Howdy TAGITM!

Here it is month two already. I can remember quite well that feeling as a kid when school started, and Xmas break felt like eons away. These days the weeks and months fly by! Here in Seguin, our budget submission and prelim meetings were completed in early June, so now we wait to see what’s in store for the next fiscal year. Undoubtably there will be follow up communication, but it’s a weight off my shoulders every year when I can check this box as done.

Despite the high temps having already kicked in, with budget prep mostly out of the way it feels like summer can officially settle in. I’ll be taking half of July off, and I have a couple of conferences I’ll be attending on behalf of TAGITM. I’m looking forward to all of it! That said, I hope all of you are where you need to be in your respective budget processes and more importantly, I hope you all have downtime coming up to enjoy the time off we all deserve. Life can be a grind. I am of the mindset you owe it to yourself and your family to take your foot off the gas sometimes. Whether you’re planning your next vacation or simply taking a few days to unwind, please do be mindful of that work-life balance.

OK…month two updates, here we go! A few weeks back Melissa Kraft from Frisco put me in touch with her contact from Gartner. I’ve been a Gartner fan for years. A portion of the infrastructure we’ve revamped in Seguin is/was based off data from Gartner, so I was happy to have a phone call with their SLED manager on how TAGITM and Gartner may be able to partner up. I have a pending phone call with more Gartner folks after the TAGITM board strategic planning session, which as I write this is next week. Maybe there’s an opportunity there, maybe not, but you never know unless you talk it out. I’d love to see them involved in some capacity. We shall see!

This past month, executive board members also tagged up with our counterparts at GMIS. We’ve been working behind the scenes for several months to develop a partnership. A couple of our executive board members have been strong proponents to partner with GMIS with an eye towards leveraging their upcoming accreditation program. Prior to our annual conference we received GMIS’s proposed partnership agreement that admittedly I did not care for. That was the primary topic of our recent meeting. It was a good conversation, and GMIS has gone back to I believe revise what was discussed. I want to support this effort as a value add to TAGITM membership, but I am particular in the details. I’m confident we’ll get it worked out. Stay tuned for a cool announcement if we do!

Last thing I’ll mention is one of my favorite dudes up in DFW, Leigh Johnson from Prosper, reached out recently trying to work through getting an employee signed up for the TAGITM sponsored CGCIO program. The link was outdated or something on TAGITM’s website, which has been corrected. TAGITM members receive a $500 discount for signing up, which is better than a poke in the eye with a stick as they say, but I’m curious what members think about CGCIO. If anyone would like to share their thoughts, please feel free to reach out to myself or anyone on the board so we can get the vibe on this organizationally.

That’s it for month two. Thankfully it was seamless as I was wrapping up budgeting, I would say very manageable! Had some good conversations, moved the needle forward a bit, and I’m ready for some thought-provoking dialogue at our upcoming strategic planning. You know, now that I think about it, I may have forgotten to mention to the new board members that they are supposed to pick up the bar tab next week. My bad, y’all! No biggie, we’ll work through all that (lol). I hope everyone reading this is healthy, happy, and is lining themselves up for an awesome summer both professionally and personally. Until next time, thank you for reading!

Shane McDaniel

TAGITM President