Blog Entries for LaurenB44

Is info “lock down” a basis for a security program?

lbielski@rcn.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Want to get a feel for somebody? Read their blog as a start. Security expert and provocateur Marcus Ranum, CSO of Columbia, Md.-based Tenable Network Security, has this write up posted in the “events” section of his blog

“Computer security has historically been a disaster and continues to be one [according to Ranum]. Many practitioners have attempted to explain the issue in terms of risk management, failure to communicate, or lack of educ [...]

How do you render your digital security policy “operational”?

lbielski@rcn.com — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100

When it comes to managing security policy, name your poison: do you keep it via wiki, knowledge management system, or CMS? Or, is that all important document still paper-based this many years into the digital evolution?

A related question: How do you render your policy operational? By this I mean, how do you motivate employees with all those theoretical security ideas and make sane, safe practice something that’s part of the daily routine? From what experts have told me, a [...]

Getting a handle on your IT environment? Maybe, go lean BPM

lbielski@rcn.com — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100

As the CIO, you may be asking your organization to take on something new, such as cloud-based computing.

Written about amply throughout the blogosphere, the cloud appears to have nearly everyone smitten, including, perhaps, your IT compatriots at other firms.

Sure, there’s hype, but mostly, this adoration makes sense to me. Cloud has a great story, whatever its inevitable drawbacks. There’s the promise of running necessary utility operations, such as encry [...]

What are your short-terms IT objectives and your long-term goals?

lbielski@rcn.com — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Autumn’s nearly come around again and with it, that earnest, back-to-the-books and back-to-brass tacks attitude. As I look out the window of my home office in Astoria, NY, for instance, my neighbors, post Labor Day, are stepping just a little more lively. (This is so for even the hippest, for whom any display of eagerness tends to be verboten.) When I’m out on Steinway Street about eight blocks from here, the atmosphere seems—at the risk of sounding overblown—utterly gild [...]

Can BPM help you transform? (Does transformation make sense now?)

lbielski@rcn.com — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100

In researching BPO trends, the subject of business process management surfaced. This view of “process as a platform” asserts that the application suite can help refine—and automate—work’s detailed, procedural steps. This digital step-by-step makes it easier for managers to keep a handle on either internal work or to source out sections of that work to able-bodied providers and still meet key objectives such as quality. (Performing credit checks in the large [...]

Doing more with less—can it really be sustained?

lbielski@rcn.com — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100

This week I spent much of my time doing research for a trends in business process outsourcing (BPO) piece that will be coming soon to a smart, tech-oriented portal near you. ☺

I mention BPO now because one notion that came up repeatedly in describing the new, lean corporate America was the idea of “doing more with less.” More than one specialist remarked on the quest for a lighter operational footprint in the aftermath of economic downturn. It&rsquo [...]

What web applications are you working on?

lbielski@rcn.com — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100

A few years ago, rich internet apps making use of asynchronous JavaScript and XML—known as Ajax—or Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex/AIR, Java/JavaFX, and the markup language Curl, had an early run to great fanfare—as writings and trade show presentations of the time underscored. Part of the push had to do with enhancing websites to meet rising consumer expectations. Part of it had to do with sheer utility. If the app in question was practical in nature, easier to work with. (With les [...]

Just how distributed is your organization willing to be?

lbielski@rcn.com — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100

This week, I looked at a perennial idea with staying power—that is the office of the future. Maybe it’s the sci fi-ish, future-adoring side of our culture, or maybe it just has to do with the never ending drive to improve efficiencies, but the quest for the better office hasn’t stopped since productivity experts began theorizing about how to reduce paper records.

Fast forward, and Hewlett Packard continues the tradition with its CoolTown Innovation Center [...]

Ask the CIO: How often is “rip and replace” an option? Working with legacy systems

lbielski@rcn.com — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Early into my time writing about banking technology, some consultants I was interviewing set out to enlighten me about the realities of older systems.

I was a newbie working on a story about n-tier computing. The experts were describing “the legacy problem,” a turn of phrase that meant little to me but soon took on intimidating depth.

To impress the depth of the issues surrounding these types of upgrades, consultants offered a few stark facts: [...]

Ask the CIO: How collaborative is your organization?

lbielski@rcn.com — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100

With the advent of Web 2.0 and IP technologies, comes greater options for collaborating long distance. This week, I wrote about renewed interest in video conferencing, file sharing, and use of other collaborative tools in light of greater numbers of virtual office set ups and less business travel.

I wonder if your organization is interested in collaborative tools, and, if so, which ones?

Moreover, how collaborative is your organization? Does it place a premium on teamwork, a [...]

Ask the CIO: How do you measure project success?

lbielski@rcn.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100

This week, I looked at the still emerging field of IT performance measurement known as business transaction management. BTM expresses any system problems, or outages, in terms related to the application itself. As part of this process, it maps all components across all platforms that an application touches. (The Gartner organization refers to the area as “application performance measurement.”)

One of BTM’s big advantages is said to be that it can make IT problems easi [...]

Ask the CIO: What’s your data management strategy?

lbielski@rcn.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100

It’s 2009: do you know what your data management strategy is?

Maybe you’re sizing up offerings from vendors such as D&B Purisma, DataFlux, or Siperian or going larger with something like IBM’s InfoSphere. Or, you might have attended a conference on Master Data Management and want to take your program to the next step.

It could be that you’re just getting started, maybe thinking not about technology but sorting through the IT aspect [...]

Ask the CIO: Interested in emerging technologies?

lbielski@rcn.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100

As a CIO you’re expected to keep up with tech trends. In league with your company’s other senior executives, you need to make decisions about the network, storage, other infrastructure upgrades, and application changes that keeps operations on budget and in line with strategy. If nothing else, keeping up with the news out of the technology sector gives you a sense of your options.

And yet you might also do a little extra curricular reading.

< [...]

Ask the CIO-How do you manage your projects?

lbielski@rcn.com — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100

I’ve been writing about technology for years, but freely admit, I don’t know how most CIOs think about the array of projects under management “at the office.”

In my work, I rely on analogy often, so I ask: When it comes to project management, is your awareness like that of a homeowner with an aging house? That is, because you live with it, you are acutely aware of desired improvements and necessary repairs: that slight sag in the roof, which you notic [...]

“Ask the CIO”-Are you interested in cloud computing?

lbielski@rcn.com — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100

This week’s look into elastic computing brought me back into “the cloud,” that increasingly referenced methodology, which loosely means, optimized for internet distribution. (See Demystifying the Cloud for more on the trend.)

In terms of how the cloud delivers infrastructure, it is it’s attribute of elasticity, the ability to use as much (or little) as needed, which is a key distinction. Elasticity is a fundamental reason why firms of all sizes are becoming [...]

Ask the CIO: How has the recession effected your team and your work?

lbielski@rcn.com — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:00:00 +0100

General Motors probable bankruptcy aside, the latest news on the economy at large is, if underwhelming in its positivity, at least clear enough to support sound planning. The U.S. is probably at the bottom of recession, per recent reports of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) and other such experts. While improvements will be gradual they will be apparent, particularly by the second quarter of next year.

What I wonder is, what damage has been wrought by th [...]

Ask the CIO: Are you leveraging social media?

lbielski@rcn.com — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:00:00 +0100

As a journalist, I’ve spent last decade changing my work habits to take advantage of the web. Frantic online searches and email have replaced a jealously guarded Filofax. I focus less on who I know today and more on who I could know—the infinite world at my keyboard.

More recently and to accommodate the web's seemingly endless capacity for content, I’ve watched the idea of a journalist become elastic under pressure, yielding citizen journalists, blogger [...]