Expert Advice

Nowadays, being in IT means dealing with audits -- this is true regardless of whether you do business in a regulated industry, whether you provide service to clients in those industries, or whether your organization has a non-vertical need for an audit. The unfortunate bottom line in today's world: ...

As a growing number of enterprises transition to cloud computing, the use of the term "cloud" becomes more appropriate by the day. Just as natural clouds foreshadow weather events ranging from calm to stormy, cloud computing presents enterprise security professionals with a host of difficult challen...

Over the years, I have been involved with my share of data center recovery exercises -- everything from power outages to hurricanes to earthquakes to chemical explosions. Each time, no matter how well the business continuity plan is written, there is always something that is learned. Here are a few ...

Packet switching, in short, is a method to deliver data across a computer network connection. The impact of packet switching cannot be understated, as it essentially makes today's Internet function. Looking to the future, packet switching is on the precipice of impacting and disrupting another techn...

It's no secret that the business world is going mobile. Companies are beginning to move to a virtual environment -- especially sales teams who have to be on the road more often. The trend of telecommuting is also starting to catch on. With this in mind, IT managers are faced with a new headache: man...

In the world of IT, it's important to maintain an open mind and be willing to consider new approaches to addressing problems. People often have a tendency to get locked into a particular approach and hold onto it long past the point at which it has ceased being a best practice. On the other hand, i...

Even as the economic tsunami devastates IT budgets and scuttles many planned technology upgrades, a growing wave of companies continue to pursue unified communications solutions. While once viewed as a "nice-to-have" for large organizations with correspondingly large information technology budgets, ...

The burgeoning world of social media could be a huge threat to your brand if not managed properly. On the other hand, the world of social media may be the biggest marketing opportunity in years. The difference is all in how proactive you are in protecting yourself by becoming part of the broader soc...

Several years ago, while selling software in the British telecom market, I met the CMO of a smallish network operator. He described the issues his business was facing, and when I asked him his churn rate, he replied, almost casually, that it was "about normal for our industry: 37 percent." He must ...

Josh Nankivel of PMStudent.com recently polled project managers about how the current economic climate is affecting them, and he found that 27 percent had experienced project cutbacks, 14 percent had experienced PM layoffs, 11 percent had experienced financial scrutiny of projects, and 10 percent ha...