Articles

2010 Threat Predictions

2010-02-21T04:29:09Z

McAfee Labs foresees an increase in threats related to social networking sites, banking security, and botnets, as well as attacks targeting users, businesses, and applications. However, in 2010 we expect to see an increase in the effectiveness of law enforcement to fight back against cybercrime.

Can Creativity Be Crowdsourced? New Tools and Technology Face Big Changes in Ad Industry

2010-02-20T05:42:14Z

Much has been made of savvy marketers using “crowdsourcing” to connect their brands with customers, and plenty of pixels have been published on the success of crowdsourced programs like Dell’s IdeaStorm, Starbucks’ MyStarbucksIdea, The Netflix Prize and Lego’s invite-only community. But quite recently a much different discussion has emerged, as crowdsourcing is starting to change the very way we think about creativity, both online and off.

Best Practice Methodologies for the Project Management Office (PMO)

2010-02-19T03:30:07Z

After understanding the long-term vision of evolving the maturity level of your project management organization, ensuring flawless execution that maps to your strategies is another challenge. CA counsels its customers to follow industry standard best practices, as outlined in some of the leading project management methodologies that have been established for over 20 years to execute planned strategies.

Next Year in the Threat Webscape Predictions for 2010

2010-02-18T05:17:47Z

Researchers in the Websense Security Labs have identified emerging security exploits and trends anticipated to increase in the next 12 months. The emerging trends and predictions show an overall blending of security threats across multiple attack vectors for the purpose of roping computers into bot networks and stealing valuable confidential information. Researchers believe that hackers will look to compromise new platforms such as smartphones and take advantage of the popularity of Windows 7. They are also expected to compromise the integrity of search engine results and use legitimate advertisements to spread their malicious content.

Reputations Online: 15 Realities & 15 Rules for Managing Reputation Online

2010-02-18T04:30:56Z

EACH YEAR BRINGS A NEW SET OF CHALLENGES TO LEADERS. Yet, one challenge that not only endures but also grows in importance is managing and protecting company reputation. Raising this challenge even further on the leadership agenda is the evolving online community. Here, the sound of splintered stakeholders, intensifying media scrutiny, escalating scandals, globalization, and demands for stronger economic governance and corporate responsibility has reached deafening proportions.

Learn and Earn: A B2B Social Media White Paper from Microsoft Advertising

2010-02-15T14:48:52Z

In the last 18 months, the social media phenomenon has delighted, confounded and concerned marketers and advertisers all around the globe. They have had to learn quickly that the different ways consumers access the internet across multiple time zones, networks and devices is forcing them to change the way they do business.

Social CRM: The New Frontier of Marketing, Sales and Service

2010-02-15T03:05:03Z

The emergence and increasing usage of social media and other Web 2.0 tools has dramatically altered the ways in which companies interact with their customers. For instance, buying advice, product information and technical help is increasingly being disseminated from consumers to other consumers, in some cases without involvement or oversight by the provider. Clearly, this shift presents both opportunities and risks to companies.

Successful Email Marketing

2010-02-10T17:53:31Z

The rise of digital messaging via email, mobile devices and social networking means successful email marketing campaigns are now hugely challenging. While we can use these new technologies to give us greater access to data and reporting, we must raise our marketing standards to cut through the increased amounts of electronic clutter. Ambiguities arising from these same technologies are also making it harder to report accurately. How can we embrace these factors to maximise the effectiveness of our email marketing?

Taking your brand mobile

2010-02-05T05:11:10Z

In the past two years we’ve seen revolutionary change in the way we distribute and consume mobile applications. The simultaneous advent of the Apple iPhone and iTunes App Store was like tearing down the Berlin wall surrounding the private garden that mobile operators had enjoyed for more than a decade. Suddenly, developers could publish directly to consumers and eliminate the middlemen, which meant both faster time to market and greater profitability.

Social Networks vs. Management? Harness the Power of Social Media

2010-02-04T03:05:37Z

Companies have often played catch-up in understanding how to harness new technologies without over-managing them. In the early years of the World Wide Web, in the mid- to-late 1990s, many organizations feared that employees would spend too much time idly surfing the Web, so they tried to control access. While some employees undoubtedly did waste time that way, many soon figured out how to unlock the power of the Internet to do their jobs better, and the Internet quickly became a tremendously valuable resource for conducting desktop research, tracking competitors and other corporate activities.

Opportunities for the Cloud in the Enterprise

2010-02-02T04:03:19Z

Private and public clouds evolve the way IT services are delivered to the business. The promise of increased efficiency and agility of enterprise-class applications and services is intriguing, but enterprise customers are struggling with how cloud services can safely add realistic business value. The use of external cloud services challenge security and compliance, as well as service level management, which can involve multiple domains of control. Technology lock-in is an additional concern as various vendors deliver very different cloud computing offerings (and there are others of which you should be aware). The reality is that external cloud services are still working toward enterprise maturity.

How to Get Started With a Project Management Office

2010-01-31T04:55:41Z

Today, organizations spend a large amount of their time delivering projects. While success rates have improved to approximately 34 percent, 15 percent of all projects still fail and 51 percent are somehow “challenged,” according to research from the Standish Group. There are many reasons why projects fail, often due to a lack of visibility into long-term project needs. Without proper visibility, organizations are unable to see what is needed six months, three months or even two months down the road, which results in poorly constructed project plans that do not capture critical dependencies, including assigning project resources and key milestones.

The Dynamic Duo: Email Marketing and Social Media

2010-01-31T04:41:26Z

Social media marketing (SMM) gets a lot of press these days – and companies are feeling pressure to jump on the band- wagon. But if you’re like many marketers, you may be unclear about the benefits of SMM and how, exactly, you should use it to your best advantage. Without a clear strategy and specific goals and objectives, SMM can be a low-ROI time sink and it may undermine your other marketing efforts – even email. While email marketing and SMM can be a dynamic duo, you need to ensure these two powerhouse marketing tactics are working together in order to achieve results that are greater than the sum of their parts.

iPhone Revolution

2010-01-28T03:46:33Z

2009 has been the year for Apple’s iPhone, in 2010 will see businesses develop more applications to enrich their clients experience when consuming their products or services. The iPhone has not only revolutionised the way mobile phones function, but it has changed the way large businesses want to sell products.

3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail And How to See It Coming

2010-01-26T03:37:21Z

At a recent training event, two managers sat at the back of the room as a Senior Executive from their firm spoke to them about the days when he was a line manager. He waxed rhapsodic about the way he used to focus on the “soft skills” of management, of the “HP Way” and “Management by Walking Around” and how they needed to get away from their desks- stop sending so much email and really connect with their teams. Heads nodded. Some in agreement- most in boredom. Finally one attendee turned to the other and muttered in frustration, “Yeah but it’s a long bloody walk to Bangalore”.