Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Monitoring Social Media

As more organizations are getting into social media, they are learning the best techniques to make best use of those media. One of the techniques is establishing a good system for monitoring what is being said about the company and who is saying it. Sometimes particular issues can go viral on the net, leaving the company with a tarnished reputation.

Particular techniques include identifying customers by segment, hosting one or more branded customer communities, engaging customers in conversation and integrating the social media channels with other channels of customer communication.

Social media use is quite new for business, but nevertheless the use of it must be guided by business priorities, efficiency and ultimately, profitability.

This article provides an interesting summary of an approach to social media.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The New IT Platform

It's no secret that the world of IT is increasingly dominated by cloud computing, mobile computing and social networks. What is less widely acknowledged is that these phenomena may actually replace the current IT platforms, at least that is what a new IDC report, "IDC Predictions: Welcome to the new mainstream" says.

The new IDC report was released last week and is more than a trendy muse.

Companies are already moving into social media, including blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. But that doesn't mean in this new world that personnel will be tweeting and sending Facebook status reports that they are going to take their coffee break now. Not at all. Social media is revealing itself as a valuable tool for interacting with stakeholders in the business - employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, and others. The work that people do in the new world will be very serious work, directed to greater profitability and efficiency through the use of the cloud, mobiles and social media.

The IDC report, downloadable here, says that during 2011, these things will become mainstream. It's moving faster than we thought.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Social Media - An Important Management Tool

IBM has sponsored a new eBook, entitled "Empowering People, Removing the Barriers to Social Business Adoption," that explores the ways in which social media can be used to manage a company, support collaboration and monitor and manage the activities of teams within the organization.

For some time now, companies have been using social media as a resource in researching new personnel being considered for hiring, and for corporate wide discussions and announcements. The new paradigm suggested by IBM, already adopted by some progressive companies, goes much further than that, making social media an important and central part of the fabric of the company.

The paper offers some concrete solutions to the problems of work silos and uncooperative teams, all within a context of peer respect and transparency. You can download a free copy of the eBook from this site.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Television in Transition

That medium most central to news and entertainment life during the latter half of the 20th century is rapidly changing before our eyes. The internet has changed and continues to change everything else - books, magazines, newspapers, travel, banking, you name it - but television has been the longest holdout, particularly cable TV.

That cable still survives these days is particularly remarkable when you consider that a lot of the content that people like to view is available for free on the internet, while the cable companies charge an arm and a leg for it.

Many people realize this, and surveys are reporting hundreds of thousands of people discontinuing their cable service. And many more planning to do so during the coming year.

People are discovering the entertainment value of sites like Youtube, which offers its content for free. Also, movie services like Netflix are catching on and many of the news services offer their programs and news programs on archive and sometimes on a live streaming basis. Quality of internet content on the big screen is getting better too, and in many cases as good as regular TV.

The most interesting aspect of this changing part of the world from a business point of view is that there must be a way for the providers of the content to get paid for their product, whether it be music, movies or news features. Right from the people/actors doing their part to the companies providing the equipment and marketing expertise to get their work to the public. So "for free" may be appealing to the audience, and especially to the young who often feel that everything should be free, but free is just not sustainable.

This means that the companies in the TV business need to find new business models. that may not be as hard as it first seems. They already have strong support of advertisers - the most likely source of revenue. All they need to do is to convince the advertisers that it is worth their while to spend big bucks on advertising on the internet. As the audience shifts over, this will be an easier task.

The established players also need to find ways to compete with new players like Google TV and Apple TV.

Musicians have adapted quite well. Justin Beiber is a good example, who got his start through his parents putting his videos on YouTube. They of course went viral and the rest is now history. We can expect more YouTube stars in various fields - not just music.

The end result will not be the end of TV. It will mark the end of cable TV as we know it. And it will result in new business models for everyone in the supply chain and will mark a wonderful new era in TV content for the audience.

For a good article on this topic, check out this link.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Top 5 IT Business Videos for 2009

ITBusiness.ca has released a list of the top five videos for 2009, including the links that can be used to watch them. Worth some time! Many of the links involve the use of mobile units and social media - two of the forces currently shaping e-Business. For the list and the links, click this link.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Managing the Move to the Cloud

Gartner predicts that spending on the cloud will increase in the next year by 16%, more than three times the rate of increase expected in IT spending generally. That would indicate that many companies will need to pay attention to the management of the transition to the cloud.

One point is immediately clear - many of the same issues are going to arise as in any IT migration - the need to test before cut-over and the need to manage process change being two examples. Other issues may not be quite as obvious.

Companies need not and in many cases should not use a single supplier. In the cloud, this can be a challenge, and there is a new breed of service providers who act as cloud brokers, to guide people through the labyrinth of issues.

Also, and this is better known, it is important to pay attention to where your data is going to reside. Different jurisdictions have legislation that covers the management of data that resides in their jurisdiction. For example, the EU Privacy Act limits the transfer of private data outside the EU. And the US Patriot Act makes the data available to certain government and regulatory bodies. As a minimum, the company needs to know the location of its data and have a grasp of the governing legislation and how it fits with home legislation and relevant contracts.

For an excellent article, which provided much of the source of this article, check this link.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Mobiles in the Cloud

Mobile devices have been famously proliferating in the world of data transfer, through texting, email and many new apps that can do anything from playing Bookworm to showing movies to operating complete GPS systems. These are impressive accomplishments for such tiny devices, but yet they are limited as computing devices. They don't have much space for storing apps or the related data. Also their computing power, while impressive, pales against conventional computing devices like laptops and of course other bigger computers.

The cloud offers up the logical answer. Cloud apps run on remote servers and can run pretty well any application you can think of. The challenge for mobiles is to get the input-output interfaces working so the results of such powerful apps can be run from the limited mobile interfaces. it's a challenge but not impossible for a wide range of apps. Such apps are starting to come out in commercially viable scale and content, primarily at this point in the form of games. But then a lot of modern computing originated with games.

We'll soon see a large growth in the capabilities of mobile units. A person cruising in a boat on a lazy summer day out in the country will be able to run an app that utilizes the advanced analytical capabilities of a sophisticated ERP system and display the reports on the tiny screen of the mobile. It will open a whole range of services for the devices. And will cement their role as a focal point of the new computing environment. An article in Technology Review explains some of the new games coming on stream.

Monday, December 06, 2010

I Want it and I Want it Now

Such is the consumer of data in the modern age. They want their data anytime, anywhere. Sounding like a spoiled child, they are backed up by masses of people and by technology. And by three megatrends - the proliferation of mobile devices, cloud computing and social collaboration. It is possible for them to get what they want.

Companies who use the web for disclosing their information to their stakeholders, or to their partners and collaborators, need to respond fully to these trends. Lets take a quick look at what this means.

Mobile devices are evolving so quickly it makes it difffcult to plot strategy. However, we do know that smart phones are likely to be around for a while and that they are likely to have small screens but big capabilities. Information needs to be made available so it can be consumed on these devices as well as on more conventional devices. That part is not too difficult.

However, we also know that the consumers of data want to be able to work with the data themselves, rather than just receive a bunch of prescribed reports. That means they need to get the data into applications that are powerful enough to do good analyses. That's a challenge for the small devices, even though they are powerful. Also, people using any computers are increasingly using cloud apps for various purposes. The companies therefore need to provide the analytical ability and the logical way to do this is on a SaaS basis - in the cloud - so that the users don't need to worry about finding good analytical tools every time they want to consume some data.

Third, users are accustomed to social networks, and becoming more so. Collaboration is the key and understanding data is a natural for collaboration - between the organization providing the data and the consumers as well as between the consumers themselves. This is the way people work online, and the way companies need to provide their information.

So Mobiles, Cloud computing and social networking (see this related article) - all are key to the disclosure of information in the new and developing information environment.
 

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Dell Keeps on Innovating

Way back when the Web was new, and companies were just starting to use it, Michael Dell started up a new venture to sell computers to people on demand. What set his new business apart from others that preceded it was that it didn't carry inventory, it didn't build the computers until they had been sold. This simple (conceptually anyway) innovation revolutionized the field of supply chain management, and set the stage for countless new companies in the information age.

Now, Dell is still innovating, this time in tune with the major trends of the time - SaaS, the Cloud and virtualization. The company is moving beyond hardware into service, something that all big companies (e.g. IBM) must eventually do. For an interesting article on Dell's current initiatives, check out this link.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Facebook CRM

Social media are increasingly being used for contact management. Traditional contact vehicles, like email, don't really provide useful contact manegement capabilities. Social media, like Facebook and LinkedIn do offer not only information about contacts, continually updated by the contacts themselves, but also have been growing their messaging and chat functionality, making them more viable as contact management tools.

Social media have been used for some time now by companies trying to get their message out and trying to collaborate with their stakehoilders. The enhancements in contact management and messaging capabilities will serve to make them more valuable and more widely used for CRM. For an interesting take on this theme, see this link.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The End of Top Down Management?
by Gerald Trites

Management gurus have been predicting the end of top-down management for years. It might have started with some of the early writings of Peter Drucker, but I haven't gone back and checked the references. Certainly, after the beginnings of the information age, the predictions abounded. The workforce is different, the thinking went. It is more educated and (gulp) talented. The power will lie with those who have the skills. The bosses won't even understand what their people are doing and will be relegated to the role of coordinators. The real decisions will be made by the workers.

Somehow, it hasn't worked out quite that way. The bosses still call the shots - the real shots. The masses still have to toe the line, certainly in the big companies. Yes, there are exceptions, Google is often touted as one, but then one could argue that it gets a lot of press on this point because it is an exception.

The move to collaborative or participative management has evolved into something of a charade, where there are periodic meetings and discussion groups when important things are happening, but which often involve explanations of why management has chosen a particular path, under the guise of seeking employee input.

So that's where we are at this time, after some twenty or thirty years (depending on where you start counting) of the information revolution.

Enter social media. A rising tide of commentary has been suggesting that social media will transform the internal workings of organizations, that the people within the organization will all have a voice and that decisions will be made with ongoing and decisive employee input.

A recent book, "Social Nation" by Barry Libert, (reviewed at this site) argues just this point - that social networking is transforming the attitudes of everyone in or connected to an organization, and that management therefore has to change its ways and become much more inclusive and consultative.

The fact is though, in a modern corporation, employees can participate publically in discussion of corporate issues on social media, but they cannot speak their minds. If they speak against the corporate line of thinking, the current culture or, especially, the actions or pronouncements of particular managers, their tenure with the organization is bound to be short. They know that, and many people on Facebook, for example, keep two accounts - one for work related acquaintances and one for family and friends (real friends).

So is social networking transforming management? I'm from Missouri on this point.

The fact is, there are many factors working to transform management that have nothing to do with social networking. One of these is the tremendous increase in the participation of women in the workforce and their growth in numbers in management - a trend that has developed over the past twenty years or so. Women have always been more eager to communicate than men, and more eager to talk things out with others who are affected. Men and women working together, throughout history have always been able to work effectively to the common good. It was only with the advent of large organizations, with their need for men to go away from the home to work that the worklives of men and women became so separated. Before that, they worked together on the farms and in family owned businesses for centuries. Men and women working together avoids the extremities of masculinity and feminity and brings to bear a much more balanced and inclusive approach to management and to worklife generally. It is that which is leading to major changes in the way organizations are managed, not social networking, although hopefully it will improve the way in which social networking is used in corporate cultures.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Distributed Co-Creation et al

The growth of social networks and the concomitant growth in online collaboration has led to the coining of a phrase that captures the business technique that has evolved. It's called distributed co-creation and it represents the approach of gathering a group of users on the web together to collectively solve business issues.

McKinsey defines and places it thus “…[T]he ability to organize communities of Web participants to develop, market, and support products and services has moved from the margins of business practice to the mainstream,

Those who are gathered may be customers, suppliers, technical experts or any group with the capacity to bring some critical expertise or knowledge or experience to bear on solving problems.

Online collaboration is no longer new, but this term is, as is the focus on the legitimacy of including in business processes, particularly those involving creative functions, such collaborative activities.

McKinsey has released a list of 10 IT trends most affecting business, and distributed co-creation is top of the list. Other collaborative activities are also on the list. All of which points to the new world of widespread collaboration on the web for business purposes.

Friday, November 12, 2010

When Credit Card Fraud Strikes a Company

"A credit card data security breach was not a positive event in the history of Hannants, but the way the company handled it mitigated the problem and made customers feel like they were included in the solution -- more like partners than like victims. Hannants trusted its customers and their reaction to the news, and the company was rewarded with a largely positive response from its customers in social media."

Credit card fraud can be disastrous for a company, but the Hannants case illustrates a number of important lessons about good CRM. Communicate with the customers. Be open and honest. Don't be defensive. Don't lay blame. Just work to fix the problem and tell the customers what is being done to safeguard their interests. Have good relationships to begin with. That may be one of the most important points. Good CRM, with established channels of communication and a legacy of trust will pay off in bad times.

For a write-up on the Hannants case, see this article.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Gartner's Top Ten Technologies for 2011

Gartner has released its list of top technologies for this year. Cloud computing tops the list, as might have been expected. Also Mobile apps comes second - again not a big surprise, which means that it is a reasonable list.  The top ten are:


1: Cloud computing
2: Mobile apps and media tablets
3: Next-gen analytics
4: Social analytics
5: Social communication and collaboration
6: Video
7: Context-aware computing
8: Ubiquitous computing
9: Storage class memory
10: Fabric based infrastructure and computers

For more detail on these items, please click here.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Saas, IaaS and PaaS

We hear a lot about Software as a Service (SaaS) and its role in enabling applications to be provided in the cloud. Lately we have been hearing more about Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service. IaaS essentially involves the provision of raw computer power and storage. PaaS, on the other hand, offers up not only the infrastructure but an operating system and an applications platform which customers can use to develop/configure their own applications. PaaS gives the customers more flexibility with the applications they use on the cloud than does SaaS, which is generally a bit restictive because the same apps need to be used by a variety of customers and the provider could not possibly support the apps if there were 100 variations on them being run.

IaaS and PaaS not only involve different customer experiences, they involve different strategies by the providers. So far, Amazon, as one of the major cloud providers, has stressed an IaaS service. Recently, on the other hand, Microsoft has been going into the PaaS route. The two rivals will therefore be attracting customers with different needs and desires, but also will be selling their wares on the basis of the differences they offer to the customers. The outcome will be instructive in gauging the future direction of cloud services. For an excellent article on the Microsoft initiative, check out this article.

 

Thursday, November 04, 2010

What is Social CRM?

CRM has been changing drastically over the past couple of years, and the centerpeice of this change is Social CRM.. Involving the use of Social Networking to strengthen CRM, Social CRM provides a way to involve the customers as never before. Facebook is widely used by companies for this purpose, although some of the other social media, like Myspace, LinkedIn and Youtube (although this is a different kind of social media) are used as well.

Companies that implement social media generally set up a few pages on Facebook, and then install social media software, which is available from most major CRM vendors now, and which gathers the Facebook information and provides an interface for managers to analyze the information. This might include who likes and dislikes a particular entry. Who has become a fan and who hasn't. And what comments are being made on the company's wall. Of course, the Facebook site also provides a vehicle for providing answers and commentary, but companies who successfully implement social CRM recognize that it's more about listening than about talking. For an intro to Social CRM, check out this site.

Monday, November 01, 2010

Using Social Media in a Small Business

Social media are being used more by companies for CRM purposes. For smaller business, social media can also be useful for interacting with customers and others. The key is interacting. many smaller businesses, and some larger ones, see social media as just another tool for getting their message out. Another tool for broadcasting.

But the key to social media is the fact that it is social. That means interacting with people at a personal level. Listening as well as speaking. This is a novel idea for many people. Not that they have never used social media before, but they often have not made the connection between business promotion and social media. It's very different from traditional advertising. But it is quite similar to the idea of socializing with clients and potential clients. Going to cocktail parties with them or playing golf with them. This is the kind of interaction you want when using social media.

For an interesting article on this subject, check out this link.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Cloud Confusion

Yet another study indicates that people are confused about cloud computing and whether it has any benefits for their organization. This article has some pointers about how to address this confusion. Do your research, Try it out on some non-critical apps. Evaluate the experience. Treat it as a strategic decision, with all the implications that carries with it.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Frenemies

A new form of collaboration on the web is that of working with competitors. While this has been touted as a likely outcome of web usage since the web began to be used for business purposes, the idea has been gaining some traction lately, with the collaborating competitors being referred to as frenemies.

One important form of it is having customers browsing for certain products directed to a local physical location where they can obtain what they seem to be looking for. The chances are that if a customer is just looking and does not place an online order, they will go to a location within a reasonable distance from them in any event. So the idea is that they are referred to a local place, even that of a competitor. Of course, this works both ways, with competitors referring to their competitors as well, so over time, the business brought in from referrals should hopefully be more than any business lost to competitors.

For an article describing the arrangements made along these lines by a particular company, please see this link.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Social CRM

CRM is a natural tool for enhancing and perhaps even establishing a strong CRM System. Social Media can be used to engage customers, gain feedback and vet new ideas and initiatives.

But the issue has been how best to use social media. Just setting up a Facebook page or Twitter Account won't accomplish much.

One of the approaches to consider is to identify which types of customer are most likely to use social media and become engaged in it. There are several possibilities, but Chris Bucholtz, a blogger at Forecasting Clouds, has made three good suggestions. First is sports fans. Often they are young and enthusiastic users of social media. Another is clients of government agencies. The agencies themselves are usually eager to hear from the publics they serve and often the publics they serve are eager to provide feedback. Finally, certain Hobby enthusiasts may provide a successful group of social media users.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Targeted Ads on Facebook

What better place for targeted advertising than Facebook, where people voluntarily disclose their personal information. While such voluntary disclosure does not remove the strictures of the Privacy Act, nevertheless, there is some ambiguity about this, and Facebook has implemented a system of advertising based on the information that people have disclosed, such as their gender, age, etc. Recently, Facebook has revealed that these targeted ads have become their largest source of revenue. This article explains.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Cloud Computing - SAAS and PAAS

Many companies continue to move to cloud computing despite the additional risk involved. Vendors are becoming more sophisticated in the area and offering more comprehensive solutions. For example, the original center of the cloud - Software as a Service (SAAS) has now evolved into Platform as a Service (PAAS). With integrated platforms available in the cloud, it makes it more feasible for companies to move their ERP, CRM and BI systems there.

Microsoft has declared that they are fully into the cloud. In a recent interview, Bob Muglia, president of the nearly $15 billion Server and Tools Division of Microsoft, explains the current state of the cloud and offers an insight to Microsoft's strategy in this important area. The interview, complete with videos, can be seen on this site.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

IT Careers: Hottest Jobs, Skills in Cloud Computing, Mobile Application Development

The latest IBM Tech Trends survey of IT professionals reveals that cloud computing and mobile application development will provide the most career opportunities, followed by social media and business intelligence. See the article at this site

Monday, October 11, 2010

Google - Maker of Fine Automobiles

Google has announced that they are testing a new car that drives itself. There have been predictions for a few years now that the traditional car manufacturers would be moving in that direction, but this is a very tangible and interesting move by a company that has not been involved in any way in the automobile industry. It shows once again how sudden and discontinuous change has become the norm for the information age.

Some of the car makers have been introducing new self driving functionality, such as, for example, the self braking feature of the new Mercedes. However, these initiatives have been sporadic and have not approached the status of a fully self driving car.

Google is investing a lot of money in their new initiative. It will be interesting to see if they succeed. For more on the self driving car, see this website.

Monday, October 04, 2010

E-discovery Goes In-house

As legal issues have moved into the electronic age, so has the discovery process. Discovery is the pre-trial process in legal actions that involve making documents available to the other party so as to improve the fairness and efficiency of the actual proceedings. Since many documents are now electronic, the process of e-discovery was born a few years ago to include the production of electronic documents. E-discovery has grown as a part of the legal process and now has reached the point that companies are bringing it in-house so as to include it in their regular control operations. For a good article on this development, please see this article.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

International E-Business

There are many issues that arise in doing international e-business that don't arise in domestic markets. Of course, the obvious ones revolve around culture, but there are very different laws about handling money and making sales as well. An interview published in e-Commerce Times, titled "A World-Wise View of E-Commerce: Q&A With Asknet CEO Michael Scheib," provides an interesting quick overview of some of the issues in various countries. It's worth a look at this link.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Facebook now Meets Canadian Privacy Requirements

Last year, Canada's Privacy Commissioner reported that Facebook fell short of privacy requirements because it was collecting information that was available to others without making this clear to the users. Since then, Facebook has made a number of changes to its privacy procedures, basically providing the users the option to choose who the information can be made available to. last week, the Privacy Commissioner announced that Facebook now meets the requirements. For an outline of the announcement and its background, check out this article.  

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Social Media and CRM

A new trend is taking place in the CRM world, in which companies are using social media to augment their CRM systems. It makes a lot of sense, because their customers can discuss issues, new events can be exposed to them, and their support people can participate. Different from the traditional chat rooms, social media facilitates getting to know the customers better and encourages better participation. Some companies are using this approach successfully. For an article on this topic, please see this link.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Online Privacy - Is There Such a Thing?

Many people assume that if they don't explicitly identify themselves on the internet, then their actions on it are anonymous. However, this isn't necessarily so. Standard logins can reveal more information about a person than many realize. For example, everyone has an IP Address, point of entry, domain, etc. and these are not hard to find and to track. Indeed many companies plant cookies to follow the users and determine their interests, desires, and habits.

Of course, many people are aware of the existence of cookies and often/sometimes(?) employ software to disable them. But by then it's too late to stop them from identifying a person, or coming very close. And the sophistication of identification techniques on the internet is growing.

Many business will tell you that they don;t need to identify an individual - that they only want to identify what their commercial interests in order to be able to make product information available to them at timely moments. A lot of research and effort is going into this effort. And that's generally true. But the real danger is that unscrupulous people, such as criminals may indeed want to identify you, and then there is a real problem.

Some safeguards can be taken - cookie software, wiping our browser files after each use, shielding IP addresses, etc. But a lot of people don't do these things, and in any event, the technology for identification is getting more sophisticated. it could mean the end of privacy for good. for more on this theme, see this article.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Android Moving up in the World

Google's Android operating system for smartphones has been one of the major success stories of recent years. Google bought Android Inc, as a start-up, two years ago and since them developers have flocked to it to the extent of hundreds of thousands of new apps, some say as much as a million new apps. Android is based on the Linux system, which makes it pretty much open for developers, something that works in the technology world and that Apple should have learned many years ago when it lost market share to IBM and its clones by keeping their Apples closed.

Now, Android is positioned as the front-runner in the smartphone world, and predictions are that its star will continue to rise. For example, see this article.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Journalism - An Industry in Flux

It is obvious to everyone by now that the world of news and news media is changing rapidly and irrevocably. Digital media is providing new and different channels of distribution, new avenues for reader interaction, and even new types of content.

The industry was the focus of a panel discussion held last week in Toronto, which involved a number of experts from media companies, and some of the digital companies like Facebook. One of the discussions pointed to the advantages of having news comments placed through Facebook, rather than as anonymous comments on news sites. There was the thought that this might raise the level of the online discussions in traditional media sites. Anyone who has read some of the comments one sees in traditional media sites would relate to the need for finding some way to raise the level at least up to kindergarten level!

The advances in mobility were also discussed, with recognition that it is important and will become more so, but that the problem now is that there does not seem to be a good means of providing advertising content, which is necessary from the industry viewpoint.

A summary of the discussion is at this site.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

IT Support Needs to Change

The trends in technology over the past few years have highlighted a growing sophistication in the use of technology. At one time, the only experts in the company were the IT support staff. That's still true in some ways but in many ways it isn't. Nevertheless, IT support personnel need to recognize what has changed.

The big thing that has changed is that the employees, especially those coming on stream now, are very used to technology and are good at using it for many purposes in their daily lives. This ranges from social networking to numerous apps to mobile uses like texting. While they may not be cognizant of the risks associated with some of these activities, all that does is tend to make the work of the IS support people harder, because they end up having to say "no" - and it only takes a certain number of "no's" before they are regarded as Neanderthals.

So there is a significant management problem that needs to be addressed. Couple this with the growing trend of companies to adopt a policy of allowing employees to use their own computers, and the whole issue is ramped up into the stratosphere.

It seems clear that what needs to happen is for the IT departments to release a lot of control. To be more responsive to new technologies coming up out of the field, and to support as best they can the employees who way to use their own technology in a way that they are used to doing, which should add efficiency. In the end, the technology will cost the company a lot less and while there might be additional risk, this is something that can be dealt with.

InformationWeek Analytics recently released a survey - End user 2.0 - that bears out these broad conclusions and also brings in some new considerations. Worth thinking about. The long term credibility of IT support functions everywhere is at stake.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Buy Your Starbucks With Blackberry

In an illustration of the growing use of smart phones for purchasing on the road, Blackberry has announced a new application for the Blackberry. Customers can manage their Starbucks points accounts and buy their coffee using their Blackberry at Starbucks stores. there already are similar services for iPhones.

We can expect to see more of this and eventually smart phones may well become the payment method of choice. For a report on the announcement, check out this article.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

The Wireless Wars

Wireless broadband capacity has become an important basic resource for our economy and indeed our society. Ultimately it may rank up there almost with water and air. That's because so many of our important communications devices and countless applications in business and government are going wireless.

We are all aware of the growth of mobile phones and other wireless devices. But that's only the tip of the iceburg. The movement of important applications, such as power grid monitoring to wireless platforms adds an important new perspective to the situation.

Presently, broadband access is controlled by the telephone and cable companies. But this arrangement does not take into account the movement of broadband usage from those devices to important applications. It does not take into account the tremendous importance of broadband to our society. In short, the most relevant question is can the control of broadband be left to the phone and cable companies, or should it be placed in broader hands - hands that will need to be more accountable.

There are, of course, regulatory bodies to mitigate said control. In the US its the FCC and in Canada the CRTC. Both agencies have been struggling to keep up with the rapid change taking place in communications technology and its changing role in society. With mixed results. In Canada the very existence and/or structure of the CRTC needs to be rethought. There are other government bodies with powers in this space as well, but then we are into an uncoordinated set of policies and practices. Change is needed.

The FCC, in its efforts to keep up, is currently examining the direction its policies should take with regard to broadband. Needless to say, they are facing extreme lobbying pressure from the cable and telephone companies. It's time for the whole governance structure of broadband policy to be re-thought.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Time Explorer

An interesting new research tool is in prototype state at the Yahoo Barcelona Research Lab. The tool was demonstrated over the weekend at a Human Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval (HCIR) workshop in New Brunswick, NJ.

The tool organizes news stories according to the years they were published and the years they refer to. So if an article refers to 2020, it would appear under that year, extending the timeline into the future. The tool can be used to gain an understanding of thinking at some point in the past, and also what thinking has taken place about some time in the future.

At present, Time Explorer only contains select stories from the New York Times, but one can see that if it is extended to include a variety of sources and writings beyond news stories, it could be a significant aid to researchers doing survey work.

It adds a new dimension to research, essentially enabling the researchers to become virtual time travellers. This article explains in more detail.
  

Friday, August 27, 2010

Data leakage

Panda Security "recently surveyed 10,470 small and midsize companies -- those having up to 1,000 computers -- in 20 countries. Roughly half said that their organization had been infected by malware at least once in the previous year, and in the United States, 27% said the origin was a USB device."

Some firms routinely block the USB ports in their corporate owned PC's, some by inserting epoxy glue into them.

Seems they are onto something.

Here's more on the survey.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Privacy Under Threat

The infrastructure is all there. All we now need is some repressive and subversive government to plug into it and they can track their citizens right down to when the go to the pub and who they meet with there. The privacy of individuals is under threat more than in recent history. Cameras track your moves in city streets, Software in your smart phones tracks your location and transmits it out over the internet. Almost all information about you that used to be private is now out there on the internet somewhere. Seldom in history has the ground been so well laid for total control over the activities and movements of people.

The latest push comes again from Facebook, already the focus of much controversy. their latest product "places" automatically tells "friends" where you are. In order to avoid this happening, you have to go in and refuse the service. In other words, the default in that you are tracked. This has a lot of people up in arms.

And then, there is the latest uprising against Google Earth, in Germany. They are taking issue with the idea that their homes are clearly visible on the internet. That's after extensive controversy about the inclusion of people in street scenes, a matter on which Google had to do some bending.

Some people view those who object to these privacy intrusions as hopelessly outdated - even neanderthal-ish. Instead of condemning, they should study some history, focus particularly on past oppressive governments, and remind themselves that all that could happen again, and now with much more efficiency.

For a summary of the most recent Facebook discussion, see this article. And for a look at the Google issue in Germany see this one.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Is Hulu's IPO supported by its Business Model?

Hulu Inc has announced plans in New York to issue an IPO this fall. For anyone who doesn't know, Hulu is an internet operator that streams TV shows and movies for comsumption on pc's and mobile devices. Consumers can buy subscriptions to its services.

The company reported gross revenues of about $100 million last year, but no significant profits. It's business model is based on streaming content on its site, under agreements with the content owners, such as ABC and NBC. The hitch is that a lot of their content is made available for free on the owners' websites, either in current streams or in archives.

The issue is - will this business model support a $2 billion IPO, especially in today's skittish investment market. It'll be wait and see until the fall. Here's a short article on the announcement.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Outsourcing Undergoing a Sea Change

Although outsourcing has been with us for several years now, and has increased in popularity more recently, it is now changing to the extent that what we used to call outsourcing will no longer exist. The reason goes back to the original purposes of outsourcing, which were heavily centered on saving costs.

Initially, costs were saved by handing over the administrative and infrastructure costs to a specialist group who could look after those areas more efficiently. Now, however, even greater savings can be achieved by handing over processing to the new cloud specialists, like Amazon and Google. No doubt there will be others.

The cloud specialists do not offer to run special or customized applications; rather they offer generic applications and share them among numerous users. That makes it cheaper. As the systems become more mature and developed, it will be feasible for companies to outsource more of their applications to them. Ultimately, the traditional forms of outsourcing will disappear.

For an excellent article on this topic, check out this link.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The Cloud Suits E-Business Needs

Modern e-business applications, like CRM and e-procurement are built on a collaborative model - collaboration with suppliers, customers and others. Even ERP is shifting to a SAAS environment in the cloud, at least partly for collaborative purposes.

The cloud fits well with collaboration, which essentially involves a system of shared processes. What better way to share processes than to place them in the cloud, where access is more open and can be more easily built to recognize the needs of collaborators.

This means that e-business applications are in the forefront of applications moving to the cloud.

This linked article expands on this point and also provides a podcast of a panel discussion among several experts in the field.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Facebook and Twitter Important Shopping Tools

A recent Gartner Study has revealed that Facebook and Twitter are becoming important tools used by consumers to choose their purchases. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, much of this use is taking place on mobile phones.

When the internet first started, one of its first primary uses was as a source of information for purchases - the internet was where people researched their options, and thus began the era of the informed shopper - shoppers coming in the door who already knew about all the products and their prices and features, and often had already decided on what they were going to buy. Of course, the internet is still used that way, but now it is used more often than initially for making the actual purchases as well.

It is inevitable that phones assume this role. and it will be the first step in a series of steps that will take the phones through the evaluation stage to the purchase stage and even the payment stage. All of these things are at the beginning stage now, but can be expected to evolve quickly. Since apps like Facebook and Twitter are often used on mobile phones, it stands to reason they will factor into the equation. This brings in an element that might not have been there before as strongly - the advice and experience of friends. People have always made use of such advice, but not necessarily in the technological sense. Facebook and Twitter make this not only possible but easy and efficient.

For an article on the Gartner Study, click this link.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Monitoring the Cloud

One of the lessons learned by early adopters of cloud computing, even those who adopted with the majors, like Google and IBM, is that it's difficult to know how the applications are performing in the traditional IT sense. Are there I/O issues, for example? Or other resource stresses? Established internally managed systems have lots of monitoring tools to deal with these questions, but not so with cloud computing. At least the options in cloud computing seem to be more limited.

An article in InformationWeek surveys briefly some of these lessons learned by early adopters, and points to some of the possible solutions.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Is Facebook Maxing Out?

Recently Facebook announced that their membership has reached 500 million. This is a level that was given a good head start by being so popular with the young users in the beginning. Gradually, its use has spread to adults and even seniors.

The generalization of the appeal of Facebook among the population may turn off some of the youngest users. Indeed, they like to use facilities they can call their own, separate from their parents and other adults, and Facebook no longer meets that description. So the continuation of user growth is thrown into question.

Another issue facing Facebook is the apparent unhappiness of users with the new privacy rules. surveys show that this is a real issue, and in any event, Internet users don;t generally like a lot of rules and regulations.

Having said all that, it seems obvious that social networking is a permanent part of our digital landscape, and Facebook has a prominent place in that landscape. It remains to be seen how long it will take to reach the next 500 million, or whether it will. For more, see this article.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Mobile Bandwidth Being Tested

Mobile usage has grown tremendously - 280% per year in the last two years. Predictions are that this growth will continue for several years.

Mobile bandwidth is not an unlimited resource, and though it is growing, the growth in usage will continue to test it.

Accenture has published a paper called "Monetizing Mobile Bandwidth", which focuses on the fact that this growth scenario will lead to customer usage issues, like dropped calls, which in turn will lead to larger rates of customer churning.

"Accenture recommends a comprehensive, four-part method to delivering high-quality service while holding costs down:
  • A quality operations center—that is, a centralized approach to quality management—helps monitor and control overall service quality.
  • Enhanced policy management can dynamically adapt network resources according to demand to relieve network congestion.
  • Innovative mobile device management capabilities can help companies understand the service quality that customers are experiencing on their devices.
  • Network and application probes can proactively discover the source of service issues."

    You can download the paper from the Accenture site. 

Monday, July 19, 2010

Mobile Banking in Africa

A major difficulty for the people in the poorest parts of Africa (and some other areas) is a lack of infrastructure. There often is, for example, little or no telephone service, very poor roads, and few banks. Businesses cannot follow that most basic of control principles of depositing their cash every day. Making a deposit often involves a long and sometimes dangerous journey.

The ability of such areas to plug into the information economy is limited or non-existent.

Mobile phones have been a notable exception. Nowadays its not unusual to see a Masai warrior with a cell phone at his ear.

Mobile phones provide an opportunity that is not going unnoticed. In one case, as outlined in the referenced article, they are being used to provide banking services. Special accounts are set up and money can be texted from one person to another using the service. it provides a form of electronic cash and also gives the money much greater mobility. And the velocity of money is one of the underpinnings of a robust economy.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Another case of Insourcing

Tennessee bank offers an interesting case study on the recent movement to insourcing - in this case referred to as un-outsourcing.

Times change and in this case, circumstances changed such that Tennessee sold its mortgage company leading to a changed business strategy such that outsourcing no longer fit its strategy. Something that all companies need to stay on top of. For an article on this, follow this link.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

From Outsourcing to Insourcing

A few short years ago, outsourcing was all the rage. Companies big and small were outsourcing many of their key functions, anticipating savings of millions of dollars. Now, the scene has changed. Some of those same companies are now bringing those services home again, to save millions of dollars. So what has changed in the intervening years. Several things, including a growing need to be able to respond strategically to change. A need to economize. A need for more control.

Insourcing is not simply reversing the outsourcing that was previously implemented. There are different issues. For example, the skilled staff that the company had before the original outsourcing deal may well be working for the oursourcer and may be less than keen on moving back. They may even be disgruntled ex-employees to deal with.

For a good summary of the pros and cons of outsourcing vs insourcing, see this link.
The Growing Importance of Mobility

From mobile banking to mobile airline check-in to mobile cash register payments, mobility is becoming a major force in computing. So major that companies are having to address the management of their mobile interfaces with a new urgency and degree of importance. In some quarters, thought is even being given to setting up separate mobile computing departments. Look for this trend to continue. This article provides an overview.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Using Social Media in Small Business

Social media is increasingly a marketing vehicle that cannot be ignored. But there are lots of challenges to making good use of it. Aside from issues of privacy and security, there are the more basic issues of effectiveness. What works? What is the best way to make good use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like.

Part of the answer lies in research into how the customers are using those media. This can make it possible to connect with them. But there is a lot more to it than that.

E-Commerce news is running a very useful series on this topic. So far, Part 1 and Part 2 have been published.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Collaboration - New Software Needed

It's a well established fact of the Internet Age that people can now work remotely and collaborate with their peers and co-workers over the Internet. Companies have recognized this fact, and many of them allow and often encourage their people to work remotely. It cuts costs after all, through savings in office costs.

One problem, however, is that there is a dearth of software that actually supports full collaboration in business. While there are various packages that have been around for a while that allow online meetings and video conferencing and of course, there's email and other messaging tools, nevertheless there is very little good software that companies can use that encourages a full social media type of approach while at the same time fully supporting business processes that need to be carried out to move ahead with the business of the company. To put it another way, there is a shortage of software that can be fully integrated with business processes.

This article summarizes one new product that is trying to meet this need. The article is instructive in that it points to the need and shows how software can fill a void that exists in a large number of companies. Check out the article here.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Questions About Cloud Computing for Government

The British government has decided to set up a "G-Cloud" for implementing government services. They see it as a means to improve services and save money. The initiative has attracted the interest of people around the world, and raised the profile of the cloud in government circles.

Accenture has released a timely alert called Six Questions Government Executives Should Ask About Cloud Computing. The questions range from , basically, what is cloud computing to, naturally, what are the risks to data privacy. The document can be downloaded from this site.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Mobile Internet is becoming Primary But Are We Ready?

That change has been taking place in the use of the Internet through mobile units like smartphones and PDAs is an understatement. The iPhone has taken the world by storm, and pre-sales had to be cancelled for the iPhone 4 because of the large volume of orders. Units like the Blackberry continue to pervade business and government and are constantly improving as well.

Now, 4G is entering the scene, which enables better video and likely video calls. Will this be another revolution in this series of revolutions?

There are signs the industry is finding it hard to keep up. For one, the infrastructure they have was designed for voice and not for such high volumes of data transmission. Finding the broadband capacity for the new generation of internet users has been a challenge. 4G is supposed to be more efficient, and may be part of the solution. But it is unlikely the challenge will go away. The revolution will have to take this issue into account.

For an interesting take on the challenges in the Mobile world, check out this article.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Everything Elastic: Accenture Technology Vision 2010


Accenture has published a white paper setting out its technology vision for 2010. The focus is on what they call elasticity.

“Everything elastic” is proving to be a durable concept, whose influence is spreading thanks to the technological developments sketched above. Business executives—and CIOs in particular— should consider reshaping their thinking in line with this concept. The idea of elasticity—scalable, infinitely flexible, adaptive may be integrated into the very fabric of the business. Only then will high performance be achievable in this new market place.

The paper points to the growing importance of Cloud based systems, the increasing power of the internet and the expanding use of mobile and other units for internet interaction. all of these elements point to a significant change in the scope and power of the internet within business systems. For the free download of the Accenture paper, click this link.

Monday, June 14, 2010

iPad having an Impact

Whether the iPad will change the nature of personal computing remains to be seen. However, it does seem to be having its impact. One area is in eBooks. Since its introduction into the US market a couple of months ago, the iPad has captured 22% of the market for eBooks. Also see this summary. Not as much as the Kindle, but clearly a contender.

In another article it is pointed out that iPad users are large consumers of downloaded data, consuming more than half of all the data at one location. iPad users in this test consumed 300 mg of data per week, compared to 31 mgs for the average phone user. That's significant and may be an early indicator of the stress that will be put on the internet with these new computing tools.

The remedy for this usage may be new payment schemes, that ensure that heavy users of data pay for it. That's probably the best way to ration out the data in a fair manner. Otherwise, people could be finding they face shortages of bandwidth for business purposes, which could lead to unforeseen changes in internet usage, including more data charges, higher prices, more (ugh) government regulation, etc.

There's a heads-up on this for everyone.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Better ERP Procurement 

"The procurement process for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can be long and complicated—involving a cross-functional team that represents business owners, technical experts and procurement and legal specialists. Typically, procurements for such back-office systems happen only once every 15 to 20 years—a “once-in-a-career” event for many who go through the process. Yet the complicated nature of these programs and their fundamental importance in keeping the state government running efficiently and effectively demand real expertise on the part of the state team.

"Given the infrequency of procurements of such scale within a typical government organization, however, such expertise can be hard to come by. Accenture has responded to literally thousands of requests for proposals (RFPs)—with hundreds in the public sector and, among those, dozens related to very large-scale, transformational programs. That experience has given us insight into commonalities among RFPs that position an organization for post-procurement success and sustainable high performance.

Accenture has developed this short paper to share these four guiding principles of strong ERP RFPs to help individuals new to the ERP procurement process.


Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Build Your Own VPN

Security and privacy are matters of continuing importance and are not going to go away. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are an important element of retaining security and privacy for many companies, but there are other - mostly small - companies that steer away from VPNs because of the perception they are expensive and difficult to maintain.

Such is not necessarily the case, however, and this linked article explains how even a small company can have its own VPN without expensive support staff and a lot of expense.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Making IT More Business Aware

One hangover from the pre e-revolution days is that in many companies, IT is still regarded as a support function. Sure, there has been a growing recognition of the business value of IT, and a strong trend to aligning IT strategies with corporate strategies, but there is still a residue (often large) of the old thinking.

Some companies, like Southwestern Airlines, Zappos and Vanguard have been doing it differently. The article referenced here is a summary of short case studies of those companies and what they are doing to integrate IT and their core business. One common feature for all three companies is that they have a process of job rotation between IT and line business functions. This has the effect of developing a strong business awareness among IT personnel about the business, the needs of customers and how to meet their needs more effectively. This knowledge translates into more effective IT applications. The companies use this and other means to ensure that all personnel are fully conversant with the business. As a result, there is less of an "us and them" attitude. All employees - IT and traditional line business - become part of the same group, with the same goals. The business is indistinguishable from the IT function.

Other elements also play a role in integrating IT and line business. These include a focus on corporate culture that encompasses innovation and a recognition of IT as an innovation driver.

Companies that can think outside the box should pay attention to what these companies are doing. There is much business advantage to gain from moving beyond the idea of business/IT alignment to one of business/IT integration. For an article on the subject companies, click this link.

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Making Good Use of Facebook

Companies have been struggling with how to make good business use of Facebook for some time. It's been a learning game for many and one thing that has been learned is that it is not enough just to open a Facebook account and start accepting friends and publish stuff about the company.

Making good use of Facebook is, in concept, not much different than making good use of any technology. You need to think it through by developing a strategy. The strategy must mesh with the corporate strategy because in this way, the use to which Facebook is put will be more likely to address specific corporate objectives.

A strategy is not enough, but it does point to the next important element - developing good content that will draw people in. That's a tough one, and experimentation is normally called for. One aspect of the content, however, is that people must, on encountering it, feel compelled to some sort of action. In other words, the content should be a call to action for the visitors. Again, easier said than done, but nevertheless important.

Companies have been learning about the effective use of Facebook and other social media., Ultimately, social media will be an integral part of most companies' strategic communications efforts.

For an interesting overview article of this important area, see this link.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Booksellers Embrace Amazon

While independent booksellers have long feared Amazon, they are now changing their view. Many of them are selling through the Amazon website and some of them are having some real success. It's a change that might have legs, and might point the way to a new business model for the industry.

People who sell books over the Internet are finding that Affiliate marketing seems to work the best. This method involves splitting the sales revenues with an affiliate, but in exchange gaining access to a wider market. Often, the split goes as high as 50%.

With Amazon, the split is normally 15%, which makes for a better deal. One downside, however, is that Amazon is so big that individual sellers can get lost in it. That means they still need to launch effective marketing campaigns. Nevertheless, some independent booksellers and making a success of it. Here's a write-up on this approach.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Google Crosses the Line

As the press has widely reported, Google has admitted to eavesdropping on the activities of thousands of WiFi users around the world and archiving the resultant information. To gather that information was an unrivaled display of moral turpitude, electronic recklessness and arrogance. The kind of activity by a large corporation that should raise our hackles and put us to full upright attention as to the state of morality and ethics in the e-world, in the corporate world or both. Fortunately, they (say that they) did not make use of the information, and have volunteered to delete it. However, in recognition of pending lawsuits, they are holding it until they gain legal permission to get rid of it.

Many have expressed concern about the potential of the information age to turn into a "Big Brother" world, where the activities of citizens are monitored and eventually controlled by superpower corporate/government overlords. Some of those expressing dire warnings have been derided as being paranoid. But there is no doubt that the potential is there and will only be avoided by the constant vigilance of all citizens - everyone. So pay attention to where your data is going. Pay attention to the laws that govern the collection and use of private information. Make sure that private information is kept private through clear and powerful legislation and diligent regulators. It's important!

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Revolution is Coming

Google is going to introduce its new technology to create internet-capable television this week at the Google Developer Conference in San Francisco. Unless they botch it totally, this will be the biggest success that Google has ever undertaken. Even if they fail they will succeed, because the convergence of the internet and television has been inevitable since the World Wide Web got under way in the early 90s. Almost every internet observer in the world has predicted this to happen. The wonder is that it has taken so long.

But then a number of ducks had to be lined up. One was the availability of broadband to a critical mass of households. This is pretty much there. Another has been the availability of TVs that can handle the high density signals - we're there. Another has been the availability of television shows on the internet. Here there is work to do. Much television is now available on the internet, and some people have cancelled their cable subscriptions to watch their TV exclusively on their computers. But generally, so far, this has been a preserve of the more technically minded, since it takes some surfing dedication to find the shows, and many of them are archived rather than live.

But all this can change in a heartbeat if the public twigs to the tremendous flexibility and range of internet based TV.

Lets face it,. Television has played a huge role in shaping our culture. If we re-shape television, it will reshape out culture. Maybe make it more international, more inclusive. More understanding of other cultures. Maybe even lead to more convergence of global cultures.

We are heading into interesting times.

Oh, and if Google somehow drops the ball, someone else will pick it up. For a good overview article see the Times. For more on the Developer Conference, see its site.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Managing Risk in 2010

Ernst & Young issues reports from time to time on Risk Management - reports that are timely, well written and well researched. Their current reports include:

1.Top privacy issues for 2010
2.The top 10 strategic risks for business
3.Future of risk: Protecting and enabling performance
4.Manage risk in the current climate

All of these reports can be downloaded from their website.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Moving to the Cloud

The big thing about cloud computing is that applications can be run from a remote server from everywhere as long as there is internet access. Also, data can be stored there, which may raise concerns about security, but does help in resolving many of the issues about data recovery, since the major cloud vendors have great back-up systems. On the other hand, many of the traditional desktop solutions, like Microsoft Office, still outperform the applications available on the cloud.

So moving a business to the cloud requires some careful planning, and the development of a good strategy. Most likely the strategy will involve leaving some apps on the desktop and moving others. Some good points about these considerations are in this linked article.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Australian Broadband Model Worth a Look

The Australian government has committed some $43 Billion to building a fiber based network that will reach 93% of Australian homes. The initiative also provides for access by rural homes that can't be joined to the new fiber network.  Of course, the initiative treads on the toes of the ISPs in the country, who have developed the large network already in place.

The Australian initiative looks, on the face of it, like big government taking over business activities that are best left to business. However, there are good arguments for this approach. For example, the internet is becoming the core of communications in many advanced countries, and that trend is growing with the convergence of television  and the internet, the spread of VOIP for telephone and the use of social media for various communications in society.

This raises a question as to whether the whole system can safely be left to private business interests, who will pursue the development of the networks that will yield the highest profits, but will not necessarily ensure that most people in the country are connected to the means of communication. On the other hand, one can argue that private interests built the telephone system and most people in the country have access to telephones. The argument is weakened by the fact that the telephone industry has been heavily regulated.

Either way, the Australian model may not necessarily be the answer, but it is worth considering as a way to ensure that all (or virtually all) citizens have the means to communicate with each other. See a write-up about the Australian initiative in this article.  

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Pearson Airport Announces Massive Outsourcing Deal

Toronto's Pearson airport has announced a $130 million deal under which it will outsource all its IT operations to IBM. This includes all the systems that the airlines use to service customers. Under the arrangement, IBM will bill the airlines directly as distinct from the current arrangement under which the airport bills the airlines through landing fees.

"The driver behind the partnership for GTAA," said an airport spokesperson, "stems from the organizations overall strategy to identify the business value of technology in various areas including data risk management and strategic outsourcing." An interesting question for discussion is " How does the outsourcing deal help to identify the business value of technology?" 

The answer centers around the fact that the value based strategy seeks to identify and rationalize IT usage on a business value basis, as billings will be based on business metrics. The arrangement will provide an incentive to the airlines to uitilize IT where it makes the most sense from a business viewpoint, such as the use of kiosks rather than staffed checkpoints.

One open question that arises, however, is whether the provision for flexibility in IT configuration between airlines is consistent with a need to achieve the degree of standardization that can ensure a secure system. No doubt IBM has worked through that issue.

For a write-up on this case, please click this link.

Monday, May 03, 2010

Real Time Collaboration

A new edition of Google Docs takes a new approach to collaboration on documents in process. Collaborative tools so far, like wiki's and Sharepoint have taken a traditional approach of locking out a document or the part that is being edited, so that the actual changes being made cannot be seen until they are completed. In Google Docs, however, this is changing and it is possible to see changes being made in real time. Google thinks this will result in more efficient document completion when groups are involved. They draw an analogy to personal productivity when word processing on computers was introduced, enabling real time editing. An article on Google Docs and Collaboration is in Informationweek. Here's the link.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

ERP Implementation is Still Problematic

A decade after a rash of high profile stories about disastrous ERP implementations, including the legendary Hershey debacle, ERP implementation is still a problem. A recent study released by Panorama Consulting Group reveals that  "More than 35 per cent of respondents overall said their projects took longer than expected; just 21.5 per cent reported shorter-than-anticipated project times. Forty-three per cent said the projects were completed on schedule.

"Thirty percent of Tier I (the big players like SAP and Oracle) projects had time overruns, compared to 18 per cent for Tier II and 5 per cent for Tier III.

"51.4 per cent of projects overall ended up going over budget, with 40 per cent meeting expected costs. Only 8.6 percent came in at a lower price tag than planned."

These being ERP projects, we're talking big numbers in many cases.

One strategy that has gained some traction in the past few years has been the use of SAAS solutions. They effectively avoid the new for full scale internal implementation. Some of the same problems will remain, such a need to retrain staff, but without a complete implementation to worry about, more time can be devoted to these sensitive areas. A report on the Panorama Study can be found on IT World.


Monday, April 26, 2010

Television in the New World

Hulu, purveyor of online television, has been reconsidering its business model. So far, it has offered up content free, and obtained its revenue from advertising. A time honoured business model and a popular one on the Web.

The world keeps changing, however, and there are signs that this business model will need to change. The concept of online TV and movies and other videos has been catching on lately. Many people like to watch TV and videos on their computers, and more are now watching them on their smart phones and "Blackberry's. With the high resoluton possible on premium mobile devices, TV and movies become very watchable.

The problem for the advertising model when people want to watch on their handhelds is, of course, airtime and data cost. Nobody wants to spend money to watch commercials. So Hulu is considering going to a subscription model.

A subscription model would work well, provided it is carefully thought out. Hulu will have several options, They can run a subscription model along with an advertising model, and let customers decide which they want to use. Those with Blackberry's will be able to watch TV and movies without enduring ads, while students with limited funds will be able to choose the advertising option. Hulu could also offer those who pay for the subscription route some premium content to make their investment worthwhile. There's more in this article.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Publishing - an Industry Undergoing Monumental Change

Traditional publishing is a broken model. From a business point of view, most of the money from books gets sucked up by the publishers, agents, publicists and others. The authors are left with very little and unless they sell like John Grisham, can only make a pittance on their books even if they sell thousands of copies.

From the customer perspective, many books are overpriced. The classic example is textbooks, which still follow a traditional format, and students get charged between 1 and 2 hundred dollars for a beautifully bound book that in many disciplines is doomed to obsolesence within a year or two. The beauty of the binding does not necessarily bear a relationship to the quality of the content.

The growing phenomenon of e-books is not the answer, although they can provide a part of the solution. What we have creeping into the scene is a new type of publishing, often based on self-publishing, which channels publications to all the eBook technologies out there, like Kindle, Kobo, Mobo, even PDF. They also use print on demand techniques, which avoid the need to carry inventories.

The new types of publishers, like Createspace and Fastpencil (these two examples are quite different from each other) also pay the authors a lot better, more like 80% of the proceeds rather than 5 - 10% in royalties. Also, they can produce books much faster, a matter of a month or so, rather than the traditional year or two required by traditional publishers. Indeed, with traditional publishers many books are obsolete before they hit the street.

Public acceptance of this trend is lagging, but will undoubtedly catch up over the next year or so. People are looking for new ways to consume their books, and they want to pay less and have more flexibility. The new wave of publishers will meet those needs. In the process, the business models of the traditional publishing industry will be shaken to its very core. An interesting interview with Steve Wilson, CEO of Fastpencil, is featured in Knowledge @Wharton this week.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Public Transit Goes Live

Waiting for the bus or train is about to take on a technological flair and may be a little more bearable and less frustrating. That's because people will be able to track the train or bus they are waiting for with their smartphone or blackberry. At least it should remove some of the suspense. Where is that bus? And how long will it be until it gets here?

New York and Philadelphia are both testing new real time tracking systems. Swiss railroads already have a real time tracking system in place. Applications for various hand-helds are being offered and developed. It should be a help to public transit. And it should make public transit a bit more efficient for those harried commuters. For a write up on this and also for some links to the test sites, check here.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Real Time Search - The New Wave?

We've gotten used to using the web for searching. Have a question? Just google it. Its amazing how quickly one can learn about something with a couple of nicely worded searches.

But that may become obsolete. Both Google and Microsoft are working on new search tools that will draw upon data streams in social media, like Facebook and Twitter.

Your first thought might well be - But there is so much garbage in those sites. How can you find information that is useful and relevant - and perhaps more importantly, reliable?

The answer comes from looking at information identification in a whole new way. Social media can quickly identify what is on people's minds. It can almost instantly reveal the views of a wide swath of people on a particular topic. It can lead a researcher into avenues of enquiry that might not have been pursued using conventional techniques. It won't replace the solid, detailed knowledge on a topic that can only be obtained by going to established and original sources. But it can provide a pathway to consider, and give a profile on a development. Many people, for example, are using Twitter in particular to track the effects of the ash cloud currently enveloping Europe. It gives them a perspective that the normal news media provides only with more difficulty.

But you need to be patient using this method because at present it requires you to read through a lot of irrelevant and questionable chatter. Here's where the real time search tool comes in. It uses algorithms to sort out the chatter and enable the users to more quickly get to the root of a matter. It can lead to a new way of finding information.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Privacy Concerns are not Going Away

A recent research report by a group of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania points to an amazing similarity in attitudes between younger generations and those older folk. The survey drew responses from several age groups, ranging in age from under 19 to over 65. Many of the responses showed similar levels of concern about sharing private information on the internet, with refusals to show certain kinds of information almost exactly the same across the different age groups. This flies in the face of common assumptions about the attitudes of young people towards internet privacy and points to the prospect of a continuing concern in the populace about privacy as that generation ages. In fact, the survey shows that the younger generation has more faith in the government to protect them. As they grow older and realize that the government offers little protection, perhaps there will also be widespread calls for more government action in this area. Here's a summary of the report.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Cloud Computing - Is it Real?

Much hype has been directed to cloud computing over the last year or two. But there are still people who dispute it's reality and others who think it's the only way to the future. One thing can be said about the cloud - it is the Internet. That's the reaction of Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle. He refers to the cloud as water vapour. Says we should get a grip.

Microsoft, on the other hand, with a huge vested interest in packaged software, has decided to embrace the cloud, recognizing that while there may be hype involved, something real is happening.

It's true that the cloud is the internet, but is it just the internet. There seems little question that the idea of cloud computing represents a new and different method of managing IS architecture, indeed a new architecture in itself. True, running applications from an offsite server is nothing new, but running them from internet based servers on a large scale and renting the time to do so is something relatively new, and could have major implications for business and for software vendors. Microsoft recognizes this and is responding. Oracle is in denial and runs the risk of being left out of the rush to the cloud. Here's a take on the strategies of the two companies.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Twitter Adopts a Business Model

When it leaped to popularity in the last couple of years, Twitter joined a long list of popular internet ventures without a business model. They have some elite company. Amazon spent years thrashing around for a business model that would work. So did Google. So people have been waiting with bated breath for Twitter to act.

Yesterday, Twitter announced its model. As expected, it is an advertising model, centering around the concept of "promoted tweets." "Users will start seeing paid messages, which will be labeled "promoted," at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages," said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. "Initially, as many as 10% of users will see the promoted messages. Twitter will work with Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks and Virgin America to roll out the first ads," he said.

Whether Twitter's new plan will work is an open question for the present. It depends on how Twits react as well as how much value advertisers see in the program. It has a decent chance for success though, given the immense coverage of Twitter. There's more about this in Computerworld.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Business Intelligence (BI) for the Masses

Business Intelligence has been a major driving factor in the development of electronic business. Through the use of BI, companies have been able to leverage the vast repositories of data in their systems to help in achieving corporate goals and objectives. Traditionally, BI has been driven by large, complex applications often requiring installations on the scale of ERP systems and calling for sophisticated users and support functions.

Now Microsoft is moving to broaden the scope of BI adoption in business by expanding the functionality of its popular Excel spreadsheet, combined with its collaborative platform, Sharepoint. The large user base for Excel along with the fact of its widely known and understood interface will provide a solid launching point for the new initiative.

The result could be greater usage of BI and considerable improvements in efficiency and productivity among companies who need to make better use of their data. A summary of Microsoft's initiative can be found in Informationweek.