James McKeen, our IT Educator of the Year for 2011, is a professor at Queen's University. He gained recognition for the award through his involvement in the Canadian CIO community, planning CIO events and writing academic works. In 1990, while doing research for IBM with longtime collaborator Heather Smith, McKeen was approached by a colleague with a very interesting question; where does IT go for management advice? "I mean, we all know where to go for technical help, but where do we go for management?," McKeen said. He realized the need there was for this type of information exchange, a place where IT management could trade ideas and best practices. The questions were simple but hard to find in the IT industry; "are we spending too much? Is our planning process appropriate? What's wrong with our budgeting cycles, should we be doing them differently?... Am I hiring the wrong people? Do I have the right skills?" he said. "They're sort of driven by technology but they're just management issues."
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