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?
Most jobs only allowed me one week of training per week - I had to select carefully to ensure I could get enough learning to keep up. After comparing the various conferences and training classes, CMG presented the most attractive offering - it was many classes in just one week - a very efficient use of time. I also loved that I could keep up with quarterly regional meetings. I have been a faithful attendee of NCCMG for many years.
2. What keeps you there?
The most important factor is the friendships I have made in this organization. At each regional meeting, at national and even, throughout the year, I have a network of friends who share my work challenges and my interests. This is an amazing group of people; I have seen people rally to help a member find a job, get their first paper written...we are always there for each other. CMG has also been my training for many years - where else can you tap into this much concentrated expertise so quickly and easily? Finally, CMG has challenged me to grow as a professional. Writing a paper each year, contributing to Measure IT and trying to take my presentation skills to the next level - I'm not sure I would have done as much without the support and opportunity CMG presents. And I am truly grateful that as my interests evolved, CMG supported my somewhat unique subject matter for papers.
3. What inspired you to seek national office?
As I increased my involvement and participation as a volunteer and speaker, I began to realize I wanted a chance to see if I couldn't help grow the membership and help CMG thrive. To me, this meant finding a way to transform participation from occasional attendance to committed volunteer and/or speaker. But just having some good ideas isn't enough - you have to be willing to do the work to make them happen. I also believe that this is the next logical step and the best way I can give back to this organization. I really believe I would not be at the place I am in my career without CMG. And of course, I would love to continue working with Cathy Nolan - we have been a great team for years at the local level.
4. If someone didn't know you well, what would be the 3 things you would want them know, prior to voting?
Okay, I wrote these questions, so I can't complain, but this one is tough. What was I thinking? This really needs to be things you aren't reading already in the nominations statement
5. If you could make one change to the organization or the conference, what would it be?
I would want to focus on supporting and extending the regions, so that everyone could have a chance to get started with CMG locally. I believe that this is how we grow the national organization - through the power of our regions. I'm lucky - I'm in a terrific region with regular meetings, but I believe there are still people in the Bay Area who don't know who we are. I'd love to change that - to attract a wider group of professionals to our meeting. As someone once said, "Performance is everyone's job." So everyone is our audience if we could just get the word out. New people, new ideas, new ways of looking at things - expanding our reach energizes and stimulates all of us. And this means reaching out and asking people to step up their participation. As someone moves from simply attending to volunteering or speaking, their commitment grows as well.
6. What is working well now?
I believe that many things are working really well. We keep trying new things (CMG-T, Measure IT, conference within a conference). There is a willingness to challenge the status quo and just try a new approach. I think Measure IT may be our best current vehicle for expanding our reach and the participation from our membership has been incredible. Every year, we get great new speakers, as well as continuing to learn from our seasoned experts. The Mentor program has encouraged a lot of new people to see how much fun it can be to share their expertise with others.
7. What isn't?
First, we aren't growing. Each year we get some new people, but we lose others - I'd love to find out why and see if we can't change that. Next, some regions struggle to hold regular meetings. I have some ideas of how we might be able to help regions grow. Finally, I think we can do a better job of supporting our writers, particularly in the referee process. As such, I am working with a team to offer a new version of the referee form, hoping that it will help the referees better assess papers, help the writers improve their work and finally, help the committee better evaluate the paper.
8. What are the 3 adjectives you would use to describe yourself?