Hawaii make steps towards a stronger tomorrow. Catch us at the monthly luncheons or send me an email at ssakata@us.ibm.com

2011 will be an exciting and challenging year as we emerge from the downturn as we continue to experience challenges in government budgets at the County, State and now Federal level with earmarks for 2011 vaporizing. Lets pull together and leverage IT for a stronger Hawaii.

Aloha, Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

Happy New Year. It's hard to believe 2012 is already here. We have an exciting year planned for AITP Honolulu with a new slate of officers.  I'd like to introduce them, Vice President, Matt Darnell, ComTel Hawaii; Secretary, Art Garbiso, Hawaiian Tel; Treasurer, Debi Merwick, Bishop & Company.  Thanks to Steve Sakata our Past President for all his leadership efforts in 2011.

For a complete listing of our chapter leaders, please go to http://www.aitphonolulu.org/chapter-leaders  If you are interested in serving on a committee, becoming a board member, or have any suggestions on how AITP Honolulu can better serve the IT community, please contact me at jbloom@synergyonline.com
The Board looks forward to making 2012 a great year for IT in Hawaii.  Stay tuned for more details.

Aloha,
Jeff Bloom
2012 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

2011 is drawing to a close and we all have experiencedunprecedented events and changes in Hawaii. Please join us for our last meeting of 2011 to hear from Dan Leuck,network and installation of our new officers. Jeff Bloom will be taking over as President and he brings a great set ofideas and skills to lead AITP in 2012. We have a great board assisting Jeff and room for additional membersthat wish to join the board.

Aloha and Thank you for a great 2011,

Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

Aloha as we ride out APEC, AITP will have our year end events starting with a Cyber-Insurance and Risk session on November 17th.  Also that night we have our Professional Interaction Night, a chance to meet graduating students.  In December we will have the Technology Conference and our last meeting on December 15th which will be a holiday and networking get together.  Have a great November and the start of our holiday season.

Aloha,
Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

We are in the home stretch for 2011 and we had a great session on banking and credit unions in September. AITP and HTCA are joining forces for October and asking our members to attend the HTCA luncheon session where Anton Krucky, President and CEO of Tissue Genesis will discuss his high-tech journey as an entrepreneur, investor and leader in the bio-technology industry.  You may also join their mixer later that evening.


Aloha,
Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

With low central bank interest rates plus a captive market in Hawaii many banks and credit unions are challenged with offering the latest in services and technology across a very competitive customer base.

This month's Event will discuss the competitive landscape in Hawaii with many banks and credit unions vying for a share of your wallet.  What role does technology as a strategic tool and lever for efficiency and scale. Join us for this informative session.

Aloha,
Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

It's August and we are one month into the second half of 2011.  I will be absent for the August meeting as I serve on a corporate service project in Providence, Rhode Island (see http://smartercitieschallenge.org).  One of the main focus areas for Providence, RI is economic and workforce development and I am learning the similarities between Rhode Island and Hawaii.  Both states have coastal water borders, relatively small in size and ever increasing need for diversification.

AITP's August panel will be on Research in Hawaii:  The Best of Times, the Worst of Times.  Our panelist will be Dr. David Curb from UH Medical School, Dr. Ken Cheung from Oceanit and Keith Matsumoto from Hawaii Technology Development Venture.  Jeff Bloom will moderate the panel and we will explore what is working in Hawaii research and the challenges.  There are many states that enjoy research clusters built around Internet2, academia and industry (Life Sciences, Healthcare, Defense).  AITP and the IT community would like to understand and see research in Hawaii grow in the future and take advantage of our diversity in the sciences; Astronomy, Energy, Ocean Marine, Agriculture, Life Sciences and Defense.  Join us for this important and insightful panel in August.

You may follow my service project at http://sccpvd.blogspot.com though I may have
more pictures than words to share.

Aloha,
Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

Welcome to July! As we celebrate the 4th and the freedoms we have in America we have the perfect month lined up for AITP members and the IT community.  This month we have a handful of events that we are promoting and they are all No-Charge (FREE).  Please click on our Upcoming Events tab and check out the IT Management event on July 20th in conjunction with Hawaii Pacific University and three software development events one with Valtech on a free Agile lunch & learn on July 13th and don't forget to sign up for Thirsty Third Thursdays with Henk Rogers and HTDC on July 21.  So everyone enjoy your FREEdom July and please plan on attending our Research & Development session in August; R&D "The Best of Times, The Worst of Times" a panel moderated by Jeff Bloom.  

 

Also included in this month's events listing is Valtech's Agile Essential Training which will be heavily discounted to AITP Members. Be sure to check it out!

 

Aloha,
Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

Aloha, this month we decided to focus on mobile and social tools for organizations and the enterprise. Facebook is near 700 million members and Twitter is almost a mission critical application for businesses and individuals. Even with this proliferation there is still many questions about what is to come and how best organizations, businesses and even non-profits utilize mobile and social tools in a productive and meaningful way. Please come to this month's luncheon to hear from our panelist with some progress as well as their insights to this challenge.

Aloha,

Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

In May we will have our first workshop of the year focusing on IP telephony.  The session is cosponsored by Comtel and Shoretel and will focus on trends and developments in IP telephony.  There are multiple delivery models with hosted cloud or on premises and social impacts like video, chat and websharing.  Voice is also being extended to the mobile environment and with all these capabilities how to you manage complexity.

Please join us for this workshop to sharpen your knowledge and network with colleagues in our technology community.

Aloha,
Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President 

Has your organization or client started or finished their virtualization project? April's luncheon will focus on "Virtualization; Lessons Learned" The panel will share their experiences with their virtualization project and lessons learned. This is a great opportunity to learn about virtualization and where other organizations are in their journey. The timing is right for this panel because advances in processor technology and new hypervisor efficiencies and licensing costs are changing. Those that have implemented virtualization also have found that its not just about servers and VMs its about networking and storage as well. Please join us for this informative panel.

Aloha, Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

Aloha, Thank You to our members and guests that attended February's luncheon on the Hawaii Healthcare Information Exchange. In March we have Mike Andress from Honeywell speaking to us about building, facilities and energy efficiency. This is a hot topic area since Hawaii's high cost of energy accelerates both costs and savings if you do nothing or if you implement a energy savings strategy. These systems also ride on modern IP networks and many businesses and enterprises are considering consolidating their facilities and enterprises on a shared infrastructure. The energy efficient building and facility is also a smart building and facility and we are headed to the era of Smarter everything. Please join us for this informative luncheon.

I also wanted to point out the launch of our social networking badges on the left side of this page you can link to AITP with Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. I would encourage you to try them out. We would like these social networks to help bring us closer together as an IT community and feel free to ask a question, post a job need or anything you think the AITP community can help you with.

Aloha,
Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

Aloha, Thank you to everyone who joined us for our January luncheon with State Comptroller, Bruce Coppa. This month our industry focus is Healthcare and we will be hearing from the Hawaii Health Information Exchange. One of my clients told me that healthcare is the Olympics of IT and I fully agree with this point of view. The criticality, complexity and importance of healthcare pushes and leverages IT unlike any other industry. However, the money and the costs in healthcare are pushing the industry into uncharted territory. I urge our AITP community to attend the AITP February luncheon to learn about what HHIE is doing in Hawaii and the impact across the nation as they strive for a shared agenda in healthcare. Healthcare and the cost will affect all of us including our business and companies and is projected to be one of the toughest challenges in this generation. We look forward to seeing all of you for this important and informative gathering.

Aloha, Steven Sakata
2011 AITP Honolulu Chapter President

Wow this year has flown by! Can you believe that we're already in the last month of the year?  It has been an interesting year for me as President as I worked with the chapter's Board of Directors to strategically realign our chapter with the greater needs of our Hawaii IT community.  This is just the beginning of a lot of changes that you will see more of as we move into 2011.

A large part of the changes has been to increase our outreach and communication with both our Chapter members and the Hawaii IT community at-large.  The revival of the Aloha Gram in electronic format, plus the update and relaunching of our chapter web site at: www.aitphonolulu.org were two major initiatives that I wanted to make sure happened this year.

Additionally, thanks to the efforts of several board members, we have renewed our relationship with the University of Hawaii Shidler School of Business, getting back in touch with both their academic program and converting their ITMA (MIS) Club to an AITP Student Chapter.  Please join us for the Dec 9 event in which we will be providing "speed mentoring" to the students in a fun and interactive event.

Next year, I will be moving on to AITP's national board as one of the Western District Directors and helping to bring additional programs to all of our chapters and members. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to serve, and I look forward to seeing all of you at future AITP events!

Aloha,

Donny C. Shimamoto, CPA.CITP

2010 Honolulu Chapter President

2011-2012 Western District Director Elect

Welcome to the new AITP Honolulu Web site!  Sorry that we have been a little disconnected this year, but your 2010 Board of Directors has been working hard to realign our Chapter programs with several AITP national initiatives underway. 

The revival of the Aloha Gram was one of our first steps to help keep you informed about what is going on in the IT community both here in Hawaii and around the nation.  We're continuing this with the relaunch of the Web site. 

Stay tuned as we transform our Chapter into THE association for IT Business Professionals in Hawaii.  If you have any questions or concerns about our Chapter or would like to get more involved, please e-mail me at president@aitphawaii.org.

Yours truly,

Donny C. Shimamoto, CPA.CITP

2010 Honolulu Chapter President
2011-2012 Western District Director Elect

Sorry that we have been out-of-touch this year.  Your 2010 Board of Directors has been working hard to realign our Chapter programs with several AITP national initiatives underway.  The revival of the Aloha Gram is one of our first steps to help keep you informed about what is going on in the IT community both here in Hawaii and around the nation.  Stay tuned as we transform our Chapter into THE association for IT Business Professionals in Hawaii.

If you have any questions or concerns about our Chapter or would like to get more involved, please e-mail me at president@aitphawaii.org.

More information to come in future issues...

Yours truly,

Donny C. Shimamoto, CPA.CITP

2010 Honolulu Chapter President