Ernest Sampera's blog post was featuredBoston Improves Quality of Life with New Smart City CloudBostonians may soon enjoy an improved quality of life thanks to a new cloud-based smart city system. The system, which is run by state and local governments, is called SCOPE the Smart city Cloud-based Open Platform Ecosystem.According to Rafik B. Hariri at Boston University’s Institute for Computing in computational science and engineering, they’re working with private sector and local and state agencies to "develop and implement smart-city services that aim to improve the quality of urban life".These services can include reducing traffic congestion, improving public safety, monitoring greenhouse emissions, using sensor networking for traffic light control, pulling data from multiple sources that allows better public work scheduling and route planning, and much more.According to the director of the Hariri Institute, Azer Bestavros, "Today’s cities are increasingly being challenged to respond to diverse needs of their citizens, to prepare for major environmental changes, to improve urban quality of life and to foster economic development. So-called ‘smart cities’ are closing these gaps through the use of technology to connect people with resources, to guide changes in collective behavior, and to foster innovation and economic growth."These services will be offered using the Massachusetts Open Cloud (MOC), which according to TechCrunch can be described as an "ad-hoc infrastructure marketplace". The MOC will allow many partners to compete in the same cloud infrastructure. This has the desired goal of creating a multisided cloud marketplace where innovation can flourish.Peter Desnoyers, a Northern University professor who helped launch the MOC says that companies like Amazon offer useful services, but they have certain limitations. These companies have a closed system and from an academic perspective, researchers and academics who wish to study their system are shut out. Contributions from private companies and open source alike will contribute both equipment and talent which will be used to create open source tools.Desnoyers said the MOC marketplace will allow multiple vendors to offer ad-hoc services so you could get your compute power from one vendor and your storage from another. The project will be located at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke, Mass.Jan Mark Holtzer, a senior consulting engineer for the CTO office at Red Hat, said: "For us I would see the key opportunities we see around MOC is operational access, understanding large scale cloud infrastructure, and growing skills [around these areas]. We will rotate resources from support and consulting organizations so they can get first-hand experience."This is one way SCOPE and the MOS will together improve the lives of Bostonians. It could be a sign of great things to come for improving quality of life in many major cities.Ernest Sampera is Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for vXchnge.See More

It’s been a tough week. Our son - the most remarkable, capable, smart, fun, likable, insightful young man I know (a completely unbiased assessment) -  moved into his first apartment. While I’m bursting with pride that he’s so well-prepared for and excited about the next phase of his life, it’s a loss… and it changes everything. So it’s likely no coincidence that I "accidentally" came across this quote: "We’re wired for attachment in a world of impermanence," according to Robert Neimeyer, a psychologist at University of Memphis. "How we negotiate that tension shapes who we become." Perhaps the key to life is gracefully accepting the impermanence. Perhaps it’s the key to business success as well. Excessive attachments in today’s warp-speed world shape not only who we become - but what our organizations become. Could ‘holding on’ be holding us back? Holding on to ideas… Becoming attached to one idea, approach, or solution can close the mind to others. Gracefully letting go allows for better approaches and greater collaboration with others. Holding on to customers… Customer bases are intended to change, yet too frequently we hold tightly to known entities - and known revenue streams. Relationships that linger beyond their natural expiration dates sour, leaving lasting bad impressions. Holding on to business models… What worked yesterday may not work today, and you’re nearly guaranteed that it won’t work tomorrow. Changing how we do business - adapting to evolving conditions - is essential for survival and success. Exploiting the impermanence proactively offers an unbeatable competitive advantage. Holding on to employees… A leader’s greatest achievement is developing others and preparing them to move on. Yet, it’s also many leaders’ greatest nightmare. A desire to maintain the status quo translates into a range of machinations (some benevolent - and some heavy-handed) to retain talent that should be released to greater opportunities. Holding on to what’s known and comfortable is natural, but it’s also limiting. The struggle to maintain what is can compromise today’s happiness and tomorrow’s success. ‘Negotiating the tension’ of our son’s departure from the family home and letting go with grace is easier when I focus on the gifts associated with the change: his expanded capacity, growth, and happiness. Motherly attachment over the past 22 years has shaped who I am… perhaps gracefully letting go will help shape who I’ll become. What about you? What do you need or want to let go of?  What gifts do you recognize in the changes happening around you? This post originally appeared at Lead Change Group. The post Letting Go with Grace appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Jason Wesbecher's blog post was featuredHow I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AlgorithmLadies and gentlemen, it’s time to let bygones be bygones.Forget the gut-wrenching, panic-attack-inducing meetings you sat through every time a Google tweak decimated your page rank. Lose the Matrix-like fear of genius machines hacking into your brain and stealing your soul. Stop lamenting the dark side of data. In the words of every 8-year-old girl on the planet, and one or two 40-something dads I know (ahem): let it gooooooooooo. Yes, data science is encroaching on virtually every aspect of our lives. And it’s a good thing. Good for our social lives, good for our careers, even good for our health. Peek under the hood of the businesses you love, and you’ll most likely find algorithms enabling better, faster, more positive experiences for you.Take Google’s algorithm-updating obsession. While it may feel like (and even be) a giant middle finger to corporate interests, it’s first and foremost a love letter to Google users. A letter that says, "We care about the quality of your experience with our product. We’re listening to what you want, and we’re committed to giving it to you."That’s a valentine every organization should send to their customers. Those that do, and then really listen to the response, are discovering what Google has known all along (and why it owns 58% of the search space):People define great customer experience as getting exactly what they want.What people want almost always involves some level of human connection.Nothing connects people quite like an algorithm.Ears Wide OpenMore and more, businesses are hearing that message, and deploying ever more sophisticated algorithms in response—at a dizzying rate, with an astonishing degree of specificity, and with massive gains on both sides of the transaction equation.There may be no clearer case in point than the world of online dating. Dating sites live and die on the quality of the connections they make, and they’re using algorithms to inject modern science into good old-fashioned chemistry.Industry pioneer eHarmony employs algorithms that tell users which photos to use and how to crop them, to increase the chances of a connection. OKCupid uses them to back up every mom’s promise to her awkward teen that "there’s someone for everyone," by ensuring each user sees some inbox action. And niche dating sites are taking personalization to the extreme. A farmer, a Republican, a vegetarian, a pet-lover—whatever your ideal date or mate is into, there’s an algorithm out there working hard to hook you two up.Speaking of hookups, you can also thank an algorithm the next time your Zappos box shows up in time for your big night out. With 120 stops to make per day, the average UPS driver faces a near-infinite number of possible route combinations. The company’s Orion program constantly calibrates and recalibrates those routes based on traffic patterns and weather conditions, serving up the fastest, most efficient path to every customer’s door, every time. (One of Orion’s key findings? Eliminate left turns. Try to spot a UPS driver making a left turn at an intersection. Hint: you won’t.) Algorithms are also dramatically improving what have traditionally been some of the worst customer experiences: think call centers, hotels, air travel.  Situations you tend to brace yourself for are starting to become… wait for it… pleasant, via the magic of algorithms. They’re even facilitating connections across time and space.  Deep Dense Face Detector is using algorithms to revolutionize image search.  When it arrives, we will be able to search any picture, film or video across the history of humanity which, in their words, is going to make the world "a much smaller place."That, right there, is the real power of algorithms. They aren’t fracturing our world; they’re uniting it. They don’t dehumanize our relationships; they deepen them. And they don’t separate businesses from customers; they bring them together.We have an insatiable need for human connection hard-wired into us. Anything feeding that need is only going to grow, which means the algorithm is here to stay. So sit back and relax. With data science fueling the journey, you’re guaranteed to end up exactly where you want to be… with fewer left turns along the way.Jason Wesbecher is a technology entrepreneur and C-level executive at Mattersight.See More

Ian Heath's blog post was featuredWill 2015 Be the Year Tech Enters the Political Mainstream?You’ve probably heard - you may even have begun to tire of the wall to wall coverage - but on Thursday 7th May, Britain will go to the polls to vote for the next government.Thanks to the rise of UKIP, the SNP and the Greens, and the vagaries of the first-past-the-post voting system, the result is almost impossible to predict. The potential outcomes range from majority governments for either the Conservatives or Labour (unlikely, on current polling), to various flavours of coalition or minority government, depending on the final tally of seats for each party.You might think this a recipe for policy paralysis. However, when it comes to technology and digital transformation of the public sector, there is good reason to think that the work begun by the present government will largely continue.The Conservative-led coalition entered office pledging to be the most digital government ever. Under the leadership of Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office has driven Whitehall savings of more than £14.5billion since 2010. Renegotiating contracts with large IT suppliers, and adopting open source and cloud-based solutions have made a major contribution to this.Another key reform has been the Government Digital Service (GDS), which has revolutionised the way government delivers citizen services. By bringing in outside talent, and focusing on user needs and good design principles, GDS has been able to transform a wide range of services people use every day. Citizens can now register to vote, renew a patent, apply for carer’s allowance, and even book a prison visit, using online processes as straightforward as anything produced by the likes of Google or Amazon.At the Autumn Statement in December, the Government provided the first details of its plans to continue the digital revolution after the election. There will be more use of cloud-based services and more digitisation, but instead of simply putting services online, the goal is to increase digital uptake of services to 90% by 2020 by developing new cross-government platforms to deliver payments, track applications (e.g. for a driving license or passport), and book appointments. And to encourage private sector innovation, all new digital services will be available via an open Application Programming Interface (API) as well as a web browser, and more data sets will be opened up. Many of these ideas were first proposed by Policy Exchange’s Tech Manifesto for government, which EMC supported.If the Conservatives intend to go further and faster on government transformation, what of the two other main parties? Labour has shown an increasing interest in digital issues in recent months. For example, in November the Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Chi Onwurah published details of her party’s Digital Government Review.Broadly, Labour would continue much of the current agenda. Key elements such as GDS leading work to digitise public services to improve quality and efficiency, making smarter use of data, and reforming procurement to bring in SMEs would all continue. Labour also favours using common architectures based on open standards, opening up APIs and developing more agile and innovative solutions.However, there would also be some important changes of emphasis. Most importantly, there would be a greater focus on trust, transparency and security, particularly in relation to the use of citizen data. Labour would publish a review of data sharing and privacy within 90 days of entering office, with a view to providing citizens with more information and control over how their data is used. Citizens’ ownership of their own data would also be made explicit, and there would be limits on government’s ability to pass data on to third parties for commercial gain without their consent.More emphasis would also be placed on inclusion and digital skills, both for citizens and within the public sector. From a citizen perspective, digital services would be designed to be accessible by all members of society, including the most excluded and disadvantaged. Investment would be made in boosting citizens’ digital skills to ensure everyone is able to use digital services. A new ‘social benefit’ test would be applied when creating digital services to apply technology to solve the most difficult social problems, as opposed to simply reducing costs for the highest volume transactional services.This would apply equally to local and central government, and Labour would do more to encourage local authorities to collaborate and develop shared services. And across government as a whole, leadership and skills would be made a higher priority. Government transformation would become a Cabinet level priority, and there would be more training to improve digital skills throughout the civil service.Of the three main parties, the Liberal Democrats have said the least about applying technology to transform the public sector. A handful of figures, notably Julian Huppert and Lord Wallace of Saltaire, are however engaged in the issues and understand the need to go continue the digital revolution. The party has recently launched an Entrepreneurs Network to engage with the tech sector and help influence the development of Liberal Democrat policy. Like Labour, the party’s starting point is to place greater emphasis on digital inclusion and protecting individual rights in areas like data sharing, and less on simply achieving cost savings.Nevertheless there is a remarkable amount of consensus between the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats over the digital agenda. This is hardly surprising given that all three parties are committed to delivering significant further spending cuts in the next Parliament, although the level of cuts proposed by each does begin to differ post 2015-16.According to the respected independent body the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Conservatives’ plans post 2015-16 imply further cuts of 6.7% (£24.9bn), while Labour’s imply savings of 1.4% (£5.2bn), and the Liberal Democrats’ imply savings of 2.1% (£7.9bn). In order to achieve these, the next government, whatever its makeup, will need to build on the progress achieved to date.It will need to accelerate the pace of transformation to deliver services more efficiently while meeting citizens’ rising expectations and tackling key challenges like the ageing population and rise of long term conditions.Ian Heath is Director of Public Sector at EMC.See More

In their recent HBR blog post, Judith and Richard Glaser explore the neurochemistry of conversation. They explain that: "When we face criticism, rejection or fear, when we feel marginalized or minimized, our bodies produce higher levels of cortisol, a hormone that shuts down the thinking center of our brain [… causing us to] become more reactive and sensitive." They go on to explain that positive interactions and conversations also create a chemical reaction: "They spur the production of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that elevates our ability to communicate, collaborate, and trust others by activating networks in our prefrontal cortex." The nature of the conversations we have with others activates chemicals in their brains that result in a range of reactions and emotions. This applies to all conversation; but overlay the context of career (which taps into our hopes, fears, ambitions, sense of self, level of respect, not to mention money), and you have a complex cocktail of chemicals with which to contend. That’s why taking an intentional and constructive approach to career development via dialogue is so crucial. Handled poorly, leaders can unintentionally undermine confidence, increase stress, and generate physical reactions that reduce an employee’s ability to learn, perform, and grow. But, handled well, career conversation can create an upward spiral of positive emotions and behaviors that lead to greater success. So, what oxytocin-generating actions can a leader take to support others in their career development? Focus on strengths. Help employees understand and appreciate their unique talents and abilities. Catch people doing things well and let them know. Work with others to ensure they are using their strengths daily. Let them teach what they do well to others. This conscious attention to areas of excellence and special contributions helps to bathe the brain in helpful hormones. Remove fear from the future. Work with employees to help them understand the evolving workplace and business landscape. Let’s face it… things are changing. But change doesn’t have to be scary. When we understand the forces at play and can anticipate what’s around the corner, we feel more powerful and ready to respond. Engaging in a positive dialogue about the possibilities that the future may bring will activate the chemicals designed to enable more creative and collaborative responses. Reframe mistakes. When something doesn’t turn out as planned, it can be experienced either as a failure or as an opportunity to learn.  How leaders choose to perceive the situation has a powerful effect on how employees respond… chemically and behaviorally. When mistakes are accepted as a natural part of growth and development, the conversation is constructive and focused on extracting lessons that can be leveraged in the future. Resolving the situation becomes less about ‘cleaning up a mess’ and more about exploring new techniques and approaches that might yield better results. The chemistry, development and results are entirely different… and more productive… when approached like this. Find steps forward. In today’s flatter organizations, promotions and moves are frequently less plentiful than in the past. It’s easy for employees to adopt scarcity-based career beliefs, thinking that opportunities are not available to them. The discouragement and fear associated with these reactions generate chemicals in the brain that heighten sensitivity and reactivity. Keep employee brains working creatively and productively by focusing on possibilities. If the promotion someone wants isn’t available, explore what enhancements could be made to current responsibilities so they might enjoy some of what the other position might have entailed. Help people find ways to mine their current jobs for ongoing growth in-role or as a stepping-stone to something else. Leaders in organizations today will perform better with the understanding that they are also chemists - that the way they choose to interact with others generates not just psychological but also physiological reactions. So, do your own chemistry experiment by engaging in a positive career conversation. What about you? What ideas do you have for helping the hormones with positive career development? The post Career Conversations: A Chemistry Experiment appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

James Monsees's blog post was featuredDarwin’s Lessons for Consumer ProductsFrom music to hospitality, most industries face perforce disruption. It’s exciting because in many cases, we’re seeing an overturn of the status quo, resulting in a new landscape for both businesses and consumers. Show-stealing disruptors are gleefully redefining "business as usual."  But here’s what I find most interesting: If we look closely, we see that these monumental shifts aren’t what’s driving change and giving consumers the best possible products; rather, it’s a less dramatic undercurrent: the steady march of evolution. The information age has enabled the most promising developments in consumer-centric products. Easy access to funding, collaboration of expertise, and shared tribal knowledge produce a high volume of ideas for adapting, modifying, and fundamentally changing products. The world is buzzing with quickly failing ideas that make the ones that stick the strongest possible. Successful companies are actually improving on something in a way that makes existing products obsolete. Although we’re releasing new and improved products in the process of disruption, the most important part of this is to take the superior aspects of these products and develop something fundamentally better. If you put something better out there, consumers will naturally select the best available item, subjecting companies and ideas to the Darwinian principles of the survival of the fittest.Tribal Knowledge and the Growth of Ideas Nothing has contributed to product evolution more than the information age. People with a passion to experiment have cheaper, more readily available tools to expedite learning. That wasn’t the case when I was growing up, fascinated by my dad’s work as an electrical engineer. If you wanted to learn about his field, you had to go to a store such as Gateway Electronics — a St. Louis staple for coveted tribal knowledge and interesting, random components.Now you don’t need to seek a physical center; it’s easy to connect to the tribe online to learn and contribute ideas. You can learn about any subject, then go straight to the source to understand whether people want your product. When information was siloed, consultants were the select few outside the tribe with behind-the-scenes access. But now those walls have crumbled, and freedom of information allows Stanford’s d.school and companies such as IDEO to exist. These organizations have the same access to information as you, but they take that knowledge and use it to make prototypes and help companies envision the future.   We now have 3D printing on desktop computers, which allows us to create prototypes for a fraction of the cost and time it would have taken a few years ago. This has made testing, validating, and implementing new concepts much simpler. It also allows for a greater volume of more viable products to be put in front of consumers.Fifty years ago, if you wanted evolution in the tobacco industry, you had to build a radically different company. To do that, you needed to work at one of the established companies because only the incumbents held relevant tribal knowledge.But when my co-founder and I began researching the tobacco industry, we started reading patent documents and TobaccoDocuments.org. These two resources were invaluable to gaining a clear understanding of the tobacco product evolution. Soon, we had a comprehensive view of the tobacco landscape, what it would take to change it, and how we needed to shape our product.Adapting to the Evolution Mindset Trying to survive as things evolve can be challenging — even painful. As a kid, I was really into programming with HyperCard. When PowerPC was introduced, my dad took me to a satellite introduction at Washington University, and I raised my hand to ask the guy on stage what would happen to HyperCard. He said HyperCard — the program I’d spent all that time learning — would soon be eclipsed by newer technology. At the time, I was really disappointed. But this is the kind of abandonment that’s required in order to stay on the cutting edge.But this isn’t the norm for large corporations. Often, the best perceived return on investment is protecting existing interests and making it hard for other companies to enter their space. For example, when Hampton Creek’s new eggless mayonnaise made headlines as a safer alternative to the salmonella-prone recipe, Unilever responded by suing the brand. There are two corporate approaches to evolution: reject or embrace. Just as Unilever has stuck to its original recipe that poses real threats of salmonella, Microsoft continues to cling to PowerPoint, even though it houses millions of lines of unnecessary code left over from past features. These larger firms are more resistant to death due to their size, but unbending resistance positions them for failure.Apple, on the other hand, has a long history of trashing entire platforms when they aren’t fit enough to survive, and that certainly isn’t hurting its bottom line. Embracing evolution and adapting can be a profitable path for corporations that are willing to take the risk. For example, the desirable traits brought to the market by the iPhone have flourished and continue to be featured on each new generation of the iPhone. Blackberry failed to embrace these changes. The results of this evolution provide better options for consumers and give innovative market leaders the edge and support for further evolutionary products or services. Whereas disruption is important to upset stasis in a broad sense, it’s consumer-focused, evolutionary change that’s ultimately responsible for improved products. That’s where real success of venture capital comes from: generating a wealth of new ideas that can try their hardest to live in this disrupted space, giving consumers the chance to choose the best among them. We need a glut of startups, and we need most of them to fail. It’s survival of the fittest, and if Darwin’s theory of evolution applies, then we’ll be left with only the best products. James Monsees is the CEO and co-founder of Ploom.See More

There seems to be a trend in development today… maybe you’ve noticed it.  Perhaps because they’re woefully overburdened with spans of control that are inhuman and inhumane, or perhaps because training and development budgets have been cut to the bone yet again leaving in their wake a sense of scarcity, or perhaps because the corporate ladder has narrowed dramatically and the rungs that are left look a bit rickety - whatever the reason, managers are willingly accepting their employees’ lack of interest in development. Working with several organizations recently, I’ve experienced many managers who respond with relief when their employees express a sentiment like, "No thank you… I’m fine just as/where I am" in response to development opportunities.  There seems to be a growing sentiment that limited resources should not be wasted on those who are disinterested in growth.  Time and training is being invested only in high potentials and those who demonstrate an active interest in development. But instead of accepting this indifference, managers should be saying to all employees ‘grow or go home’ because in organizations today, the reality is ‘develop or die’. Employees who are not developing are actively lagging behind. Given the speed of business, the always-changing landscape and the ever-escalating expectations of customers and markets, you can’t afford for anyone to stand still.  What got people to where they are today will fall miserably short of keeping them there… and cannot possibly allow your organization to thrive or even survive given today’s business conditions. As a result, leaders must re-educate employees and help anyone who thinks they’re ‘just fine’ to understand that, in absence of ongoing development, they are anything but fine. And leaders can do this with three short and clear messages designed to blow past the current (and disconcertingly accepted) inertia. Stasis will sink us! Employees deserve and need to develop greater business acumen, understanding current conditions, customer expectations, and competitive threats.  They should not be shielded from business realities, but rather educated about them.  Well-informed employees will understand the urgency behind development when they appreciate the tremendous pressures facing the organization and the implications associated with not evolving and keeping pace. Growth doesn’t mean going anywhere! Many employees resist growth because they equate it with promotions and moves. But someone who enjoys his or her current role rarely has to decline development for fear of changing jobs. Development in place is available to all employees - and should be a consistent expectation or requirement. One can always deepen or broaden their skills right where they’re currently sitting. It’s not about you! Too frequently, employees believe that development is some sort of personal invitation, opportunity, or gift to them. They believe that declining it is no big deal because it affects no one but themselves. But this is self-involved thinking. Certainly, development benefits the individual… but it also benefits the organization as a whole. Deciding to say ‘no’ to growth doesn’t just condemn the individual to stagnation; it also limits the organization.  As a result, employees need to be reminded that it’s not just about them. So, as tempting as it might be to move those who aren’t interested in development off to the side and focus on those who actively step up to the opportunity, leaders need to challenge all employees to grow… or go home. The post Develop or Die appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Jared Magill's blog post was featuredThe Crooked Path to Determining Liability in Data Breach CasesFrom the high-stakes international intrigue and political espionage of Stuxnet, to the Sony hack of late 2014, which was first tentatively credited to pranksters, and later to conceded to North Korean hackers, the past few years have showcased pretty much every existing version, and underlying motive of cyber-attack — from outright warfare to hacktivist vandalism — all over the news headlines.The tech blogging community, always rife with takes, is speculating that cyberterrorism will become the new norm, or projecting that over the next century, international conflict will be best defined by state-sponsored cyber warfare, while at the same time — and this may just be a rhetorical safety default that just lends itself to more blog content down the road — admitting that the advanced threat landscape is, and shall remain predictably unpredictable. That is, except for the surefire prediction that more breaches will likely occur, and at increasing rates of frequency.I’m right there in all three of those camps, not forgetting what I said about default safety.Meanwhile, consumers and citizens in hotbed-of-political-intrigue-type nation states, like the U.S. linger in what sometimes feels more like a refugee camp wondering, about the general stakes in all this. The assumption of at least some minimum level of legal responsibilities that should be borne by commercial agencies with whom the public voluntarily shares things like personal contact information, credit card numbers, and email addresses, in the event those agencies, fall victim to another predictably unpredictable cyber attack seem perfectly reasonable. But the exact location of that threshold scarcely makes its way into mass media coverage.In most of the man-bites-doggish coverage, it’s typically political intrigue, system downtimes, lost corporate revenues, and celebrity gossip mixed into the whole archetypal hero-villain interplay at center stage of class action lawsuits the usually result from data breach cases.Other more ordinary, dog-bites-man-man-sues-dog-owner type news reports may focus on the aftermath of contested class action lawsuits, civil proceedings, and perhaps in rare cases, questions of criminal negligence. But those types tend to find far less media traction, and fall woefully short of informing the public about prevailing legal recourse, and instead — at least for some of us — rummage back into the annals of bygone undergrad survey of law and social change, or special topics lit classes to retrieve echoes of the Kafka parable, "Before the Law."Before the law sits a gatekeeper … so the parable goes.And in this case maybe it’s name is education, or media, or the initiatives of the powerful in a trickle-down political ecosystem. Since I’ve drawn an admittedly cliché Kafka comparison, we can call it whatever we want. That is the real beauty of invoking Kafka afterall; indeterminacy, so that must be the subject.Stay with me now as we work our way toward a conversation about the law, cybercrime, and cybercrime education, and why that should include education about cybercrime law.The Indeterminate History of Cybercrime LawBack in 2010, the Obama administration initiated a top-to-bottom assessment of federal cyber security policies. The findings were published in a report titled, "Cyberspace Policy Review," and those sparked the creation of a federal cybersecurity office. SInce then, federal cybersecurity policy initiatives are directed by a series of documents, also created as a result of the Cyberspace Policy Review. Among those is the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) which, apart from determining how to support coordination and tactical operation plans, also reflects The Whitehouse’s larger agenda for across-the-board cybersecurity education. The document describes cybersecurity as "much more than technological solutions to technical problems; it is also highly dependent on educated users who are aware of and routinely employ sound practices when dealing with cyberspace."Now more than four years later, some questions remain. For one, have federal cybersecurity education initiatives become widespread, standardized, and effective enough to have negated, or at least dulled imminent threats of cybercrime? Not exactly.A decade ago, in 2005, the U.S. Bureau of Justice released its first ever report on cybercrime attacks against businesses. Of the 7, 818 business that participated in the study, 67 percent detected at least one incident of cybercrime that year. Greater than 80 percent of victimized businesses detected multiple incidents. Half of victimized businesses detected 10 or more incidents, while nearly 70 percent of cyber theft victims sustained losses of $10,000 or more. And cyber theft was just one cybercrime category. One third of victims of other types of cybercrime also suffer losses greater than $10,000. In total, cybercrimes cost those businesses that participated in the study $867 million. And according to the U.S. Department of Justice, the majority of businesses "did not report cybercrime attacks to law enforcement."Then in 2013, Ponemon Institute conducted a cybersecurity study of 60 companies. That study concluded that the average number of successful attacks experienced by those 60 companies averaged two per week — in excess of 100 attacks annually — with an average annualized cost for those 60 businesses of $11.6 million. One distinct point made by that study was that smaller businesses tend to experience far greater per capita losses.Particular differences in the research models between those studies notwithstanding, the two reports generally establish that in spite of widespread federal initiatives to allocate resources, implement tactical planning, educate business entities that operate in cyberspace to "routinely employ sound practices when dealing with cyberspace," cybercrime has become more widespread, and more costly.Statistics on cybercrime are far from being an indeterminate Kafka parable. What is a little Kafkaesque is the fact that most of the reports focus on losses to business, and how educating the public in best practices will help stem those losses while legislation that protects the public from negligent business practices, and education that informs the public about legal recourse in the event they’re victimized, is scarcely mentioned. So far, regulation of legal recourse for individuals damaged in cyberattacks is left up to the powers and interests of states.So yes, more needs to be done in the way of education, but not just the type of education initiatives that protect business from public ignorance. The NICE report describes the issue of cybersecurity as "much more than technological solutions to technical problems; it is also highly dependent on educated users who are aware of and routinely employ sound practices when dealing with cyberspace." Not that it isn’t a good thing, it’s just focused to only one front. The language of NICE invokes personal responsibility of users by looking to make basic cybersecurity best practices common knowledge, which will certainly help in the long term. But what happens when people like Sony employees, who didn’t click malicious links or set weak passwords, have their personal data fall into abusive hands because of company negligence? Employees’ lack of security education was not the dime the Sony data breach turned on. And yes, Sony, as an entity, probably suffered more net damages from their failure to establish better advanced threat defense than any single employee stands to lose even if they have their identities stolen. Does that make the legal process that is available to them less worthy of becoming common knowledge?The people pushing for an equal measure of federal legislation and/or execution to set across-the-board legal standard to protect individual rights say best practices should go both ways.The Line Where the Gatekeeper StandsThe Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act of 2014. Just over a year ago, in the wake of the Target and Nieman Marcus attacks, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D) Ct., introduced the Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act of 2014. The bill was not enacted, and was reintroduced several times throughout 2014. The data protection bill, which will probably be enacted in some version eventually, would provide severe civil and criminal penalties for concealing when a security breach occurs that puts an individual’s personally identifiable information at risk. The act applies to government agencies and interstate businesses with the exemption of financial institutions subject to the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act and businesses bound by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Services providers that act as intermediary agents in transmitting, routing and data storage are also exempted.Congress responds to security breaches. The large-scale data breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus, Home Depot and Chase prompted the federal government to take action and impose severe penalties for companies that fail to properly report breaches. Public pressure has added fuel to the fire and numerous bills have been introduced in an attempt to answer the data security issue. The change in tack now includes criminal penalties for those who knowingly fail to report a security breach. The Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act of 2014 includes fines and possibly jail time of up to five years for serious infractions.In 2013 alone, there were nearly 600 data breaches that affected consumers.Increased accountability for businesses. Under the new legislation, companies that want to avoid charges must now notify individuals in the event of a security breach. The new law applies to any company that maintains personally identifiable information on 10,000 or more United States citizens. The act grants the Attorney General powers to bring civil actions or request injunctive relief against any businesses that violate any of the legislated statutes. Additionally, individuals affected by a breach can bring a civil action against a company to recover personal injuries, including emotional distress, brought on by the breach.Requirements for businesses. The act requires any agency or instate business that uses personally identifiable information about U.S. citizens to maintain procedures designed to alert individuals without delay. Law enforcement agencies may block notifications if alerting the affected individual would get in the way of an ongoing criminal investigation or intelligence activity. There are two ways to avoid the need for a notification.If the business is contacted by the U.S. Secret Service or FBI and is asked to withhold notifications, or if the company works with the FTC to conduct a risk assessment. In the latter case, the FTC may provide an exemption and not require the business to go forward with notifications. If notifications are mandated, businesses can do so by sending written notice to the last known mailing address or email address. However, electronic notification is only allowed if more than 5,000 individuals are involved.Remedies required by businesses. In the event of a breach, companies are required to provide two years of a credit monitoring service, compensation for any damages and a security freeze on the consumer's credit report. Because of the potential cost of compensating customers, it has become more important than ever to have a qualified and alert IT administrative staff. Since the act only requires one person to be affected by the security breach, this should be a wakeup calls to companies that no security breach is acceptable.Limits on information. The bill is clearly designed to prevent businesses from mining information from consumers. It's clear that if a company doesn't take the proper precautions to encrypt or obscure customer information, that the federal government is going to be intent on pursuing restitution from the company. The measure enacted by Congress puts limits on the type of information that a company can collect in the first place. Additionally, strict timelines require that companies must purge information after a certain amount of time. This could put companies that engage in quasi-financial operations, such as companies that act solely as merchant processors, at risk of losing valuable information on specific individuals. For example, a merchant processor like PayPal is not a financial institution, so it may be required to purge information from inactive users after a certain period of time.Sensitive personally identifiable information. The act clearly lays out what is considered sensitive personally identifiable information. It makes sense for companies to only collect the bare information needed to provide services to customers. The first and last name or first initial and last name along with a home address, telephone number, mother's maiden name or the month, day, and year of birth are considered identifiable information. Additionally, full social security numbers, driver's license numbers, passport numbers, alien registration numbers or other government assigned identification numbers. Information about an individuals geographic location, biometric data and a long list of other factors that could potentially identify an individual.Internet technology, as a public utility — God willing — is the primary driving vehicle of commerce, but that shouldn’t make it a free ride for businesses. Because the primacy of IT continues to grow, IT Security has never been more pressing an issue. Moving forward, companies will come to understand that they must establish advanced threat defenses for their networks, and establish strict protocols for methods of collecting and storing customer information. Either that, or suffer consequences. Ultimately, it would be up to the business to safeguard and protect consumer information.In civil lawsuits filed by former employees against Sony, the media giant is arguing that data theft isn’t a harm in and of itself, and so the persistent threat now facing employees whose personal information was compromised, warrants no penalty. Public eyes are more focused on ISIS and Ebola because that’s what they’ve been educated to focus on. Senator Blumenthal’s bill hasn’t yet found enough support to even make it to a vote. And in the Kafka parable, the protagonist dies of old age at the gatekeeper’s feet before figuring out what to do. What will we do?Jared Magill is a freelance journalist, content manager, writer, and editor at the Utah-based digital marketing agency 97th Floor.See More

For many, CEOs are an enigma.  Where do they come from? What are they thinking?  What is their special brand of business magic? GetVoIP has conducted extensive research to answer these and other key questions. Since I’m on vacation, this week’s post is more of a ‘post-card’ or picture - an info graphic developed by the GetVoIP team, lead by CEO Reuben Yonatan.  It answers some pressing questions we all have about the person at the top… and also outlines six toxic CEO profiles that can offer cautionary tales for leaders at all levels.  Enjoy!   How about some examples of terrific CEOs?…. Share your terrific (as well as toxic) stories. The post What You Need to Know… about the CEO appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Eric Handa posted a blog postHow Emerging Markets Have Turned Tech Innovation, Adoption Into the 'Norm'Working in emerging markets over the last few years has given us a good grassroot’s view of the impact that telecommunications technology has had and continues to have on the population.Some of the markets that we at APTelecom spend significant time in include Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand, so let’s have a high-level look at these markets specifically.1. Cambodia: In Cambodia, we see significant competition in the mobile sector with an unrealistic number of operators vying for market share in a country with a population of only 15m. This has led to aggressive offers from the operators, in particular mobile data plans (~USD5 per month) which in turn, is driving an unusually high uptake in smartphones, which certainly isn’t what you would expect in a market where the average worker is earning well below USD200 per month. With the flood of cheap Android devices (typically Chinese manufactured) accessing the Internet has now become much less prohibitive.2. Indonesia: Over in Indonesia, it’s a different story with regard to mobiles. With very limited access to fixed line infrastructure, there are well over 280m mobile subscribers, 98% are prepaid and data usage accounts for ~30% of their monthly spend. It’s one of the largest smartphone markets in the world. To further drive home the point, Indonesia has the highest rate of Facebook penetration in SE Asia with 96% of the on-line population in Indonesia owning a Facebook page.In both the Cambodian and Indonesian markets, the concept of having a landline at home, delivering Internet services isn’t something that will become a reality for many years to come and in many rural areas, will probably never happen.3. Thailand: Thailand on the other hand, has great access to infrastructure both fixed and mobile (2G, 3G & 4G). Pricing is reasonable for data services - we see unlimited data plans for ~USD25 per month and also restricted data plans for a few dollars a month if users simply want to access a couple of IM platforms. The market is rational in most ways, for example, there are only 4 mobile operators competing amongst a population base of 67m people, which enables all operators to continue to invest in network infrastructure, leading to a positive user experience.Emerging markets as a category is a bit misleading in the context of technology. Each country with-in this category is unique and has its own set of challenges be it political, commercial or plain and simple geographic challenges. We expanded on a lot of these trends at our recent "State of Subsea’ event in Bangkok".This article posted from deep in the jungle on the Thai/Cambodia border via a 4G network -- something that never would have been possible a few years ago.Eric Handa is co-founder and CEO of APTelecom, a telecom and fiber consulting company specializing in emerging markets.See More