Note:  Diane Kenyon, one of the panelists for the Innotech’s “Where Is IT Going?” panel, spoke with Matt Scherer, the event’s publicist about her speech on March 3.  Kenyon also will assume the duties as the chairwoman for the 2011 Austin Innotech board of advisors.

Q1.  As part of the “Where Is IT Going?” panel, where to you see technology moving in the next 12 months?

Diane Kenyon: Technology continues to move faster than business can keep up.  I see the movement to cloud computing growing significantly for business use this next year. I also anticipate that we will see a lot more maturity in the mobile applications that are available for consumers and businesses.

Q2.  If you could advise IT research and development teams on your biggest needs and challenges, what would you tell them?

Kenyon: Business owners are always asking if technology can be faster, better and cheaper.  In this light we need technology to continue to evolve  for faster processing and fast implementations.  We need R&D to deliver better out of the box solutions that easily fit our needs at an extremely reasonable price.  I believe that devices will continue to evolve and that R&D should focus their efforts to build business applications that run on new phones and new devices. I believe systems integration and interoperability drive the need for more standards. I believe internal business owners and consumers continue to demand more transparency from IT.

Q3.  Having given those folks who work in IT research and development your needs to make your job more productive, what do you see in terms of long term strategic growth in developing new products and tools in the next decade?

Kenyon: Firms desiring long term strategic growth need to focus on the customer needs, both the business customer and the consumer. They will need to stay on the leading edge with new hardware and devices, and deliver full solutions efficiently.  On-going innovation will be needed to create long term demand.

Q4.  As the chairwoman of the Austin Innotech Advisory Council for the fall 2011 event, do you see more collaborative efforts with San Antonio technology firms in the near future?  In other words, how can we create growth between both tech communities?

Kenyon: While there is some collaboration between Austin and San Antonio technology companies and technology interest groups, I would like to see more.  As technology vendors and firms continue to reach out between San Antonio and Austin and expand their customer base, the current penetration will expand.   I believe Innotech is a great venue to help foster this growth.

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