Vince Kellen, CIO at the University of Kentucky

Our goal is to take the interactions our 26,000 students have with the university and enable as many of them as possible on a mobile device. We created a three-year mobile strategic plan, and we think this will enhance student engagement, leading to improved student retention and academic success. Today, students can use devices to access static information about campus life. Soon we will add access to grades, course registration and other interactions. We will also develop an app to make the learning-management platform accessible via BlackBerry, Android, iPad and iPhone.

Many IT teams take an existing portal and then enable it for mobile. Due to the sheer quantity of interactions, we are planning to do the opposite--design a portal that meets the needs of mobile users and then scale it for use on a PC. We feel that this approach could result in a much better interface for the mobile user. We also need to identify the right balance of what we do in a mobile Web interface versus a mobile installed application, and how to best integrate transactional data from ERP and other back-end systems. Skill development is another priority; we need to make sure that we have the right knowledge in the right roles to foster success in the mobile arena.

Advice: Secure the back end, Evaluate intensive tasks

Dennis Stevens, VP of Digital Solutions and Connectivity, Diabetes Franchise, Johnson and Johnson