Hey, if ya can’t access it, what good is it?  Well, it ain’t no good.  Also, “half-information” isn’t any good either (grammar mode back on).  You have to have comprehensive access to a little thing called “reinforcing content” in assembling the bloom and yield of the enterprise’s best information…  content…  knowledge…

“Hey, I heard about this great new restaurant…”

“Excellent!  We were looking for somewhere new to go tonight!”

“Um, I forget the name, and I don’t know where it is…”

In accessing any organization’s information assets – its content, data, knowledge-base, etc. – one has to have an efficient access to the broad swath of existing and enhancing content, for a whole “best picture” view (within qualification for access, of course).  Business projections have to be accurate, statistics must be up-to-date (and therefore relevant), choices and new initiatives must not only be surveyed, but accurately splayed for the qualified eyes that have to assess initiatives and options.

Within these necessities, forward-thinking employees want to employ ever more devices (most personally owned) in accessing organization data.  Of course, personally owned assets generally do not enjoy the same, rigorous, scrutiny in relation to security – either for the devices’ status, nor for their actual use – a challenge for sure.

According to a survey sponsored by Trend Micro, 88% of small and medium sized business (SMB) report that some of their employees are using their own smartphones and tablet PCs for their business purposes.  In the past, we’ve discussed the peril in “friending” one moment, and “businessing” the next (please review if necessary):  Essentially, employees can be social networking one moment, and then accessing organizational resources and conducting business the next.  The danger in sending content to the wrong party is high; further, it is easy to blur business communications with over-familiarity, slang, jokes, etc., in this blurred environment.

Ready access to business process and content enhances efficiency.  Not only that, personally owned devices generally don’t cost the organization in terms of overhead:  The employees own their devices, service plans, and update their own assets.  Thus, no TCO (total cost of overhead).  What’s not to like?  Ah… but that pesky security issue.   

Part of the answer may lie in a recent report by Quocirca:   A value proposition for IT security.  Check out the free download, which discusses prudent, responsible, and secure ways to integrate the wealth of collateral devices into your enterprise, in making business process ever-more efficient and cost-friendly through ready access.

Access, access, access.  Access is King.  Or Queen.  Just make sure it’s not the Joker.

NP:  I Thought About You, Miles Davis, jazz24.org   

I was reviewing the accelerating change I’ve witnessed this year for both business and IT.

At the end of the year, it remains obvious that change is a continuum – even when major change is not manifesting and being managed within the organization, you must track change with-out:  New products, resultant enablements, efficiencies to be gained, risks, and the appropriate scale and match to your org.  And… timing is everything, as they say…

One aspect of this accelerating change, and its sponsor of universal challenge to business, is the proliferation of endpoint devices and users’ access (and expectations for access) to business content.  A conventional office is not quite the antique-equivalent of a manual typewriter, but that “core” tradition of the office-bound, fixed, worker is shattered as a universal model for all business, and is fast being shattered in new realms and businesses all the time.

Access to content is becoming an expectation no matter the circumstance; conference rooms are the obvious and quite longstanding members of the “remote” (that is, non-internal-desktop) access.  Satellite offices, and allied agencies, were next.  Home offices made their entry – no longer merely a place to handle the household budget and taxes, a home office now is a full-range extension of the formal workplace:  online access to all work applications, internet tools and research, e-mail, color printing, scanning, and manipulation of content.

Add to this all manner of access devices; laptops, phones, Kindles, virtual desktop interfaces, and the subsequent explosion of ready-access by employees, developers, vendors, VARs, brother-and-sister agencies, contractors, oversight agencies…  There is not only a proliferation of devices and access-points for monitor and control, there is the accompanying population and ‘round-the-clock challenge that comes with this.  It bears mentioning that if means and access increases for authorized personnel, then too does it increase for unauthorized personnel.

But, we’re up to the challenge.  I know it.  Stay safe this upcoming year.

Meantime:  Happy New Year.

NP:  Lonely Woman, Andy Summers, Jazz24.org