Esteban Herrera's blog post was featuredThe Incredible Shrinking Incumbent’s AdvantageJust five years ago, incumbent outsourcing service providers retained their contract at the point of renewal more than 80 percent of the time. A provider had to be a complete disaster before clients would consider tossing them out. Today, not even 50 percent of incumbent providers retain the business, according the most recent ISG Outsourcing Index. In other words, if you are on either side of an outsourcing relationship, there is an equal chance you won’t be in it when the term expires.Here’s what has happened:Pricing has declined. Today, you can get so much more for your IT dollar than you could five years ago! In a buyers’ market, incumbent providers that don’t proactively offer significant reductions, ideally well ahead of renewal time, and offer updated, state-of-the-art solutions will likely find themselves replaced.Costs of switching have dropped. Conventional wisdom used to be that it was too expensive to change providers. The pain of losing the institutional knowledge and suffering through the draconian wind-down terms weren’t worth the effort. No longer. Mature companies have figured out that while switching costs are material, they are definitely not prohibitive. Moreover, hungry challengers are happy to help absorb some of those costs in exchange for taking a new logo away from a competitor.Multi-sourcing has become the default strategy. Years ago, people like me advised to never split up IT infrastructure, for example, across providers. Sourcing maturity and the evolution of the solutions have caused a diametric shift; when possible, most large enterprises prefer a multi-provider solution for its best-of-breed capabilities and built-in competitive tension. Application services have always been better candidates for sourcing to multiple providers, with many companies having split their portfolio along logical lines for years. The exception to the trend seems to be BPO, which is increasingly industry-specific and increasingly sold as a platform, inclusive of the software, hardware, labor and network required to run the process. Providers who offer these platforms and do it well will be the sticky ones for the next decade.The devil you don’t know might be better. Unfortunately, many sourcing relationships are set up to be adversarial, and the wear and tear on both the buyer and provider teams can be irreparable. Many times, companies are just interested in a fresh start with a new team that they haven’t been arguing with for the past five to ten years.Incumbent arrogance. Often, clients want to stay with their existing provider, but the provider’s refusal to implement new solutions and come to the table with better approaches than those used in the past ultimately costs them the business. Or worse, the incumbent provider fails to notice the undeniable data regarding the loss of their advantage and fails to provide a spirited defense of business that was theirs to lose.The big winners here have been enterprise buyers who have more options available to them than ever before. The big losers have been the western-based IT services providers, which have seen their market share erode more than 20 percent over the past four years.If you are a buyer, you owe it to yourself to understand the current market and the opportunities it affords you. If you are a service provider, you must first make sure your head is fully out of the sand and then go to work every day as if you were competing for the business all over again. Find improvements to the solution and make it stickier all along the way, not just at the end of the term.Many fields offer nearly insurmountable advantages to incumbents; outsourcing is no longer one of them.Esteban Herrera is a Partner with ISG.See More

Leadership is life. As a result, we can find lessons all around us that inform our ability to inspire, motivate, guide and deliver results through others. In the past, I’ve shared the connections I experience between leadership and my favorite avocation, paddle boarding.  Sandra Mills shares her connections between leading and running in today’s guest post. Effective leadership is important for successful team performance in business, education and sports. Personally and professionally, the ability to take control of the reins and set an inspiring example can benefit both the leader and those being led. Individuals who are seasoned runners probably already understand the parallels between running and leadership; if not, here are 10 powerful ways that running can help to make someone a better leader: 1. Focus. The top runners always know where they are going and are focused on reaching their goal. The same is true for all great leaders. If you’re not sure where you’re headed, how can those you are leading know where to go? A strong focus and the ability to stay the course are keys to success in both running and leadership. 2. Passion. The best runners have a true passion for the sport, and it’s this passion that allows them to persevere and break through comfort zones to new levels of success. The most inspiring leaders are the same way; a passion for and belief in the goal at hand is one of the most contagious and inspiring things a leader can bring to the table. 3. Confidence. This one is pretty straightforward: If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. Confidence in yourself and your abilities is key to being both a great runner and a successful leader. 4. Decisiveness. Whether it’s a speed goal, a distance goal or the decision to alter your course due to a change in terrain or weather conditions, running sometimes calls for the need to take make a quick choice. Effective leaders are adept at assessing a scenario thoroughly and then taking action in an efficient manner. 5. Clarity of Purpose. Clarity goes hand in hand with decisiveness and confidence. Just as runners should know their strengths, true leaders know where they excel and how to "stay in their lane." Clarity helps a leader know when to say yes and when to say no. 6. A fearless nature. The best runners aren’t afraid to push themselves once in awhile, and the greatest leaders are the same way. They know that taking a big risk can often pay off in a big way. 7. Determination. Running can require speed and endurance, but most of all, it requires determination. Even when it’s tempting to stop or give up, the best runners can draw from an inner well of determination. The same is true of great leaders, who then inspire their people to do the same. 8. Integrity. Whether it’s being honest during a race with team members or with themselves, the top runners have a deep integrity about the sport and hold themselves accountable. Likewise, leaders who have integrity generate loyalty and respect among those they are leading. 9. Humility. While confidence is important, a dose of humility should be present to balance it out. Runners know that when confidence becomes inflated to the point of hubris, mistakes and injuries can happen. Both great runners and great leaders temper their self-assuredness with the ability to be humble when the situation warrants. 10. Self-aware. The famous Greek phrase "know thyself" remains one of the most elemental but powerful pieces of advice ever packed into two words. Runners who are clear about their strengths and weaknesses are far more likely to thrive in the long run. Being self-aware allows you to play to your strengths while finding ways to build up or compensate for weaknesses. Great leaders are adept at doing this for both themselves and the team members they are leading. Sophisticated leaders know that not everyone thinks and acts like them; they support this diversity and use it for the benefit of the team. It should also be noted that both running and leadership styles can vary. For example, while the Millennial generation (or "Gen Y") has been called the "me, me, me generation" (selfish and unmotivated) those who actually spend time with them may find many of them to be quite motivated and determined - leaders in their own right. Ultimately, the true litmus test is in the results, and there are many paths up the mountain that will get you there. Author Bio: Sandra Mills is a freelance health and career writer. She often writes about how people can stay fit and advance their careers. Image: freedigitalphotos.net The post 10 Ways Running Can Make You a Better Leader appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Kevin Petrie's blog post was featuredNavigating the Ocean of Computerized ThingsWe’ve all seen enough science fiction, and new gadgets coming to market, to envision the approaching world of smart homes, cars and appliances that can automate our personal lives.In reality, the Internet of Things (IoT) holds perhaps the greatest potential for corporations.The concept is not new - telemetry, for example, arose in the 19th century. But widespread broadband and new narrowband options, increasingly small and cheap sensors, and new machine-to-machine connectivity are creating powerful possibilities for organizations to fine-tune or even revamp their business.The IoT is an opportunity, but it’s also a mandate. Manufacturers, retailers and other companies whose core business involves producing or handling physical objects must adopt IoT to compete effectively over the next 5-10 years. According to Baseline Magazine, about two thirds of corporate IoT adopters seek to reduce cost, 22% to manage risk and 13% to innovate or grow.The IoT will force substantial changes to how IT works today. Reasons for this include the following:Data containers (i.e., software-based digital files) are proliferating, in part because RFID tags and other sensors have so few bytes. The EMC/IDC Report on the Digital Universe noted in April 2014 that "the number of "containers" is growing faster than the number of petabytes, from 28 quadrillion in 2010 to 4,200 in 2020." Consolidating the data within them will require new skills and technologies.The time value of data will be even higher, prompting the need for faster, even real-time analytics. IoT is based on sensors that capture moments in time: consider factory pressure gauges, traffic patterns or point of sale transactions by an identity thief. The real-time imperative means that organizations must quicken and ideally automate their data loading and analytical processes.The Internet of Things extends beyond the cloud or Data Center. Data collection, analysis and the resulting actions will require close teamwork with field technicians or other stakeholders that might not have engaged IT professionals in the past.So how should IT practitioners and management approach IoT? While this trend cuts across verticals and geographies, here are three standard best practices to follow.Base your IoT strategy on corporate strategy and not vice versa. This mantra, used in many other technology discussions, bears repeating. The temptation for departmental science experiments can run high given the hyperbole surrounding IoT. But as with Big Data and opportunities to innovate, business objectives and strategy should dictate the plan for IT. If a business unit is going to test an IoT theory, they should do so with a decision tree and funding that executives have blessed.Invite your line workers to brainstorm. More than ever you’ll need the insights of staffers that have a variety of technical insights about how your company can play sensor-based data to competitive advantage. Mechanical engineers that run oil rigs and other heavy equipment might not be typical partners of IT, but still have the best ideas about how to combine data to improve operations.Use the most flexible repository possible, and invest in mobility. New IoT data sources and formats are harder to handle. Companies will need more flexible repositories to be able to extract intelligence from all the pieces. Hadoop Data Lakes can be a good starting point because Hadoop can receive data in its raw format. But Hadoop has some limitations, as Michael Hausenblas with MapR points out in a recent article in DataInformed, and some analytics exercises will require distinct repositories. Work closely with your IT organization to align your target data, their formats and your analytical goals. And shop for software solutions that can automatically move data across a wide range of platforms.Established tech vendors are investing heavily to help enterprises navigate the complexity of the IoT. SAP announced new HANA Big Data Intelligence capabilities for enabling organizations to rapidly ingest and analyze data from a variety of sources, using the HANA platform with its Event Stream Processor, SAP IQ software and Apache Hadoop. While HANA’s in-memory processing is a natural fit for in-line analytics, SAP clearly understands the need to embrace new IoT data sources and platforms.As you invest in IoT, focus on corporate strategy, enlist your broader workforce, and stay flexible with your infrastructure.Kevin Petrie is the senior director of marketing at Attunity.See More

Last year, the Aberdeen Group conducted a research study exploring the business impact of building learning capability. Using three key performance criteria to distinguish best-in-class companies, it was found that: 83% of employees in these companies received performance ratings of ‘exceeds performance expectations’; 13% experienced year-over-year improvement to revenue per full-time equivalent; and 78% of key roles have one or more ready-and-willing successors. It’s that last statistic that caught my attention. Best-in-class organizations enjoy a steady stream of talent, being grown and developed in the wings. With this kind of robust pipeline, transitions occur with ease, the negative effect of unexpected occurrences and surprises are mitigated, engagement grows, and high levels of performance can be sustained. Given the powerful and positive impact of cultivating successors, perhaps it’s time to begin evaluating leadership effectiveness based upon this important job requirement. Rather than subjectively assessing a variety of competencies and other factors, why not look objectively at the most crucial output for which leaders are responsible: the quality of their followers? Well-intended forms and leadership evaluation processes could be replaced by an assessment of follower readiness to assume his/her next role.  A full succession pipeline could lead to ‘exceeds expectations’ ratings and increases.  All of this would telegraph the value the organization places upon development… and encourage other leaders to prioritize employee growth. So, how well-populated is your pipeline? How many of your employees are ready-and-willing successors? How committed are you to their development?  A few small steps on a leader’s part can drive disproportionate results.  For instance, consider: Making sure you are clear about each employee’s snapshot of career success and how that fits into your organization’s structure and future needs. Engaging in ongoing dialogue through quick, on-the-spot conversations that keep development front of mind. Ensuring that each employee has a least one development plan or activity in process at all times. In today’s environment, if people aren’t growing, they’ll quickly find themselves falling behind. What would your performance rating be if it was based largely upon having one or more ready-and-willing successors? Elevating your personal rating reverberates through others and the organization as a whole. So maybe it’s time to prioritize our pipelines. What about you? What are you doing to ensure a steady stream ready talent? The post How Well-Populated is Your Pipeline? appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Shawn Dickerson's blog post was featuredHow to Go From Project Manager to Project LeaderProject managers play a vital role in every organization. But, despite their importance, they’ve traditionally been commoditized and compartmentalized, perceived as merely traffic cops focused exclusively on keeping their specific projects and teams running smoothly.As businesses become more integrated across departments, project managers are being asked to develop a broader view, to understand how their projects impact other departments and the entire business, and to operate with a more holistic approach. This mandate requires a more advanced skill set, updated tools, and a strategic perspective that is new territory for many project managers.While challenging for some, this evolution actually presents a unique opportunity for project managers to develop both the tactical and leadership skills they need to transform into project leaders. In return, this opens the door for project leaders to increase their value to the organization and expand their career opportunities for advancement beyond "traffic cop" status. What separates an ordinary project manager from an extraordinary project leader? These four key differentiators provide a crucial starting point.1. Visibility across the enterprise. Gaining broader visibility throughout the enterprise—across every department, into future projects coming down the pike and the overall strategic goals of the company—can give project managers an incredible advantage in managing their own projects, as well as providing strategic support where it’s needed in other areas. Of course, this holistic viewpoint and involvement requires management support and buy-in. However, the forward-thinking project leader might just find himself leading the charge to get tools and systems in place that give teams, managers, and executives better visibility into what’s being done.In addition to adding strategic value, this visibility also provides tactical advantages, like enabling extraordinary leaders to prioritize effectively, maximize resource utilization, and avoid overwhelming the team. Projects flow more smoothly and on-schedule, winning the admiration of management and team-members."As the manager of the PMO, I'm supposed to know every issue on all 90 projects and what we're doing about them," says Tiffany Schepens, Manager of PMO at Tampa General Hospital. "Gaining visibility of everything across the department means if I don’t know about the issue, I can look it up, and right there I've got the issue. I know what it is. I know what the status is and who's working on it."The ability to see what each team has on their plate and understand the trade-offs of working on one project versus another has enabled Schepens and her team to reduce the time spent in staff meetings by 66 percent and increase their project success rate by 11 percent in just three months.2. Strategic resource management. Having adequate resources at your disposal is critical for both project and company success. While certainly resources may be limited by budget and personnel availability, extraordinary project leaders have the ability to achieve optimum utilization of the resources they do have to work with. Amid stiff competition for resources and the need to do more with less in a lean operational atmosphere, project leaders must be careful and calculated in allocating assignments, staff skills, and time.With the superior visibility gained in mastering the first skill (above), project leaders can anticipate needs, make realistic assignments and prioritize tasks appropriately. Tracking work status in real time can also help the leader—and the entire team and organization—to stay on top of progress and identify and rectify obstacles to reduce unexpected deficits and last-minute surprises."We have eight project managers in the field. Now, we can actually see their project workloads, and when they get too many projects, we make that one sit out," says Ed Budda, senior manager of Implementation Services at Draeger Medical. "They’ll raise the flag and say, ‘I just have too many on my plate. Can this one be reassigned?’ And we’ll look for the project managers who have a little less."By managing resources more efficiently and not overwhelming the team, Draeger’s Professional Services group has increased their on-time delivery ratings by 125 percent.3. Team-wide alignment to strategic business goals. Creating a team-wide laser-sharp focus on a clear business strategy is vital to ensuring everyone works together toward the same goal. By getting everyone on the same page, deadlines and objectives can be met much faster and with less friction.Exceptional project leaders start by working with stakeholders to identify the overall business goals that relate to each project or work request. Projects that don’t map to strategic goals are pushed to the back burner, tabled until time and resources allow. The next step is to communicate with team members about how individual project objectives align to the overall company goal. This gives the strategically aligned team the ability to focus on tasks that deliver maximum benefit for the organization, while justifying the need to set certain projects aside for now. When everyone agrees on the strategic alignment from the start, projects run smoother and deliver better results, with less stress, chaos, and catch-up.University Hospitals has taken alignment mapping to a whole new level, by creating a scoring system for each project. "It allows us to take a step back and compare a business project to a clinical project to an infrastructure project, which all could be requiring the same resources. It lets us rank projects as we go into governance discussions," says Andy Kinnear, Director of PMO.Ensuring strategic alignment can dramatically increase the amount of time spent on strategic projects by as much as 150 percent, eliminating time wasted on busy work and doubling or even quadrupling project capacity for some companies, allowing them to do more work with the same amount of staff and resources.4. Efficient collaboration and seamless communication. We’ve all heard stories about the mailroom clerk who came up with the brilliant idea to solve a big company challenge. But, this isn’t just a novel ideal—collaborating with and seeking input from fellow team members and leaders across the organization is critical to achieving both project and company-wide success. With visibility, resource management, and strategic alignment in place, project leaders can understand how and where projects, priorities, resources and expertise connect across the organization.This provides new opportunities to bring cross-team or cross-departmental resources to bear in new and innovative ways to solve challenges and devise novel solutions. But, to support this type of broad-scale collaboration, seamless, integrated communication is a must. Everyone must be on the same channel, using the same system to share resources, ask for input or assistance and discuss obstacles and strategies to overcome them.Too often, organizations use multiple tools and channels, like email, phone, voicemail, instant messaging, social networks, etc. to communicate, making it difficult to keep up, which allows critical details and tasks to slip through the cracks. By centralizing and streamlining all communication onto one system, the entire organization can keep up and move forward.At Trek Bicycle Corporation, streamlining communication and collaboration onto a single system has dramatically improved time management and productivity. "Each week, 40 percent of my time was spent chasing down how projects were going, what information does a manager need, contacting other teams globally on how things are going, and phone calls at night, sending a lot of emails," said Kris Lamp, director of program management at Trek. "Now I can go into a project, open it up, see the notes in there, and send it off to my manager, saying, 'Here it is.' Or he could even do it."As a result, team members recovered 30 percent of the time previously lost to maintaining spreadsheets, and on-time product delivery increased by 80 percent, adding millions in new revenue.Developing outstanding leadership skills and proficiency in advanced work management techniques and tools can empower project managers to enhance their strategic value to the organization and prevent being perceived as ordinary, commoditized traffic cops. Demonstrating leadership, strategic foresight, exceptional resource allocation, and collaboration skills improves job effectiveness at the tactical level and enhances career growth and advancement opportunities. By transforming from a project manager, project leaders can become role models and valued team members within the organization for their ability to boost morale, productivity and profitability.Shawn Dickerson is GTM ​​Director at ​Workfront.See More

Leon Fayer's blog post was featuredMaking the Right Technology Decisions in the Changing High-Tech Landscape"Thou shalt not worship shininess." --10 Commandments of Scale, Theo Scholssnagle, Surge 2010With increased availability of new technological choices, people tend to make the mistake of jumping on "hot" technology without a compelling business reason. Reading industry blogs and aggregators, engineers and managers alike hear about "the next best thing" and jump on whatever that is without considering the consequences (or need), justifying the move with a lot of fluff. For example, one of the largest media companies in the world made a decision to replace all existing web platforms, serving hundreds of millions of people, with Django.  The decision was made a week after the release of version 1.0, without a single engineer familiar with Django or Python. In addition the company had just invested a significant amount into its current architecture that worked like a well-oiled machine. What was the "official" reason? The success behind the launch of The Washington Post's new, also Django based, platform. What wasn’t thoroughly examined at the time is that this was the only production success at scale at the time and the Washington Post hired one of the creators of Django for that initiative, to ensure it succeeded. One success story was enough to pitch and get approval from, management. There is a saying: If a man jumps off a 10 story building and survives without a scratch, what do you call it? An accident. What if he dusts off, climbs back up and jumps again with the same result? A coincidence. But what if he does it for the third time? A habit. My point is, make your decisions based on repeatable success, not on an edge case. Another similar saying that comes to mind in a midst of technology choice conversation is "If everyone jumped off the bridge, would you just follow?" I had a conversation with the founder of a relatively successful startup, who was looking to add profile management to his suite of online applications. We went pretty deep into an architecture design discussion, talking about the best way to leverage Single Sign On (SSO) and tie the profile into a multitude of offered services. Eventually the conversation turned to the technology stack of choice. He told me that node.js was a strong candidate (for all the right reasons), but to my surprise, he also thought MongoDB was a right fit.Given his application suite was already using a RDBMS, and the nature of data to be stored was highly relational, why would anyone introduce a new, non-relational storage component to the list of existing tools in this situation? His answer: "I heard that node.js works well with MongoDB." Now, to be fair, it is a better response than "I've read on that blog from that guy who said that MongoDB is webscale," but not far from it. I am not denigrating MongoDB, in fact at my company we run some of the largest MongoDB clusters in the world; but some of our high volume node.js deployments, supporting 100,000 requests/sec, were backed by Riak and PostgreSQL. Why? Because those technologies provided a better solution for this specific challenge. My next point: Always select each of the architecture components to fit the role they are going to play, not just go with the newest or shiniest solution or the one that people claim is the best.Another part of that point is that people often make their technology choices based upon marketing materials that usually have very little to do with the reality. There are the infamous MongoDB performance benchmarks, supporting the company’s claim that it is the fastest database. These benchmarks were performed without actually writing the data. Think about it. The database doesn’t guarantee data storage. Once you turn on guaranteed writes, performance plummets. Yet, people make assumptions solely based on those product marketing numbers, negatively impacting whole organizations — from IT to finance. Here is another example,  a company, with an architecture of a couple of hundred servers, needed file system encryption for all the application and data storage nodes to comply with security regulations. They selected a "promising" product, installed it, configured it based upon the product company’s recommendations, and noticed about 25% performance drop impacting core business flows. Not surprisingly, the company found this unacceptable. In conversations, the company executives mentioned that they expected 4% performance decline, which I found to be a strangely precise number. As it turned out, the company never had file system encryption running on any instances of the application, not even development (not that it would be sufficient or comparable), and the performance benchmark expectations came straight from the marketing pamphlet that the product company provided. This harsh realization came after the company invested money in this product, made promises to their own investors and set a budget for hardware — all based on a theoretical number in a brochure. Pro tip: As a general rule, the only performance numbers that matter are the production performance numbers. "It worked fast on my laptop" is not a valid argument for. . .well, anything. Benchmark numbers written in a marketing brochure, or on a bathroom wall for that matter, are also not acceptable. A very positive takeaway in the industry is that large enterprises are adopting emerging technologies and contributing back much faster than in the past, which brings validity to the technology itself and promises good things to follow. But there are those who give all the wrong reasons for technology selection and adoption, which cheapens the achievements, as impressive as they may be, and devalues the technology choice itself. You really cannot take seriously any testimonial on the awesomeness of a decision to switch to newer programming language if it is based on the fact that "now, it takes much less than 18 months to change background color for all the web properties." Similarly, if you claim that your application is faster in on the new platform without CDN than it was in its previous incarnation with CDN, people cannot take you seriously. In case it's not obvious: the problem is not with a poor technology selection to begin with, the problem is with the decision-making process and poor architectural decisions. You can't blame technology for your poor decisions. Similarly, you can't praise a technology because you didn’t repeat the same mistakes the second time around. All it means is that you've learned something from your own mistakes. Or hired smarter people. The "shininess factor" and pseudo math both do damage, and in the tech industry, you need to keep up with everything. But, with the number of different technologies that hit the market every month (if not daily), each backed by media hype and promoted by investors, it is easy to fall into a trap of buying into a promise of a product instead of the product itself. My last word of advice: Don't base your decision on success stories but rather on the stories of failures. Those are told by people who had to deal with similar choices, experienced the pains firsthand, had to overcome them, and can provide the only factoid that matters—production experience and performance. So do your research, challenge assumptions, and remember the wise words of Bruce Lee: mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.Leon Fayer is Vice President at OmniTI.See More

A prospective client asked to talk with me recently. (To protect her identity, we’ll call her Lara.)  Lara’s executives wanted to clarify and begin driving a leadership brand throughout the organization. What unfolded during our conversation was a plan whereby their values, credo, code of conduct, and core competencies would converge into a leadership profile that would drive all recruiting, selection, training, and succession strategies. Their objective: to establish a consistent expression of leadership that would be recognizable worldwide. I had a strong reaction to the request. I think I was offended. Or maybe I was just experiencing sympathetic claustrophobia on behalf of the leaders in the organization… the ones I started to envision in my imagination as ‘Stepford’ leaders or futuristic little leader-bots.  As Lara spoke, every fiber of my being wanted to scream: What about authenticity? What about diversity? What about a situational approach to leadership? After the meeting, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the idea of an organizationally-imposed leadership brand. Is it appropriate to overlay this sort of expectation on leaders? And, equally importantly, is it even smart? I’ve arrived at an emphatic ‘no’ to both questions and have come to the conclusion that this sort of myopic leadership branding is a significant threat to organizations. Ours is a connected society. Most leaders find themselves working nights and weekends because access is so easy. The lines between work and the other parts of one’s life are increasingly blurred. The old ‘leave your personal life at the door’ mentality is laughable…. for many remote workers, there is no door. As a result, authenticity has taken its rightful place on the leadership stage. Because leaders take the home person to work and the work person home, the only way to remain sane is to remain authentic. Myopic leadership branding threatens this authenticity. It also threatens diversity. We enjoy the most diverse workforce in history. Most organizations dedicate tremendous resources to cultivating, promoting, and leveraging that diversity. And it’s not just slogans. They know that it drives innovation, improvement, excellence, and results. But organizations can’t have it both ways. They can’t value diversity on one hand and snuff it out on the other by asking all leaders to wear the same leadership cloak. Instead of top-down leadership branding - where the profile is dictated and uniformly adopted - what about a bottom-up approach? What if organizations hired the best leaders possible… provided the systems, development, and other support required so they could bring their best to the job? What if organizations cultivated authenticity and different thoughts and approaches? The net effect would be a vibrant, energized, and powerful band rather than brand of leaders. (And doesn’t that sound better than a bunch of leader-bots?) This post originally appeared at Lead Change Group in November 2012. The post Brand Boring appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Tal Klein's blog post was featuredCloud Encryption TruthinessLast month, Box announced a new product called "Enterprise Key Management (EKM)," the service puts encryption keys inside a customer’s own data center and in a special security module stored in an Amazon data center. The Box service still must access customer’s data in order to enable sharing and collaboration, but with EKM, customers can ensure that only happens when they want it to.After nearly a decade of existence, Box has built a huge user base—claiming over 180,000 businesses by offering cloud storage and collaboration tools alongside with security and regulatory compliance controls. Box protects the confidentiality and integrity of customer files in transit and at rest with layered Encryption: In transfer with high-grade TLS and multi-layered encryption at rest with 256-bit AES.There is, of course, significant value to encryption as a component of a SaaS platform. For example, Box CEO Aaron Levie stated in a 2003 interview, "Our differentiation as a company is to take security and combine it with a very simple user experience around working with information."Beyond such vendor provided private key encryption, the focus in SaaS should be attestation, not encryption - What’s needed is a clear and actionable audit trail of all user activities in SaaS applications with direct correlation to which data (structured and unstructured) has been respectively interacted with.While the Box platform may be robust to most criminal hackers, Box users are not, which is why an attacker focused on extracting data from a Box account would likely focus on the customer rather than the platform. Indeed, according to the 2014 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, credentials are the number one attack methodology.As the recent Anthem breach should remind us, if the attack vector is the user and the user is compromised, then from the vantage point of the encryption control, the attacker and the user are the same entity - failing the charter of the control. Enterprise managed encryption doesn’t solve this problem because encryption is a preventative, not mitigative control. That is, when someone encrypts data, the intent is to limit access to the data to those with a key, not to prevent a malicious third party from compromising one of the parties with legitimate access to that data.In short: Encryption, whether provided by Box or a third party, is not a control designed to know if a user’s credentials have been compromised - it’s a control designed to restrict access to data. There are mechanisms, like user behavior analytics that may be able to tell the difference between the attacker with the user’s credentials and the actual user through heuristic analysis, but from the vantage point of the encryption control, the aforementioned attacker and user would be the same entity as long as their credentials matched.So what does that mean in terms of compliance requirements to protect data for public companies?When it comes to protecting data in the cloud, encryption is handy for building checklists, but not much more. The theory favored by auditors is that only authorized personnel and programs see decrypted information, while all others have no access to the data. Encrypting the data ostensibly creates a "clear" attestation trail, because if only users who are allowed to access the data can access the data, then it’s easy to attest for when data was touched and by whom. But if the attack vector is the user and the user is compromised, then in the context of encryption-based attestation, such a breach would not be marked as a deficiency, thus failing the regulatory requirement, and landing the impacted company in hot water.Compliance regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPPA are designed to provide assurance and attestation, and encryption in that context provides neither.For example, here’s the meat of what HIPAA says about Protected Health Information (PHI):The covered entity must decide whether a given addressable implementation specification is a reasonable and appropriate security measure to apply within its particular security framework. For example, a covered entity must implement an addressable implementation specification if it is reasonable and appropriate to do so and must implement an equivalent alternative if the addressable implementation specification is unreasonable and inappropriate and there is a reasonable and appropriate alternative. This decision will depend on a variety of factors, such as, among others, the entity’s risk analysis, risk mitigation strategy, what security measures are already in place and the cost of implementation. The decisions that a covered entity makes regarding addressable specifications must be documented in writing. The written documentation should include the factors considered, as well as the results of the risk assessment on which the decision was based.Specific internal security controls need to be identified for protecting this data and, most importantly, auditing must take place to attest for the efficacy of the controls. But in the context of cloud adoption, especially SaaS, choose a cloud vendor, like Box, that builds encryption controls into their platform. But keep in mind that the most important regulatory output is attestation (not synonymous with encryption).Enterprise security postures must be regularly re-assessed. The security value of encrypting data at rest in the cloud is nominal when a user with sufficient access privileges has been compromised, which is increasingly the preferred attack vector. Modern compliance best practices should shift resources away from prevention and towards attestation. Thus it’s an important consideration that in many cases encrypting data in SaaS platforms, whether through private or vendor-held key will likely not yield significant security benefits.Tal Klein is vice president of strategy and marketing at Adallom.See More

While most organizations expect great work, we don’t necessarily take the time to identify what actually contributes to it. In his book, Great Work, David Sturt has done that for us. Drawing on the research of O.C. Tanner and a Forbes Insight Study of over 1,000 individuals, five key skills or behaviors have emerged: Ask the right questions. See for yourself. Talk to your outer circle. Improve the mix. Deliver the difference. While driving great work, these behaviors also create a framework for great career development. Ask the right questions. Career development is not about paths, promotions or moves…it’s all about conversation.  And the currency of great career conversations is questions. Whether coming from the manager or the employee, thoughtful questions sustain an ongoing development dialogue. Managers might consider questions like: What have you always been naturally good at? What makes life worth living? What do you wish you had more time to do? What kind of work do you typically gravitate toward/away from? And employees can keep the conversation going as well with question like: Which of my skills are most valuable? What can you always count on me for? What behaviors have you observed that might get in my way? Under what circumstances do I make the best contributions? See for yourself. Career development, just like great work, requires a reality-based look at today’s world of work.  Understanding the needs of the business as well as the needs of the customer are not passive activities. They require active exploration and interaction with the environment. Ride alongs. Customer observations. Competitive shopping experiences. These provide ways for you - whether you’re a manager or an employee - to see for yourself the changing complexion of the workplace and to recognize the broad range of career opportunities that exist. Talk to your outer circle. Investing in a broader network drives performance and career development. It only makes sense. Expanding one’s contacts and purview opens new possibilities for employees looking to learn and grow. It also helps managers who want to support their employees in doing so. The defined boundaries of silo-based organizations limit possibilities. But managers who are able to reach beyond departments and functional borders are in a great position to source and create developmental opportunities and experiences. Stretch assignments in a different department. Cooperative job rotations. Informative meetings and client presentations. Possibilities multiply exponentially when managers and employees alike are able to tap a more expansive resource pool. Improve the mix.  When it comes to career development, the ‘mix’ refers to the countless ways to learn and grow. Too frequently people (managers and employees) think of career development as a promotion or a lateral move. But move-based thinking is inherently limiting.  New roles won’t necessarily be available when someone is ready to develop. You can improve the mix dramatically by considering in-job development. What activities or experiences can occur within the context of someone’s existing role?  This is an area that can be mined to spark great work and great development. Deliver the difference. In terms of great work, this skill refers to staying with something through its execution, implementation excellence, and persevering in service of results.  Career development requires the same focus. It’s easy to let the busy-ness of work, crunch periods, and short-term objectives obscure one’s longer-range goals. As a result, it’s important to develop a rigorous but flexible plan that ensures that career development gets the attention it deserves. Make a plan‘[1]’ that is: Documented - Putting it in writing signals that this is significant and that the manager and employee are taking it seriously. It acts as a reminder and helps to drive follow-up. Write it on paper or online -  rather than in concrete.  That way you can treat it as the living, breathing, and changeable tool that it is. Employee-Owned - Without buy-in, you might as well opt-out. Employees must take responsibility for their plans to generate the commitment and energy required to implement. Ownership skyrockets when the plan is personalized to the individual, focused and specific, and doable in light of other activities. Aligned with the employee’s goals. Linking the plan to short-term and long-term goals tests that the activities are worth the effort they will take. When the going gets tough, this overt linkage can sustain focus and energy forward and toward one’s bigger career objectives. Linked to the needs of the organization. Let’s get real here. We all know that resources are in short supply and support can be fickle. Both can be pulled at any time. Don’t jeopardize your development efforts. If what someone is doing to learn and develop directly contributes to the bigger picture, everyone is on safe and solid ground. In a time-starved, pressure-filled business environment, it’s helpful to understand that great work and great career development are driven by the same key behaviors. Cultivate skills in one context and you’ll see results in the other… which makes for the ultimate workplace win-win! [1] Excerpted from Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want by Julie Winkle Giulioni and Beverly Kaye and published by Berrett-Koehler. The post Great Work = Great Career Development appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Stefan Bernbo's blog post was featuredVirtualization and Moving to the Next Generation of Storage ArchitectureLegendary Intel co-founder Gordon Moore’s eponymous law holds that the number of transistors per square inch of chip will double every two years, a prediction that has held remarkably firm as incredibly tiny devices have been made increasingly powerful. In recent years, that assertion could be used to apply to the creation of data as well. An IDC study in 2011 showed that the amount of data created by every device and person in the world would be doubled every two years, with a staggering 1.8 zettabytes (1 billion terabytes) created in 2011 alone.A significant driver for this trend in the enterprise sector is the explosion of virtual machines. In virtualization, a software program is used to simulate the functions of physical hardware, offering new levels of flexibility and hardware cost savings as more and more hardware functionality is virtualized. Yet, as might be inferred, the rapid popularity of virtualization is allowing organizations to run substantially more applications at a given time, requiring near unheard-of levels of storage and renewing a focus on elegant management, flexibility and efficiency.To paraphrase the red queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, the entire storage ecosystem must therefore adapt to a virtualized world as fast as it can just to stay competitive.The Rise of VirtualizationVirtualization has become a significant trend for a number of reasons, chief among them cost savings and flexibility. One main benefit of virtualization is its ability to make more efficient use of the data center’s hardware. Typically, the physical servers in a data center are idling most of the time. By installing virtual servers inside the hardware, the organization can optimize the use of its CPU and make more use of the hardware, a solution that makes ideal use of virtualization’s benefits. That drives a company to virtualize more and more of their physical server that is one aspect, to save money.The other main benefit of virtualization is its ability to allow for more flexibility. It is more convenient to have infrastructure as virtual machines rather than physical machines. For example, if the organization wants to change hardware, the data center administrator can easily migrate the virtual server to the newer, more powerful hardware, getting even better performance for a smaller expenditure. Before the use of virtual servers was an option, administrators would need to install the new server and then reinstall and migrate all the data stored on the old server. That is much trickier. It is much easier to migrate a virtual machine than it is to migrate a physical one.Not just any data center is interested in virtualization. Data centers with a significant number of servers - somewhere in the range of 20-50 or above - are seriously beginning to consider turning these servers into virtual machines. First, these organizations can reap substantial levels of the cost savings and flexibility benefits described above. In addition, virtualizing one’s servers makes them far easier to manage. The sheer physical challenge of administrating a certain number of physical servers can become challenging for data center staff. Virtualization makes data center management easier by allowing administrators to run the same total number of servers on fewer physical machines.New Storage DemandsYet for all the clear benefits of virtualization, the trend towards greater adoption of virtual servers is placing stress on traditional data center infrastructure and storage devices.In a sense, the problem is a direct result of the popularity of VMs in the first place. The very first virtual machines made use of the local storage found within the physical server. That made it impossible for administrators to migrate a virtual machine in one physical server to another physical server with a more powerful CPU. Introducing shared storage - either a NAS or a SAN - to the VM hosts solved this problem, and its success paved the way for stacking on more and more virtual machines, which all became located in shared storage. Eventually the situation matured to today’s server virtualization scenario, where all physical servers and VMs are connected to the same storage.The problem? Data congestion.A single point of entry becomes a single point of failure very quickly, and with all data flow forced through a single gateway, data gets bogged down swiftly during periods of high demand. With the number of VMs and quantity of data only projected to grow to ever-dizzier levels, it is clear that this approach to storage architecture must be improved. The architecture must keep running to keep up with the pace of data growth.Early adopters of virtualized servers - such as major service providers or telcos - have already encountered this issue and are taking steps to reduce its impact. As other organizations start to make their data center virtualized, they will run into this issue as well. It is a growing problem.Yet there is hope. Organizations seeking to maximize the benefits of virtualization while avoiding the data congestion issues caused by traditional scale-out environments are able to ensure that their storage architectures are keeping pace with their rate of VM usage; specifically, by removing the single point of entry. NAS or SAN storage solutions today inevitably have just a single gateway that controls the flow of data, leading to congestion when demand spikes. Instead, organizations should seek solutions that have multiple data entry points and distribute load evenly among all servers. That way the system retains optimal performance and reduces lagtime, even with being accessed by several users at once.While this approach represents the most straightforward fix, the next generation of storage architecture is suggesting another alternative as well.Merging Computing and StorageArising to meet the storage challenge of scale-out virtual environments, the practice of actually running VMs inside the storage node themselves (or running the storage inside the VM hosts) - thereby turning it into a compute node - is fast becoming next generation in storage architectures.Essentially, in this approach, the entire architecture is flattened out. For example, if the organization is using shared storage in a SAN, typically the VM hosts from the top of the storage layer, essentially turning it into one huge storage system with a single entry point. To solve the data congestion problems this approach creates, some organizations are moving away from the traditional two-layer architecture that has both the virtual machines and the storage running out of the same layer.The trend towards greater virtualization of infrastructure is not slowing down anytime soon. Indeed, more and more companies will adopt virtualization, and will run into the performance lag issues described above. Yet by taking a cue from the early adopters who have created the best practices above, organizations can develop a successful scale-out virtual environment that maximizes performance while keeping infrastructure costs low.Stefan Bernbo is the founder and CEO of Compuverde.See More