Tuesday | 14 October, 2008
Performance Artist
Business performance is the measure of IT value — full stop
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Process Trip 04 February, 2008 13:07:03
Why Maritz Travel revamped key business processes — and how business and IT came together to make it workWhen Rich Phillips became COO OF Maritz Travel about two and-a-half years ago, he sat down and took a hard look at the big industry picture - +
Ticked Off at Tick the Box Mentality 04 February, 2008 13:01:15
Does your executive search firm know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients?Does your executive search firm know its MIS managers from its elbow? Does it even know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients? - +
How to Get Real About Strategic Planning 04 February, 2008 12:50:59
Everyone agrees that having a strategic plan for IT is a good thing but most CIOs approach the process with fear and loathing. In fact, the majority of CIOs (and the enterprises they work for) are faking it when it comes to strategic planning. Isn't it time we all got real?Oh, it must be nice to be the CIO of a FedEx or a GE or a Credit Suisse. Places where IT and the business are so tightly aligned you can barely tell the two apart. Where corporate leaders understand that IT is a strategic asset and support it as such - +
Toxic Mix or Bit of a Mixed Blessing? 31 December, 2007 10:36:30
“Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog . . . ” The inter-generational office brew of Boomer, Gen X and Gen Y may not be quite as odious as that of the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, but even so it makes “for a charm of powerful trouble”"Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog . . . " The inter-generational office brew of Boomer, Gen X and Gen Y may not be quite as odious as that of the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth, but even so it makes "for a charm of powerful trouble" - +
Strategies for Dealing With IT Complexity 24 December, 2007 10:30:47
Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business.Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business.
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Bill Gates: A New Approach to Capitalism in the 21st Century 28 January, 2008 07:12:19
Transcript of Gates speech, and a Q&A at World Economic Forum in Davos, SwitzerlandAs you all may know, in July I'll make a big career change. I'm not worried; I believe I'm still marketable. I'm a self-starter, I'm proficient in Microsoft Office. I guess that's it. Also I'm learning how to give money away. - +
Can Macs conquer the enterprise? 11 January, 2008 10:55:53
The field is wide open for a Macintosh insurrection on the business desktop. It could happen, but probably won't. Here's why.If Apple were a football team, the New England Patriots would have had some serious competition this year.
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Position IT investment as the cause, not the effect, of improved business performance. In many enterprises, IT investment is seen as a trailing indicator of improved business performance. ("I'm getting more customers so I have to buy more servers."). A more accurate view is that careful investment in IT drives business growth by providing the capacity in infrastructure, operations and management visibility that makes improvements in business performance possible. ("I want and expect to grow, so I need to build the infrastructure that will support growth.")
To make the point that IT investment drives business performance improvements, the IT organization needs to benchmark and measure not only its own performance but also the performance of the business units. It takes terrific effort to change the business's perception that IT is a trailing cost - even when business executives know that IT matters.
CIOs will know when the corner is turned because the nature of the conversation will change. The CIO will no longer sell technology but will advise on investments.
Think different, act different, be different. IT is one lever an executive team can pull to improve business performance. But CIOs must know enough about the business to know when IT is and is not the right lever to pull - and say so.
To know when IT is the answer and when it is not, CIOs must keep the following in mind.
- The value of an IT investment is always measured in terms of business performance.
- The CIO's job as an executive is to boost business performance, not IT's.
Thinking like a business executive also means paying attention to personal style. How does the executive team dress? What do they talk about? What do they read? What do they do for leisure? External signs and adherence to norms for personal behaviour indicate membership in the team. How else could an observer tell at a glance who plays for which side at any organized sporting event? The personal influence and value of CIOs depend a lot on whether they are perceived as being part of the executive "tribe".
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CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II 05 October, 2007 06:00:00
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #78: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires 28 September, 2007 17:34:25
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #77: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part III 21 September, 2007 07:00:00
Part three in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance. - +
CIO Live Podcast #76: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part II 14 September, 2007 07:00:00
Part two in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance. - +
CIO Live Podcast #75: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part I 07 September, 2007 07:00:05
Part one in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
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Cutting Through the Spin of Recent Vulnerability Disclosures 13 October, 2008 10:53:00
The FUD surrounding the ClickJacking and TCP/IP vulnerabilities has the world seemingly frozen in fear. But once you cut through the spin, the vulnerabilities aren't all that they were made out to be.There are a few highly publicised vulnerabilities at the moment which haven't completely been disclosed and which, it is claimed, could threaten the whole Internet as-we-know-it. Only, when the vulnerabilities are finally disclosed, it seems that the whole incident has been somewhat Chicken Little. - +
PCI app security: Who's guarding the data bank? 13 October, 2008 11:09:00
Compliance strategies for PCI's new application security requirementsWhile Willy Sutton never really said it, the truth is that people rob banks because that is where the money is. Today's criminals don't walk into banks with loaded guns and get-away drivers. Rather they connect from a remote location using a browser and are armed with hacking tools and spyware. - +
Data-center security tools to not overlook 10 October, 2008 11:37:00
With the rise of security suites, it's time to consider some emerging security tools and rethink othersProtecting a corporate data center is like trying to keep an elephant safe from a swarm of flies. Despite your best efforts, bites happen. As the staples of security -- such as firewalls, antivirus software, spam and spyware filters -- come together in suites of products that allow for sophisticated management, there are other security tools either emerging or worth a rethink. - +
IBM, Secret Service, others study identity/cybercrime issues 09 October, 2008 10:09:00
Center for Applied Identity Management Research organization teams experts in criminal justice, financial crime, biometrics, cybercrime and cyberdefense, data protection, homeland security and national defense.IBM, LexisNexis and the Secret Service are among a group of corporations, government agencies and academic institutions that has formed to study and help solve identity management challenges around cybercrime, terrorism and narcotics trafficking. - +
Strange account management at Amazon 09 October, 2008 09:51:00
A careless login led to the discovery of some strange ccount management practices at one of the Internet's largest retailers.Via the RISKS mailing list comes an interesting tale of poor online account management at a major online retailer. According to Graham Bennett, accounts with Amazon display an odd behaviour that doesn't seem to have attracted much attention in the past.
Fujitsu PC targets Today's Young Adults with the release of the L series 14 October, 2008 12:40:00
Sound Alliance Group expands with acquisition of Mess+Noise 14 October, 2008 08:48:00
Sterling Commerce Introduces New Managed File Transfer Capabilities That Cuts Server Change Management Time in Half 14 October, 2008 08:41:00
Doncaster research software company’s global contribution honoured at tonight’s Victorian Export Awards 13 October, 2008 22:30:00
Acronis True Image 2009 makes protecting home computers easier than ever 13 October, 2008 14:10:00
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