Some of my favourite sessions at Emerging Trends Symposium/ITxpo are the Great Debates, which all take place on Wednesday. In a lot of ways, they are Gartner Research in action. The analysts take a controversial topic, pick it apart, choose sides, have at it with lively debate and supporting data and draw to a conclusion or two. Not unlike what they do to provide you with the advice and insights you've come to count on. And then there's the kicker … you get to judge the debate, using our live interactive polling. Did one or the other side sway you? Tell the debaters and fellow attendees, before and after the debate, with the polling devices provided … and your results will be displayed live onscreen for the entire audience to see. Unique sessions, unprecedented involvement. We have three in all, taking place on Wednesday in Mare nostrum E&F in the Rey Juan Carlos Hotel.

Great Debate: Does Green Information Technology Matter?
Great Debate: Is This the End of the Road for India and Indian Service Providers?
Great Debate: Should IT Professional Manage All Technology in the Business?

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Bold, provocative statements set the tone during the opening sessions of Symposium/ITxpo. CEO Gene Hall and Gartner analysts provided an insightful overview of the issues facing today's IT Leaders – from economic uncertainty to the IT skills shortage to the rise of social computing.

Research Chief Peter Sondergaard pointed out that previous Symposia have highlighted issues, such as economic uncertainty and green IT, that are just now coming to the forefront of the IT mainstream. He also offered some short-term advice. "Get rid of waste and excess within the infrastructure and get it off the books in this quarter or the next," said Sondergaard. The words "Don't panic!" echoed through the crowd, and he added, ' now is the time to prepare for recovery."

The keynote session contextualized today's challenges in terms of the six megatrends: Innovate, Advance, Connect, Globalize, Industrialize and Socialize. We'll be taking a closer look at the megatrends as Symposium progresses.

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Keynote addresses are a hallmark of Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Emerging Trends and 2008 is no exception. Gartner CEO Gene Hall will officially kick off the event with his opening remarks Tuesday from 9 – 9.15am. Gene will be followed by the Gartner Analyst Opening Keynote at 8:15 AM. This keynote's theme is "Technology-Powered Business Acceleration" and features Peter Sondergaard, Ken McGee, Anthony Bradley, Partha Iyengar, Mary Mesaglio and Darryl Plummer.

Wednesday's keynote at 10.30am is an Innovator Interview with Ilkka Raiskinen, Senior Vice President, Context, Advertising & Emerging Markets from Nokia Corporation. Gartner analysts Nick Jones and Monica Basso will explore how innovation is working for Nokia. How they tap into other people’s innovative technologies and business models. How they involve customers in rapid co-development, and how the CIO's team supports innovation and the difficulties of using their own company as a testing ground.

At our closing keynote on Thursday at 3pm, Gartner Analyst Jennifer Beck will lead a lively panel discussion with three 'Digital Natives,' bringing to the Keynote stage university students and newly qualified professionals for the freshest-of-all perspectives on emerging trends and technologies. The future of IT and business lies largely in the hands of digital natives who have been immersed in technology their entire lives, and so are already – and will continue to be – incredibly influential in how we use technology in the enterprise. So it's only fitting we end the week through their eyes!

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We're here! Welcome to Gartner Emerging Trends Symposium/ITxpo 2008. Today is the beginning of what promises to be an exciting event. Driven by our new focus on six megatrends, Symposium/ITxpo will be taking a look into the future and providing you will actionable information, all in the span of five action-packed days.

Start today with our Kick-off sessions. Organize your event schedule with our AgendaBuilder planning tool, available here. Make sure to make time for our special keynote sessions, and consider attending one or two workshops or roundtables.

Be sure to check out the technology powering these emerging IT Trends at ITxpo, which will be open Tuesday to Thursday. There's even time for a little fun – please don’t miss our evening receptions, and Wednesday night's special event in the Rey Juan Carlos Gardens, for some fabulous food and entertainment!

It's sure to be a great week, so make your plans and make the most of it. Keep checking the blog for the latest information!

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If you have chosen to attend Emerging Trends Symposium, you are probably a leader who wants to keep up with what's next. Our intention is that you will leave knowing important new things that you didn't even know you needed to know. For example at last year's event a couple of hidden gems were Green IT (Gartner was the first to pronounce IT's 2% carbon contribution is comparable to aviation) and a session called 'Cyberwarrior' which pre-dated real cyber-war incidents that occurred later in the year. Both sessions were highly prescient but sparsely attended because the subjects were so new. So, as chair, here are 2 sessions I think will be really important to your future – but you might not yet realize it. Pick a couple of them, and stay one step ahead of the pack

The Low-Carbon Economy and IT's Role in It

What comes next in Green IT might make datacenter power and cooling look trivial by comparison. Could the health of the planet depend on your future business applications?

3-D Printing: From Prototype to Product

Printers of things are getting cheaper. One day soon they'll be attached to your network. Don't wait for your first helpdesk call to find out what's going on in this breakthrough device category.

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We have set up project management, portfolio prioritization and a host of other disciplines assuming that we have the time to analyze data, make well-considered decisions, and have these decisions stick. However, many of us live in a world of ad hoc requests, technology-empowered users, distributed budgets and decision making. The portfolio is obsolete five minutes after the governance meeting ends. Scope management is an oxymoron. And the business sees us as an inhibitor to their needs to change and grow. Chances are that you are not alone in facing such issues and situations. Join me and your fellow conference attendees for the "Adapting PPM to Shifting Priorities and the Accelerating Rate of Business Change" Analyst/User Roundtables for a free exchange around the issues and to take advantage of the experiences of your peers.

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Have you come across the word 'Fabber' yet? It’s a new-ish industry term for a 3D printing device – one of those that makes things out of plastic instead of documents out of paper. The appearance of a new category name is a strong indicator to a trend spotter that rapid changes are going on in that area. I am led to believe that prices are falling fast and there is an open innovation movement at work. Those factors usually signal disruptive innovation. We'll have a session dedicated to this emerging trend at the event as one of our Printer industry analysts, Pete Basiliere, takes a hard look at what's really going on.

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I'm wondering how business people and professionals in China and India feel when they hear the word "Chindia" on business TV channels or read it in the press? After all, these are two very different nations, with different strengths and weaknesses across the various IT sectors. This year we'll be giving a lot of attention to what's going on in each country. What's your initial reaction to that? I am guessing that if you don't care much now, you might do soon because those countries will maintain high growth rates even while some of the major Western nations go though an economic downturn. That means your business leadership team is more and more likely to want to do business in China and India, directly or indirectly – and they'll be coming to you for IT support. We have it covered. Partha Iyengar has a whole track looking at the IT Globalization big picture.

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Deciding on which sessions are right for you can take quite a time – even using the on-line agenda builder. It is not obvious that actually the conference is structured like an onion with several skins. A deep dive into the middle might give you some complex technological insight at an analyst-user roundtable. The next level out might be access to best practices in program and project management. Rolling up broad topic areas will be many Scenarios – a look ahead to a technology or market behaviour still five years away. The all encompassing outer skin is the aggregation of the other scenarios: The Gartner Scenario: The Current State and Future Directions of the IT Industry from Ken McGee. You will hear from Ken how we expect the major forces to play out across the whole industry – users, buyers and providers – the IT big picture. Check the Session Types to make sure you don't miss a key scenario.

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Have you ever thought what the very biggest issues might be for IT over the next 20 years? Most of us don't think that far ahead – but it's important in many industries for small, high level groups doing long range strategic planning. I have just had the privilege of seeing the slide deck my colleague Ken McGee will be using at the event with the title 'IT Grand Challenges.' It is very interesting indeed. It may change your view of the future of IT and your career within it. Don't miss it!

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"Innovation is a big idea with a lot of potential - but it is tricky to get right. Enterprises with leading-edge, sustainable innovation practices approach innovation obliquely, not directly." So says researcher Mary Mesaglio in her new March report to members of EXP CIO Signature entitled 'The Innovation Paradox' (G00156596). Just how do you lead an organization to deliver more innovation? Mary has been working with a group of CIOs on innovation questions for several years. In her session ''I' is for Innovation: The CIO as Chief Innovation Officer' she will share some of her findings.

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Gartner's methods for peer reviewing research ensure that we create future scenarios that have a good chance of occurring. In the early stages of developing such considered opinions we sometimes see predictions that suggest much more outside-the-box, maverick or unconventional thinking. Rather than leave these invisible to our clients we select some to put on stage at Symposium.

For Barcelona we have two such maverick sessions that have this characteristic of breaking away from conventional ideas. The first is 2018: Digital Natives Grow Up and Rule the World from Monica Basso and Steve Prentice. It's not often that you see Gartner looking ten years ahead, but this could well change your expectations of just how differently enterprises will behave by then as social collaboration extends to new styles of business innovation.

The second maverick session is The Hyperconnected Enterprise: Anticipating the Next Wave of Business Influences by Diane Morello. Diane will take you through some very compelling research and scenarios where the new breed of web-based enterprises become the norm. Businesses lose their traditional advantage of internal innovation while their dependence on external influencers grows ever more rapidly.

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In recent news iRobot corporation is reportedly working on 'LAN Droids' – wireless LAN robot devices that can relocate themselves to gain optimum signal strength. That work is for the US military, but the same company makes those familiar home vacuum cleaner 'Roomba' robots. Where is it all heading? Retail analyst Mim Burt takes a look at the brave new world we will all be adapting to over the coming decade or two. She sees robots, avatars, and 3D printing melding to form radical new opportunities for consumer facing businesses.

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What comes first: the business strategy or the IT strategy? Well that's a 'no-brainer,' clearly business drives IT right? Actually my colleague Andy Kyte is finding some leading CIOs, recognizing the huge business cost impacts from the lack of IT strategic planning, are nowadays placing IT Strategy before Business Strategy. He points out this is counter-intuitive, and represents a revolution in the relationship between IT and the rest of the business. In his session "Why Leaders Place IT Strategy Before Business Strategy," Gartner Fellow Andy Kyte will show why these leaders are gaining benefits from this approach, and describe how they set about the task.

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Set the agenda and talk to your peers about your biggest shared issues at our Symposium Community 'Meet and Greet' sessions. Hosted by a Gartner analysts in the Community Lounge, these informal gatherings are an excellent opportunity to make new contacts and share ideas.

Why not submit discussion topics, or your most pressing questions that you're looking to find answers to here on the blog, or on Symposium Communities Online? We'll pose these questions to the Community onsite and report back here with the feedback!

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Technology is shifting influence and control points in society and business. Through social networking, instant messaging and a growing mastery of digital media and distribution, newly empowered digital natives and digital immigrants are rewriting the rules of engagement. The traditional paradigms are changing – to personal infrastructure, cloud-based delivery, online interaction, global collaboration, wikis, digital media distribution, and much more – leaving traditional enterprises struggling to survive in an unfamiliar world they no longer control and barely understand.

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The hype surrounding emerging trends and technologies all too often compels pundits to proclaim: "This will change everything!" We will blast through that hype, specify where true IT innovation is taking place, demonstrate that progress is making a difference in business outcomes, and identify people and enterprises among today's top IT innovators.

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A fresh cycle of IT activity is gaining momentum. Leading enterprises are externalizing their IT systems - gaining new levels of scalability, agility in business process interactions and extending sourcing options. Ownership of once "business-critical" IT assets like data centers and applications is being reassessed. The resources and results of IT are decoupling and capital expenditure is shifting towards providers of industrialized services, as dynamic enterprises move IT systems off their balance sheets.

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We are entering the fourth wave of globalization, one that threatens the world order in the knowledge economy, and which will reveal new challenges. Enterprise agility, while a critical competitive requirement today, will become a prerequisite for survival. New macro forces are emerging like the "destiny of demography," the mass wave of emerging-market "digital native" consumers, and the increasing power of global online and physical communities. These will force entire industries to rethink their sources of supply and demand for their products and services. Only those that respond with the right customer focus, location and price points will thrive.

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Future communication networks will understand who you are, where you are, and how you like to interact. They'll improve application performance, and they'll protect your business. Under this megatrend, we'll cover emerging technologies and strategies in wireless, voice over IP, adaptive security, and continuous compliance.

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