If you’re working on IT-business alignment, you’ve already lost TechRepublic.com
… For some leaders, the answer to this problem is better IT/business alignment. However, “alignment” still implies separation and that, ultimately, will not solve the problem. What’s actually needed instead is a thorough integration of IT into the core business.
Social Media Will Change Your BusinessLook past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later
Editor’s note: When we published “Blogs Will Change Your Business” in May, 2005, Twittering was an activity dominated by small birds. Truth is, we didn’t see MySpace coming. Facebook was still an Ivy League sensation. Despite the onrush of technology, however, thousands of visitors are still downloading the original cover story.
So we decided to update it. Over the past month, we’ve been calling many of the original sources and asking the Blogspotting community to help revise the 2005 report. We’ve placed fixes and updates into more than 20 notes; to view them, click on the blue icons. If you see more details to fix, please leave comments. The role of blogs in business is clearly an ongoing story.
First, the headline. Blogs were the heart of the story in 2005. But they’re just one of the tools millions can use today to lift their voices in electronic communities and create their own media. Social networks like Facebook and MySpace, video sites like YouTube, mini blog engines like Twitter—they’ve all emerged in the last three years, and all are nourished by users.
Current Column - CSO AlarmedThe Real Barrier to Security: We’re All Too Lazy
What if someone offered you a free 60-inch plasma TV and free cable for life–provided you never again used a remote control? The reason you’d say no is the same reason information security is so bad.
by Scott BerinatoI like to use the Alarmed column for broad contemplation at the start of each new year; it just seems like a good time to reflect on ideas like the erosion of privacy, security types doing Good in post-tsunami Indonesia, or the relative merits of cash. This year I’ve been ruminating on a major barrier to improving information security: You’re lazy.
The Disappearance of IT
First Nicholas Carr dropped a bombshell of a book, Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage, which argued that corporate IT is increasingly becoming a commodity. Now he’s back with a provocative new tome, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google (W. W. Norton, 2008), wherein he makes the case that IT as we know it may disappear completely.The idea is that computing in the age of the Internet is well on its way to becoming a utility, much as the electricity grid changed power distribution more than a century ago.
Why Dyslexics Make Great EntrepreneursThe ability to grasp the big picture, persistence, and creativity are a few of the entrepreneurial traits of many dyslexics. Just ask Charles Schwab
When Alan Meckler, the CEO of IT and online imagery hub Jupitermedia (JUPM), was accepted to Columbia University in 1965, the dean’s office told him he had some of the lowest college boards of any student ever admitted. “I got a 405 or 410 in English,” he recalls. “In those days you got a 400 just for putting your name down! Yet I was on the dean’s list every year I was there, and I won a prize for having the best essay in American history my senior year.” It wasn’t until years later, at age 58, that Meckler learned he was dyslexic…
Maintaining Edmunds’ Edge
Edmunds started in 1966 as a publisher of the printed booklets packed with automotive specifications intended to help car shoppers make buying decisions. But since 1995, when its Web site launched, it has become the go-to online resource for car buyers and enthusiasts.
That success led Edmunds to cut ties with print altogether last year, to focus exclusively on its stable of automotive Web sites.
Six Techniques to Get More from the Web than Google Will Tell You
The Internet has changed research dramatically. Now, it’s hard to resist defaulting to search engines, especially Google, as its capabilities grow. But you miss opportunities to get valuable insights into IT topics if you rely only on search engines.Professional librarians and researchers will tell you that the Web has many unexplored opportunities for finding more information on business topics. Pursue these six techniques to improve your research results…
