Featured Bloggers
CIO Executive Briefing
Sony Signs Death Certificate of Floppy Disk
by Mel Duvall
It's official. The floppy’s days are numbered. Electronics giant Sony
said this week that it would stop manufacturing the once ubiquitous
storage medium likely by March of 2011.
Mel is a Contributing Editor to CIOZone. He is a veteran journalist, having written and edited for daily newspapers, magazines and trade publications for more than 20 years. He is a former senior editor of Baseline magazine and was a senior editor for Inter@ctive Week. Mel has won several awards at the national level, including a Jesse H. Neal journalism award and American Society of Business Publication Editors awards.
When Work Becomes a Trap and What To Do About It
by Ellen Pearlman
In the last few years, as layoffs became common, many workers felt lucky just to have a job. Any job. It didn't matter how hard you worked, you were just grateful for a paycheck. But it turns out that the constant, intense pressure in many of these high-pressured work environments is not just bad for you and your health, it's bad for your company too.
Ellen is known for her ability to launch and run award-winning publications and web sites: she launched four award-winning publications (CIO Insight, HomePC, Managed Healthcare News and VARBusiness), three online sites (cioinsight.com, miaviata.com, homepc.com) and is the co-author of Fast Forward, a book about the impact of the Internet published in 2000 by William Morrow. Through her media experiences at Institutional Investor, CMP Media, Miavita.com and Ziff Davis Media, Ellen gained expertise in finance, business technology, consumer technology, the Internet and health and wellness. In September 2005, Ellen received the distinguished Albert Einstein Award for achievements in the high-tech industry. She was inducted into the YWCA’s Academy of Women Achievers in November 1997 and was named to Marketing Computers’ list of Most Influential Computer Journalists in the Consumer category in 1996.
Strategy for Tech Evolution
VMForce: Enterprise Development-Platform Evolved
by R. Matthew Gee, CFA
Today, Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, and Paul Maritz, CEO of VMware, combined forces (pun intended) to release VMForce, the first enterprise cloud for Java developers. Specifically, the VMForce vision is an enterprise-grade Java development platform which will speed development time-to-market fivefold and reduce development costs by 50%. According to today's webcast, Java is the #1 enterprise application development language, authored by over six million developers.
Formerly in equity research with a renowned money manager, and a CFA charterholder, Matthew has observed and analyzed the progress of several technology sectors. Desiring to be closer to the startups and entrepreneurs that are defining the evolving technology landscape, he proactively moved to the Seattle area. Matthew can now be found in local coffee haunts discussing tech evolution with tomorrow's founders. He holds special interests in digital media, along with digital consumer, software, and biotechnology.
IT Management Blog
RISK Management - Gartner Says it is Broken and handled poorly in many organizations
by John Stevenson
Gartner - recently published a short update on the status of IT and overall Corporate Risk Management. Bottomline - Risk Management in Companies is receiving increased visibility in these turbulent times. Both natural and man-made issues affecting corporate stability are happening with more frequency and are being publicized. Question for CIOZONE Execs: Do you think Risk Management (either just in IT or across the corporation in general) is broken ? Yes or No If Yes, what should be done to fix it ? If No, what is going right ?
John is a seasoned Chief Information Officer with over 25 years of senior Information Technology executive experience. His broad experience includes key executive assignments in large corporations spanning high technology, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing industries.
The case for centralized control
by Robert Lewis
A
ship can only have one
captain. A car can
only have one driver. We
can't all just hold hands and sing Kumbaya -- someone has to
make
a decision and take responsibility.
In the world of
metaphor, centralized control always seems to make
more sense.
Robert Lewis is president of IT Catalysts, a consultancy specializing in IT organizational effectiveness and strategic business integration. He is an award winning author, having written seven books on IT management topics including Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology.
IT
Career Coach
You
are Doing Your Best
by
Margaret Meloni
If
you follow sports you have noticed that top athletes do not always
perform consistently. A world class runner may break a world record in
one competition and then not even place in the same event one week
later. A champion weight lifter might break a record and then be unable
to lift that same weight for several workouts.
These are professionals, champions, stars - why can't they
demonstrate peak performance every time? Aren't they giving it their all
each time? Well, they are doing their best.
Margaret
Meloni heads Meloni Coaching Solutions, which helps Information
Technology professionals create career strategies that bring them
success and enhance their work experiences. Margaret has more than 18
years experience in Information Technology. During this time Margaret
has performed in multiple roles including: senior manager; project
management expert; business analyst and programmer analyst. She holds a
B.S. in Business Administration and an M.B.A. from California State
University, Long Beach. She is also a certified Project Management
Professional (PMP) through the Project Management Institute and an
instructor at the University of California in Irvine and the University
of California in Los Angeles. A dynamic speaker who combines
inspiration, common sense and a dash of humor; Margaret has spoken at
technology conferences and events hosted by the Association of
Information Technology Professionals; The Project Management Institute
and The International Institute of Business Analysis.
Redefining The IT Value Proposition
The Myth about IT Risk Assessment
by Sumitro Sarkar
RISK is by far another misused term after ROI in IT. It is often used to describe "the probability of the unknown" - maybe I am giving too much credit to the ones who use it! It is also used to make IT decisions most ambiguous. Lastly, it is a great CYA term - "what is the RISK of this decision?" - was never sure what people mean by these statements.
Sumitro Sarkar has 20 years of experience in technology consulting and product strategy. He has served in management and leadership positions in big-five management consulting firms, financial information services and technology product companies. His areas of interest are redefining technology value propositions, resolving bleeding-edge technology myths, using technology to change the rules of business. He holds a BA in Economics and Mathematics (with honors) and an MBA from Delhi, India. He also holds an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. He also writes the "Is IT Worth It" blog.
Consultant's Corner
Effective Management Through Coaching and Counseling
by Alex Silberman
Coaching and counseling as management skills are often reserved for superb leaders, yet are traits that all managers must possess to effectively do their jobs.
Alex Silberman has been managing diverse, complex problems involving people, processes, technology and an ever changing landscape for 20 years. He has held C-level positions in a variety of fields and is the founder of Chief Information Solutions (www.chiefinfosolutions.com), a management consulting firm headquartered in Millburn, New Jersey.
Focus on Platforms and Programs
Disaster Recovery, Economics, and Virtualization
by David Carr
Symantec has just published the results of its 2009 Disaster Recovery survey, which the firm says it will use to guide its product plans (as well as promote its current products, of course).
Dave was most recently the technology editor at Baseline, where he was one of the founding editors. He is a veteran technology journalist recognized for his in-depth features on the systems architectures of such large Internet players as Google and MySpace. In addition to writing and editing, he develops Web sites using PHP, MySQL, and AJAX.
IT Futures
Future Enterprise- Rebirthing HAL
by David Hunter Tow
The arrival of super smart evolutionary computers, capable of autonomous reasoning, learning and emulating the human-like behaviour of the mythical HAL in Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey 2001 is imminent.
David's professional activities include business consulting, science communications, enterprise forecasting, and green advocacy.
Business Consulting: Director and Principal Consultant of The Australian Software Research Centre- a consultancy with over 30 years experience working with business and Government—specializing in the areas of Knowledge and Decision Engineering. Also author of the Decision Engineering Methodology—providing techniques for measuring and optimizing organizational decision processes.
Science Communication: Science communicator and author- production and presentation of a weekly community television series covering big picture science topics—'Theories of Everything'—across Australia and author of a major popular science book on evolution.
Enterprise Forecasting: Producer of a Blog/Feed tracking the future impact of the major processes and technologies driving the evolution of the enterprise Green Advocacy: Development of a unique video Channel on social network- Facebook- providing access to green sustainable initiatives across the planet.
Security
Blog
Where
are the DBAs?
Michael
S. Menefee
What I really
want to know is this: Where are the Database Admins (DBAs) these days?
I
cant tell you how many times in the past 18 months that I’ve found real enterprises running
vulnerable databases with default passwords, weak passwords and no real
permissions management.
Michael
is the Co-Founder and Principal Consultant for WireHead Security, an
Information Security services company located in Raleigh, North
Carolina. His professional career has spanned the past 14 years focused
on IT Security problems and solutions with a focus on web, browser and
mobile-based security threats.
The majority of Michael's time
has
been spent assessing client environments in multiple market verticles
and assisting with the development of in-house security strategies that
work. A huge believer in self-remediation and security awareness,
Michael also spends time educating his clients on gaining control over
their own security infrastructures and implementing Open Source
technologies to help lower the cost of containment.
Michael is the
North Carolina OWASP Chapter President.
The
Retail IT Blog
Gartner
Says Social Networks Are Attracting Too Much Traffic for Retailers to
Ignore
by
Brian Flagg
A
very well written and comprehensive article from Gartner on Social
Networking and retailers. Many of the points are valid, if retailers are
not utilizing the latest Web 2.0 tools (I really like the Digg.com lab
Slack tool), then they will quickly find themselves out of touch with
what is being written and read relative to their Brand, and certainly
risk losing brand control.
Brian
Flagg is a Senior Group Manager at Target Corp. where he leads the
Client Support Center. Brian has been a technology leader for 28 years,
including 25 years with IBM. He has held many leadership positions
including Chair of IBM's Interdivisional Technical Liaison Committee on
Database technologies, a member of the IBM Academy of Technology,
Program Manager for IBM's Global Help Desk, and his current role of
Client Support Center Senior Manager. Brian's contributions in the many
blogs in which he participates represent his own views and opinions,
based on his many years of experience, and not those of Target Corp.
Forrester's
CIO Success Imperatives: A guide for CIO success during the recession
Five
Tactics For Riding Out A Recession
by Alex Cullen
Last
week, Forrester's resident economist, Andy Bartels, and I engaged in a
healthy discussion about the current economic climate and how IT can
ride out the current recession.
Driving
SOA In A Down Economy
by
Randy Heffner
Forrester
has a spent considerable time over the past six years digging into what
it takes for organizations to achieve real value by building a strong
program for service-oriented architecture (SOA). We have analyzed trends
in SOA adoption, looked at how organizations can build a successful SOA
platform, and defined SOA policy management. We’ve
even published a starter kit for SOA. What have we concluded? Many get
hung up on the technology and try to justify big investments in SOA
itself, but the best strategies for moving to SOA are business-focused,
portfolio-based, governed, and incremental.
Scenarios
For IT Success In The Downturn
by Bobby Cameron
Recently,
Forrester spent some time interacting with IT executives regarding
their 2009 budgeting and how the recession is impacting their planning.
We'll present the results of these in a complimentary webinar on
December 11, but here’s a quick
summary of what we heard—and
our analysis.
Optimizing
Applications and Projects in Volatile Times
by Phil Murphy
The
current global economic instability is forcing organizations to make
tough decisions: some will cut costs; some will proceed with
business-as-usual; while still others will take a predatory stance to
gain market share from weakened competitors. However the economic crisis
affects your organization, Forrester offers this four-step process to
optimize your application and project resources in 2009.
Key
IT Roles for Cost Reduction
by
Marc Cecere
It
seems like every CIO I talk with has or is creating a plan to reduce
costs. Whether they’re shooting
for a svelte, wiry, emaciated or lean organization, there are a number
of common roles that senior IT people say are critical to this goal.
How
To Maintain Your Learning Program In A Down Economy
by
Claire Schooley
There
may be a silver lining to the current state of the global economy after
all. The world's economic woes present new opportunities for innovative
forms of learning using technology like informal learning, eLearning,
and blended learning.
With less money in the budget to
work with, learning through technology has become very attractive
because strong employee knowledge and skills remain key factors in
enhancing a company's ability to compete. If organizations can get
people faster to competency without travel costs and losses in
productivity, it's a win/win situation.
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