What the industry needs to put this right is a code of conduct to which vendors should be able to get certified, perhaps at a number of different levels (like hotel star ratings) so that customers know what they’re signing up for and have their expectations set correctly. (read full article)
Much has been discussed and written recently about what it means to be a public-sector IT leader, particularly the CIO’s strategic role. While some public-sector CIOs focus solely on IT strategy without direct responsibility for their organization’s IT operations, most are responsible for both. (read full article)
The world of IT is one of innovation, leadership and collaboration, and the 50 individuals profiled in this gallery have played major roles in getting us where we are today and will help us get to where we want to be in the future. (read full article)
It is generally accepted that CIOs need to “market” information technology inside a corporation to get other executives and employees to think of it as a strategic area of operations and not just a cost center. What concerns me is that these marketing efforts may be undermined by efforts to “un-market” information technology. (read full article)
I’ve just attended the one day, highly-focused executive ‘Cloud Summit’ conference. The silver lining is that cloud hosting and associated SaaS apps are arguably in a stronger position than ever based on their ability to deliver a scalable subscription-based service that are a better fit for budgets that are being given increasingly short haircuts. (read full article)
As if the current economic climate wasn’t bad enough, research firm Gartner is out with its Top Ten list of “most contentious IT issues for the next two years.” It should be required reading for every solutions provider. (read full article)
Virtualization offers many potential savings through server consolidation and reduced server administration labor. But it also poses the age-old hazard of vendor lock-in. The field is young enough that the market leader, VMware, and the bigger companies that are following in its footsteps have not yet been called to account for their proprietary moves. (read full article)
While lean principles and practices have been widely adopted in manufacturing over the years, their use in IT has just recently gained popularity. Lean IT is a revised way of thinking whose ultimate goal is the elimination of wasted IT resources, thereby increasing business efficiency and profits. (read full article)
With the rapid uptake of mobile, personalized “smartphones” displacing usage of legacy desktop voice-only telephones and PCs for both information and people access, I think it is time to acknowledge that new unified communication (UC) applications are going to be used by both consumers for personal communication and information services as well as by business users in any size organization. (read full article)
Managers’ reality check: Your top workers can almost always get another job, even in a shaky economy. "The best employees are being recruited at any given time. Managers need to make that assumption and create an environment that's going to make them want to stay," says Paul De Young, a talent management practice leader at Watson Wyatt Worldwide Inc., a global consulting firm. (read full article)
CIO Jeff Saper drives a hybrid car, favors service providers that use alternative energy and has launched many green IT initiatives at his strategic communications firm, Robinson Lerer & Montgomery LLC in New York. But he's also concerned about a type of pollution that even Al Gore has yet to tackle: digital pollution. (read full article)
Within the IT industry, virtualization is all the rage, but this hardware-sharing option comes with its own poison: becoming locked in to proprietary vendor solutions. In response, one supplier has cooked up an antidote. (read full article)
Newly minted IT grads are looking at higher than ever salaries from big business. Smaller businesses can't compete on the paycheck, but they can attract IT talent if they make their place of work a place employees want to remain. (read full article)
In the recesses of Web time-like the early '90s, when Mosaic was "the" browser-there were few choices for designing on the Web. Now with CSS 3.0 looming on the horizon, the possibilities for designing on the small screen are increasing exponentially. But for those needing to create the digital counterpart of the printed flier, the technical possibilities are not much progressed from the digital Wild West equivalent of the mid-'90s. (read full article)
Home at last, bMighty's "Tech On The Go" correspondent unpacks, unwinds, and anticipates the joys of a reliable Internet connection -- not so fast -- to re-sync his laptop with his home system. (read full article)
Web 2.0 and user-generated content are great news for growing companies, offering them the ability to harness the wisdom of crowds and stand out even without the benefit of huge marketing budgets. But what happens when the social networks turn mean or try to take advantage of their power? (read full article)
It's no wonder only 29 percent of IT projects are completed successfully, according to The Standish Group. Project management consultants and software providers say they see IT departments making the same project management mistakes over and over: IT groups don't follow standard project management processes. They don't have the right staff working on projects. They don't assess the risks that could imperil their projects or determine ways to mitigate those risks. The list of mistakes unrolls like a ball of yarn. (read full article)
Small business owners are accustomed to drawing up an annual budget for overhead and other operating expenses, but when it comes to IT planning the procedure is not always as straightforward. (read full article)
Blogging has flipped traditional PR on its head. It used to be that ink begot buzz. (read full article)
Wherever your Web site ranks on your list of things to work on, move it up to the top (read full article)
For years, large companies have used software designed to keep big internal projects moving along efficiently, on time and on budget. (read full article)
Different generations have different ways of working—and different expectations of their employers. Knowing how they differ can make all the difference when building your IT team. (read full article)
When Sturdy McKee sought to expand his physical-therapy practice two years ago, he wanted help understanding financial statements so that he could better plan the growth of the business and eventually acquire outside funding. (read full article)
Admit it. Your inbox is clogged with e-mail newsletters every week, and at best, you only read about a third of them. Why is this? Maybe the newsletter is no longer relevant. (read full article)
Be it wired or wireless, building a network can take your small business to new heights in Internet communications, real-time collaboration, webhosting and e-commerce — or simply be setup to connect a series of workstations with a shared printer. (read full article)
It appears in the annual report, gets discussed at meetings, and lest any employee forget, 63 periodically flashes on the flat screens that appear throughout the Atlanta headquarters of this fast-growing maker of custom parts for clients such as Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) and Whirlpool (WHC). (read full article)
SMALL-BUSINESS owners often juggle tasks from accounting to finding customers to keeping existing ones happy.(read full article)
When Chris Barlte moved his real estate firm into a larger office, he worked eco-friendliness into the culture of the San Francisco-based company.(read full article)
Jim Kirsh is justifiably proud of his cast-iron foundry. Seventy years ago his grandfather started the firm in the bucolic town of Beaver Dam, Wis. (read full article)