Hello, TAGITM! First of all, I’d like to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. As we move toward the end of January and the holiday-feel wears off, so does the desire to maintain this futile New Year’s resolution of eating healthier. Nobody can justify a piece of gooey butter cake quite like I can.

Have you heard? TAGITM is hosting a one-day joint IT/EM Cybersecurity Summit on March 4, 2020 at Norris Conference Center. This is an excellent opportunity to have both the office of emergency management professionals and Information technology professionals in the same room talking about how best to coordinate in the event of a cybersecurity incident.

TAGITM is proud to announce our 2020 Call for Award Nominations. All awards will be judged by the Awards Committee and award recommendations submitted to the Executive Board for review. Please note the deadline for submissions is Friday, February 28, 2020.

Click here to nominate a deserving colleague.

TAGITM is now accepting nominations for President, Vice-President and Secretary/Treasurer for one-year terms. Nominations can be submitted via the online form and must be received by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, February 14, 2020.

The TAGITM nominating committee will verify nominee eligibility, willingness to serve and review qualifications. Once the nomination period is complete, TAGITM will distribute an electronic ballot via email with specific login credentials to the Master Account Holder for each Agency.

Election results will be announced at the 2020 Annual Conference, April 14-17, 2020 in San Antonio. Please email info@tagitm.org with any questions.

The TAGITM Membership year is October 1 through September 30. If your dues were not renewed by December 31, 2019, your membership will soon expire, and you’ll no longer have access to several valuable resources.

By John Edwards, Network World

Hybrid cloud environments can deliver an array of benefits, but in many enterprises, they're becoming increasingly complex and difficult to manage. To cope, adopters typically turn to some type of management software. What soon becomes apparent, however, is that hybrid cloud management tools can be as complex and confounding as the environments they're designed to support.

By Matt Kapko, ComputerWorld

An age-old debate in IT - whether to opt for "best-of-breed" software or settle on a universal platform - is surfacing in the world of collaboration technology. IT professionals are predominantly inclined to favor consolidating around a single app or suite over supporting multiple tools because it’s easier to deploy, manage and ensure a secure work environment.

By George Anadiotis, Big on Data

This may come as a shock if you've first encountered knowledge graphs in Gartner's hype cycles and trends, or in the extensive coverage they are getting lately. But here it is: Knowledge graph technology is about 20 years old. This, however, does not mean it's stagnating - on the contrary.

By Daphne Leprince-Ringuet, ZDnet

The cyber risk that comes with connecting cars to the internet has long been identified as a threat that shouldn't be underestimated. From remote hacking to disabling or controlling a vehicle, to the risk of companies or nation states surveying our every move, cyberattacks on autonomous cars could have disastrous consequences.

By Michael Cooney, Network World

Cisco has taken the wraps off of new tools it says will boost on-premises or cloud application performance by helping IT and devops work together to automate and more quickly resolve software problems. The new tools include a package from Cisco AppDynamics that lets customers track the key components users interact with as they use enterprise applications.

There are many questions circulating related to the HB 3834 Cybersecurity Training Requirements. TAGITM reached out to Deputy Chief Information Security Officer Andy Bennett with the Department of Information (DIR) in an attempt to answer some of the questions that our members have expressed.