Forrester's IT Forum EMEA 2010 in Lisbon, Portugal, is finally here! We're expecting about 500 people on-site and I can tell you that the content we've developed with Forrester analysts and our great roster of invited speakers is even better than years past. We've been talking about Business Technology (BT) transformation for a while now, but this year you made it clear that the time for theory is over and you want to know how to make it real.

Today, you'll hear from George Colony, our CEO, followed by keynotes from Peter Hambling, CIO at Lloyds of London, who will tell us why BT is essential to Lloyds in the fast-moving world of risk management and insurance. Alex Cullen, Research Director serving Enterprise Architecture professionals, will help bridge the gap between business and IT using business capability maps, and Ted Schadler, Vice President and Principal Analyst serving Information & Knowledge Management professionals, will talk about leveraging empowered customers and employees to drive business success. He will be joined by two special guests, Michiel Boreel, CTO at Sogeti, and Fernando Summers Gil, Head of Knowledge Management Innovation at BPVA.

If you can't attend, be sure to check out the highlights of the speeches and the Twitter stream below.

Today's Live Stream

11:50-12:35 GMT
Forrester Keynote: Planning And Delivering Capabilities Your Business Wants
Alex Cullen, Vice President, Research Director, Forrester

As we get ready to host IT Forum EMEA June 9-11 in Lisbon, we will be conducting interviews with some of the key Forrester speakers and our invited industry keynotes. With so much attention being focused on business intelligence these days, we decided to sit down with Senior Analyst James Kobielus, who covers analytics, data mining and warehousing and business intelligence. James will be delivering a presentation for Business Process and Applications professionals.

YATES: What is the key lesson/theme that you will present at IT Forum EMEA?
KOBIELUS: I’m speaking on four topics in four different sessions with the common theme being that pervasive adoption of business intelligence (BI) can make organizations more lean, agile, and adaptable to changing conditions. I’ll be discussing “Driving Better Business Outcomes with Pervasive BI,” “Best Practices for Centralizing and Consolidating BI,” and “Transforming Business Processes Through Business Analytics” (with Derek Miers). Also at ITF EMEA, I’m moderating the SAP Espresso Lounge session on “Transform Your Enterprise into a Best-Run Business.”

YATES: How do these sessions tie into the overall theme of making business technology real?
KOBIELUS: All of this ties directly into that theme, since “making business technology real” can be defined as empowering information workers with tools that they use all the time and without which they would not be even half as productive. BI is just such a technology, because it can infuse every decision with the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and trustworthy information available. In this way, every information worker can have greater confidence in every action they take, can justify it fully, and can adjust their plans rapidly to fit changing circumstances.

For Infrastructure and Operations (IO) Professionals, 2010 will be a critical year as the global economy begins its long road to recovery and the post-recession era takes hold. Businesses want to put the last decade behind them and come out of the starting gate of the new decade fast with new applications and new market initiatives. For our IO clients that translates into three major imperatives: (1) build an IO technology plan for the new decade, (2) plan and prioritize the critical infrastructure projects that were either postponed, delayed or cancelled during the recession and (3) execute on those plans with a sharp focus on controlling costs and improving efficiency.

In 2009, we completed an in-depth, outside-in “role deep dive” study to better understand what our IO clients want and don’t want from us in 2010. It will drive our research efforts and make what we do more relevant to you in your daily work lives. In the New Year, we’ll be hosting a free webinar to outline our plans and get your feedback. I do hope you’ll be able to join us and share your thoughts. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll hear. In 2010, the Infrastructure and Operations team will: