As Jason Hiner reported in his Tech Sanity Check blog in November, the Society for Information Management (SIM) , a community of senior-level IT professionals, released the result of their most recent IT Trend Survey. Interestingly, though not surprisingly, “Business productivity and cost reduction” moved up to the top spot on the list, replacing “IT and business alignment”.

This differs from a survey released by the National Association of State CIO’s in November, which ranked “Budget and Cost Control” third behind “Consolidation” and “Shared Services”.

This might reflect a change in priorities as a result of current economic conditions, or a difference in priorities between the largely private sector SIM and the public sector needs represented by NASCIO. The good news is that we’ve found that making progress in these priority areas is rarely a choice between priorities, but that in fact they are often inextricably linked.

When they celebrated the first anniversary of their AMANDA implementation in May, Volusia County, Florida was able to report not only that their implementation of AMANDA had resulted in the consolidation and efficiencies they sought, but also to estimate the budgets savings that would result.  Read More

As you look to 2010, what are your top priorities?

Let us know what you think.