jan-feb 2019 edition volume 17 • number 1 - technology first · technology trends. below, please...

JAN-FEB 2019 Edition VOLUME 17 • NUMBER 1

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Technology First | JAN-FEB 2019

David Cearley, Vice President and Gartner Fellow was our Lunch Keynote at The Taste of IT and spoke about the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends. Below, please find the:

Gartner Top 10 Technology Trends for 2019.Artificial intelligence (AI) is a megatrend that the industry will continue to talk about for the next 20 years. So said Brian Burke, Chief of Research at Gartner, who presented the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019 on day three of the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Cape Town.

Burke said technology is continuing to advance. It is these advancements that underpin Gartner's "Continuous Next" operating philosophy. "AI is going to underlie pretty much everything that we do in technology." Every year, Gartner puts together a list of what it considers to be the most impactful technology trends for organizations. The trends outlook is categorized into three main areas: intelligent, digital and mesh.

The intelligent category talks to how technology is becoming more insightful and increasingly aware of the context. On the digital

scale, the focus is on how technology is spanning the physical and digital world where it is becoming more immersive. Mesh consists of underlying technologies that enable intelligent and digital areas.

According to Burke, the strategic trends report lists the emerging technologies that have the potential to be the most disruptive over the next five years, which organizations cannot ignore.

1. Autonomous Things

Gartner believes that by the year 2021, 10% of new vehicles will have autonomous driving capabilities, up from 1% in 2017. Major automobile manufacturers are all predicting they will reach level four autonomous driving by 2021, said Burke. "Level four autonomy basically means the car is driving itself."

2. Augmented Analytics

The prediction is that through 2020, the number of citizen data scientists will grow five times faster than the number of expert data scientists, he noted. "We are moving towards augmented analytics where AI will assist a variety of things."

3. AI-driven Development

Gartner expects that by 2022, at least 40% of new application development projects will have artificial intelligence co-developers on their teams.

4. Digital Twin

The research firm describes the digital twin as a digital representation of a physical object. By 2021, stated Burke, half of large industrial companies will use digital twins, giving 10% improvement and effectiveness. "Digital twins are going to be a big deal."

5. Empowered Edge

Storage, computing and advanced AI and analytics capabilities will expand capabilities of edge devices through 2028, reveals Gartner.

6. Immersive Experience

Number six on Gartner's strategic technology trends list is the immersive experience. Burke stated that 70% of enterprises will be experimenting with immersive technologies for consumer and enterprise use by 2022. However, only 25% will have been deployed to production.

LEADERSHIP

Predictive, Futuristic, Upcoming Trends for 2019 By: Jim Bradley, VP of IT, Tecomet

(continued on page 3)

2 Predictive, Futuristic, Upcoming Trends for 2019

4 Your Robot Coworker – The Rise of Everyday AI & Automation

5 Upcoming Events

6 Cyber Security and your Business Impact Analysis, Understanding RPO and RTO in Disaster Recovery

7 OISC 2019 - Breakout Sessions

8 Autonomous Swarms: The Power of Group Robotics on the Blockchain

10 Financial Services 2018: The Battle for Experience

12 Welcome To Our Newest Board Members!

14 Uber / Lyft Risks for Your Company and Employees

16 Event Spotlight

18 Technology First Board of Directors

19 Creating a Community

20 2019 Events

CONTENTS

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7. Blockchain

According to Gartner, Blockchain will create $3.1 trillion in business value by 2030.

8. Privacy and Ethics

By 2021, organizations that bought compliance risk protection and are caught lacking in privacy protection will pay 100% more in compliance costs than best-practice-adhering competitors.

9. Smart Spaces

Gartner defines smart spaces as physical or digital environments populated by humans and enabled by technology, which are increasingly connected, intelligent and autonomous.

10. Quantum Computing

Burke told the audience that by 2023, Gartner predicts 20% of organizations will be budgeting for quantum computing projects compared to less than 1% today.

Additionally, we also now include the Info-Tech CIO Trend Report with a good amount of overlap.

• User-Facing AI

Communication barriers between humans and machines are coming down. Businesses can leverage this emerging connection to automate basic customer service tasks, improving experiences for customers and users alike.

• Robotics

Increasing robotic sophistication is allowing machines to work with humans, but not replace them. Emerging opportunities to augment human performance means businesses can use technology to make the most of their human capital.

• Digital Twin

The boom of IoT and Industry 4.0 has created an abundance of data. So much so that an entire system can be characterized, and the collected data used to create a real-time, living model – its digital twin. The opportunities for decentralized monitoring and predictive analytics are truly extraordinary.

• Blockchain 2.0

The blockchain has outgrown bitcoin. Innovations are being developed to tailor distributed ledger technology to specific use cases outside of cryptocurrency, creating possibilities for scale, contract enforcement, and returning data ownership to the individual.

These trends then present the following Five Key Business Outcomes. All of these trends have the potential to transform not just the bottom line, but the business itself, changing its internal processes and external positioning within industry and society.

Several axes have emerged along which this transformation can take place. These axes are represented by five key business outcomes.

• Automation The ability to be lean through the replacement of aspects of human-

based organizational processes and activities with technology.

• Integration The ability of the technology in the trend to integrate with the

technology of customers, partners, and suppliers.

• Scale

The ability for the product and/or service offering in the trend to quickly increase capacity.

• Intelligence The ability for the trend technology to leverage organizational

outputs to make processes smarter and more efficient.

• Impact The ability of the trend to deliver a positive or negative social

impact on user and customer experience.

We should all be evaluating and considering all of the above in both our Technology and Business plans.

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year! See You All In 2019!

(continued from page 2)

Welcome New Members!

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In the heady and hype-filled world of Artificial Intelligence, it can be hard to separate fact from (science) fiction. We hear of all the ways AI will transform our professional and personal lives, but as we head into 2019, it seems our lives remain largely untouched by AI outside of the usual suspects like Netflix, Alexa, and driverless cars. Or is that really the case?

Consider just a few of the recent advancements in “everyday AI”: intelligent machines working behind the scenes to automate and improve your day, often in ways largely unnoticed. Those firewalls and anti-virus systems protecting you from unsavory elements? Backed by AI algorithms. That smooth corporate Internet connection? Managed and load-balanced by sophisticated learning-based software. The energy-efficient new office space? AI climate and lighting control. The great career boost you got when your company identified you as a “high potential”? AI helped you there too. On the home front, AI helps you shop, communicate, be entertained, and more.

Just about any area you look today uses AI and

AI-enabled automation behind the scenes to accomplish a wide variety of operational and service-related tasks, without all the fanfare the media heaps on the Holy Trinity (Microsoft, Google, and Amazon). This “overnight revolution” has been more of a gradual transition, building over the years as cheap hardware, easier to use software, and skilled developers and data scientists all became more prevalent. Companies of increasingly modest means are now able to embed machine learning capabilities into key elements of their solution, and their customers benefit – without needing to invest millions building their own capabilities.

No corner of the corporate space these days is out of bounds. Companies providing solutions in HR, finance, customer support, sales and marketing, facilities, IT, even strategy and software development are increasingly using decision support and automation to improve outcomes for their customers. Microsoft, Salesforce, and Oracle are good examples of companies AI-enabling significant aspects of their existing product portfolio, which collectively reaches a large swath of companies.

Put another way: we’ve been so worried about AI taking over our jobs that we missed them becoming our co-workers. These algorithms sit by our side, nudging us in productive ways and even making many of the simpler decisions we used to make. And in the next few years, these capabilities will permeate even more areas of our work life.

What does this transformation mean for us individually and as organizations? I see three trends taking shape: de-sensitization and realistic expectations, citizen AI scientists, and human-computer symbiosis.

We are becoming increasingly de-sensitized to the concept of AI and resetting our expectations accordingly. Not long ago, AI was mostly met

with fear and confusion, complements of a media and entertainment industry that feeds on our fascination with doomsday scenarios. Recent warnings from tech luminaries helped fuel that fire. While a healthy fear still exists around superior general-purpose AI, an increasing number of people see narrow task-based AI as the utility it is rather than a threat. We are also starting to see computers as fallible, a significant shift from the mindset of the past few decades, where perfectly executing procedural

machines were the expectation. These shifts have opened the door for people to be more comfortable with AI and automation. They are willing to work with the technology and understand its limitations. In the terms of Gartner’s hype cycle, we have moved out of the “trough of disillusionment” and into the “plateau of productivity”.

With this newfound comfort in AI technology comes the rise of citizen AI scientists. Like citizen data scientists, these hobbyists come from many walks of life and sit within different departments of the organization. While they might not be able to build a sophisticated new algorithm, they are adept at monitoring advances, championing the use of AI, and helping select, implement, and train capabilities. These advocates will further the spread the daily use of such technologies.

Finally, as AI and automation becomes more pervasive in our work and home lives, the way we interact with computers will transform. Even with advances in user experience and device interaction, we still spend most of our time with new technology learning how to use it. We conform to its expectations and rules. But as systems get smarter, increasingly they will adapt to us. We won’t have to hunt for information, for example. In tomorrow’s world, it will be served up to us exactly when we need it.

As AI becomes more commonplace, we will start to see the competitive landscape flatten, with most every company benefiting in the same way from advancements in smart machines and automation. Day-to-day operations will be improved for all, and competition will shift to the edges, with more advanced companies innovating AI into their core business models. The savvy organization will take the lessons they’ve learned from everyday AI and find ways to align that technology with their key drivers of growth.

TECHNOLOGY

Your Robot Coworker – The Rise of Everyday AI & AutomationBy: Matt Coatney, Vice President of Technology Services, Managed Technology Services, LLC

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Jeff Dice, CIO, Winsupply

Colonel Rico Johns, Deputy Director for Air, Space, and Cyberspace Operations & CIO HHQ MaterielCommand, WPAFB

Andy Lehman, SVP & CIO, Kettering Health Network

Tom Skill, Associate Provost & CIO, University of Dayton

SPECIAL EVENTDigital Mixer 2019 / Looking for local IT Talent? We’ve got you covered.

Please join us for our annual networking night with area college IT/Technology majors! Employers are given a space in the Apollo Room at the Wright State Student Union to meet tech majors from our local colleges/universities.

Students will bring their resumes and are interested in learning more about the internships and career possibilities in the region. In 2018 we had over 200 students from 7 colleges and universities attend this casual career night!

Wednesday, February 13, 2019 | 4:00pm – 6:00pm • Apollo Room | Student Union | Wright State University

Data Analytics Special Interest Group Meeting / “Analytical Maturity – Data Strategy Conversation”Facilitated by: Joe Dapore, Universal Technology Corporation

Friday, January 11, 2019 | 8:30am – 10:00am • Business Solutions Center | 1435 Cincinnati St, Ste 300, Dayton, OH 45417

Infrastructure/Cloud Special Interest Group Meeting / “What’s new with Office 365?”Facilitated by: Dominic Lastoria, Microsoft

Friday, January 11, 2019 | 11:30am – 1:00pm • Business Solutions Center | 1435 Cincinnati St, Ste 300, Dayton, OH 45417

Tech Forum / “CIO Forecast Panel” (open to ALL)

What's Trending?Each year we introduce several local Industry leaders to discuss insights into the challenges they face and their vision going forward.

How is their role changing? What impact do recent global events, social media, big data and security have on their day to day business activities? What are their top priorities and where are they planning their future spending?

Panelists:

Thursday, January 17, 2019 | 11:30am – 1:30pm • Presidential Banquet Center | 4572 Presidential Way, Kettering, OH 45429

Women 4 Technology Meeting / “Meaningful Mentoring” Mentors:

…more Mentors to come!

Meaningful Mentoring is back yet again for 2019!This annual event provides opportunity for mentorship from

empowering leaders ready to spend time discussing the challenges you face each day.

These IT Leaders have been hand selected as Mentors by the Women 4 Technology Committee with backgrounds in SMB, Municipality IT,

Operations, IT Support, Security, Infrastructure, Analytics, and Leadership from both CIO and CEO perspectives. Attendees will

have time to sit in small group sessions with 2 leaders of their choice but will have time to network with all leaders during the event.

**This event is inspired by the Women 4 Technology Group and is intended to serve both men and women**

Women 4 Technology Sponsor: Meaningful Mentoring Sponsor: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 | 8:30am – 10:30am

Business Solutions Center1435 Cincinnati St, Ste 300, Dayton, OH 45417

Maria Babilon, Manager – Unified Communications,

Reed Elsevier Technology Services

Dr. Tonjia Coverdale, VP of Information Technology & CIO,

Central State University

Robin Poffenberger, Information

Systems Manager,Washington-

Centerville Public Library

Jeff Van Fleet, President,

Lighthouse Technologies

Regina Dillon, CISSP, Senior Information Security Risk

Manager,CareSource

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While all businesses need to survive a disaster and the problems that follow, it’s nearly impossible to predict when a disaster will happen. Businesses will often push cyber and IT security out as an optional expense with an attitude of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” When the disaster strikes (and odds are increasing at a fast pace for both natural disasters and cyber attacks), don’t leave your business unprepared. Planning will help you respond quickly.

An important aspect of your IT and Cyber Security plan is to work with your IT security provider to complete a business continuity plan that includes a complete business impact analysis (BIA). Often, this is the first step to identify critical system and components that are essential to your organizations success. Key questions during the BIA include:

• What are your critical systems and functions

• What are the dependencies related to these critical systems and functions

• What is the maximum downtime limit of these critical systems and functions

• What scenarios are most likely to impact these critical systems and functions

• What is the potential loss from these scenarios

Walking through these questions will help you identify key processes and dependencies as part of your overall disaster recovery and business continuity planning. Each step of this plan must satisfy two measurements: Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). RPO and RTO are measured in specific time intervals or number of hours relating to the loss of data and service time. It’s important to evaluate each system and application independently to ensure the best possible return on investment. You may need different arrangements for accounting data, your email access or files stored on a shared drive. The plan needs to be very specific and consider every detail of your business.

How long can your business be without the service before you incur substantial loss?

RTO (Recovery Time Objective) can be defined as the start of the interruption and time to establish recovery and end when you can successfully release the service back to your users. The goal is to calculate how quickly you need to recover and then to map out the people, processes and budget allotment you will need towards business continuity.

RPO (Recover Point Objective) often refers to the last available restore backup and the maximum time between backups being safely stored offsite. This focus is on your data and your company loss tolerance – how long can you afford to operate without your data before your business suffers.

Have youever had a computer crashor lose powerwhile you arein the middleof a hugespreadsheetwith lots of data entry, calculations and detailed graphs? How much time and effort would it require for you to try to recover the spreadsheet from your last save, or what happens if you can’t recover and need to start over from scratch. It’s simply painful. Multiply that pain by every person, device and data point in your organization.

Both RTO and RPO influence the type of redundancy and backup infrastructure you need to have in place. Besides time and money, you will need to consider compliance and your trust reputation with your clients. At what point would you begin to lose customers? Another factor to consider is your RTA (Recovery Time Actual) or the actual performance of your disaster recovery / business continuity plan. After planning and implementation, your DR/BC requires continued testing to validate success. If there are significant gaps between your goal (RTO) and your actual results (RTA), you’ll want to rethink your strategy to improve the time it takes to restore and become operational again.

Business Impact AnalysisKey takeaways from the business impact analysis should detail a listing of your critical systems and processes ranked by priority. This list should include 3rd party vendor software, cloud software usage, on premise software, on premise hardware that affects day to day operations (phone systems, devices used by employees, fax machines), IT infrastructure and even access and security to your property. As you walk through each system, you will record these items:

• Potential impact scenarios • RPO including actual back up times• Dependencies • Likely impact• RTO • Potential loss

Ranking all of your systems and infrastructure by priority will give you a clear map of what needs to be recovered first and what can possibly wait. Identify the manual process and the automated processes as well and include vendor contact information for assistance on each of these systems.

If you are subject to compliance regulations, protecting your data isn’t optional, it is a legal obligation. Disasters happen, cyber warfare is real, and the best resolution is to detail and plan, assign priority duties and communication paths, practice and budget accordingly.

TECHNOLOGY

Cyber Security and your Business Impact Analysis, Understanding RPO and RTO in Disaster Recovery By: Kathy Vogler, Communications Manager, Expedient Technology Solutions

Systems Operationalwith data from time point

Overall Recovery Goals

Time

Actual Data Loss

Actual Recovery Period

By Own work - File: RPO RTO example.svg, CC BY 4.0. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57829860Incident

RPO RTO

1 1

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Cyber Security and your Business Impact Analysis, Understanding RPO and RTO in Disaster Recovery By: Kathy Vogler, Communications Manager, Expedient Technology Solutions 12th Annual Taste of IT Conference

Sinclair College Ponitz Center

ANNUAL PARTNERS

GOLD SPONSOR

BRONZE SPONSORS

Wednesday, March 13, 2019 – Breakout Sessions

“Building a Comprehensive Security Plan on a Shoe-String Budget”

Bryan Hogan, Afidence

“Building Security to be more than a house of cards”Dan Wilkins, CareSource

“Data Privacy – Attaining and Maintaining Compliance”Bill Kilgallon, Kroger

“Improving Risk Management Decision Making”Apolonio Garcia, HealthGuard

“The Internet of Invisible Things”Bryan K. Fite, BT

“Let’s fix this – Leveraging CIS’ Critical Security Controls Metrics to Improve Security”

Andy Gill, Western Southern

“Managing Third Party Risk”Kevin Carpenter, RSM

“The Path to InfoSec Maturity”Jerod Brennen, One Identity

“Securing the Mobile Cloud”Leo Cronin, Cincinnati Bell/CBTS

“Trusting Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Security”

Darren Kall, Sophos

“Why did you click on that?Rick Sellers, RELX Group

Special Track: Very Technical

“An origin-based, fine-grained and user-centric policy enforcement framework for Hybrid mobile applications”

Rakesh S V Reddy, University of Dayton

“DLP Demystified”Micah Brown, American Modern Insurance

“Pixel Tracking: How it’s used and abused”Barry Kimball, Contractor

“The OWASP Top 10 & AppSec Primer”Matt Scheurer, First Financial Bank

Special Track: Academia

“Beyond the classroom – What are the newest and most compelling higher education cybersecurity outreach

and engagement practices going on in the community and with industry partners?”

Bob Mills & Mark Reith, AFIT Center for Cyberspace Research | Rusty Baldwin, University of Dayton | Vance Saunders,

Wright State University

“Cyber Ranges: Platforms for Education, Workforce and Economic Development in the 21st century”Dr. Richard Harknett, University of Cincinnati |

W. David Salisbury, University of Dayton | Thomas Skill, University of Dayton

“Regional Higher Education’s Innovative approaches to teaching and training the next generation of

cybersecurity professionals”Dr. Seth Hamman, Cedarville University | Danis Heighton,

Clark State | James Robinson, University of Dayton

“Sticker Heist – A Cybersecurity Student Challenge”Mike Libassi, Sinclair College

For more info, go to: https://technologyfirst.org/events/technology-first-conferences.html

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Flocks of birds, schools of fish, swarms of insects, and now... swarms of robots. Inspired by their biological counterparts, robot swarms comprise many individuals that together accomplish a task each individual robot alone cannot. Autonomous Swarms - the combination of swarm robotics and blockchain technology - is one of the 2019 emerging technology trends covered in Info-Tech's 2019 CIO Trend Report.

This year's report focuses on transformative combinations of technology. Robot swarms can exist without blockchain, but combining blockchain technology with swarm robotics pushes Autonomous Swarms past a critical threshold of security and reliability. This makes them suitable for deployment in many of the currently hypothetical use cases.

What are Autonomous Swarms?Autonomous swarms combine the technology of swarm robotics with a blockchain-based back end. Not to be confused with collaborative robotics (several robots working together as an assembly line), swarm robotics involves multiple copies of the same robot, working independently in parallel to achieve a goal too large for any one robot to accomplish. The blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that creates an immutable, decentralized record of information. Storing information this way creates advantages such as auditability, trust, efficiency and security. By leveraging the benefits of both swarm robotics and blockchain, Autonomous Swarms has

the potential to enter into new use cases - such as city cleanup, agriculture, traffic surveillance - where trust and information security are key challenges to automation.

Why use Autonomous Swarms?As the business’s technological steward, today's IT leader must help their organization adopt emerging technologies with an eye to their long-term impact, by focusing on both business and human benefits.

Business benefits of Autonomous Swarms:

Scale - Every agent within a robotic swarm is designed to act autonomously, with the overall swarm behavior emerging

organically as a consequence of these individual tasks. This makes it simple to increase or decrease swarm size simply by adding or removing agents.

Decentralized Decision-Making - Blockchain technology allows multiple robotic agents to reach consensus without the need for a central authority through "voting". This makes the swarm more resilient and simplifies the job of a human controller.

Consistent Results - The blockchain enables swarms to perform their jobs more robustly, with less potential for error and malicious interference. This leads to more consistent and dependable results for businesses.

Autonomous Swarms: The Power of Group Robotics on the Blockchain By: Info-Tech Research Group

TECHNOLOGY


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Human benefits of Autonomous Swarms:

Dangerous Situation Avoidance - Robot swarms are ideally suited to take over dangerous or undesirable jobs such as landmine detection, dangerous machinery maintenance and city cleanup, where automation can greatly improve the quality of life of human workers.

Resistance to Hacking - In applications where robots are in close proximity to humans and their data, the resistance to malicious attacks afforded by blockchain means greater peace of mind for the people whose data robotic swarms may be handling.

Error Avoidance - Consistency and dependability result from the decision-making and auditability possibilities blockchain opens for robotic swarms. For humans, this means less worry about errors in handling tasks such as pesticide use in crops.

Key dependencies of Autonomous Swarms:As an emerging technology, Autonomous Swarms raise new considerations for businesses looking to deploy it. These questions must be resolved before Autonomous Swarms can be deployed at scale:

1. Autonomy's guiding principles - As swarms grow larger, the question of how to monitor and control so many agents becomes more pressing. As we entrust more of the robots’ operation to algorithmic decision-making, we must be clear on the underlying safety and privacy assumptions, definitions of “harm,” and the robots’ role in protecting human interests.

2. Readiness for automation - Human cognitive processing limits, coupled with the large number of agents in typical robotic swarms, necessitate some degree of algorithmic automation. The key consideration becomes: which aspects of the swarm’s operation to leave up to the algorithm, and which key factors to keep under human surveillance. Define the rules the govern autonomous behavior with an eye to difficult cases.

3. Regulation of collected data - With increasing automation comes the collection of staggering amounts of data. Most of the civilian use cases, such as robotic food delivery, or even street cleanup, has the potential to collect human data, either through necessity, such as recording a delivery address, or by accident, such as by capturing a passer-by in a robot’s vision. The potential for privacy violations and their prevention must be a key consideration in the development of any swarm robotics strategy.

Where is the technology now? A swarm robotics case studyIn Australia, SwarmFarm Robotics is developing a farming approach using swarm robotics that is targeted rather than sweeping: using multiple autonomous machines, smaller than traditional farming machinery, to perform targeted actions, such as administering pesticides only where they are needed. Where the old approach was to take a large tractor, capable of spraying several rows of crops with pesticide simultaneously, the smaller robots use artificial intelligence to roam the field, identify weeds, and spray only them, leaving crops

intact. This has resulted in gains in efficiency and consistency that exceed those of the traditional approach.

SwarmFarm’s robots have been adapted to other applications, including irrigation, planting, weeding and harvesting. In all cases, a more targeted approach means greater precision and economy of resources. Pesticide and fertilizer can be applied more sparingly, and planting and harvesting can be done with individual attention to each plant, an impossible task with large-scale machinery. The new approach produces greater yields at reduced cost, while raising the quality of the crop.

Several robots have been under development and testing on SwarmFarm land. SwarmFarm has garnered support through government funding, and partnered with PWC Australia, Adama Australia, Bosch and other sponsors to bring the robots to market.

Are Autonomous Swarms right for your business?When evaluating whether this technology is worth investigating further, consider: do you have a use case? Autonomous Swarm robotics is a powerful solution primarily for problems that are amenable to a distributed approach. If you have such a use case, consider how the key dependencies will affect it. For example, data privacy may not be as important for farming as for city surveillance.

If you are an IT leader looking to capitalize on Autonomous Swarms, identify the key dependencies specific to your industry and learn about the current cutting edge solutions. Look for opportunities to partner with technology developers as early adopters, in order to have a hand in shaping the development of the technology for your use case.


Thank You New Academic

Partner

Autonomous Swarms: The Power of Group Robotics on the Blockchain By: Info-Tech Research Group

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There is a quiet battle being waged across America. It’s a battle for experience and it has hundreds of combatants.

At stake are literally TRILLIONS of dollars of annual transactions.

And almost no one knows it’s happening…

The BattlefieldThe financial services industry has operated in an environment of hyper-change for over 30 years, beginning with deregulation changes passed by Congress in the early 1980s. In that time, the number of banking entities dropped from over 15,000 to less than 8,000 through mergers and acquisitions, opening up opportunities for new products and creating pressure to monetize knowledge of the customer. Small community banks merged into regional, national and then global conglomerates. System complexity multiplied and offerings diversified as financial institutions’ one-stop banking brought deposit, checking, loans, investments, retirement and a host of commercial banking products.

In the late 1990s, online investing firms like Scottrade, E*TRADE and others entered the picture offering a new model for online customer interactions. These companies proved that consumers were willing to entrust their money to financial services firms with no branches. While there had been earlier offerings such as within Microsoft Money or via proprietary systems, the online investment shops approached their launches with a Silicon Valley feel, the exact opposite customer experience from their Wall Street counterparts.

Since 2000, we’ve seen online banking go from novelty to critical for any banking consumer. The days of brick and mortar-focused banking strategies are fading fast. Customers are increasingly basing their banking business primarily upon an institution’s online capabilities and the customer experience. Many of the fastest-growing financial services firms don’t even have physical bank branches. A number of the traditional Wall Street investment banks have even responded in kind with digital banking offerings.

One final data point: by 2014, the American Bankers Association reported that even the majority of Americans aged 55 and over preferred banking online as opposed to in-branch or via ATM. The customer has spoken—the future of banking will be via online experiences.

TEKsystems works with over 650 financial services organizations each year, providing everything from technology and deployment assistance, to UX and AI. We see the hundreds of mobile developers and digital strategists employed at our largest banking customers. We’re in the conference rooms of regional banks, surrounded by a floor-to-ceiling tapestry of competitive screenshots and wire flows. The language of banking is no longer one of “service calls” and “SQL statements”; those have long since been replaced by “user-centric design”, “IoT”, “AI” and “digital experience.”

Every institution is racing to arm itself with the digital natives who can move its platform forward and keep pace with the required features to avoid customer churn. Digital platform spend is at record levels and user experience services have doubled year over year for many organizations. So, if the biggest institutions have the most talent and the deepest pockets, don’t they automatically win the customer? What can a regional or community bank do to survive and even thrive in this battle for customer experience?

How to Win the Battle for ExperienceReview your brand promise. Customers crave authenticity and respect a brand that is more than just an interest rate or an ATM. How do you manifest your core values in your copy? How do your content standards and copy align and amplify your message?

Talk to the people who matter—your customers. If you don’t already have a user research capability, the time is now. Form focus groups and solicit opinions on a regular basis. The expectations of a banking partner continue to evolve and it is critical stay in step with the changing industry and new market entrants.

It’s all up to millennials. Regional banks across the country are particularly susceptible to the “youth gap”, a lack of professional customers under 35. One of our clients went so far as to admit that not only do they not have millennial customers, the team really “didn’t even know any millennials.” As baby boomers begin to

Financial Services 2018: The Battle for Experience By: Scott Beach, Solutions Director, TEKsystems Digital

TECHNOLOGY


People are at the heart of every successful business initiative. At TEKsystems, a leading provider of IT staffing and IT services, we understand people. Every year we deploy over 80,000 IT professionals at 6,000 client sites across North America, Europe and Asia. Our deep insights into the IT labor market enable us to help clients achieve their business goals-while optimizing their IT workforce strategies.

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Financial Services 2018: The Battle for Experience By: Scott Beach, Solutions Director, TEKsystems Digital

pull back from this bull market, retire and begin asset withdrawal, catering to millennial needs and acquisition is not just good business, it’s imperative.

Establish clear digital user journeys. Visual user journeys and maps can help provide clarity in the often siloed world of financial services technology. Identify key customer goals (hopefully from those new focus groups) and develop current state and future state user journeys. These roadmaps should align to tangible service improvements such as step reduction, streamlined processing or shortened process time. From this lens, system constraints and misaligned teams become evident.

Moving from UX to CX. We get it, banking is complicated—many systems are involved and different organizations have their own goals. But it is remarkable how often institutions cannot accurately depict the end-to-end customer experience from idea to task completion. For example, if the web experience for loan application is great but decision support fails, the online loan team has still failed in its goal. Wherever possible, align and manage leaders by customer journey rather than function.

Identify a unique feature to separate from the pack. Let’s face it—a regional bank will never have the scale and mass of the industry behemoths. So don’t try to do what they do. Let them help shape the core banking feature sets at FIS and S1 while they push for the next big thing; and then adopt it in the next release. (Just ask the banks who spent tens of millions to develop remote deposit capture versus those who received it as part of their online banking package.) Then, identify a feature that you can develop and curate on your own. It might entail social banking, community engagement or a unique service partnership with another

industry. These features can make a huge difference in branding your bank and standing out from the crowd.

Remember, the battle for experience is about talent, too. Our clients understand that recruiting top talent means understanding and creating a compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP). The EVP that attracted senior leadership may be very different from what draws designers, digital strategists and mobile developers to your bank. This is particularly important given the many job seeker surveys find that financial services is not an industry of choice for millennials. Attracting New York, San Francisco and Chicago talent to Tulsa, Columbus or Salt Lake requires a bit more creativity and time. It may also require carving out a space with a distinct culture from the core corporate environment. One of our clients has seen success with exactly this approach as it redesigned an entire floor for Digital Innovation. Gone are the cubes (and most of the walls too) with so much whiteboard space that it had to mark which walls weren’t okay for markers! Beyond physical space considerations, HR and recruiters should consider the needs of this audience: a desire to be challenged and work on meaningful work, flexibility in schedules and environment, and the ability to contribute their passions.

See how TEKsystems Digital can help transform, extend or accelerate your digital experiences.

Scott Beach is the solution director for TEKsystems Digital. He has spent the last 20 years designing customer experiences, developing platforms and leading technology transformation for Fortune 500 companies. He resides in Charlotte, North Carolina (when he’s not on a plane).

RSM US LLP is the U.S. member firm of RSM International, a global network of independent audit, tax and consulting firms. Visit rsmus.com/aboutus for more information regarding RSM US LLP and RSM International.

Meet your challenges when they’re still opportunities.

RSM and our global network of consultants specialize in working with dynamic, growing companies. This focus leads to custom insights designed to meet your specific challenges. Our experience, combined with yours, helps you move forward with confidence to reach even higher goals.

rsmus.com/technology

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IT LEADERSHIP SPOTLIGHT

Welcome To Our Newest Board Members!

Andy LehmanSVP & CIO

Kettering Health Network

What was your first job?Had my own lawn mowing service.

Did you always want to work in IT?I was a chemistry major in college. My senior year I took a class in programming as an elective. It opened my eyes to what could be done with software. From that point forward I knew IT held huge possibilities. It’s also a good reminder for the newly minted college graduates that what you studied in college is simply a starting point. You picked a major, not a career. In some cases folks will stay in a career that has a line of sight to their major in college. However, that’s not always the case. I’m a case in point for the latter.

What business or technology initiatives will be most significant in driving IT investments in your organization in the coming year?Healthcare is a dynamic industry with tremendous pressure to lower costs and improve quality. Healthcare’s move towards value is driving large investments in IT.

What does good culture fit look like in your organization? How do you cultivate it?Within KHN’s IS division, our culture has been intentionally defined. We serve those who serve. Our stakeholders are physicians, nurses, clinical technicians, administrators of hospitals, and of course, guests of Kettering Health Network, which includes patients and their families. A good cultural fit is an individual who serves humbly, seeks wisdom, and builds trust. We cultivate this by clarifying our culture across the organization and then supporting it through the systems we have in place. Systems such as hiring, performance management, and letting people go reinforce the culture.

What’s the best career advice you ever received?I attend a Bible study every Thursday morning and have been doing so for years. It’s been the same group of guys. We have helped one another

through difficult times and celebrated good times. They have influenced me in ways that I cannot begin to describe. The men in this group have been very successful in business. However, it’s not success that fuels them. They have taught me the importance of “significance over success.”

What advice would you give to aspiring IT leaders?It’s not about being the best technical person in the room. The key differentiator is leadership. Study leadership and apply the teachings as if you were learning a new IT skill and applying it. Nothing happens in organizations without leaders. They move the organization from point A to point B. If you are aspiring to be an IT leader, then learn to lead. Some have more natural talent, but everyone can improve through study and application.

Lisa HecklerCISSP

VP, Information Security & Privacy

Caresource

What was your first job?Delivering sub sandwiches out of a locally owned shop on roller skates in downtown Cincinnati.

Did you always want to work in IT? I was what we now call “a stem kid”. I loved math in particular and had planned to go into engineering but was unsure what discipline. Then I took my first computer programming class at Ohio State during my Freshman year and knew that’s what I wanted to do.

What’s the best career advice you ever received? Not sure it was as much career advice as “life” advice – “Be a lifelong learner”. I come from a family that loves to read and discuss new ideas. If you love to learn you will be sure to stay relevant. Along with that, “try new things” (usually said to me by my mom in the context of eating, but it works well for career too), “listen more than you speak” which might actually be the key to success in all aspects of life, and one of my favorite quotes attributed to Mark Twain, “continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection”.


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IT LEADERSHIP SPOTLIGHT

Robin PoffenbergerSystems Manager

Washington- Centerville Public Library

What was your first job?In high school, I worked in a jewelry store adhering price stickers to the merchandise during the summer and gift-wrapping purchases during the holidays.

What has been your greatest career achievement?We just completed a building renovation and expansion of our Woodbourne Library location. Anyone that knows me well knowsthat building a house ranks high on my “life’s most miserable experiences” list.

In comparison, being part of the team for the Woodbourne project was an amazing time in my life. From debating options in the planning phase to checking every computer one last time on opening day, working with a great group of dedicated people made all the difference.

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity this project gave me to learn and grow from both a technical perspective and as a leader. Feeling the anticipation and excitement of everyone walking through the door on opening day and the pride I feel every time I walk in the building are memories that will stay with me forever.

What business or technology initiatives will be most significant in driving IT investments in your organization in the coming year?After a large investment in facilities this year, we will be switching our focus in 2019 to the material and program offerings provided by the Library.

Our primary IT investments will revolve around upgrading our Integrated Library System software and finishing the website overhaul in progress. Both of these systems play a large role in providing access to, and information about, all of the programs, materials, and services the Library offers.


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When was the last time you rented a car on a business trip? I never have. It is almost 2019. Cyber Monday is bigger than Black Friday, grocery shopping can be done online, and your likely reading this digitally. The world we live in is “on demand”. So, it’s not surprising ride sharing apps like Uber and Lyft dominate transportation needs, especially when you’re in an unfamiliar city. This technology is fantastic, but have you ever thought about what would happen if one of your employees was injured while “renting” an Uber or Lyft on a business trip? For starters, the scenario is a gray area. Ride sharing apps are innovative and have only been around for 10 years. Insurance companies aren’t usually seen as innovative, even if some have been around for hundreds of years.

What happens if your employee was hurt using a Ride Sharing App (Uber / Lyft) in a Driver’s vehicle?

First and foremost, Ride sharing App Users (in this case, your employee) are extended some coverage via the Corporate Ride Sharing company’s insurance policy.

Below is a direct excerpt from Uber’s Website. Read the full details at www.uber.com/drive/insurance.

While a rider is in your car:

When a rider is in your car, you have the same coverage as you do on your way to pick them up, plus the rider in your car is covered. You are covered by our insurance policy for three things:

1. Your liability to a third party

2. Any injuries due to an uninsured or underinsured motorist

3. Collision and comprehensive coverage if you already have such coverage on your personal insurance

Third party liability coverage

This insurance covers your liability for damages to any third party such as the rider(s) in your vehicle, another driver, pedestrian, or property in case of an accident when you’re at fault. The coverage amount is at least $1 million of total liability coverage.

Uninsured or underinsured motorist bodily injury coverage

This insurance covers any occupant of your vehicle in case of an accident where another party is at fault but does not have insurance or is underinsured. This also covers hit and run accidents where the at-fault

party cannot be identified. The coverage amount is $1 million of total coverage for bodily injury.

So, while an employee is actively in an Uber they are covered under Third Party liability. Note however, the individual Lyft/Uber Driver is supposed to have coverage on their personal insurance. Well, what if they don’t? Or what if the individual Uber driver’s personal auto insurance has a ride sharing/livery service exclusion (which most do)? This can’t be relied

on. What are users supposed to do? Read every auto insurance policy of every Uber they enter? Not practical.

Worker’s Compensation

Regardless of any auto related scenario, if an employee is hurt on company time, Worker’s Compensation should cover employees for work related injuries. Worker’s Compensation is designed as a no-fault coverage. Negligence doesn’t have to be proven. Worker’s Compensation doesn’t discriminate because the injury had a ride sharing app involved. It is designed to get the employee back to work as soon as possible. It provides four benefits; medical benefits, compensation for lost wages, rehabilitation, and can even provide death/survivor benefits. It is important to note Work Comp law varies by state. Insurance companies don’t mandate what’s covered in a policy, state law does. For readers in the four monopolistic states (OH, ND, WA, WY) coverage is purchased directly from the state. Since Ohio is home to many Technology First members, it is important to mention employer’s liability coverage (often referred to as Stop Gap insurance). This typically attaches to a company’s commercial package or business owners package policy.

BUSINESS

Uber / Lyft Risks for Your Company and Employees By: Brian Mahon, Avatar Brokers


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Employer’s Liability Coverage

This policy provides coverage for an employer’s liability where recovery is permitted by law for bodily injury arising out of and in the course of an injured employee’s employment that is not covered under workers compensation law. It can be thought of as an “umbrella coverage” that sits above Workers Comp insurance. Say an employee is hurt, goes and gets fixed up through workers comp, but that isn’t enough. They want more, they are still hurt, and there isn’t any coverage left in the Work Comp. So naturally, they go after the employer. Enter Employer’s liability insurance. It looks like this on your policy:

• Bodily Injury by Accident $1,000,000 each accident

• Bodily Injury by Disease $1,000,000 policy limit

• Bodily Injury by Disease $1,000,000 each employee

Personal Health InsuranceEmployees can also cut their losses in this scenario and just use whatever personal health insurance they have whether provided by the employer or not. Due to the rising healthcare costs in the U.S. it is likely many employees won’t be happy paying with this solution.

Alternative Coverages & Accidental Death & Dismemberment

Alternatively, a new start up called Sure Inc, offers a solution to be sure (no pun intended) insurance coverage is in place specifically when using a ride sharing app. Essentially, for less than $3 for a 24-hour period, Sure (underwritten by Chubb) will offer a Ride Sharing Insurance policy that includes $100,000 of Accidental Death & Dismemberment Coverage (AD&D) with a $10,000 medical expense coverage. I downloaded the app

and it is straightforward. You just create an account and connect it to your Uber or Lyft account. However, if an employee breaks a leg in a car accident while using an Uber, that $10,000 may not be enough medical coverage.

More traditionally, companies can opt to offer various disability coverages alongside health care benefits. The most common coverages are short term disability, long-term disability, term life insurance, and AD&D. Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D) covers in the event of a fatal accident or an accident that results in losing a major ability like eyesight, speech, hearing, or use of a limb. Dismemberment coverage works on a "per-member" basis. If you lose one member (a hand, foot, limb, sight in one eye, speech or hearing), the insurance company will usually pay 50 percent of the full benefit. If you lose two members, you receive the whole benefit. Corporate business travel policies are also available and are quite popular among multinational corporations. These policies simply bundle some the Life & Disability coverages above.

Regardless of the insurance or medical benefits passed onto employees by their employers, ride sharing apps still present a unique and unrealized risk when conducting day-to-day business activities.

Sources: www.sureapp.com, www.uber.com/drive/insurance, www.irmi.com, www.insurance.com


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EVENT SPOTLIGHT

TASTE of IT - Thank You Attendees, Sponsors & Exhibitors!

Gartner Lunch KeynoteThe 12th annual Taste of IT Conference featured two exceptional keynotes: Zack Huhn from Venture Smarter and David Cearley from Gartner. Their thought provoking presentations added great value to the conference – thank you Zack and David! (Pictured above is Lunch Keynote David Cearley, Gartner).

Thank YouExhibitors! 48 companies exhibited at the 2018 Taste of IT conference. Many of these companies used the conference to share about new technologies and meet new IT professionals in the Dayton and southwest Ohio region!

Student VolunteersStudents volunteers from Partnering universities assisted the Technology First staff to ensure a smooth running Taste of IT! Thank you to Central State University, Sinclair College, University of Dayton, and Wright State University for sharing your talented students!

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The Data Analytics SIG met on December 7th to discuss MSTR Predictive Analytics facilitated by MicroStrategy. The DASIG reconvenes after the new year on January 11th for Analytical Maturity – Data Strategy Conversation.

Dan Collins with Graywolf LLC facilitated conversation on A Healthy Cybersecurity Plan for the December Infrastructure/Cloud SIG. Next up for the ICSIG is What’s new with Office 365? on January 11th facilitated by Microsoft. See you in 2019!

The Data Analytics SIG

Building partnerships for:• cyber research• hands-on education• workforce development

Contact Tom Skill, Associate Provost & [email protected]; 937.229.4307

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Technology First would like to thank and recognize its Board of Directors. They provide input into the strategic direction of the organization and actively lead working committees that drive our programs and services

Marcia AlbersExecutive DirectorTechnology First

Diana BoldenFormer CIOTeradata

Jim Bradley - CHAIRGlobal IT Vice PresidentTecomet

Gary CodeluppiFormer Regional VPRDXRemote Dba Experts

Doug CouchVice President, Information Technology ServicesSpeedway

Tim EwartTechnical Director-Air, Space and Cyberspace HQ Air Force Materiel Command, WPAFB

Treg GilstorfChief Information Officer Yaskawa Motoman

Gary GinterSystem Vice President, CIOPremier Health

Lisa HecklerVP, Information Security & PrivacyCareSource

Bryan J. HoganPresident / CEOAfidence

John Huelsman Director of Business Support Solutions Hobart Service

Tim HullDirector, Bitstorm ConnectThink Patented

Andy LehmanCIO & Senior VPKettering Health Network

Scott McCollum Chief Information Officer Sinclair Community College

Monique McGlinch VP, Information Technology & Proj Mgt Office MidMark

Dave MezeraPresidentDataYard

Paul MoormanFormer IT StrategistND Paper

Robin PoffenbergerSystems ManagerWashington Centerville Public Library

Shu SchillerProfessor and ChairInformation Systems and Operations ManagementWright State University

Thomas SkillAssociate Provost & CIOUniversity of Dayton

Diana TullioPrincipal, North America CC&C Americas

Jeff Van FleetPresidentLighthouse Technologies

TECHNOLOGY FIRST BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Writers: Our mission is to support the growth of Greater Dayton’s information technology industry. Technology First provides a forum for educators, business, and technical professionals to communicate their expertise and lessons learned while working in the field. Please submit the article in Word, preferably with 500 to 700 words, with any graphics in pdf to [email protected]. Please include your name, business organization, business address, phone number, fax number, e-mail address, and a brief description of any professional accomplishments. Please also include a digital photograph if available.

Subscriptions: Non-member business/home delivery of this publication is available at $25/year (6 issues). Mail name, address and check made payable to Technology First.

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Publisher: Technology First Design & Production:Executive Director: Marcia Albers Courtesy of Bitstorm ConnectDirector, Member Services: Kaitlin Regan

www.technologyfirst.org

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Publisher: Technology First Design & Production:Executive Director: Marcia Albers Courtesy of Bitstorm ConnectDirector, Member Services: Kaitlin Regan

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