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Hiring Manager: Emphasize Integrity, Attitude 14 December, 2007 11:18:07
William Howell shares his hiring mistakes and his secrets for selecting the best job candidates, finding objective references and using LinkedIn as a recruiting tool.William Howell shares his hiring mistakes and his secrets for selecting the best job candidates, finding objective references and using LinkedIn as a recruiting tool.
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services. Newsletter Subscription
A couple of weeks travelling to, from and around North America recently meant I consumed volumes of magazines and newspapers while on planes and in hotel rooms. It was mid-November and Christmas was not only in the air, but in the lead-up to Thanksgiving it was ubiquitously in print. In short order I became expert in the "hot gifts" of Christmas 2006.
In the past, my focus on "hot gifts" was limited to tearing out the Vogue magazine page with the "Top 10 Luxury Christmas Gifts for Her" and handing it to my husband with appropriate gifts circled. Long ago I found that what I want for Christmas and subtlety do not mix, but times have changed. The arrival of my granddaughter Lily four years ago now means I have to stay on top of cool toys in general because, well, I have to be a cool grandmother. So while I still check the "Top 10 Luxury Christmas Gifts for Her" lists, I now also peruse lists of "Top 10 Christmas Toys".
Enter Tickle Me Extreme Elmo, better known as TMX Elmo, stage right.
I'm a fast learner, and after scanning a handful of Top 10 Christmas Toys of 2006 lists, it was blatantly obvious that TMX Elmo was the hot toy for Christmas. It was Katie-bar-the-door. For 11 straight days TMX Elmo became my Mission from God (that's a reference to The Blues Brothers, not Mel Gibson, by the way). Lily must get TMX Elmo, ergo I must purchase a TMX Elmo.
I could not find a TMX Elmo.
I was in big- and mid-size cities and small towns, and checked toy stores and departments in each when I had time - sold out signs haunted me. I could have tried the eBay route where Mr E was going at double or triple the RRP, but I remained resolutely optimistic, which was a mistake. Ultimately I came up empty on TMX Elmo.
At one point, while on yet another plane, I was reading The Wall Street Journal and came across a story, "Trouble in Toyland", which chronicled the problems manufacturers and retailers were having with supply and demand regarding the various "hot" toys this Christmas. Evidently the day after TMX Elmo debuted, the president of Mattel brands Neil Friedman saw sales results and realized TMX Elmo was going to be big, and that demand would far outstrip supply. According to the WSJ story, Friedman quickly brought his team together and "the group determined how far they could press factories and suppliers of raw material". The story goes on to say that Mattel was able to increase production of TMX Elmo by 30 percent. A notable feat.
But back to my TMX Elmo quest, although I had pretty much abandoned it upon my return home. Abandoned, that is, until I read one of the Sydney Morning Herald supplements this past weekend, and there right before my eyes was a picture of little ol' TMX Elmo. I logged on to the computer, but the joke was on me. This site was not a shopping site but pretty much just an electronic stock list that directed me to David Jones, and DJs is not - well, let's be politic here - exactly a paragon of online shopping.
But this story is now drawing to a close, because later that day my granddaughter came for a visit and I asked her what she wanted for Christmas. "Princess Genevieve Barbie," she said. (Well, so much for TMX Elmo, it seems.)
So here are the takeaways from my TMX Elmo quest: 1. Real-time information is changing the supply chain (neat). 2. Before you go crazy trying to give someone (be it a business unit manager, the CEO or your granddaughter) what you think they want, you should find out what they want (sweet). 3. Online shopping continues to suck in Australia (beat).
Meanwhile, hopefully you'll have a happy holiday season and a great break. (I know I will because I delivered my "Top 10 Luxury Christmas Gifts for Her" page to Mr K.)
2008 CIO Summit
19th August, 2008 Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney Developed in partnership with CIO Magazine, IDC, INTEP and the CIO Executive Council.
The world of the CIO is extremely complex and diverse. Multiple priorities demand attention and decisions are needed instantly. Individual teams need to be driven towards common goals, and businesses strive to become more mobile, agile and responsive. For CIOs, the challenge never ends.
Every year the CIO Summit identifies what is top of mind for CIOs across Australia and New Zealand, and offers insight for CIO benchmarking and vendor strategic planning alike.
Recent IDC research shows that over 59% of CIO's believe that 'to achieve their business strategies, technology should be used more aggressively than today.'
Join us on August 19th to discover how this is possible with the latest technologies including Virtualisation, Web 2.0, IP Surveillance and Software as a Service (Saas).
Click here for more information.
Please email Denyse_Robertson@idg.com.au for further information.
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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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Best Western forced to play defense on data breach disclosure 29 August, 2008 08:08:00
Could hotel chain have done a better job of defusing story about system intrusion?The headline in this week's Glasgow Sunday Herald -- "Revealed: 8 million victims in the world's biggest cyber heist" -- was a grabber. - +
US Terror threat system crippled by technical flaws 28 August, 2008 09:53:00
US Congress charges that US$500m project to prevent another 9/11 is a complete failure.A US House subcommittee is charging that a US$500 million IT project intended to "connect the dots" on terrorists and help prevent another 9/11 is a failure; it can't even handle basic Boolean search terms, such as "and, or and not." - +
Malware infects space station laptops 28 August, 2008 08:15:00
Not the first time, says NASA; astronauts load up Norton AntiVirusMalware has managed to get off the planet and onto the International Space Station, NASA confirmed yesterday. And it's not the first time that a worm or virus has stowed away on a trip into orbit. - +
Separation of duties and IT security 28 August, 2008 09:40:00
Muddied responsibilities create unwanted risk. Kevin Coleman says auditors may start labeling poorly defined IT duties as a material deficiency.Separation of duties is a key concept of internal controls and is the most difficult and sometimes the most costly one to achieve. This objective is achieved by disseminating the tasks and associated privileges for a specific security process among multiple people. - +
How to recruit and retain the best young security employees 27 August, 2008 08:32:00
Today's youngest generation of workers, known as Generation Y, have different career goals than their parents did. What do you need to know to get them to work for you?The final installment in a series of articles about generational differences and security. Part one looked at managing workers in different age groups. Part two examined the types of security concerns that are most commonly associated with different generations in the general workforce. This article provides recruiting and retention advice for security employees.
Tumbleweed appoints O2 Networks to its Australian Channel Partner Program 29 August, 2008 12:31:00
HP ProCurve Brings Big Business Gigabit Switching Features to Small Businesses 29 August, 2008 12:00:00
GlobalConnect Provides Treatment for Healthcare Provider’s Contact Support Requirements 29 August, 2008 09:59:00
Sybase and Logica Partner To Mobilise The Supply Chain 29 August, 2008 09:47:00
New global landscape for qualitative researchers with Spanish and Chinese software releases 29 August, 2008 09:34:00
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Choices in Storage Architecture for Oracle Environments
Database systems have always been at the core of the IT landscape. Not only is storage an increasingly large cost component of database investments, but storage architecture can significantly and directly impact the performance, availability, and recovery of data. Read on to explore the interaction between Oracle databases and EMC and Network Appliance storage architectures.
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