Experts: Role-based access to apps can improve productivity, training

The hardest part of implementing business process management (BPM), ERP or even customer relationship management (CRM) can be training users to do their jobs using the new tool. To trim that learning curve and improve productivity with the new software, some vendors are offering role-based access or persona-based interface design.
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What is transparency, and how can Agile practices help?

As I was interviewing experts and practitioners this week on the uses of Agile practices, the term transparency kept popping up in comments about the benefits of using this type of software development methodology. So I started thinking: What is transparency, and how does Agile help achieve it?

Transparency is about openness and accountability in all areas of the business. In today’s economy, transparency is more important than ever, as companies are forced to strictly manage costs and resource utilization. And for midmarket companies that have smaller budgets and fewer resources to complete projects, using Agile practices to effectively develop and deliver software can help with transparency. It’s even known as agile transparency. Continued »

Droid does, but will IT support it?

Verizon’s first Android phones, the Droid Eris by HTC and Motorola Droid, are being released today. The commercials highlight a string of new features not currently available on some other (iPhone!) phones (“Everything iDon’t Droid does“).

Although this new generation of smartphones seems to be a tech geek’s dream, IT might actually be most resistant to new technology when it will impact the business. IT has to decide early on if it’s going to support yet another new smartphone. The BlackBerry was once the standard, and RIM paid a lot of extra attention to enterprise IT support capabilities. IT spent a lot of time getting applications to work on BlackBerry, only to be faced with the iPhone a few years down the road.

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2009 IT Geek Halloween costume ideas

Another year, another list of truly geeky Halloween costume ideas that say IT 2009 all the way. (Eye rolls, please!) Continued »

What will net neutrality mean for SMBs?

After five long years of debate, lobbying and political posturing, the FCC finally voted yesterday to begin crafting net neutrality rules. With differing opinions across the board as to what this means to the Internet, privacy and the businesses affected — the question is, what does this mean for you?

The proposed rules would restrict how broadband providers such as Verizon and Comcast manage their networks, so that users could send and receive any legal or legitimate content over the Internet without worrying whether it’s going to be blocked or slowed down by the service provider. Comcast, for instance, actively interfered with file sharing online, controlling what kind of traffic and data could use its bandwidth and giving priority to some types of content and traffic while slowing down other traffic. Continued »

Pervasive BI scenarios, from search technology to the cloud

Whenever I go to a show related to business intelligence or speak with an expert in the field of BI, there are endless opinions on how to get more out of BI and get that data out to more users. One answer that keeps coming up is search technology; another is cloud computing.

Back in June at BI vendor Information Builders’ user show, many attendees spoke of the benefits of marrying search technology and business intelligence. At the time, the Royal Bank of Canada was beginning to look at search technology to mine unstructured data in dead repositories. The 70,000-plus-employee company has unstructured data all over its enterprise, but the main target for now is archived enterprise content management repositories. Continued »

The challenge of managing risk when IT budgets tighten

I see an interesting sea change when it comes to risk: Thanks to the recession, as IT risk management is constrained by tightening IT budgets, the risk of doing business goes up.

As part of my security, compliance and disaster recovery coverage this year, I’ve listened to a lot of experts talk about the how-tos of risk management, such as, how CIOs need to stop taking a checklist approach to regulatory mandates and forge a risk-based strategy for compliance. Or how security officers still taking a buy-another-gadget approach to security will lose their jobs if they don’t focus on risk management. All this sounds good, as it implies that a rational scrutiny of risk can save companies money by focusing the available dollars on the most likely scenarios. But the reality is much worse. Continued »

Why cybersecurity awareness is everyone’s responsibility

October is national Cyber Security Awareness month! The campaign, sponsored by the National Cyber Security Alliance, a partnership that works with the government as well as corporate sponsors, encourages online safety and best practices to protect high-value information online.

And what better time to raise awareness than on the heels of the Gmail/Hotmail/email phishing scam that compromised thousands of accounts. On Oct. 6, news broke that at least 10,000 Hotmail addresses and passwords had been leaked online. The next day, it was revealed that 20,000 addresses and passwords for email accounts from Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, EarthLink and Comcast had also shown up on the Web.

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What Google Wave means for IT: Collaboration in IT management tools

The rush for Google Wave has begun. The much-anticipated release of Google’s collaboration tool has generated media hype, exclusive invites to try the beta and even eBay bidding wars for the opportunity to try it first. And this step in collaboration technology is a big one, as it works to combine email, wikis, blogs, instant messaging and social networking capabilities to allow integrated communication in real time. The use cases for the Wave technology could be endless as developers work on extensions to further enhance it.

For IT, I have to wonder how Google Wave will also change the face of project management, business process management and IT service management. Why? Most of the major concerns I hear regarding these types of tools are their lack of functional, easy-to-use, real-time collaboration and monitoring features.

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Budget saver: Ramping up process automation with free automation tools

Recently, I’ve been talking to CIOs at midsized organizations about whether the recession is over and the recovery has begun. In some industries at least, the cost-cutting isn’t over and the need to do more with less continues as a mandate. Some organizations are now cutting maintenance contracts, as Linda Tucci wrote this week. Others are turning to business process automation through scripting or the use of automation tools to automate parts of IT like help desk requests — sometimes for free. Continued »