July 13th meeting will discuss Salary Trends

Our July program is about one of our most favorite topics: money! Specially our speaker will discuss salaries, what to expect as a starting figure and what is the potential, by various IT positions and variations across the country. Our speaker will also discuss the Nashville IT market, what's hot and what's not.

Our July speaker is Lizamari Suria who is a Recruiting Manager with Robert Half Technology here in Nashville. Lizamari deals with salary questions on an everyday basis. She also has the resources available from Ralph Half Technology who gather salary information on a national basis. Lizamari can give us first hand information on salary levels and trends.

Email Mary Simpson for more details. msimpson@genesco.com

The meeting is at 5:30 on July 13th.

Genesco Field Trip a Success

On Thursday we met at the Genesco Distribution Center in Lebanon, TN for a tour. Wesley Lankford and his IT team led us through their facility. Genesco operates four highly fashionable shoe and hat stores across the country: Journeyz, Journeyz Kids, Hat World, and Shi. The distribution center is highly automated and ships to all of their stores across the country. In any given day they can ship up to 85,000 pairs of shoes. On Thursday, 6/8/2006, they shipped 61,000. It is an amazing operation with conveyors throughout the facility that take a carton of shows from their picking area to the taping area to the shipping dock.

Directions to Genesco

The Genesco Distribution Center is located at 635 Genesco Parkway , Lebanon , TN 37090 . Coming from downtown Nashville , you travel east on I-40 to Exit 232A which is Highway 109. You go south on 109 for two miles to Cedar Creek Lane . Turn left on Cedar Creek for 100 yards to Genesco Parkway . Park in the visitors' area and come into the front lobby.
The turn on to Cedar Creek Lane is a little tricky. Mark two miles as you leave I-40, and there will be a break in the median that will be Cedar Creek Lane .
This is a warehouse tour, and you should dress appropriately, i.e., no high heels. We will provide a catered meal. Please arrive before 6:00 p.m.

Field Trip to Genesco

Our June program is a visit to the new Genesco Distribution Center near Lebanon.

The Genesco DC was a $28 million project that originated in 2001 and completed in 2002. It is a state of the art operation and can ship up to 85,00 units and 15,000 cases per day to support over 1,000 Genesco retail stores and three e-commerce sites. The warehouse employs 220 people at peak operation level and is highly automated Genesco sells footwear and accessories across the United States, principally under the names of Journeys, Journeys Kidz, Johnson & Murphy, Jarman, and Underground Station. The Company also sells footwear on-line and wholesale under the Johnson & Murphy and Dockers brands.

We look forward to seeing you there.

AITP New promotion has only 2 weeks left

The new membership promotion only has less than 2 weeks left.

Our June event will be a field trip to Genesco's automated distribution center.

New Member Campaign

For the month of May, AITP is offering a $25 discount on its annual fee. Therefore, only during May you can join for $110 instead of the normal $135. The $15 processing fee has been eliminated for all future new member signups, so you actually save a total of $40.

AITP membership entitles you to:

• High quality white papers covering current technology and IT management practices
• Networking opportunities with peers via National and Chapter events, discussion forums, listservs and SIG's - get in touch with your IT peers!
• Latest developments on IT conferences, research developments, breaking news, advocacy efforts, vendor solutions, RFPs, and career opportunities
• Local chapter and region affiliations.
• Knowledge exchange through IT repository and discussion forums.
• Special discounts for AITP members on continuing education courses, group insurance plans, financial services, and other valuable products and services.
• Advocacy and influence opportunities in the IT industry via AITP advocacy committees.
• Voting rights.
• Access to a directory of AITP members.

AITP has hit the blogging scene

Last night, May 11th, the Nashville chapter of AITP hosted their monthly meeting and the topic was "Blogging for Business". The speaker was Rex Hammock who has benn blogging longer than most people have been using email. His blog can be found at rexblog.com. I thought I would take him up on his notion that anyone can start bloggin in only minutes. to my surprise he was right and I created a blog and am typing this in only amatter of minutes.

I cannot think of a better way to communicate with individuals in the IT community in Nashville than with blogging. It so easy to do and anyone can respond or comment as long as they have a web browser.

So what is AITP?

AITP is an IT organization that appeals to all facets of information technology professionals. It has 3 main objectives:

1. Provide a general interest IT platform so that all areas of professionals can come together and learn about all facets of IT.
2. Provide a networking environment that enables a "continual" communication stream with IT professionals in Nashville.
3. Support universities and tech schools in Middle Tennessee through mentoring, conferences, scholarships, etc.

I am interested in seeing this blog become another avenue of communication.

To find out more about our organization, please visit us at aitpnashville.org.