• Faced with Distraction, Leaders Need Willpower February 22, 2012
    HBR writes “[by John Coleman]…Our environment only exacerbates the problem. The jungle of stimuli that engulfs us each day make it difficult to exercise restraint or focus on the important habits we need to build or tasks we need to accomplish…willpower is an essential quality you’ll need for personal effectiveness at work…powering through an endless day of difficult decisions…Want to grow your business or get that promotion at work?…consider a few of the following approaches…” more
  • Making the Business Case for Enterprise Social Networks February 22, 2012
    Altimeter Group writes “[by Charlene Li]…Most companies approach enterprise social networks as a technology deployment and fail to understand that the new relationships created by enterprise social networks are the source for value creation….in today’s consumerized world, business units can adopt enterprise software, often without IT ever knowing. As a result, a new approach is required that focuses on four key ways that relationships create value through enterprise social networks: [1] Encourage sharing. [2] Capture knowledge…” more
  • P&G CIO Sees Analytics as Key to Agility February 22, 2012
    Susan Hall writes “…Procter & Gamble CIO Filippo Passerini plans to quadruple the number of people on staff with expertise in business analytics…In a second, really interesting article on P&G’s efforts to increase transparency and agility, Michael Schrage at Harvard Business Review writes that greater transparency in large organizations generally brings on more micromanaging. At a conference, he asked the P&G execs how they dealt with that. He was surprised at the answer…” more
  • Corporate Vision and Digital Strategy Linked to Content Curation February 22, 2012
    Rahel Anne Bailie writes “…Content curation is a hot topic right now because organizations are finding themselves with way too much content that has accumulated over the course of time…which now needs to be grouped into some sort of order for visitors to make sense of it…Content “clean-up” has a much different connotation than content curation…That latter is treated as a task worthy of a senior staffer, who understands the corporate vision and digital strategy…” more
  • IT Consumerization has Produced Thousands of Amateur CIOs February 21, 2012
    Business Finance writes “[by Eric Krell]…CIOs in every company have a Wieland problem these days…“A number of CIOs I talk to see many of their employees starting to outpace the capability of the IT department…The challenge primarily resides in security: how can…sensitive data and information be sufficiently protected as it surfs on and off private devices…CIOs do not even know exists and across wireless networks…The opportunity lies in… .” more
  • Selling Data Mining to Management February 21, 2012
    SmartData Collective writes “[by Sandro Saitta]…the step from analytics to action is a crucial one in any analytics project. Imagine you have the best data and found the best model of all time. You need to industrialize the data mining solution to make your company benefits from them…you will first need to sell your project to the management…three interesting articles on this topic…” more
  • Applying Risk Management Tactics to Outsourcing and Open Innovation February 21, 2012
    Wharton Sch of Bus writes “..Open innovation is gaining in popularity, but when should companies be concerned with protecting their own knowledge? Most people expect bad weather to negatively impact business conducted outdoors, but what are its implications in industries where work is primarily done inside? How can companies use risk management techniques to better assess the potential downsides of hiring contract or temporary workers?…” more
  • The Difference Between a Good and Bad Strategy February 21, 2012
    Forrester writes “[by Tim Sheedy]…I work with a lot of CIOs and heads of strategy…As a part of our strategy document review service, I have seen plenty of approaches to IT strategies – from “on a single page” position statements through to hugely detailed document…The basis of a good strategy is to diagnose the challenge, develop a guiding policy and create coherent policies and actions. You know it’s a bad strategy when it:…” more
  • Leadership Program for Women Targets Subtle Promotion Biases February 21, 2012
    HBS Working Knowledge writes “[by Maggie Starvish]…The paper is believed to be the first to incorporate an understanding of second-generation bias into a new approach to women’s leadership development, moving beyond traditional programs developed for men. “Most leadership development for women is ‘add women and stir’—basically, delivering to women what is delivered to men…First-generation biases, such as policies or actions…have been largely wiped off the books. Second-generation biases, while unintentional, can have the same effect…” more
  • Just How Important is Manufacturing in Innovating? February 21, 2012
    HBR writes “[by Willy C Shih]…you cannot innovate in a country if the factories are on the other side of the world. R&D and manufacturing must be located close to each other so their people can together figure out how to develop a product…Working in these plants are inventive people who are the source of important ideas….The bottom line is if a country loses the ability or the capacity to manufacture, its innovation space will be…” more
  • Financial Institutions Act on BYOD Trust Model February 21, 2012
    Bank Systems Tech writes “by Ojas Rege]…The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend is one of the more dramatic results of the consumerization of IT, in which consumer preference, not corporate initiative, drives the adoption of technologies in the enterprise. By 2014, 90 percent of organizations will support corporate applications on personal devices predicted…Gartner…Building a BYOD trust model requires a financial institution to do the following:…” more
  • Real Innovators Ship Products Customers Can Adopt February 20, 2012
    Jeffrey Phillips writes “…There are three risks in particular that we must address when introducing a new product or service into the marketplace. Clearly the product or service must offer equivalent benefits at a lower price or new and improved capabilities at the same value proposition…You must then overcome the risks that customers perceive in any new product or service: [1] Will it be difficult to adopt? [2] Will it be compatible with my existing way of life…” more
  • Brands Face Stream Fatigue as Consumers Look Beyond Gimmicks February 20, 2012
    Brian Solis writes “…While many brands are designing editorial and engagement programs to encourage consumers to “Like” and follow profiles…consumers are simultaneously struggling to find signal against the noise, grappling with stream fatigue…overwhelming sense of over connectedness…The reality is that customers can and will cut ties with brands that do not take their best interests into account. Consumers are realizing that they have the power to…” more
  • New Wireless Technology Could Revolutionize Highway Transportation February 20, 2012
    Science Daily writes “…The MIT researchers have created a spinoff company that’s developing a stationary charging system capable of wirelessly transferring about 3 kilowatts of electric power to a vehicle parked in a garage or on the street. Fan and his colleagues wondered if the MIT system could be modified to transfer 10 kilowatts of electric power over a distance of 6.5 feet — enough to charge a car moving at…” more
  • Researchers Reveal How Attackers Can Track Cell Phone Locations February 20, 2012
    ThreatPost writes “[by Brian Prince]…The situation was detailed by researchers from the University of Minnesota, who discovered that there is enough information leaked from the lower layers of the GSM [Global System for Mobile Communications] communication stack to permit attackers to perform what they call “location tests” on targeted devices. “Cell phone towers have to track cell phone subscribers to provide service efficiently,”…one of the authors of the paper, explained… “For example…” more
  • Is the CIO Becoming the New CMO? February 20, 2012
    SmartData Collective writes “[by Ajay Kelkr]…Marketing budgets are now larger than IT budgets & growing faster says Gartner. By 2017, Gartner says that CMO’s will spend more on IT than CIO’s. Interesting how marketing is getting more & more dependent on technology. And yet the Marketer’s perception of internal IT is not very positive. The same Gartner survey has Marketers saying that they…” more
  • Taking a Break From Devices That Have Become 24/7 Intravenous Hookups February 17, 2012
    Wharton Sch of Bus writes “…Not only do we have difficulty maintaining personal boundaries with work because our lives and jobs are so enmeshed with technology, but we also feel intense pressure from our organizations to be “always on” and immediately responsive to calls and emails outside of normal working hours. Some employers, however, are now attempting to flip the “off” switch…a growing number of businesses are reviewing their policies on how workers manage email, including how many employees are allowed to be copied on a message and…” more
  • Who's Moving Their Company Beyond Bureaucracy Towards Innovation? February 17, 2012
    HBR writes “[by Polly LaBarre]…we received a flood of big ideas and game-changing initiatives and experiments from management innovators in all kinds of organizations around the world. Last month, we had the tough job of narrowing the pool down to fourteen excellent finalists. Now we’re proud to introduce you to the seven winners:…” more
  • Researchers Uncover More About the S in HTTPS February 17, 2012
    Security_Bloggers_Network writes “[by Paul Ducklin]…SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer, is the “great enabler” of online commerce. It’s the S in HTTPS, and it’s the padlock in the address bar of your browser…read the actual results…both sets of researchers found duplicated ns (prime products), and ns which could be factored easily…some of these problems are explained by poor (or just plain wrong) random number generation…If you’re a coder, don’t cut corners on randomness. And never, ever try to roll your own pseudo-random number generator, unless…” more
  • Business Social Software Successful when Focused on Production, Delivery and Decision Making February 16, 2012
    Bertrand Duperrin writes “…While some [large companies] focus on building communities and adopting software, some implemented pragmatic management practices, focused on production, delivery and decision making. These last ones often get better results in terms on impact on work as well as employees’ well-being…These cases are all about organizational, management, human principles that drive an increased collective effectiveness as well as more sustainability in performance and management…” more
  • CIOs Role in Mobilization: The Missing Link Between Strategy and Execution February 16, 2012
    Chris Curran writes “…Mobilization is often the missing link between strategy and execution and can mean the difference between success and failure. The role of the CIO is to make sure that their companies have a carefully thought out roadmap before implementing any large scale initiative. When something goes wrong, because it inevitably will, companies that make mobilization a priority are much more likely to…” more
  • Collaborative Technologies have Tremendous Productivity Potential February 16, 2012
    Tammy Erickson writes “…As one executive told me recently, “We’ve built a great deal of capability — and participation — but it only touches 1% of our productive activity because it’s not part of the flow of the work.”…no matter how challenging, the use of collaborative technology for work will continue to grow over the years ahead because when it’s used properly, social technology enables a very different level of performance. Your competition will shift the playing field in your industry by integrating this technology…” more
  • Research Team Discovers Critical Flaw in Standard Encryption Method February 16, 2012
    Security_Bloggers_Network writes “[by Ephraim Schwartz in Encryption]…The researchers said their goal from the outset was to examine the commonly held assumption by the cryptographic community that each time random keys are generated different choices are made. In the vast majority of cases when generating public keys this seemed to be the case; however, they also uncovered “a more disconcerting finding … that two out of every one thousand RSA moduli that we collected offer no security…” more
  • Virtual Water Reliance Puts Nations at Risk, Study Says February 16, 2012
    Yale Environment 360 writes “…The nations most reliant on this virtual water include the island nation of Malta, which is 92 percent dependent, Kuwait (90 percent), Jordan (86 percent) and Israel (82 percent). Some of the most water-rich nations — including the U.S. and Japan — are also among the biggest importers because the products they import require so much water to produce…” more
  • Existing Business Models Struggle with Fast, Fluid and Flexible in the Social Era February 16, 2012
    HBR writes “[by Nilofer Merchant]…The world has changed; how we create value has changed. Organizationally we have not. It will be wholly insufficient to put the word “social” in front of existing business models and expect things to change. Instead, we need to imagine the fundamental enterprise anew for the social era. Lean, adaptive, community-driven organizations, built for…” more
  • The Hollow Emptiness in Social Media Numbers – Most Accounts are Fake or Empty February 15, 2012
    Tom Foremski writes “[by ZDNet]…Increasing numbers of studies of social networks point to much smaller numbers of real and active users…If corporations aren’t able to use social media to reach large numbers of consumers, the value of platforms…will be severely diminished. How large is this problem of fake and empty user profiles? Here is an analysis…by Kevin Kelly, a former editor of Wired magazine and…” more
  • Why Some Ads Go Viral and Others Don't February 15, 2012
    HBR writes “…Thales Teixeira, Harvard Business School professor, explains what makes us want to watch—and share—certain commercials…” more
  • Business Leaders and Occupy Protestors Intersect on 10 Points February 15, 2012
    HBS Working Knowledge writes “[by Herman B Leonard, Eliot I Snider]…in reality their concerns are not very different from the concerns we heard when we talked to business leaders around the world about the problems they thought might constitute material threats to the sustainability of market capitalism…We classified what we heard as ten potential disruptors of the global market system…Based on our research, we believe the time has come for companies to accept the challenge to use their entrepreneurial skills on a…” more
  • East Meets West: Who Has Better Leaders? February 15, 2012
    HBR writes “[by Scott Edinger]…What if the important thing wasn’t which group scored better but the fact that the scores were so close? Granted that Western leadership skills were at one time considered superior, what if that advantage, perceived or real, no longer exists?…the list of commonalities was long. Here are [5]…inspiring and motivating is the attribute most strongly associated with the highest leadership scores…” more
  • Supply Chain Carbon Management Business Case is Strong and Growing February 15, 2012
    Globe Net writes “…The business case is strong and growing: suppliers that do not measure, quantify, and manage their greenhouse-gas emissions will soon see their business move to competitors that can provide better information and clearer evidence of change…the survey results indicate ways in which corporations can serve as a catalyst for these changes among their suppliers, working to engender sound carbon-management practices among…” more
  • Top 10 Security Risks of Mobility Computing February 15, 2012
    EMC writes “[by Richard Rees]…The audience for mobile computing is an inherent risk that has significantly different risk profiles and understanding of computing….application security is a good start, but it won’t solve the fundamental problems connected to mobile security. Mobile devices likely already exceed the amount of traditional computers…we should be looking more at disrupting mobile bot nets and mobile threat modeling now than traditional computing threat modeling…” more
  • How to Transform Strategic Supplier Relationships February 15, 2012
    CIO writes “[by Duncan Jones]…failure to communicate is most damaging in the pivotal relationships that involve the highest expenditure, have the most potential to deliver business benefit, and are hardest to break when things go wrong. Traditional buyer/seller negotiations…create rigid contracts that cannot adapt to…Forrester analyzed examples of collaborative, mutually beneficial, successful buyer-supplier relationships, and identified three characteristics that are key to a successful partnership:…” more
  • Why Sustainability Reporting is Worth the Effort February 15, 2012
    BSR writes “[by Dunstan Allison Hope]…working with business to create a just and sustainable world—requires corporate transparency…1. Sustainability reporting helps define how companies address the world’s biggest sustainability challenges…2. The sustainability field needs extensive capacity-building…3. While report readers tend to be global, report writers are often not….4. Platform for Dialogue…” more
  • Crypto Shocker: Four of Every 1,000 Public Keys Provide No Security February 15, 2012
    Ars Technica writes “[by Dan Goodin]…An astonishing four out of every 1,000 public keys protecting webmail, online banking, and other sensitive online services provide no cryptographic security, a team of mathematicians has found. The research is the latest to reveal limitations in the tech used by more than a million Internet sites to prevent eavesdropping…” more
  • Why Organizational Capabilities Diffuse Slowly February 14, 2012
    HBS Working Knowledge writes “[by R Gibbons and R Henderson]…large literature identifies unique organizational capabilities as a potent source of competitive advantage, yet our knowledge of why capabilities fail to diffuse more rapidly-particularly in situations in which competitors apparently have strong incentives to adopt them and a well developed understanding of how they work-remains incomplete…significant capabilities often rest on managerial practices that in turn rely on relational contract…” more
  • 3 Simple Rules Ensure Meaningful Progress in Meetings February 14, 2012
    Susan Mazza writes “…Whenever I work with a group as a coach or a facilitator I ask how many people have been on a committee before most people cringe a little. Bad committee experiences seem to be right up there with lousy meetings as one of the most lamented time wasters. It doesn’t have to be that way if you follow these 3 simple rules…” more
  • The Techniques Phish Emails Use to Evade Detection February 14, 2012
    Security_Bloggers_Network writes “[by Lee Graves]…As typical, the scam starts with an email asking the user to update their account, providing a realistic spoof of an authentic…communication…Here, the phishers do a few things to mask the phish:..Let’s take a closer look at one of the URLs used in this phish…” more
  • Is Intergenerational Economic Mobility Lower Now? February 14, 2012
    Mark Thoma writes “…A recent New York Times article highlighted the growing evidence showing that intergenerational economic mobility appears to be lower in the United States than in other advanced countries…Although we cannot say with any certainty how much mobility today’s children will experience over the coming decades, recent research suggests cause for concern. The gap in children’s academic performance between high- and low-income families has widened significantly…If this trend persists…” more
  • There Is No Career Ladder: It's a Different World February 14, 2012
    HBR writes “[by Priscilla Claman]…despite their near extinction, why do we still believe in career ladders? Truthfully, intentionally or not, we are still promising traditional careers…There are better ways to think about career moves. Try these tips for diverting your attention from the next step up. Look laterally for career moves…Prove you can handle a promotion…Grow your skills to grow your job. Seek out and take advantage of…” more
  • New Data Reveals Cleaner Economy has Greater Resiliency February 14, 2012
    Globe Net writes “…New data, released last week reveals that California’s Core Green Economy showed greater resilience at the height of the recent recession, outperforming the overall economy by retaining a greater percentage of its workforce. The report, 2012 Many Shades of Green:California’s Shift to a Cleaner, More Productive Economy, which represents a comprehensive, bottom-up accounting of California’s Core Green Economy, shows that from January 2009 to January 2010, the state’s overall economy…” more
  • Fossil Fuel Imports and Use Soar as Japan's Nuclear Fleet Sits Idle February 14, 2012
    Breakthrough Institute writes “[by Mark Caine]…Already, the high cost of these fossil fuel imports has contributed to Japan’s newfound trade deficit of $32 billion, the country’s first in over 30 years…The consequences of TEPCO’s dash to fossil fuels go beyond economics: the move is also complicating the company’s plans to cut carbon emissions to a yearly average of 20% below 1990 levels for…” more
  • Advanced Persistent Threat (APT): Useful or Buzzword? February 14, 2012
    CTOvision writes “[by Adam Elkus]…Is the term overused? Yes…But there is a qualitative difference emerging between attackers who are taking a path of least resistance and those using sophisticated attack techniques to enter the systems of targeted organizations….while non-APTs use cruder methods to probe for weak points, APTs use social engineering…to directly target vulnerable employees and organizational knowledge gaps. As much as APTs are a marketing term, they are…” more
  • An Ode to Leadership and What Love has to do With It February 14, 2012
    Bill Taylor writes “…Business still has lots to learn from Vince Lombardi…Here’s my message in a nutshell: As important as it is for companies and leaders to develop a clear value proposition, it’s even more important to present an authentic values proposition — an emotional and psychological connection that establishes you in the hearts and minds of your customers. Sustaining performance is as much about cultivating a spirit of grassroots energy…engagement as unleashing a set of game-changing ideas. Companies built around…” more
  • 3 CIOs Talk About Their Success Forming IT-Business Partnerships February 13, 2012
    ITworld writes “…CIOs are determining if new attempts to partner with the business are making a difference…[Dwayne Warner, CIO, Carnival Cruise Lines]…I knew the IT organization had to change…[Michael Del Priore, VP, Global CIO, Church and Dwight] I have created business-focused IT positions at several national and multinational companies. So when I started implementing these changes…” more
  • It's Harder than Ever to be a Senior Executive February 13, 2012
    HBR writes “[by Boris Groysberg]…The job of the senior executive is much more complicated today than it was a decade or two ago — and that trend will continue, especially if you hope to play on a global stage…Here are five reasons. 1. Soft skills are more important than ever…2. So are technical skills…you need to be better at everything…being legitimate in the eyes of your people…Running a company has become…” more