They are pretty adamant about excluding vendor participation. Many vendors don't understand how to talk to CIOs, so the CIOs are creating their own spaces.

Side bar

What's on the menu?

Here are the five top issues the Atlanta-area CIO lunch group currently finds itself discussing.

-- Information security. "Every time we meet, we talk about cybersecurity: What tools are you using to filter? What kinds of activity are you seeing in your network? What are you doing to manage those risks? I'd say that's the No. 1 topic for all of us." -- Becky Blalock, CIO, Southern Co.