CITM Achievements

CITM Named Tech Titan Finalist

When the Metroplex Technology Business Council of the Richardson Chamber of Commerce honored its best and brightest in 2006 with the fourth annual Tech Titan awards, School of Management's Center for Information Technology Management(CITM) was among those in the spotlight. The CITM, under the direction of Dr. Michael Savoie was named one of three finalists in the Technopolis category, an honor that ultimately went to U.T. Southwestern Medical Center's Office of Technology Development. But for the three-year-old CITM, the nomination alone was confirmation of a job that continues to be well done.

"The Technopolis award is for non-profit or academic organizations that make a sizeable contribution to the tech community," Savoie said "Just to be named a finalist is really good for us. "We're young. We're growing, and we received a lot of validation at the awards ceremony."

"Our tagline at the center is 'wrapping the business case around new and emerging technologies,' and it's a nice thing to say, but the question is always: do we really do that? This reinforced to us that what we're doing isn't just an academic exercise," Savoie said.

The CITM, which examines the effects of technology on business models and processes, has endeared itself to the tech community by becoming a useful and reliable source of information. The center compiles the State of Technology Report—published annually by the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce for the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. The center also pursues grants that support research on emerging information technologies and how they apply to the information and business communities, as well as their effect on organizations' management. However, it is an ongoing project with the Telecom Corridor that is putting the CITM on the map.

"We're doing the Telecom Corridor Genealogy Project, which is huge," Savoie said. "We're generating a 40-year family tree of individuals and companies that have worked in the North Texas technology sector." The CITM began working on the project in 2006, and Savoie notes that the research has multiple useful functions.

"For one thing, it's a tremendously valuable tool for the chambers of commerce and economic development corporations in the area. It's also a great way for people in the tech sector to re-connect and be able to find people they used to work with. We are working with tens of thousands of companies to give a true, multidimensional diagram of the history of technology," Savoie said.

The project has captured the interest of both industry and community groups, and Savoie says he believes the research was partially responsible for the Tech Titan nomination.

"This is going to be a living database that will continue to evolve as long as the tech sector exists. People are truly excited about this," Savoie said. "That's thrilling to see. So often you work on research and wonder if it really does have an impact. With this, we're just getting started, and we're already seeing that it does."