GMIS Georgia Chapter Update

The Georgia chapter of GMIS International recently held its spring conference in St. Simon’s Island, Georgia from May 1st through 5th. It was a considered a huge success, given that fact that it had more member attendees than ever before (72) as well as more sponsors (33). There was plenty of good feedback from both attendees and sponsors, many claiming it was the best conference ever!

 

To kick the conference off, the University of Georgia announced its intent to begin offering the Certified Government CIO (CGCIO) certification in the fall of 2016.

 

The Local Government Chief Information Officer (LGCIO) education track had a total of 51 attendees and focused on Organizational Culture and Politics. On Monday, Jim Stephens, a long-time member of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government faculty, provided everything you needed know about Organizational Culture. During this interactive management education session, we learned what organizational culture is, what it isn’t, common misconceptions, ways to determine your organization’s culture, how to affect change, and the best strategies for advancing your agenda. Jim is a skilled trainer and facilitator who has worked with international, federal, state, and local government leaders and has published writings in the public administration and human resource development fields.

 

Tuesday’s technical education session was led by global futurist Simon Anderson, who presented on how to create an organizational culture that can thrive into the future. Simon is a futurist speaker and emerging technology and trends consultant. He co-authored the 2014 Bellwether Award winning book Foresight 20/20: A Futurist Explores the Trends Transforming Tomorrow and the recently released "Updated & Expanded" Edition with fellow global futurist Jack Uldrich. Simon is the founder and Chief Foresight Officer of Venture Foresight, a company dedicated to helping leaders and organizations recognize opportunities in emerging technologies and trends.

 

For our more technically oriented attendees, GMIS offered CompTIA Security training. This class was sold our shortly after opening registration (we limited the class size to 20), and ended up having 21 attendees attend the training session. In addition to the training, we offered Security exam vouchers to the first 15 paid registrations. The technical training track was led by returning Geek Trak instructor Steven White. Steve has been teaching at Southern Crescent Technical College for 17 years. He is also the program coordinator for the college’s networking specialist program. Steven White was one of the founding instructors for the Cisco Academy in the southern crescent area in 1999. He is Cisco CCNA, CCNP and CCAI certified. Some of his graduates have gone on to work for Google, Microsoft, French Orange Group, Southern Company, and many other large organizations throughout Georgia.

 

Also during this conference, the Georgia chapter elected a new board of directors that will begin July 1, 2016. This election took place during the chapter business meeting on Thursday. Benjamin Brengman was elected as the 2016 – 2017 Georgia GMIS chapter president. In addition to Brengman, other GMIS officers were elected: Aaron Kotsyu, first vice president, Lowndes County; Cam Mathis, second vice president, City of Savannah; Larry Hobbs, third vice president, Columbia County; Jason Brookins, Executive Director, Clayton County; Clark Rainer, treasurer, Secretary of State’s office; and Karen Knight, director of corporate sponsorship, City of Douglasville.

 

The next conference for the organization will be in Savannah, October 16th through the 19th at the Savannah Marriott.