I was honored to be asked to deliver the opening address at the ISACA\ITGI Asia-Pacific CACS conference in beautiful Kyoto, Japan.  Kyoto is a wonderful city that blends traditional Japanese history with modern technology--which many delegates experienced as they traveled to the meeting on a Bullet Train.  Once you disembark you can quickly see many of the temples that the region is famous for.  The town is a blend of old and new.  Kyoto certainly leverages its history well for tourism.

I have met with many CIOs over the past few months and discussions usually include technology trends and, increasingly, management priorities and the number of emerging and growing disruptive technologies that are being accelerated with the current economic cycle.  I used this as a basis for my speech.  Several people asked me to share the text, so here it is for your review:

Opening Speech - Asia-Pacific CACS 2009, Kyoto, Japan

Good morning and welcome to ISACA's 2009 Asia-Pacific CACS conference. We are delighted to be in this beautiful setting, and to be greeted by such warm hospitality from our hosts.

We are especially pleased to be here to kick off this very special year:  the 40^th anniversary of ISACA. It is hard to believe that it has been four decades since those first individuals sat down together and decided there was a need for an organization to focus on the new discipline of electronic data processing audit.

Both our association and our profession have come a long way in that time and have weathered an enormous amount of change. But that's to be expected; business and IT never sit still, and 2009 will be no exception. In fact, already the predictions are out for what the dominant trends will be this year--new technologies and areas of concentration we will be called upon to work with, with mastery and skill. Here are a few of the trends the experts see ahead of us:

Among CIOs the top three business priorities for 2009 are improving business processes, delivering better customer service and cutting costs. Their top three management priorities are improving alignment with business objectives, improving IT planning processes and reducing ROI costs. And, their top three technology priorities are creating or improving strategic applications, standardizing or consolidating IT infrastructure, and improving IT security and continuity.

According to CIO Insight, the top five technology developments for the future are:

1. Green IT
2. Nanotechnology in PCs/electronics
3. Business process modeling
4. Collective intelligence
5. Mobile videoconferencing

The top three disruptive new technologies have been identified as:

1. New Media--Call it Web 2.0 or whatever you choose:  tools like video and blogs will change distribution of information as dramatically as the Internet redefined the brochure.
2. Augmented Reality--A blending of virtual and physical reality, which boosts experimentation in the workplace and spotlights a need for collaborative skills.
3. Social Networks--Got a business problem? Do what many companies do: use corporate social networks to find skilled workers and experts.

Other IT trends for 2009 include:

1. Software as a Service--Cloud computing will contribute to the expansion of SaaS into areas beyond ERP, CRM and HR systems.
2. Virtualization--A huge trend for the past two years, it will continue to expand in storage, desktop and data center technologies in 2009.
3. Energy-efficient Data Centers--Data-center hardware, in conjunction with virtualized systems, will continue to reduce power needs with more green components and infrastructure.
4. Enterprise Mobility--Being secure and synchronized to live data while on a host of pocket computing devices will continue to expand and improve in 2009.

And, finally, among the top business technology trends are:

1. Enterprise 2.0--Web 2.0 is quickly evolving into Enterprise 2.0 as these rich capabilities are creating new business models for some companies and empowering new strategies for others.
2. Doing More With Less--Now, more than ever. IT organizations are also looking for the right technologies, such as sophisticated automated speech systems, to serve their customers better.
3. Visual Communications--Video will continue to play a starring role, as companies make the most of their IP connections to create a culture of collaboration.

Every one of these trends I've mentioned has an implication for people like us--people who help ensure that our enterprises and our decision makers can trust their information systems and the information those systems produce.  None of us can know everything there is to know about each of these trends.  But we are taking the right steps by being here today, to gather the knowledge we can, from formal presentations and informal networking alike, to prepare ourselves to bring even more value to our organizations in the future.

Congratulations on your farsightedness, and thank you again for being an important part of this conference.

Readers, congratulations on your farsightedness, and thank you for being an important part of this blog.