Gary Newe's blog post was featured10 Steps to Mitigate a DDoS Attack in Real TimeCybercrime has become a prominent national issue, elevated further thanks to several recent high-profile hacks and DDoS attacks. The fight-back has also intensified as shown by the recent arrest of dozens of suspected hackers by the NCA last week. This nationwide "strike week" shows that the cyber threat is being taken seriously by government bodies, however, businesses remain vulnerable to virtual attacks.The frequency and size of DDoS attacks is ever-growing and continues to be a priority issue for many businesses. With the ongoing work to shut-down or neutralise botnets, a cyber-arms race has started with hactivists and other cyber criminals constantly searching for new ways in which to amplify attacks. As a result, DDoS attacks are increasingly common.As the lines between the professional and social use of technology continue to blur, it is vital that we start to really recognise the significance of these attacks, how likely they are and how damaging they can be.For the first-time DDoS victim, these attacks can be scary and stressful ordeals. That’s not surprising; poor network performance and website downtime can be massively costly for businesses, both in lost sales and consumer trust. It’s not all bad news though, as there are some steps that can be taken to mitigate the impact. Here are some recommendations, should you experience an attack:1. Verify that there is an attack - Rule out common causes of an outage, such as DNS misconfiguration, upstream routing issues and human error.2. Contact your team leads - Gather the operations and applications team leads need to verify which areas are being attacked and to officially confirm the attack. Make sure everyone agrees on which areas are affected.3. Triage your applications - Make triage decisions to keep your high-value apps alive. When you’re under an intense DDoS attack and you have limited resources, focus on protecting revenue generators.4. Protect remote users - Keep your business running: Whitelist the IP addresses of trusted remote users that require access and mainlist this list. Populate the list throughout the network and with service providers as needed.5. Classify the attack - What type of attach is it: Volumetric? Slow and low? Your service provider will tell you if the attack is solely volumetric and may already have taken remediation steps.6. Evaluate source address mitigation options - For advanced attack vectors your service provider can’t mitigate/ determine the number of sources. Block small lists of attacking IP addresses at your firewall. Block larger attacks with geolocation.7. Mitigate application layer attacks - Identify the malicious traffic and whether it’s generated by a known attack tool. Specific application-layer attacks can be mitigated on a case-by-case basis with distinct countermeasures, which may be provided by your existing solutions.8. Leverage your security perimeter - Still experiencing issues? You could be confronting an asymmetric layer 7 DDoS flood. Focus on your application-level defences: login walls, human detection, or Real Browser Enforcement.9. Constrain Resources - If previous steps fail, simply constraining resources, like rate and connection limit is a last resort - it can turn away both good and bad traffic. Instead, you may want to disable or blackhole an application.10. Manage public relations - If the attack becomes public, prepare a statement and notify internal staff. If industry policies allow it, be forthright and admit you’re being attacked. If not, cite technical challenges and advise staff to direct all inquiries to the PR manager.It’s an unfortunate fact that the DDoS threat has never been greater and is likely to continue to grow. As ever, the best protection is to be prepared for whatever will get thrown at you and DDoS mitigation should be part of your preparation. It’s important to consider if your network is up to scratch to cope with unexpected loads and if it has the intelligence to identify legitimate traffic during peaks, before an attack hits.Gary Newe is technical director of F5.See More

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ron McMillan is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, In my day job, I am a consultant. However, in the evenings I train with a very knowledgeable and inspiring martial arts instructor. I have never learned as much or been as happy working with someone. However, his business management habits do not set him up for success. He doesn’t maintain his website; his school has several names and logos that change from reference to reference; and he doesn’t record when or if people pay him. There is evidence he and his family sometimes run out of money before the end of the month. While he is friendly and open, I feel like our life experiences and difference in age (he’s my senior by twenty years) mean that he would take my attempt to help as butting in. I am also certain his way of doing things made sense once upon a time. How can I help him while remaining respectful of his experience? Worried Student  Dear Student, Many crucial conversations are complicated by differences in age or social status—direct report to boss, child to parent, student to teacher, and junior to senior. These differences are complicated by our expectations as to what is appropriate communication and what is not, and frequently those expectations are not clearly defined. In your situation, it sounds like there is a clear teacher/student relationship, but for you to assume the role of teaching your teacher is awkward. Furthermore, it seems that to you, the twenty-year difference in age creates unclear expectations. The essential condition to create in your crucial conversation is Mutual Respect. From your description of the relationship, I can see that a great deal of respect already exists. Build on that respect and create new expectations by using a few simple skills. Begin by asking for his permission to discuss a personal situation. You might say, "Sensei, may I talk with you about an important issue that doesn’t have anything to do with my training?" Asking for permission alerts your teacher that the topic you wish to discuss is outside your normal interactions. If he agrees to talk or wants to know the subject, introduce the topic of your conversation. "I’ve been blessed by your gifts to me and I want you to continue to give them to others. I have some ideas I’d like to share with you that will help the business side of your enterprise. May I discuss that with you?" If he declines, contrast to share your good intentions. "I don’t want to presume to tell you how to run your business. That isn’t my place. I do want to share some ideas that will reduce your worries and help your business succeed into the future." If he says "no," do not continue, but look for opportunities to talk this over in the future, after he has thought about your words. If he expresses interest in your invitation, begin by using your STATE skills. Share your facts. Factually describe what you have seen. For example, "I’ve noticed you receive payment from your students, but do not record when you receive them or when the payments are due." Tell your story. Tell him what you are assuming as a result. "I’m wondering if the business side of your work gets less attention and that maybe better tracking would give you more income." Ask for his point-of-view. "Am I seeing this correctly? Do you see it differently?" Talk tentatively. Be clear that your purpose is not to challenge your friend. You are not trying to hurt, humiliate, or judge. Your purpose is to create enough Mutual Respect and Mutual Purpose to make it safe for your teacher to consider your ideas. Encourage testing. Your questions, "Am I seeing this correctly?" and "Do you see it differently?" test your stories and your perceptions. Perhaps you are missing something. You want to create mutual understanding, not convince or compel. Be open. Listen well and entertain the possibility that your view is not the whole truth. Using these simple skills with the intent to help, not hurt, increases the likelihood that your teacher will hear you out and won’t be offended. If not during this single conversation, then over time as you respectfully and consistently communicate that you are trying to help him. All the best,Ron Related Material:Offering Advice Without Causing Offense Responding to Unwanted Parenting Advice How many times should I have a conversation before I give up?

Mary Cullinane's blog post was featuredWhy Free Is Not the Future of Digital Content in EducationAs Chief Content Officer of a learning company, people frequently ask me: "Won’t all of your content eventually be free? After all, when technology enters the market, free is right behind it."Then they’ll point to something like the music industry, where annual revenues have declined more than $20 billion from their peak over a decade ago and album sales recently hit their lowest point on record.For $9.99 a month — less than the price of a single CD a decade ago — listeners can stream as much ad-free music as they want on Spotify, the service that made headlines in 2013 when it revealed the average payout to artists each time their songs are streamed is less than a penny. (Sorry Swifties, you now have to go to YouTube to get your "Shake It Off" fix.)The downward price pressure exerted on the music industry (or the news business, or movies) by the digital revolution is unmistakable. But going digital will affect different industries in different ways based on market dynamics and other factors.With music, there are characteristics about the way the user consumes the content - i.e. songs - that help explain why technology has put so much downward pressure on pricing.For starters, the use of technology does not make me like the song itself more. It doesn’t improve songs in a way that would lead me to assign additional value to them. If, like me, you’re not an audiophile with an ear for the nuances of vinyl recordings, the songs are the same songs, however you play them. I appreciate the convenience of not having to cart CDs around, but in reality, the impact of this new digital use pattern on my lifestyle is minimal.Contrast that with gaming: The video game industry has thrived in recent years. That’s partly because video games provide a social experience - a service - that cannot be pirated. And technology has catalyzed this shift.Primary and secondary education presents another case where technology fundamentally changes the way content is experienced. Just imagine: I am a teacher. I am responsible for ensuring that my students succeed in an educational process that will equip them with the knowledge and skills that are critical for their future success.There are 30 different learning styles in my classroom and I have to reach them all. I have to be certain the resources I put in front of my students are engaging. I need a solution that allows me to understand how well they are doing, and adjust the materials they use based on their individual proficiency levels and learning progressions.Technology helps me do this. As students engage with the content, the content learns more about the students and it also becomes "smarter". A digital engine compares students’ responses to those of all other users. Equipped with that data, this adaptive learning system doesn’t just show that a student answered incorrectly. It knows why she did, and uses those insights to create a customized learning path.In doing so, technology helps solves a big problem that has always confronted teachers: students learn at different paces. Advanced students can get bored and struggling students can give up. Now, as a teacher, I can put content in front of each learner that is personalized to his or her needs. It’s something teachers have been doing through the ages, but technology brings it to the next level of adaptivity.You get the picture. In this case, technology is making educational content better. It is increasing its value. It is now able to solve a long-existing challenge. It is enabling content to do things that it could not do before. And the stakes could not be higher.The quality of educational content has a marked impact on student achievement. If we do not get educational content right, students are less likely to gain the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in college and careers. Teachers, families and schools need to know that the content they are using is effective, aligned to standards, and will drive student achievement.Digital-age technology is showing up in classrooms across the United States. But that doesn’t mean that "free is right behind it." High-quality content, delivered through smart digital platforms, makes it possible for teachers to work with their students in ways they never could have imagined before. And given what’s at stake, that’s something worth investing in.Mary Cullinane is Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s first Chief Content Officer. See More

According to our new study on communication in relationships, couples who argue effectively are ten times more likely to have a happy relationship than those who sweep difficult issues under the rug. And what are the most difficult topics couples usually avoid or harmfully debate? The study found that the three most difficult topics for couples to discuss are sex, finances, and irritating habits. Other interesting statistics include: Four out of five say poor communication played a role in their last failed relationship and half cite poor communication as a significant cause of the failed relationship. Fewer than one in five believe they are usually to blame when a conversation goes poorly. Those who blame their partner for poor communication are more likely to be dissatisfied with the relationship. Many couples operate under the myth that when they avoid discussing sensitive issues, they avoid an argument. And most couples mistakenly assume that avoiding an argument is ultimately a win for the relationship. However, what we don’t talk out, we eventually act out. In reality, it’s not how much you argue, but the way in which you debate sensitive issues that ultimately determines the success of your relationship. The good news is that with the right set of skills, crucial conversations can strengthen your relationship. Here are five tips for effectively holding crucial conversations with your significant other: Manage your thoughts. Soften your judgments by asking yourself why a reasonable, rational, and decent person would do what your significant other is doing. Affirm before you complain. Don’t start by diving into the issue. Establish emotional safety by letting your significant other know you respect and care about him or her. Start with the facts. When you begin discussing the issue, strip out accusatory, judgmental, and inflammatory language. Be tentative but honest. Having laid out the facts, tell your significant other why you’re concerned—but don’t do it as an accusation, share it as an opinion. Invite dialogue. After sharing your concerns, encourage your significant other to share his or hers—even if he or she disagrees with you. If you are open to hearing your significant other’s point of view, he or she will be more open to yours. Related Material:Crucial Applications: Overcoming the "Nasty versus Nice" Debate Crucial Applications: Talking About Holiday Finances Crucial Applications: Delivering Bad News

Geoff Smith's blog post was featuredIT Hiring Across Britain’s Tech Cities Is Evolving for the BetterAs we are all aware, the UK has experienced a remarkable technological evolution over the past few years, becoming an international destination for digital innovation, expertise and entrepreneurial spirit. As the silicon roundabout ‘Tech City’ model is being adopted across the country, the approach businesses are taking to expand and ensure their future is changing, as is the way they hire.We recently published our inaugural quarterly report called Tech Cities Job Watch, showing where the battle for IT talent is taking place across the country and how the pay stacks up.While the majority of hiring demand was, unsurprisingly, for experienced IT Professionals with skills in Cloud, Web Development, Security and Mobile in London, over 25% of the demand is for other opportunities in other emerging tech cities around the country.Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge and Glasgow were all revealed as ‘Tech Cities’ where skills were gathering, and where competitive salaries are being posted to attract skilled IT professionals.There is a perception that most of these jobs are being created by ultra-cool digital, web and app development start-ups or design firms in cities like Bristol and Cambridge, which boast young vibrant communities. This is a little misleading.The big corporates, systems integrators, pharma companies, FMCGs and banks are still the primary employers of IT talent. In fact, some of these companies are falling over themselves to hire people with tech skills, hoovering up talent wherever it’s available.The bottom line is there is still a huge demand for IT talent, whether young and new to the profession or older and more experienced. But it is still the big companies with the money to spend and the larger head count to meet that are luring the majority of IT talent. Mature IT professionals, who value stable work, secure careers and higher salaries are more likely to work for the well-known systems integrators where they can still get project variety.However, this may be set to change. There’s an increasing amount of hiring back and forth between large and small companies, a trend that will continue as London and the UK’s Tech Cities keep growing.For the bigger organisations, taking the long-term view is essential. Some of the major projects and systems being worked by large companies may only have a limited life, and as such the skills they hire in will (if not invested in and updated) become obsolete quicker than you can catch a cold (or a millennium bug!)Larger companies are making serious efforts to appeal to young, bright and innovative minds that can help them evolve their offering. Google is seen by many as the market standard of this model, ensuring their employees are offered all manner of toys, comforts and ‘flip-flop’ practices aimed at appealing to the minds of the best millennial talent.Many firms are following this mode, introducing digital academies aimed at attracting talent by creating a great working environment (creative zones, test labs, war rooms, and so on), as well as home working options.The qualities being sought are changing as well. Digital development skills have never been in higher demand. But many larger organisations are now looking at developers who also have a creative or artistic qualifications, as well as computing or programming skills, and crucially individuals who are desperate to learn what's around the corner.In many ways, larger companies are mirroring the practices that helped many smaller start-up firms appeal to the next generation of tech innovators. Of course, some are doing it well. Others, well let’s say they are wearing flip flops over their brown socks...What smaller firms are looking for is changing, too. Particularly in the early stages, disruptive start-up brands tend to attract like-minded people: highly creative and ambitious, but often inexperienced, flighty and not terribly commercially minded. This leads some firms to get burned or, at the very least, slowed down by short-term candidates who don’t add value to the business.Growing tech companies increasingly need to hire people with end-to-end project management and commercial business skills in addition to the tech knowledge.A few years ago I helped a seasoned project manager at an investment bank take a role in a small, but promising organisation. The change came with a significant rate cut, but the challenges presented by the role resonated with the individual and were too attractive to pass up. The start-up company needed someone who had the experience to professionalise the offering and talk to the corporate customers who ultimately had the cheque books.This ended up being a really positive move for both the candidate and company. After a few years helping them formalise and expand their sales, he tapped further into his entrepreneurial side, leaving to start his own business, which is still running very successfully today.Small firms should be realistic when they are competing with the larger firms for IT talent. Many won’t have the resources to offer salaries or benefits that compete with the big, largely London-based firms. However, this doesn’t mean that smaller organisations can’t offer challenges, opportunities for advancement or other qualities that more experienced IT professionals might find attractive. The high cost of living in London is also factoring heavily in the appeal to move to an alternative Tech City.Britain’s evolution as a global hotspot for tech business growth and innovation, and the resulting competition for IT talent, is here to stay. As the market continues to evolve, big established businesses and growth firms alike will be looking to tap new areas of talent to ensure their futures. This means London firms, big or small, need to watch out and should embrace a multi tech city environment whilst talent spotting for the tech experts who may not fit the conventional archetype but who have that crucial staying power, commercial acumen and learning desire.Geoff Smith is the Managing Director of Experis Europe and a member of the Manpower Group Global Leadership Team.See More

ABOUT THE AUTHOR   Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I have a coworker who abuses my open-door communication policy. Our offices are side-by-side, and we both benefit from this arrangement by discussing dilemmas and sorting through issues to prioritize our group’s efforts. However, my coworker has a very reactive way of coping with an e-mail she does not like or a phone call from someone who disagrees with her. She will come rushing into my office to rant about this e-mail or that coworker, or this phone call or that situation. This happens five to six times a day! This behavior is distracting because she expects me to put aside what I’m working on to pay attention to her. She’s also thin-skinned, very volatile, and I suspect less than receptive to a conversation that centers on her negative behavior. Any suggestions? Signed, Open-Door Abuse Dear Open-Door, This is an interesting question because it’s hard to say which issue you should address. The first skill of crucial conversations is picking the right conversation. Your two options are: Reset expectations. This one is fairly straightforward. The key is to make it about you and not the other person. This is you realizing you need a different boundary in order to be productive in your work—not blaming your coworker for interrupting you. If you set it up that way, there is minimal chance of defensiveness. Address your coworker’s volatile behavior. There are two reasons to address this issue first. One reason is if you think—no matter how careful you are—you’ll be unable to focus on resetting expectations. If this is true, then you have to address your coworker’s volatile behavior first. The second reason is if it is more important to address her behavior than it is to reset expectations. When you use words like "volatile," it sounds as though you may have been putting up with abuse for some time and even enabling her misbehavior by not asking for things you want or need in your work relationship. If this is true, you have to hold an entirely different crucial conversation. If you decide to reset expectations, as I said, make it about you and your needs—not a criticism of your colleague. This is both true and easier to express without creating defensiveness. Go in with a specific proposal—not just a vague criticism. For example, you might simply say, "I’ve noticed that I go home many times feeling disappointed in how much I get done. I’ve realized that one reason is that I don’t focus. I am going to start creating "islands of focus" in my day—when I do not respond to e-mail, talk with colleagues, or schedule meetings. This will put a cramp in the spontaneous conversations we sometimes have, but I want to try this. Can I ask that from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. you not tempt me with interesting topics?" You’ll then need to maintain this agreement and give reminders if there are encroachments. If you don’t, then you will be colluding in undermining your own request. So be firm and consistent—odds are it will only take a couple of reminders and you’ll have a bit of solitude. Confronting her behavior will be more difficult. I might be reading more into this than I should—but I’m inferring not just to volatility (i.e., she gets animated when expressing frustrations) but to hostility (she is defensive and rude when you confront her about concerns). If I am correct, you may want to hold her accountable on this issue. You may also want to give some thought to how you may be rewarding this pattern by allowing it to cause you to tiptoe around other behaviors that don’t work for you (like constant interruptions). Over time, a weakness like this can turn into a technique when those around her reward it too consistently. If you decide to address this issue, once again, start with safety. When confronting a longstanding pattern that you’ve colluded in, a good way to do this is to acknowledge your part. For example, "I’d like to discuss a concern that I’ve put off addressing for a long time. I realize the pattern we’ve fallen into is as much my fault as yours—as I’ve been staying silent and blaming you for my silence. I’d like to discuss the problem—including how I might be contributing to it—and find a way to work together that is acceptable to both me and you." From here, you’ll need to describe two or three examples of the pattern. Be careful, because each time you describe an instance, she’s likely to offer excuses for that instance. For example, you might say, "Last week when I pointed out misspellings on your PowerPoint slide you called me a loser. Then laughed and walked away." If she then says, "I was joking!" You need to return her to the pattern. Say something like, "I realize there might be special reasons you said things in each circumstance I raise. And yet, what I’m asking you to notice it that there is a pattern—one that is unacceptable to me. If it happened just once, I wouldn’t be discussing this. This is something that happens regularly. Can you see that?" This will be tricky, but the key is to maintain safety while being fully honest. You need to begin exercising a firmness you have not in the past. If you do, there is a good chance you can get closer to the kind of relationship that will work for you. Best wishes, Joseph Related Material:Influencing Corporate Policy What if the other person refuses to open up?

Kurt Mueffelmann's blog post was featuredEvading Tomb Raiders: It’s Time to Rethink How We Implement Defense In-DepthDefense-in-depth is an accepted and well-practiced tenet of information security. The crunchy network perimeter protecting a soft, vulnerable center is not only a tired cliché - it is also an outdated security strategy. And yet, despite our best efforts to shore up layers of defense, attackers still gain access to enterprise networks and "walk away" with sensitive data. It is clear, by the likes of recent large-scale data breaches, that IT organizations today need a more robust mechanism to protect enterprise assets across dispersed networks.The concept of defense-in-depth took hold in response to the dissolving perimeter - the idea that there is no longer a defined corporate network through which users access IT resources. While the concept holds true, the traditional network hasn’t just dissolved. It has collapsed. The growth of enterprise collaboration, the increasing consumption of information on personal devices and the growing number of mobile distributed workers has resulted in a dispersed network environment. Trusted networks have become so complex and interconnected that it has become almost impossible to manage security precisely enough to stop intrusions.The problem is only compounded by the fact that the traditional preventative technologies used in a defense-in-depth strategy are largely ineffective. Antivirus, intrusion-prevention systems, firewalls and sandboxes fail to stop advanced attacks. Polymorphic malware constantly changes, rendering signature-based defenses useless.And, of course, users themselves remain vulnerable. Attackers continue to gain unauthorized network access by exploiting stolen privileged credentials, as in the case of the Target breach, or by grooming a rogue insider. Once attackers have possession of legitimate credentials, the network is their playground. Access management controls assume users are who they say they are without more in-depth checks than a username and password. What’s more, we accept upfront proof of identity and treat authentication as a one-time transaction - enabling the user to do whatever he/she wants in real-time, without further scrutiny.Once inside the network, attackers typically look for a weak spot and use off-the-shelf tools to scan for vulnerabilities - creating a ‘network blueprint’ of assets with known vulnerabilities that can potentially be exploited. Sometimes, however, attackers don’t even have to exploit a vulnerability. For example, following the attack on Sony Entertainment, the media reported that the company had saved all passwords in a file labeled "Passwords." That filename was a beacon to attackers - a flashing neon-sign in a dark alleyway.Organizations today must employ a more sophisticated layered defense strategy to help prevent data breaches like those experienced by Target, Sony and many others. Such a strategy starts with a mechanism that can protect enterprise assets across dispersed networks and that enables the management of isolated trusted networks by a single entity. This can be achieved via dynamic access control, specifically focused on the activities of privileged users.Unlike traditional access control, which grants users open access to an entire network segment, dynamic network access control uses a context-aware architecture to grant access. Access is determined by a number of user-specific variables, such as IP address, operating system, time of day, location and role. The system looks at additional information to not only verify that the user is who he/she claims to be but to also grant access based on the context. For instance, the CEO may be granted access to a low-risk document at 11:00 p.m. from his personal tablet through an unknown IP address, but she may not be granted access to confidential financial data. Firewall rules are created and enforced when access is requested to provide a secure, encrypted, service-specific connection to each individual application or service.Dynamic access control also makes it difficult for attackers - or anyone else on the network - to find valuable network assets. The technology renders servers completely invisible to would-be attackers - even those in possession of trusted credentials. Application servers are effectively moved off the network by default. Once hidden behind a secret door, internal vulnerability scans are unable to detect weaknesses in the network, let alone exploit them.In light of today’s advanced attacks and dispersed trusted networks, IT organizations need to reconsider their approach to defense in depth. Granting users and partners access to entire network segments protected by preventative controls is no longer a viable means of protecting sensitive assets. It’s time we question our old assumptions about security controls and consider new technologies like dynamic access control, which transform how we approach security in the digital era.Kurt Mueffelmann is the CEO of Cryptzone.See More

Uschi Schreiber posted a blog postIs Tech Really as Advanced as We Think?We now live in a world in constant motion. Our everyday lives are touched by megatrends - large, transformative and sometimes disruptive, global forces that define the future by having a far-reaching impact on business, economies, industries, societies and individuals.Technology and globalization are inextricably part of this dynamic. In this world, the ever-increasing acceleration of change is one of the few constants.The tech industry epitomizes rampant innovation and globalization. It is renowned equally for its cutting-edge culture and as a workplace of the future. The industry boasts a celebrated bench of female leaders who have shattered the glass-ceiling for women in technology - and throughout the corporate world. The likes of Marissa Mayer, Meg Whitman, Sheryl Sandberg and Ginni Rometty are true trailblazers and role models that men and women can look up to. Even in government, key figures like Neelie Kroes and Megan Smith are advancing the tech policy agenda across the EU and US respectively.The industry can also take claim for the profound impact its technology has had on women’s careers. This has included individual empowerment, new unforeseen opportunities in business, the advancement of emerging markets, and opportunities to thrive as entrepreneurs.But is this industry really as advanced as we think?A closer look reveals a glaring and deepening gender gap. Today, men make up nearly 70 percent of workforces across the biggest brands. Even more striking - men constitute an overwhelming 80 percent of the engineering and programming roles at these companies.To compound the issue - two factors reinforce this gap. Only around 18 percent of computer science graduates are women. And the number of women in related STEM-careers (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) range from just nine to 25 percent across developed economies. Simply having a few female executives does not address these problems.This is concerning, despite recent comments to the contrary by Mayer. As technology continues to grow in prominence, it will no longer just be an industry unto itself. The pervasiveness and power of new technologies are blurring sector boundaries as companies across all industries develop their own digital strategies and solutions.In the next 20 years, studies indicate that 47 percent of all occupations in advanced economies are at ‘high risk’ of becoming automated or mechanized. Without a strong skillset in technology, many individuals across all working classes will be relegated to lower-skilled service occupations, or even worse, to the unemployment line. And with so few women with relevant education and experience in technology, many industry players would struggle to immediately improve their ranks, even if they wanted to. This is not good enough, as recent surveys indicate that of the top 25 paying professions, 14 are tech-related.Other leading professions like law and medicine still rank highly in pay-grade tables and women have since nearly reached parity with men in obtaining advanced degrees and breaking into these fields. They are also steadily advancing through the senior ranks of public sector leadership roles across the G20.Yet without having requisite technology skills, women are now at risk of being excluded again - this time by the one sector that will transform all our futures and those of generations to come. Is this a future we want?We must cultivate industry environments where women can thrive alongside their male counterparts. The technology sector is no exception. Countless studies show that having diverse workforces increases productivity and profit.Despite this recognition, companies are not always creating the right culture to hold onto talented women. A 2008 Harvard Business Review survey found that as many as 50% of women working in STEM-based careers leave these fields because of hostile work environments. The reasons include unsupportive and detached cultures, few advancement opportunities and lack of flexibility.We all have a responsibility to close the gender gap, not reinforce it. Plenty of grassroots programs already exist that encourage girls and young women to embrace technology at an early age. In fact, according to Kroes, there are an equal number of young girls and boys involved in coding before girls identify the gender stigma attached to this activity and pursue other things.Schools, employers and policy-makers need to pro-actively address conscious and unconscious bias like this, and make clear that the status-quo is unacceptable. This needs to be addressed to not only attract girls and women into technology but to retain their talent. This can’t just be an occasional initiative. It has to be a culture change driven by policy, supported by business and encouraged by governments through legislation to create positive and equal environments for both men and women.Globalization and technology have ushered an unprecedented level of opportunity for women across all areas. These megatrends will continue to reshape every industry and the way in which human beings manage their lives and careers. Let’s ensure that women are at the forefront of leading this change to truly advance technology and the world it touches. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past. It’s time to fast forward.Uschi Schreiber is Global Vice Chair - Markets and Chair of the Global Accounts Committee at EY (Ernst & Young). She is also EY's Global Markets Leader, responsible for the organization's globally integrated go-to-market approach.See More

ABOUT THE AUTHOR   David Maxfield is coauthor of two New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I have two employees who are categorized as management yet they do not have any direct reports nor do their job descriptions indicate any responsibilities specific to management. Because it is a large company, I am unable to modify the job classification. I would like to delegate increased responsibility to their role, but there is also an issue of trust. These two employees do not have the desire to grow as leaders. They are content with working their eight hours a day and going home. As much as I try to help them develop, they just aren’t interested. Do you have any suggestions for motivating or developing managers? Motivated Manager Dear Motivated, Thanks for describing an interesting influence challenge that many managers face. Organizations ask managers to develop their people, and the workload makes it important for people to take on larger roles, but some employees seem comfortably stuck in their status quo. Or maybe you’re a mom or dad whose son or daughter is comfortably stuck in the status quo—or whatever you call their basement bedroom. You want your child to launch a career, but he or she doesn’t seem interested in doing what it takes. How do you get a person who is comfortably stuck to take action? Avoid the fundamental attribution error. When people are stuck, we have a strong tendency to blame their personal motivation. More often than not, we describe them as lacking character, willpower, grit, or determination. This bias is so strong that psychologists call it the "Fundamental Attribution Error." However, when a person is stuck—even comfortably stuck—there is usually a lot more going on than simple laziness. I’m not saying the employees you described aren’t lacking personal motivation. I think you described their poor initiative quite well; however, there is a good chance that personal motivation is not their only problem—it’s just the most obvious one. Diagnose all six sources. When people are stuck, it’s usually because all Six Sources of Influence are working in combination to hold them fast. Their world is perfectly organized to create the behavior (or lack of behavior) you are currently seeing. Here are the questions we use to diagnose obstacles in all six sources: Personal Motivation. Left in a room by themselves, would they want to take on greater responsibilities? Would they enjoy it, find it meaningful, and aspire to it as an important part of their identity? Would they take pride in it, or see it as a moral imperative? Ideas for action: Invite choice. As part of the performance-management process, ask each employee to prepare a two- to three-year plan. Ask them to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) your organization and your department face. Then have them anticipate how they see your department and their jobs changing in order to take advantage of these SWOTs. Finally, have them describe what they would like to be doing in two or three years and what they need to do now in order to prepare themselves. Try small steps. Identify the crucial moments when it would be most helpful for your employees to step up to greater responsibilities. Think of times, places, and circumstances when you could really use their help in a particular way for a short period of time. It will be most effective if you can include them in finding these crucial moments. People are more trusting when they discover crucial moments for themselves. Then ask for their help during these brief and occasional crucial moments. Personal Ability. Left in a room by themselves would they have all the skills they need to feel confident taking on greater responsibilities? Do they already have the right knowledge, skill sets, experiences, training, and strength? Ideas for action: Training that focuses on critical dependencies. Ask your reluctant employees to identify skill sets that are new, are becoming more important, or are in short supply. These skills would make a person indispensable. If they aren’t quick to identify these skills, work with them to identify the people in your organization who could help and ask your employees to interview them. Training that fills in missing skills. Suppose your reluctant employees did accept a greater role, what parts of an expanded job would they find most difficult, tedious, or noxious? How could you skill them up so they’d be confident, efficient, and effective in these areas? We often say, "If it’s taking too much will, add some more skill!" Maybe an ounce of skill will yield another pound of motivation. Social Motivation. Are the right people encouraging them to take on greater responsibilities? Do the peers they respect, the managers they look up to, and their family members encourage or discourage them from stepping up? Ideas for action: Get them some feedback. Do they know how others see them? Most of us want to believe we are doing our fair share. Motivate change by using a 360-degree feedback tool to get feedback from their peers and customers. Make it clear that the feedback is for development—not evaluation—purposes and make sure you have solutions for whatever negative feedback they receive. Otherwise, this kind of feedback can be more demoralizing than motivating. Connect them with a greater purpose. Get them involved in field trips where they meet with their internal or external customers. Make the connection as personal as possible. Have them report to your team on what they learned and on how your team can improve. Social Ability. If your employees take on greater responsibilities, are the people around them ready to lend a hand? Do they have mentors, trainers, and peers who can give advice and step in to help? Ideas for action: Make them coaches. Sometimes people step up when they become responsible for someone else’s success. Consider assigning them to work with another person in your group. Structural Motivation. Does your organization provide incentives such as performance reviews, pay, promotions, and perks that could motivate these employees to take on greater responsibilities? Your employees’ job descriptions don’t include management activities so it’s hard to use the formal reward system, but there may be other routes to explore. Ideas for action: Recognize incremental improvements. Try small assignments, projects that can be completed within a week, and then give your honest, heartfelt appreciation when they complete them. Then gradually increase the number, size, duration, and importance of these projects. Continue to show your appreciation as you deem appropriate. Structural Ability. Is there a way to use the environment, data, tools, cues, or systems to make it easier and more convenient for these people to take on greater responsibilities? Ideas for action: Discover and remove obstacles. Ask yourself (or your reluctant employees), "If you wanted to take on a few additional responsibilities, what are the biggest obstacles you would face?" One good guess would be time. If nothing else about their jobs changed, they would have to work longer, harder days. How could you change that? What could you take off their plates so they would have more time for higher-value work? Showing your flexibility may encourage them to become more flexible as well. I hope these ideas help you generate more strategies tailored to your exact situation. Notice all these ideas involve an investment of time, energy, and thought on your part. It would be easier to write off the employees as unmotivated slugs, but that would mean abdicating your own responsibilities as a manager. It would also be a very costly write-off, since they are likely to remain on your payroll. Whether you’re dealing with reluctant employees or a child who is still living in your basement, never lose faith! When you marshal the power of all Six Sources of Influence, you can truly change anything. David Related Material:Change Anything: Motivating Weight Loss Putting Skills into Action Does the path to action still include telling a story?

Richard Davies's blog post was featuredThe Evolution of Cloud: The ‘Intergalactic’ Infrastructure of the FutureToday, most companies are using some form of cloud services. According to Gartner, the Worldwide Public Cloud Services Market is now worth $131 billion: when you consider that ten years ago the only clouds people had heard of were the ones in the sky, this is pretty remarkable growth. So why has cloud adoption enjoyed such phenomenal success? And is it really such a new concept?It could be argued that the idea of cloud was actually introduced as early as the 1960s by J.C.R Licklider, who voiced his idea of an ‘intergalactic computer network’. Licklider’s idea was that everyone on the globe would eventually be interconnected, accessing applications and data at any site, from anywhere. Today, we can see that we are moving ever-closer to Licklider’s intergalactic future, with the cloud acting as the primary delivery mechanism. The ‘cloud’ has become something of a catch all phrase for anything that can be delivered via the internet, whether it is infrastructure, data, applications, or a platform. However, at the fundamental root of all IT innovation is the compute power that drives and supports it - so to narrow the scope, I have focused on the evolution of infrastructure, rather than Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service.The Iron AgeTo understand how we have come to the version of cloud we have today, it is worth having a look back to life before ‘cloud’ and how the infrastructure environment has developed over the years. It could be argued that the mainframe represents the first iteration of cloud as we know it today. Widely acknowledged in the 1950s as the ‘future of computing’, large-scale mainframes, colloquially referred to as "big iron", provided a large scale central infrastructure, shared by various applications and IT services. Like the cloud, businesses could scale resources up and down, depending on their needs. Aside from maintenance and support, mainframe costs were attributed according to Million Instructions Per Second (MIPS) consumption; the more it was used, the more MIPS were consumed, and the higher the cost. While revolutionary at the time, and still in use to this day, mainframes also have limitations. Mainframes require massive up-front investment, coupled with rapidly depreciating value of physical servers over time, and are expensive to run and maintain. Companies are also limited by the amount of server capacity they have on-site, which means they can struggle to scale capacity according to need.Yet one of the main reasons that people started to move workloads away from the mainframe and onto client servers was actually one of the reasons people are today moving away from client servers and into the cloud: decentralisation. As mentioned above, mainframes act as a central resource, meaning in the early days they had to be connected directly to computer terminals in order to operate. While this was not a problem when companies only had a handful of computers, the introduction of personal computers in the 1970s changed everything. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s the distributed client/server model became extremely popular, as applications were migrated from mainframes with input/output terminals to networks of desktop computers. This offered newfound convenience and flexibility for businesses, but also added layers of complication in terms of managing this new distributed environment.The World Wide WebBy the mid-1990s the internet revolution was having a massive impact on culture and the way we consumed technology, and also moving us closer to the cloud that we know and love today. While the distributed on-premise model that had emerged in the 80s had offered huge cost and productivity gains, as IT became more integral to business operations the demand for power increased alongside. This created a new set of problems, as companies had to find money for new servers and space to put them, leading to datacentres and adding further layers of complexity to infrastructure management. Not only this, but there was a lot of waste due to the variable need for capacity; companies had to pay up front for servers to support their peak levels of capacity, even though this level was only required infrequently. This made capacity planning a mammoth task, and often meant companies needed to make a trade on performance at times of peak traffic.Hosting companies emerged to fill this gap, promising to manage businesses’ infrastructure for a fixed monthly fee. Hosting opened the door to what we see as cloud today, by helping businesses to get rid of their physical servers and the headaches associated with running them. Yet while hosted services had a lot of benefits, businesses increasingly began to feel locked in to rigid contracts paying for capacity and services that they were not using, and began to crave more flexibility. Then in the early 2000s came virtualisation, which allowed business to run different workloads on different virtual machines (VMs). By virtualising servers, businesses could spin up new servers without having to take out more datacentre space, helping to address a lot of the issues faced in the on-premise world. However, these machines still needed to be manually managed, and still require a physical server to provide the compute power needed to run them.VMs, coupled with the internet, enabled a new generation of infrastructure cloud services that we see today. Cloud providers could run multiple workloads from remote locations, helping companies to deploy resources as and when needed, without contracts or large up front investments. By giving businesses access to a network of remote servers hosted on the internet, companies could start to store and manage their data remotely, rather than using a local server. Users could simply sign up to the service, pick an instance size of server, and away they go. Most importantly, they could make changes according to demand, with the option to stop the service whenever they wanted.Breaking Bad HabitsNot a lot has changed over the past 10 years and this model largely reflects the cloud computing we see today. While users today have greater choice over the instance size of Virtual Machine (VM) they wish to deploy, they still pay for the service based on the level of capacity they provision, whether they use it or not. Unless businesses are prepared to deploy expensive and complicated technology to automatically scale capacity according to usage, the only way to avoid overspending is to have a member of staff manually adjust it, a resource-intensive and time-consuming solution. As a result, most companies just set a level which should cover their needs, so that some of the time they are over-provisioned, and some of the time they have to sacrifice peak performance as they are under-provisioned; a far from ideal solution. This trend is evidenced in recent research showing that 90% of businesses see over-provisioning as a necessary evil in order to protect performance and ensure they can handle sudden spikes in demand.This suggests that users are not enjoying the full benefits of the flexibility cloud can provide; instead, they are just picking up their old infrastructure bad habits and moving them into the cloud. However, the introduction of containers could be the answer to these problems. Recent changes in the Linux kernel have enabled a new generation of scalable containers that could make the old Virtual Machine server approach redundant. We have seen the likes of Docker making waves in the PaaS market with its container solution, and now such companies are starting to made waves in the infrastructure world as well. These containers are enabling cloud infrastructure providers to offer dynamically scalable servers that can be billed on actual usage, rather than the capacity that is provisioned, helping to eliminate issues around over-provisioning. Using Linux containers, businesses no longer have to manually provision capacity. Servers scale up and down automatically, meaning that they are only billed for exactly what they use - like you would be for any other utility. Not only is this cost efficient, but it also takes the mind-boggling complexity out of managing infrastructure; businesses can now spin up a server and let it run with absolutely no need for management.The Intergalactic Future Is HereIt looks like the revolutionary "intergalactic computer network" that J.C.R Licklider predicted all those years ago is finally set to become a reality. And it is funny how things come full-circle, as people start to move back to a centralised model, similar to that provided by the early days of mainframe. As our dependence on cloud in all forms increases, the big question is where next? I believe that just as companies naturally gravitated towards the cloud, leaving hosting companies out in the cold, the same will happen with capacity based vs. usage based billing; logic dictates that containers will win out in the end.Richard Davies is co-founder and CEO of the cloud hosting provider Elastichosts.See More