Top 10 CIO priorities for 2009

Recently, the US National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) released the US State CIO's Top Ten Policy and Technology Priorities for 2009 based on their annual survey done.

The lists has reflected the budgetary uncertainty faced by state governments in the face of an extended economic downturn. But by prioritizing their IT strategies, the lists can serve as a good reference and roadmap for ICT solution providers hoping to grow their US state government business.

The Top 10 Priority for Strategies, Management Processes and Solutions are:

1. Consolidation: Centralizing; consolidating services, operations, resources and infrastructure.
2. Shared Services: Business models, sharing resources, services and infrastructure.
3. Budget and Cost Control: Managing budget reduction, strategies for savings, reducing or avoiding costs; activity based costing.
4. Security: Security safeguards, enterprise policies, data protection and insider threat.
5. Electronic Records/Digital Preservation/E-Discovery: Strategies, policies, legal issues, opportunities for shared services and emergency preparedness.
6. ERP Strategy: Acquisition, implementation, expansion and upgrade.
7. Green IT: Policies, energy efficiency, power management, green procurement and e-waste.
8. Transparency: Open government, performance measures and data, and accountability.
9. Health Information Technology: Assessment, partnering and implementation.
10. Governance: Improving IT and data governance.

The Top 10 Priority for Technologies, Applications and Tools are:

1. Virtualization: Storage, computing and data center.
2. Document/Content/E-mail management: Active, repository, archiving and digital preservation.
3. Legacy application: Modernization and upgrade.
4. Networking: Voice and data communications and unified communications.
5. Web 2.0: Services, collaboration technologies and social computing.
6. Green IT: Technologies and Solutions.
7. Identity and Access Management.
8. Geospatial Analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
9. Business Intelligence and Analytical Applications.
10. Mobile Workforce Enablement.

I wonder if any similar survey has been done for government and corporates CIOs in our local region.

Bill Clinton to give lecture in Malaysia

Great news! There is an opportunity to listen to the lecture of Bill Clinton (former president of US) in Malaysia, and the ticket will be given free of charge.

On 6 December 2008, Clinton will present the inaugural BC Sekhar memorial lecture organised by the Sekhar Foundation (founded by Datuk Vinod Balachandra Sekhar, president and founder of Petra Group) and the Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute (ASLI).

In that event, he will also receive the BC Sekhar Medal for Transformational Leadership, a new award given to individuals who have demonstrated a lifetime of commitment to bringing about positive change in the world. The medal would be awarded to Clinton for his tireless work to tackle the root causes of poverty in the world. Other factors included his steadfast commitment to foster understanding in divided communities and his determination to see people working together in friendship to bring about change.

Clinton will be in Kuala Lumpur for about 2 days right after the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Hong Kong.

If you are interested in attending, just send an email to clintonlecture@petragroup.net with your name, address, contact number and MyKAD or passport number from 1pm today (13 November 2008). Up to 500 members of the public will be given seats for the lecture.

Malaysian household monthly income distribution 2007

Today, there is a report in the Chinapress newspaper which provides us a set of figures about the Malaysian household monthly income distribution based on Household Income Survey (HIS) done in year 2007 by the Department of Statistics Malaysia. Here are the figures:

With the data above, we can derive the constituent of household by ethnic which has participated in the HIS 2007, as shown below. The percentage is pretty much in line with the ethnic group percentage of population of Malaysia.

And we can interprete the data in the table with a bar graph like this:

You can compare this graph with the one in my earlier article posted on 18 September 2008, which is based on data from a different source. With no surprise, they look very alike. The graph above is able to show more information. What can you see from it?

Remember there is another pie chart in my earlier article posted on 18 September 2008? You can compare it with this one which is based on our new set of data. They are pretty much the same, aren't they?

Now look at another graph to reveal more information. What can you see from it?

If you see each of the income group vertically, you can actually rank how each ethnic group performs for each of the income group. The Kadazan and Orang Asli have a big population in the lower income group, and very low percentage in the higher income group. Majority of the Chinese are in the 5k-10k income group.

You can also clearly see the "M shape" in the Chinese and Indian lines, and the formation of "M" in other ethnic groups can also be sensed.

What else can you see from the graphs above?