Terry White, respected South African IT management strategist and author, will spend the next week in Moscow, giving a Masterclass, attending a conference, and delivering a lecture to a leading Russian University - The State School of Management.
White will be interviewed by a number of Russian management magazines about his IT management books, with particular interest in "What Business Really Wants from IT", which has been translated and published in Russian. He will also be interviewed by a number of industry players and by a large book chain-store about the book.
He and the Butler Group Research Director, Tim Jennings, are presenting the MasterClass: "Managing IT Costs and Value", a topic that was offered to South African IT and business people in March 2007 by MarketWorks Advisory.
He will also sit on a number of expert panels at the "The summit of Institute of Adam Smith: Corporate I? Strategy in Russia and the CIS." The CIS is the 'Commonwealth of Independent States', formerly the USSR. The expert panels are the most difficult part of this visit, he says, because in preparatory communication with the other panellists there has been a significant language barrier.
"The problem is that I have to run all their discussions through an online translator application, before I can understand what points they are making. And online translation produces some strange results. It also appears that the Russians tend to take things rather seriously and literally so I won't be telling any Russian jokes. Nevertheless, it is clear that Russian CIOs face very similar challenges to their South African counterparts. The work that we do is well accepted in South Africa and the UK - now the challenge is to do it all in Russian."
He was hoping to do some sightseeing in Moscow, but he says: "My Russian publishers and conference organisers have filled every available moment with interviews, presentations and book signings. Still, this is an indication of the interest for strategic IT management thinking in that part of the world, and I am very excited to be working in Russia and extending our market reach."
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