Archive for Notable + Quotable
by Celine Roque
June 30, 2009 at 2:13 pm · Filed under
Notable + Quotable
Is Google Wave the Solution to Social Network Over-Sharing?
Edward Albro extols the potential of Google Wave as a targeted social networking tool on PC World. “Don’t get me wrong: I can see how Wave would be useful in professional circumstances, collaborating on a group project, for instance. But to my mind, it looks most like the next evolution of social networks. And that’s an area that desperately needs to evolve.”
Telecommuting offers flexibility, but working remotely takes balance
Leah Bartos of New Orleans City Business tackles the pros and cons of working outside the office. “The issue of cost really depends on the individual company and what they’re asking the person to do,” [one expert] said. “In some cases there may be a cost-effectiveness to not paying for an employee’s office space.” But in other cases it might be questionable. “You don’t have to provide the office space, but then you lose some of the personal interacting. … It’s really not something you can put a blanket on and say it’s a cost-effective improvement for everyone.”
Streamline Your Online Experience
Adam Pash shares some tips to bring order and sanity back to your life online. “The Internet is an amazing venue for sharing your life with family and friends, but if you don’t pay attention to what you’re sharing, it can turn into a privacy nightmare. You can do a lot to protect yourself. If you’re on Facebook, for example, get to know the privacy settings. You can determine what you broadcast to the world; and when used wisely, the settings provide serious control over what details the site exposes. One great setting to tweak is the Search setting, which lets you restrict how much information people can see about you before you add them as friends.”
Borderless offices
John DiLullo, President of Avaya Asia Pacific, writes about the readiness of available technology to support teleworking and its rising acceptance on AsiaOne. “Flexible working helps tackle the twin issues of productivity as well as work-life balance. A survey commissioned by Avaya last year showed a dramatic increase in positive attitudes towards telecommuting in the Asia Pacific. About 80 per cent of managers agreed that telecommuting improves productivity compared to 60 per cent in 2005. Also, 70 per cent of the managers favoured flexible working as a means of improving work-life balance.”
Influence – not as simple as Gladwell would have you believe!
Matthew Hurst wrote an in-depth article on Data Mining regarding social media’s influence. “Diffusion of information may ‘long circuit’ the small worlds of social networks. In Kleinberg’s presentation regarding the study of the largest internet chain mail (a petition) he described the role of the threshold model of diffusion in which we require multiple receipts of a stimulus (e.g. a chain mail letter) to pass it on, we are more sensitive to our immediate community – our strong links – than to small-world building weak links.”
Mid-lifers navigate world of social networking online
Kathleen Megan of Inside Bay Area talks about the problems faced by older generations in dealing with an unfamiliar social networking culture. “With the thunderous arrival of mid-lifers on Facebook and other social networks, so, too, have come the questions from grown-ups trying to fit online networking into already crowded lives. What’s the etiquette? Which networks are worth joining? Should I be doing this for social reasons or career reasons? Are there ground rules on friending or defriending on Facebook?”
Social networking your way to a job
Public Radio discussed the benefits of social networking for those in the thick of job-hunting. “I’m still having lots of meetings with people, but now I think the meetings are better. Because sometimes you just really connect with people through a shared interest that wouldn’t be obvious from just cold-calling them on the phone, or just meeting them in person with no context.”
Productivity and Costs, First Quarter 2009, Preliminary
A Bureau of Labor statistics release on US productivity, with a segment devoted to the business sector. “Productivity in the business sector rose 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, as output decreased 7.8 percent and hours of all persons at work in the sector–employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers–fell 8.8 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates). The decrease in hours was the largest since a decline of 12.1 percent in the first quarter of 1975. When measured from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, output per hour increased 1.9 percent (tables A and 1). This growth rate is lower than the 2.5 percent average annual rate from 2000 to 2007.”
by Celine Roque
June 11, 2009 at 10:24 am · Filed under
Notable + Quotable
Seven Communication Mistakes Managers Make
Management Essentials gives practical tips on the finer points of dealing with people inside the office. One such point: “3. Ignoring the realities of power. Surprised that you never hear bad news until it’s too late? Don’t be. The more power you have, the less you’ll hear about problems. It’s human nature: problems are filtered and softened as they ascend the corporate hierarchy, with each messenger seeking to soften the blow. If you want an honest assessment of a problem, seek out bad news. Welcome it. And when it comes, show your appreciation.”
Moonlighting Can Pay, but Consider the Costs
Eileen Zimmerman looks, in this New York Times piece, at the pros and cons of juggling multiple jobs at a time. “Although a second job may seem like a logical option when your finances are strained, it will require personal — and possibly professional — sacrifices. ‘Ask yourself what tradeoff you are willing to make for that second income in terms of lost personal time, performance at your primary job and your stress level,’ said Eileen Blumenthal, a coach and managing partner of Rocket Science Coaching and Consulting in San Francisco.”
Social Media Strategy: Do You Hire, Outsource, or DIY?
JD Rucker of Social Computing Journal lays out the good and the bad for each social media campaign method. “Hire a Social Media Strategy Firm. Pros: Leaving it to the experts – A few social media strategy firms really know what they’re doing. They’ve accumulated the resources, accounts, profiles and contacts to take campaigns to the top, to properly build company-related social media properties, and to get the buzz heading in the right direction. Cost – It’s normally less expensive to hire a firm to do social media marketing compared to hiring an individual or team to work exclusively for a company. Set goals and monitor result – For most companies, the convenience of being able to set the direction, sit back, and wait for results is extremely appealing.”
Management Theory: Mostly Bunk
Another New York Times article turns a critical eye on management theory with interesting comments on the topic. One critic calls it: “‘…at its core a collection of quasi-religious dicta on the virtue of being good at what you do, ensconced in a protective bubble of parables (otherwise known as case studies)’ — which are often fudged to produce desired outcomes.”
How to Frame Your Messages for Maximum Impact
Melissa Raffoni of Management Essentials explains why few people do it well, and what you can do to be a more effective communicator. “What exactly does it mean to ‘frame’ or ‘reframe’ an issue? Think about the metaphor behind the concept. A frame focuses attention on the painting it surrounds. Different frames draw out different aspects of the work. Putting a painting in a red frame brings out the red in the work; putting the same painting in a blue frame brings out the blue. How someone frames an issue influences how others see it and focuses their attention on particular aspects of it. Framing is the essence of targeting a communication to a specific audience.”
Enterprise Social Media Usage Policies and Guidelines
For those who’d like to draft their own, Laurel Papworth made an exhaustive list of links to existing company policies on social media on SCJ. “Kinda cool that companies are now posting internal policies publicly. Not surprising – it goes a long way to protect the company from fallout if/when staff do ignore the social media guidelines in place.”
LinkedIn Recommendations: Five Ways to Make The Most of Them
C.G. Lynch returns on CIO to offer advice on how to use LinkedIn to communicate your value to prospective employers. “Who to ask for a recommendation? Look above, below and sideways. While you should have a recommendation in which your boss praises your abilities and how your work helped drive good business results, don’t stop there, says Phil Rosenberg, president of reCareered (a career consultancy). “If you want to demonstrate that you were a team player, having your peers say in a recommendation that you go the extra mile or help mentor people can help shape your image with a potential employer,” Rosenberg says. You also might want to look externally to clients and internally to your direct reports, says Kirsten Dixson, a reputation management and online identity expert.”
The Difference Between Enterprise 2.0 and Social Media
Andrea Baker of Social Computing Journal breaks down the nuances of these two categories and ponders what it takes to make business applications successful. “I think organizations should think internally before claiming they get it on the Internet. You may look cool by having a social media presence to get new recruits and new hires. But if you do not have a productive and collaborative environment behind the firewall, you are NOT going to retain the young bright minds to take your organization into the future.”
There are Web apps and then there are Web apps
Not all web apps are created equal. Roger King of IT Knowledge Exchange looks at several of them and their different web capabilities. “So, what characteristics do we see in applications that are powerful, and have native, complete Web interfaces? They are likely to store data persistently in a serverized database management system like MySQL, and present the user with web forms to fill in, and return to the user dynamic Web pages populated from the database. A website that we might be willing to label “Web 2.0? would be one that is highly responsive and manages large amounts of data.”
Enterprises Want Social Computing, Not Just Another Facebook
Barb Mosher talks about social media in the enterprise, and its distinction from consumer counterparts due to specific business objectives. “In most cases there is a need to transform the culture rapidly — although it can be for different reasons. For example, social computing solutions enable employees to easily jump into curated communities that are related to their day to day activities. By having employees complete all their work activities within communities, an enterprise can drive open collaboration as a primary way of working, getting rid of stove pipe organizational silos and reducing costs related to travel and video conferencing. Holston says there is a view that communities democratize organizations and thus enable innovation and happier employees overall.”
SLA’s and the Real World
The strategic use of Service Level Agreements is needed to guard enterprise interests like quality and reliability, writes Oliver Marks in Collaboration on 2.0. “Technology will play a supporting role in this transformation and IT governance will give a lot of ‘risk versus reward’ presentations as they point out the tactical insecurities of the ‘new way’. No one wants to be responsible when someone slips up in full view of the crowd, so their SLA’s will be adjusted accordingly.”
by Celine Roque
June 3, 2009 at 9:33 am · Filed under
Notable + Quotable
12 Inspiring Stories of Successful Social Networkers
On Mashable, David Spark shares stories of people who have successfully harnessed the power of social media. “Growing your social network. So many are obsessed with it. It’s fun to watch our numbers grow and to get all that attention. But for those of us that rely on it for business, we must be constructive, targeted, and effective about how we approach social networking. That’s because a well built social network becomes a fantastic channel for personal and business promotions.”
Anthropology: The Art of Building a Successful Social Site
Lidija Davis discusses the failings of search engines and other Q&A sites and how a startup solved them on ReadWriteWeb. “Picture if you will, a collaborative site that runs on two servers, is managed by four people, and has attracted a third of its target demographic within six months of launch. A site that has had 800,000 posts submitted by its users in its short lifetime and has 16 million pageviews/month – and growing. This is the story of Stack Overflow, a free question and answer site built by developers for developers that has fostered a strong and committed online community in under one year. How? Easy, according to founder Joel Spolsky; all it takes is an understanding of anthropology and a lot of determination.”
Cloud Standards: Trickier than Nailing Jell-O to a Wall
IT World’s Kevin Fogarty explains the difficulties of setting cloud standards. From an industry insider he talks to:“We’re focused on three aspects of cloud management and interoperability… First is to build on the work we’ve done on the Open Virtualization Foundation [and the associated standard, the Open Virtualization Format] and what extensions we need to have to support the cloud environment. Second is resource management and interoperability between clouds that provide infrastructure as a service. Third is security as people move from their own environments into cloud environments federated trust, inter-cloud communications, protocols and APIs for secure interoperability.”
Bandwidth Fines Bad, But Not Net Neutrality Issue
Bennett Haselton tries to keep the arguments separate on two thorny issues on Slashdot. “An ISP that blocks (or slows access to) certain websites is defrauding its users UNLESS either (a) the ISP has made its users aware of the filtering, or (b) it’s overwhelmingly clear that the filtering protects the users or improves their experience (so more experienced users would assume it is taking place anyway)…’”Make its customers aware’ means just that — make its customers aware — and not bury something in the Terms of Service.”
How Big Data Impacts Analytics
Ben Lorica on O’Reilly Radar interviews Linkedin’s Chief Scientist. Ben sets it up: “DJ shares his observations on how analytics has changed in recent years, especially as Big Data increasingly becomes common. Companies are casting a wider net, and are hiring scientists from fields not traditionally known as fertile recruiting grounds for data intelligence teams. DJ also talks about his personal journey from mathematics to e-commerce and social networks.”
Why enterprises aren’t paperless yet
Jennifer Kavur of IT World features a company making strides in reducing its use of paper that nonetheless continues to use quite a bit of it. A comment from the article:“Boxes of files are disappearing from storage rooms and warehouses, but the piles of paper stacked on desks aren’t going away… Despite these advances in the records room, our day-to-day life will still include a lot of paper. It has a lot of advantages: it’s persistent, we can stack and move it, and we can scribble on it with a pencil. It will be every difficult for digital tools to replace it.”
The Shape of Things to Come, According to… You
An interesting guest post on ReadWriteWeb on the future of the Internet. “In many regards, this is really where the next Web begins: with those people and organizations’ wants and needs, dreams and aspirations. Think of it as ‘trickle-up’ technology. If Web 2.0 is about interface, social media, and interactivity, then the next Web is beginning to appear right before our eyes as real-time, intelligent (data, search, exchange), and ubiquitous (desktop and offline, anytime access).”
The Nebulous Cloud
Ranjit Nayak of TMCNet discuss the difficulties of defining the term “cloud computing,” and proposes a workaround to the problem. “The key is to identify Cloud Computing Services, and not get bogged down by the definition and jargon. Is this really a new paradigm in computing? Are these new technologies? There is definitely a change in the business model of selling computing resources. However, the underlying technology has only evolved over time. The reliability of IP networks and the improvement in virtualization technology has enabled delivery of business services over the Internet. In the simplest sense, any business services delivered online, that one can buy on a pay as you go basis can be classified as cloud computing services.”
by Celine Roque
May 20, 2009 at 10:11 am · Filed under
Notable + Quotable
Down To Business: Are Execs Twittering Their Time Away?
On Information Week, Rob Preston discusses the evolving usage of social networking, and questions its usefulness in business. “It comes down to this: Are Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, as well as the more enterprise-focused social apps from the likes of Socialtext, IBM, and Microsoft, really helping us communicate, collaborate, solve problems, and close deals? Are they establishing executives as thought leaders and providing valuable references to third-party thinking? Or are they just forums for poseurs to primp for the adoring or drive-by masses? Most enterprise users of social apps have jerry-rigged an ROI, mostly around cost savings and productivity improvements, but those justifications are still mostly qualitative. Meantime, skepticism abounds.”
Three Simple Ways to Start Small with Enterprise 2.0
Social Computing Journal’s Ethan Yarbrough gives some simple tips for companies wary of the risks involved in engaging the public through social media. “The benefit of social media is that it gives an avenue into the conversation for voices and ideas that you previously might not have heard. But that’s also what worries some companies. I think it’s helpful, therefore, to remember that adding social media to your operation means adding avenues for expression of opinion, but expression of opinion doesn’t have to mean the written word. If you aren’t ready to engage with constituents’ comments, go in a different direction. There are ways to let people add their views and contribute to your operation without words.”
Best Security Questions to Ask About SaaS
Ellen Messmer talks to analyst Eric Maiwald about the security issues potential buyers need to check before diving into SaaS on CIO.com. “Which of the SaaS employees has root and database access, and will anything prevent them from getting access to your corporate data? What controls are in place? Is data held encrypted? How? Is the held data separated between clients or is it all stored on one huge database out there? How is data separated? How will the legal question of e-discovery be addressed should it arise as a business concern?”
Is SaaS more secure?
As part of a debate, Michelle Murrain points out SaaS’ incompatibility for small nonprofit organizations on Idealware.org. “But lack of access to good IT expertise means a few things: Yes, it does mean that their in-house network is likely insecure. It also means that they might not know how to understand or choose SaaS products that are known to be stable and secure, with solid business models. It means they likely won’t know how to get their data out when they need to, for whatever reason. It means there is a lack of understanding of the risks of SaaS, especially in organizations, like human rights or activist organizations, with sensitive data. And the human factor in security doesn’t pay attention to where the data lives.”
SaaS and Security – the Response!
Replying to the previous article, Peter Campbell argues that the benefits of SaaS outweigh its limitations. “Certainly, bad security procedures are bad security procedures, and that risk exists in both environments. But beyond the things that could be addressed by IT-informed policies, there are also the security precautions that require money to invest in and staff to support, like encryption and firewalls. I reject the argument that the data is safer on an unsecured, internal network than it is in a properly secured, PCI-Compliant, hosted environment. You’re not just paying the SaaS provider to manage the servers that you manage today; you’re paying them to do a more thorough and compliant job at it.”
Outsourcing 2.0: Workable Business Models for IT Chargeback
On CIO.com, Mark Denne writes about a promising IT business model, why it’s needed, and how it’s currently being tested in the real world. “High performance businesses have begun to use new models for funding IT within an enterprise. Instead of the traditional cost center model, advancements in service-oriented architecture (SOA) and service-oriented infrastructures (SOI) enable IT organizations to move to an environment in which IT is consumed and paid for on a metered basis. This ‘pay-per-drink’ model has three advantages: It elevates the status of the IT organization from a cost center to a value center, it helps redefine the IT organization as a service provider, and it provides the commercial framework in which to run IT as a ‘business within a business.’ It also raises the stature of the CIO within the organization.”
The art of taking notes
Meetings can be a bore, but they can be very productive, especially if you pay attention and take notes the right way, according to Examiner’s Steve Arneson. “Challenge yourself to be more imaginative and creative when sitting in the audience. What’s cool about conferences is they take us out of our day-to-day routine; they give us time to think, frankly. Put that time to good use – you might be surprised by the volume of great ideas you’ll generate!”
Cisco CTO’s 5 Predictions for the Future of Collaboration
Oliver Marks features Cisco exec Padmasree Warrior and her views on technology, strategic partnerships and new business models on Collaboration 2.0. “It is not about ‘on-premise’ versus ‘on-demand’, it will be all about the User Experience. Steve Balmer’s famous ‘Developers, Developers, Developers‘ engineer cheerleading video clip badly needs a larger than life counterpart with someone bellowing ‘Users, Users, Users’. Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Blink about the ‘the first two seconds of looking–the decisive glance that knows in an instant’.”
Mentors can show you the way
Again on Examiner, Steve Arneson highlights the differences between coaching and mentoring, and how you can get the most out of having someone there to guide you. “The great thing about developing yourself as a leader is that you don’t have to make the journey alone. There is an ancient Buddhist proverb that says: “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. Loosely translated, this means that when you’re open and willing to listen, you will find the answers from someone who has been down the road before you. In the modern business world, this proverb is best defined as mentoring.”
by Celine Roque
April 30, 2009 at 1:56 pm · Filed under
Notable + Quotable
A Strategic View of Virtualization
Dana Gardner of TechNewsWorld interviewed HP’s Bob Meyer on virtualization’s potential to save money for businesses. “Right now, everybody is reacting to an economic climate. Those CIOs who are acting with foresight, looking ahead and saying, “Where will this take me?” are the ones who are going to be successful as opposed to the people who are just reacting to the current environment and looking to cut and slash. Virtualization has a couple of benefits that allow you to save and optimize, but also sets you up for that — to boomerang you whenever the economic recovery comes.”
World Wildlife Fund Looks at Telecommuting as Carbon Emissions Solution
If you ever wanted proof, WWF now presents hard numbers for virtual conferencing and telecommuting’s benefits to the environment, as Jaymi Heimbuch reports on Treehugger. “The difference in emission savings between the carbon world (lowest savings overall) and the smart world (highest savings overall) is significant – e.g., for teleworking about 1 billion tons of CO2 emissions differentiate the two scenarios in year 2030 (approximately equivalent to the total current CO2 emissions from UK and Italy combined) and almost 3.5 billion tons in year 2050 (almost as much as the EU’s total CO2 emissions or more than half of the US’s current CO2 emissions).”
The Future of Our Cities: Open, Crowdsourced, and Participatory
In a guest post on O’Reilly Radar, John Geraci shares stories of how technology is being used to involve citizens in decison-making. “Back in January, the city of Los Angeles announced a gap of $433 million for their 2009 budget. Instead of just cutting services however, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took the unusual step of posting a survey online for residents of the city to fill out. For each category of city service, the survey asked residents, “what program would you reduce to help balance the budget?”, followed by an itemized list of services they could choose from.”
Head in the Clouds or Head in the Sand? SaaS Faces the Facts
IT Jungle’s Dan Burger talked to top consultant Amy Wohl on the history of SaaS, obstacles to its success, its value as a money saver, interoperability issues and much more. “Conversations leading up to the difficult decisions between SaaS and traditional off-the-shelf software used on in-house machines are occurring much more frequently. The interoperability issue is a big one, and executives are continually griping about information silos cramping their decision-making abilities. Also, the current economic situation is SaaS-friendly. It may push things in the direction of IT outsourcing.”
IT Pros: Private Clouds a Good First Step to Cloud Computing
If industry experts had their way, businesses should first try building a private cloud as a test case before engaging the services of cloud computing providers, says PC World reporter Elizabeth Montalbano. “‘If you can’t do it internally, it’s tough to take it externally,’ said Jeff Birnbaum, [cq] the managing director of Merrill Lynch, who along with several other IT professionals discussed the issue at the 2009 High Performance Linux on Wall Street conference. He said before companies decide whether to deploy applications on an AWS or Microsoft’s Windows Azure, they should build a cloud network internally and see if they can make that work, then decide what assets they could run on a public cloud.”
Web 2.0: The End of the Beginning
Bob Thompson of CustomerThink looks at the state of Web 2.0, where it’s going, and what it means to a customer-centric business. “What’s most exciting to me is the potential for social media technologies to enable Customer Collaboration Management (CCM), which is all about joining the conversation with customers. CCM is the third major wave of customer-centric thinking, following CRM—which is mostly about managing customer information and maximizing revenue, and CEM—which is about creating and delivering great experiences to drive loyalty.”
Take control of what you have – you
Dr. Judith Krings offers up some tips on the right attitude for reducing stress. “The more you take care of yourself, the more you will have to give to others. Neglect you, and you, ironically, will neglect others. Today is all you have. Yes, I know this is easier said than done, but harness your optimism, tenacity and wisdom personality strengths. Focus on them to help you float over the waves of overwhelm.”
by Celine Roque
April 20, 2009 at 11:51 am · Filed under
Notable + Quotable
15 real ways to secure teleworkers
Michael Cooney of NetworkWorld summarizes the NIST’s (National Institute of Standards and Technology) recommendations for ensuring remote working security. “Cache cleaning: A computer that is temporarily used for remote access. Some remote access methods perform basic information cleanup, such as clearing Web browser caches that might inadvertently hold sensitive information, but more extensive cleanup typically requires using a special utility, such as a disk scrubbing program specifically designed to remove all traces of information from a device. Many organizations offer their teleworkers assistance in removing information from personally owned devices.”
How six high-flyers stay ahead of time
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Sarah Wilson talked to several highly successful individuals for tips on how they manage to tame their busy work days. “The facts are these: according to 2008 research, on average we turn to our in-boxes 42 times and receive 200 messages each day. A UK survey found the average employee spends four hours every workday on technological interruptions. Ironically, technology was meant to save us time. Now the majority of time management discourse centres on techniques for managing our phones, personal digital assistants and a stream of email.”
Is Sales 2.0 New? Improved? Social?
In CustomerThink, Bob Thompson presents an analysis of the term “Sales 2.0″ in an attempt to define it in the context of today’s increasingly connected world. “Tacking ‘2.0′ at the end of a term is shorthand for ‘new and improved,’ usually with a social media slant. However, after attending a recent Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco—an excellent and well-attended event hosted by Selling Power and Genius.com — I left with more questions than answers…”
The Next Trust Infrastructure: Securing Mashups
The VeriSign blog discusses mashup scaling security concerns and features a simple but smart solution. “For mashups to become ubiquitous, a trust infrastructure is needed. To establish trust between a widget aggregator (a consumer portal, the enterprise portal or your homepage or TV screen), and a widget provider, protocols like OAuth essentially rely on the exchange of shared secrets. This works well when there are only a few big portals serving as aggregators. However, because they require pair-wise trust relationships, the approach does not scale to a truly distributed environment. In particular, the model breaks very quickly in the enterprise as the number of network end-points (enterprise portals and SAAS) explodes.”
IBM ‘green’ survey: reducing electricity use biggest driver
Steve Wexler talks about the findings of an IBM study on global IT investments on eChannel Line. “Controlling cost is the strongest factor driving all 11 initiatives. The reasons most often cited for undertaking environmentally friendly IT projects is decreased electricity use, followed by decreased consumables use, increased features and functionality for the business, decreased future operational expenses or investments, meeting customers’ demands, and realizing credits or rebates from local utilities and governments.”
Go platform independent or go away!
Educator Jeff Tyson of Addietood explains the importance of platform-independence for the future of the learning industry. “Why should you care? If you’re an applications vendor and you don’t have a strategy for making your application platform-independent or at least creating an alternate platform-independent variant, then you will severely limit your growth potential as the rest of the world cares less and less about what OS runs the hardware. If you’re a training vendor, then you need to adapt to supporting clients with varying needs and not assume that Windows will always be the common denominator. And finally, if you’re a learning technologies consumer, you should have choice and freedom from being tied to a particular OS or hardware platform when you plan your training approach.”
Enterprise Search Booms on Compliance Needs
On InternetNews.com, Alex Goldman shines the spotlight on enterprise search as software companies ramp up to meet demands. “For those vendors touting compliance, the goal is to enable enterprises to clearly separate audit tasks from database administration. ‘Compliance is the magic word,’ said Mark Kraynak, vice president of marketing for Imperva. ‘Many of our customers have 50 or 100 or 200 databases. Our promise is that you can forward all the audit information to one place. Many companies have nothing in place today that can do that.]”
Telecommuting a definite trend
Grace Gagliano presents statistics and different real-world implementations of telecommuting, as well as cautions against a rising number of related scams. “A significant increase has already been seen in the telecommuting industry since 2006, according to a survey by WorldatWork. The global nonprofit human resources association reported the number of U.S. workers who telecommute at least once a month has grown from 28.7 million in 2006 to 33.7 million in 2008, a 17 percent increase. And, according to the study, the number of people who work remotely at least once a month has risen 43 percent from 2003.”
by Celine Roque
April 6, 2009 at 7:17 am · Filed under
Notable + Quotable
10 Tips for Working With Clients Remotely
Web Design Depot gives some advice on collaborating remotely, touching on everything from deadlines to contracts. “I’ve run into quite a few clients who don’t want to be bothered logging in to a new tool – they would rather flood your inbox with email after email after email. Trouble is, email does little to keep everyone on the same page. Unless you have a dedicated project manager, get yourself a web-based project management tool. Make to-do lists, set milestones, and keep discussions in a public space where you can easily point back to them.”
The Small-Biz Communication Breakdown
Fredric Paul Forbes lists business communication challenges and the price we pay for them, according to a Siemens study. “The study says 70% of SMBs have dealt with the top five pain points, translating into an average of 17.5 hours per week per knowledge worker into “unproductive” work time. This costs an average of $26,041 per knowledge worker per year, or $5,246 per employee per year.”
The Knowledge Worker and the Enterprise
Social Computing Magazine’s David Tebbutt expounds on Andrew McAfee’s ideas on Enterprise 2.0. “The strong tie group is unlikely to be the source of novel information or links to potential colleagues. They know each other too well. The weak ties are those most likely to lead us to new ideas and new opportunities. Enterprise 2.0 technologies don’t cause these things to happen, but they can act as amplifiers of these natural processes.”
Why Google Will Never Be Good At Enterprise Search
Brian Huff of Social Computing Magazine enumerates the fundamental differences of Internet search and enterprise search. “In order to truly solve the enterprise search problem, you need to first understand why people may choose to never use enterprise search, no matter how good it is… then try to bring them back into the fold with socially enabled enterprise search tools. Don’t just help people find information; help them find somebody who understands what the information means.”
Healthcare and Utilities Lead Vertical Markets in IT Spending
IT Jungle’s Dan Burger reports on current trends in IT markets. “Lovelock explained that the across-the-board trends show organizations deferring purchases such as servers and PCs and choosing to reduce internal services. But he is also seeing “a great deal of investment in business intelligence, business analytics, data warehousing.” Another identifiable trend is in the areas of software as a service, remote hosted software, and cloud computing, which are a break from traditional licensing methods and an attractive alternative to traditional software delivery models in that they are not so much capital investments as operational costs.”
Salesforce.com’s Growth Shows SaaS Success In Tough Economy
Mary Hayes Weier of Information Week attempts to explain why why SaaS sells, as well as its trouble spots. “Salesforce announced net income of $13.8 million for its fourth quarter ended Jan. 31, up from $7.4 million last year. Total revenue was $289.6 million for the quarter, an increase of 34% over last year’s fourth quarter. And despite a plunging economy that hit many IT budgets the hardest in late 2008, Salesforce increased its revenue by 5% over the preceding third quarter.”
The Struggle Over ‘Net Neutrality’
Carole Handler of Law.com offers up a comprehensive article on the issue, with some historical background and updates on its current status. “The legislative and judicial outcome of the current debate is impossible to predict. In an era in which government regulation of any element of the economy has been shied away from, and antitrust enforcement has been lax, the willingness of Congress to “regulate” a free Internet by prohibiting tiered pricing is uncertain indeed.”
In Software Architecture, Quality Equals Security
In TechNewsWorld, Dana Gardner features a panel discussion on enterprise architecture that suggests security considerations should be part of planning, not an afterthought. “Take Web 2.0 and SOA-style composite applications, for example. The problem with composite applications is that, as we’re building these composite applications, we don’t know the source of the widget. We don’t know whether these applications have been built with good secured design. In the long-term, that becomes problematic for the organizations that use them.”
Gartner Finds Most-Common SaaS Assumptions Are False
Antone Gonsalves from Intelligent Enterprise reports on Gartner’s findings about SaaS myths. “In applying a reality check on the leading assumptions, Gartner found the first to be true: SaaS is less expensive than on-premises software. Because SaaS applications do not require large capital investment for licenses or support infrastructure, they do carry a lower total cost ownership for the first two years. However, in the third year and beyond, an on-premises deployment can become less expensive from an accounting perspective as the capital assets used in the installation depreciate.”
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