Staff web 2.0 skills are a boost for productivity

Companies should make the most of employee Web 2.0 knowledge so that they can take full advantage of the technology, according to a report by the Butler Group.

With more consumers than ever involved with social networking and user-generated content such as blogs, businesses should be using their employees’ Web 2.0 skills to make the workforce more productive. 

Richard Edwards from the Butler Group comments “Staff have a life outside of work in which we’re interacting with [other people] and we’re sort of bringing those ideas into the workplace. Bosses need to recognise what’s actually happening - what are those changes - and examine the possibility of utilising some of this to bring about positive change within the business.”

The Butler Group report adds that businesses will risk losing out if they fail to formalise the use of Web 2.0 within the organisation. Edwards said “The workforce itself is starting to make use of Web 2.0 to do some of their daily tasks. And these are being undertaken without any real form of governance or control from the organisation.”

But in order to get the best out of Web 2.0 savvy staff, bosses will need to listen to their workers.  IT firm Eximium’s Derrick Cameron points out “No one would argue against staff contributing more ideas and skills for the good of the workplace. However, it is essential that companies have a very clear policy in place that can be adhered to by all staff.”

The Birth of the .tel domain

I read an article by Bobbie Johnson, about a new domain. Bobby is the Technology Correspondent for the Guardian.

The new .tel domain that is hoping to become an online equivalent to the phone directory has gone on sale for the first time. It will allow you to create a virtual address book online and will be accessed by users according to where they are and how they connect to the service.

“The launch of .tel represents the most significant innovation in the domain name system since the advent of .com,” said Khashr Mahdavi, chief executive of Telnic, the UK-based company that is overseeing the rollout.

To read Bobby’s full article, click the following link;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/03/internet-domain-name-tel

How to find the right people for your organisation

Make sure you are clear about what type of person you are looking for and what skills they will need, both technical and soft skills. Will they need to have strong communication skills, be a man manager, be customer friendly, etc.  This will ensure that the people put forward for you by your recruitment partner or HR department are the most appropriate for the job.

How will you adapt in order to survive the credit crunch?

As we see more and more high street shops falling around us, the uneasy feeling caused by the economic downturn is ever more difficult to ignore. The reduction in spending, experienced by the High Street, comes as shoppers are faced with soaring inflation, falling house prices and banks hiking up the cost of borrowing. Spending on the internet however, is rising. Traditionally the second Monday in December is known as ‘Cyber’ or ‘Mega’ Monday, as it is the biggest sales event of the year. The internet trade body, the IMRG expects internet retail sales to increase by 15 per cent this year, with customers predicted to spend an estimated £13.16bn online in the lead up to Christmas and a new record for internet sales volumes was set last Monday - typically the biggest trading day of the week online.

There are obvious categories that seem very well suited to selling online. Music, and increasingly games and films, can be bought and downloaded there and then. Availability is often better and you can find pretty much any book or DVD you want online. Sales of more tangible items, such as clothing, also do very well. As an example, online fashion retailer Asos doesn’t seem to be suffering the same fate as the High Street, recording 104% sales growth in the six months to the end of September. There are also benefits to moving online for the retailers themselves. It’s much cheaper to run a business online. The computer screen becomes your shop window, so you don’t need all those expensive high street branches, with high rents, staff to be paid, and energy bills. So it’s no surprise that internet shopping now accounts for around 7% of total sales, and is still growing fast. It seems that internet retailers definitely have the edge.

IT is definitely the way forward, as people are proving by their spending habits. As a business owner you need to ensure that your IT is working effectively for you. Good IT systems can save you money and increase productivity in any business sector, but if you have the advantage of providing a product or service that could be marketed through the internet, it’s something which you should seriously consider.  Improving the efficiency of your IT doesn’t have to be expensive either, as is often thought. Sometimes, a minor change to a system you are already using can make a dramatic difference.

For a free, no obligation consultation to evaluate your existing IT, click the following link;

http://www.eximium.net/factfind.asp

IT spending reaches a new record high – up 8%

Despite the gloom over the world economy and credit issues facing banks and consumers, worldwide IT spending will pass the $3.4tr mark this year, up eight per cent from last year, according to analyst Gartner.

Services, not products, now dominate spending, with IT and telecoms services making up 70 per cent of IT budgets – with telecoms alone accounting for almost $2tr of that.

Gartner VP Jim Tully said in the report “The US-led economic downturn shows no sign of causing a recession in IT spending. Emerging regions, replacement of obsolete systems and some technology shifts are driving growth. Organisations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service based models. The projected shift to cloud computing, for example, will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas, and in significant reductions in other areas.”

The report shows that software spending is on course for the strongest growth rate in 2008 at more than 10 per cent, while services spending will surpass 9.4 per cent growth.

Derrick Cameron MD of IT firm Eximium comments “Many companies are in the process of upgrading their old software systems.  It is a constant process, in a similar way to staff training.  You are never ‘done’ as there is always more to do.”

The main area of hardware growth activity is PCs, which accounts for 60 per cent of total hardware spending, increasing significantly in Asia-Pacific and Western Europe.

A strong shift towards mobile PCs is also occurring, boosting the overall market, as the higher prices of these products results in increasing revenue per unit.

On This Day in History

On this day 40 years ago a man named Douglas Englebart first unveiled the ‘mouse’, at a 90 minute presentation to around 1000 people at Brooks Hall Convention Centre in San Francisco.

I found an article by Bobbie Johnson, who is the Guardian’s technology correspondent, about it today. Englebart is quoted as saying “You have a pointing device called a mouse, I don’t know why we call it a mouse – sometimes I apologise for it. It started that way and we never did change it.”

It really is a very interesting read and I thoroughly recommend it.

To read the full article by Bobbie Johnson, click the following link;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/09/mouse-40

Tips for getting the most out of a consultant

Remember that you are in charge.  The consultant is being employed by you, so don’t let them bamboozle you with jargon, or steer the project in the direction they want to go, if it differs from yours.  Get them to explain anything you don’t understand and stay firmly in the driving seat of your project.

Wireless broadband on its way across Europe

European politicians have backed measures which will create a wireless broadband service to be used across Europe.

The EU parliament backed a package of telecoms measures designed to simplify the roll out of EU-wide services, such as wireless internet and mobile TV. This will be done using the spectrum previously taken up by analogue TV and radio broadcasts.

The parliament voted to adopt a report saying that states should reserve the same parts of the spectrum for the same types of services to ensure they work across the continent.

They have also ruled that the national regulators should be allowed to impose functional separation.  The parliament added that regulators should only countenance such a measure if it is the only way to ensure fair competition.

This follows calls by the European Commission yesterday to cut mobile data roaming charges in Europe.

Derrick Cameron from IT firm Eximium comments “This should be great news for businesses across Europe and just the sort of thing that the EU should be doing to ensure cross-border co-operation.” 

If it gets its way, the Commission will also set up a new European wide telecommunications regulator called the Body of European Regulators in Telecommunication.  Its function will be to help ensure fair competition and high-quality services but is not intended to take over tasks related to network and information security.

Internet Shopping at work

I came across an article written by Kelly Faircloth about the security issues caused by staff doing their Christmas shopping online. It’s particularly topical at the moment, but I’m sure that the basic principles behind it would be relevant all year round.

According to a report by Information Systems Audit and Control Association, online Christmas shopping poses a risk to the IT security of employers. The survey took place in America and found that 4 out of every 10 people aged between 18 and 24, will spend up to 5 hours shopping online.

This coupled with a recent survey of 973 employees, which found younger workers were the least concerned about workplace network security and that roughly half said they paid more attention to the security of their home computers. Only two thirds of employees over 25 said they worried about both home and office systems. This is a staggeringly low amount.

The survey also found that many employees don’t understand how to protect workplace computers. 22% admitted to having clicked on e-mail links to an online retailer, and more than a quarter said they either don’t bother or don’t know how to check a site’s security.  In another  survey, over half of the trade group’s 3,100 members said they allow shopping at work, even though many haven’t trained employees to guard against potential  security threats.

Kent Anderson, a member of the group’s Security Management Committee, said in a statement “The fact that Millennials [children born between 1977 and 1994] are planning to spend the equivalent of more than half a work day doing holiday shopping from their work computer, combined with their lack of concern for how secure their computer is, points to an urgent need for employee education,”.

As responsible business owners and managers, we need to ensure that we make the security of our businesses of paramount importance. Providing appropriate training for our staff and reliable anti-virus software on our networks has to be our responsibility. Here at Eximium we can help you with training for your staff and provide you with anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-spam protection.

Click the following link for our training page;

http://www.eximium.net/training.asp

Click the following link for our managed security services page;

http://www.eximium.net/managed_security_services.asp

Tips for getting the most out of a consultant

It normally works best to stay focused on the issue in hand.  Usually, other matters surface as a project progresses, which aren’t directly connected with what you are trying to achieve, and it is easy to get side-tracked.  Try and treat new issues as separate projects.  It’s better to have one issue resolved and a list of others to look into, than a list of growing issues where nothing is resolved.