U.S. CIO role to Nashville techie

Long-time Nashville Information Technology veteran Richard McKinney has landed a big CIO job - heading-up that function for U.S. Department of Transportation. Right here.

Mind2Marketplace

Mind2Marketplace holds an IT panel March 3, with execs from Bytes of Knowledge, Bondware, IBM, Microsoft and Rutherford County. Details here.

Steve Ballmer, NTC pro-technology event

Tidbits from this morning's annual membership meeting of the Nashville Technology Council, convened at Trevecca Nazarene University, and attended by about 800 persons (largest NTC meeting ever, apparently): NTC Board Chairman Andy Flatt (CIO, Healthspring) said the association aims to establish statewide leadership, leveraging the Metro Nashville region's growth. President Tod Fetherling said the NTC board is holding a strategic-planning meeting this afternoon, no doubt mulling a raft of Fetherling initiatives and trying to prioritize for quality and resources. Fetherling said NTC memberships are up 18 percent, year-over-year, but didn't elaborate. Mayor Karl Dean told the audience last night's Music City Center approval by Metro Council will strengthen N'ville Healthcare, Tourism and, thereby, education, which is our biggest vulnerability as a destination for investment, relocation and retention of talent. Microsoft's personable CEO Steve Ballmer seemed tame, compared with his reputation in tech circles as an often frenzied speaker, but he delivered an engaging, albeit unabashedly commercial overview of MS' latest offerings and things now coming off the drawing boards. He noted that Sharepoint is the company's fastest-growing product, to date. He said technology can help society with one of its biggest and most persistent challenges: accelerating the pace of experimentation and innovation, and enabling faster iterative cycles in tech development and deployment. He mentioned, in particular, the relevance of this in modeling and simulations for energy, science and medicine. Ballmer showed some appreciation for Tennessee's foothold in those areas. (The acceleration and enablement themes were also woven through a tidy presentation by Abbie Lundberg, former editor of CIO.) Ballmer managed, with a wink to his audience, to do all this without uttering the words "Google," or "YouTube," focusing on Bing, Hulu and other platforms. Ballmer speaks at lunchtime to a similar gathering of Nashville Health Care Council at the Hilton downtown. Ballmer told the audience his e-mail is steveb-at-microsoft-dot-com

Microsoft's Ballmer in Music City

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's meetings here tomorrow are being covered like the diplomatic visit of the head of state of a small nation rich in strategically important ores. The Tennessean reports on Ballmer's scheduled meetings with Nashville Technology Council, Nashville Health Care Council and the music industry, as part of a multi-city tour by the peregrine executive who's been at the helm of MS ten years. The story's here. Given MS's strong position in technology for the healthcare vertical, there's mention in the story of MS possibly being a tenant in the proposed Nashville Medical Trade Center.

Ballmer, Lundberg at NTC event

Nashville Technology Council reminded us this morning its 2nd Annual Membership Breakfast, Jan. 20, 2010, will feature not only Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (at left); but, also, former CIO Magazine Editor Abbie Lundberg.

Tech Titans draw scrutiny

The Washington Post reports this week such technology titans as Microsoft, Google and Apple are among companies drawing fresh scrutiny over suppression of job-shifting in Silicon Valley and influence brought to bear on Congress and the Administration. (Illustration from WIRED.)