September, 2007
by Denise P. Kalm
Denise Kalm has 30 years experience in IT including application programming, enterprise systems management and performance management/capacity planning at Pacific Telephone and Bank of America. She moved to vendor land in 2000, spending 5 ½ years with BMC on the EPA product line, then recently became the senior product marketing manager for enterprise job scheduling products at CA, Inc., formerly Cybermation. She is a regional officer of CMG, has held many volunteer positions within that organization and is a frequent contributing author. Prior to entering the IT profession, she was a biochemical geneticist. Her hobbies include flying, Jazzercise, writing and scuba diving. Her book, Lifestorm, on the Oakland Hills fire, is available on Amazon. She is an executive and personal coach as well, offering phone and in-person coaching.
About the Author
Denise P. Kalm, CA, Inc. formerly Cybermation
1. What drew you to CMG in the first place?
As with many CMGers, it was the opportunity to write a paper dealing with one form of performance or another, IT related, of course. So I wrote my first paper and submitted it to CMG. I was absolutely delighted that it was accepted and I was hooked on CMG ever since. I delight and get energized by working with all the people involved in and with CMG, and find that this is a synergistic relationship.
2. What keeps you there?
My career deals with performance in the IT industry and my relationship with CMG, as stated above, is synergistic. I continuously learn from our fellow workers and members and do my best to contribute to sharing my knowledge and insights in the IT world.
3. What inspired you to seek national office?
Being at the right place, at the right time and with the right willingness to contribute to the organization. I think we all have special talents and give to the organization. Everyone has the ability to contribute his or her specialty. I enjoy sharing what I know, helping guide our organization in seeing another view point and championing current and new efforts of promoting CMG.
4. If someone didn't know you well, what would be the 3 things you would want them to know, prior to voting?
The first is that we all have something to give and that all candidates are great contributors. The second is that I like to share any and all insights that I have from my experience in the IT industry in the hopes that they will benefit CMG. And thirdly, I believe that an organization should have an open and direct line of communications between its members and board of directors.
5. If you could make one change to the organization or the conference, what would it be?
The conferences have had a great deal of success and so has the organization. From a conference perspective, having been on the conference committee for a couple of years now, I would work on shortening the time between when "papers/presentations" need to be submitted to when the conference is actually held. This, in my opinion, would increase the number of presenters for the conference by allowing them to focus their efforts over a shorter period of time. From an organizational point of view, I would concentrate on making sure that an "open" line of communication exists between the members and directors, thus allowing an exchange of ideas.
6. What is working well now?
The conferences are doing well and the organization is stable.
7. What isn't?
I believe that delays in communications and decisions from the board of directors to the members and committees are an issue. We need to improve the timing and communications.
8. What are the 3 adjectives you would use to describe yourself?