Janco Associates, Inc.

Social networking policy is a must

Webmaster — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:14:11 -0600

Social networks are about radically transforming the traditional battlefield of marketing and PR. Your social networking policy, in turn, is the rule book that defines the guidelines used to wage and win this war of the new media. While beginners new to the scene might mistake the presence of a policy for social networking as nothing more than a protective mechanism, the truth is that it exists not to limit but really to liberate participants.

Applied properly, the strategic use of social networks will allow a David to outmaneuver and outrun Goliaths, or for heavyweights to propel their reputation and brand awareness to greater heights. As social media gurus have said, The unique characteristics of disembodied identities in the virtual world can radically transform rules that traditionally govern social groups.

This is evidenced in the way large corporations are hiring digital or social media managers, or incorporating such roles into the primary job responsibilities of existing PR or marketing executives. As companies strive to cash in the rewards of successfully engaging social media, guidelines are required to formalize a company's strategy in this new, uncharted terrain. In addition, there is a need to recognize and protect social media practitioners within the company.

Taken together, it is clear that there is a need to craft a proper social networking policy so as to maintain a degree of consistency in your organization's engagement of social media. So what does a social networking policy consist of? The quick answer might be to point you toward a sample of a simple social networking policy on www.e-janco.com.

Focus of CIOs shifting

Webmaster — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:31:05 -0600

As the economy moves towards recovery, CIOs need to develop new strategies to be successful in the every changing business environment. This new strategy need to be structured around the following business imperatives.

Technology solutions need to be flexible and focused on IT Service Management and Service Oriented Architecture. Businesses must be able to respond to opportunities and challenges faster than ever before. Businesses are battling other well-resourced organizations that may be based where the opportunity originated, lower cost market, or another company that is reaching out for new opportunities. In order to compete, businesses have to be able to rapidly deliver products or service as good, or better, than that of any other company.
Complexity should be avoided - infrastructure is key. Simplicity has always been rewarded, as the scope of technology increased this has led to increased complexity and risk. While per unit costs of technology typically are decreasing, in aggregate IT and technology cost are increasing. With the pressure on IT to act less as a cost center and more as a way to increase the profitability of business units, just adding more storage, more bandwidth, or additional technologies throughout the organization is no longer viable. Instead, successful CIOs are investing in technologies like continuous data protection, virtualization, and wireless connectivity to help IT slim down its footprint while increasing their businesss competitive advantages.
Mandated requirements have moved security to be a top priority. With the growing importance of digital applications and data, the sources of threats to enterprise data have multiplied dramatically. Everything from natural disasters to criminals to corrupt sources within the company might try to steal or corrupt data. While businesses do everything that they can to stop these threats in the first place, they still must be prepared to recover from these threats as quickly as possible.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans are no longer optional. As businesses have expanded the need for anytime, anywhere application access has become a requirement. At the same time, global 24/7 operations have shrinking maintenance windows and a need for applications to be running at all times. Delay or loss of data for any reason system failure, natural disasters has a domino-like effect across the entire organization, at any time of the day or night.

Steps to Take Before Disaster Strikes

rss@e-janco.com — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:15:23 -0600

Business continuity and disaster preparedness tips that businesses need to implement immediately.

Validate that police and other first responders can contact the right people in your business - Research the Reverse 911 program for your area and register your business cell phones, voice over IP numbers or pagers. In an emergency situation, Reverse 911 enables emergency officials to send out an automated call to everyone registered in a specific area with important information.
Program emergency numbers into business cell phones - Save emergency phone numbers for local police and fire departments into your cell phones.
Create a business phone tree - Each office should have a plan for contacting employees during emergencies through a designated phone tree. Designated staff should have copies of the phone tree and be trained on who they should call. Management should review and update the phone tree quarterly and conduct regular training sessions. Management should also have back-up copies of employee phone numbers and their emergency contacts. This information should be regularly updated.
Register your employee's business cell phone number - Individual employees should make sure family; friends and co-workers have their business mobile or BlackBerry numbers. Each person should register their business cell phone on http://www.WhitePages.com/. This will give colleagues and family members the ability to quickly find the information should they not have it on hand.
Enable texting - Sometimes cell phone signals can become congested during emergencies, and it can be difficult to make or receive calls. Short text messages might be easier to get through. Plus, texting helps to conserve battery power.
Have emergency kits accessible - Companies should organize and maintain emergency kits in several places. There should be designated staff responsible for grabbing these in the event of an emergency. Make sure it contains a minimum of provisions for at least three days. Include fresh water, non-perishable food, a manual can opener, blankets, extra clothing, a first-aid kit, matches, a flashlight, a battery-operated radio and extra batteries. Test or replace the batteries at least once a year, especially for smoke alarms.
Create back-up copies of documents, data files, and software - At work, keep back-up copies of your important personal and financial statements, and health and property records. Be sure to store important original paperwork in a safe and secure location. This way, you can grab it all quickly in the event of an emergency.
Have cash available - Set aside an emergency fund of cash or traveler's checks or both. Keep them in a safe, accessible spot in case of the need for evacuation. Banks and ATMs are often inaccessible during catastrophes.
After the disaster have employees register with the American Red Cross - Register with the Red Cross's Safe and Well Web site. If you have been affected by a disaster, this Web site provides a way for you to register yourself as "safe and well."

Fed IT Spending is on an uptick

Webmaster — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:37:26 -0600

Even if the national economy remains sluggish, federal spending for information technology will continue to accelerate at least through 2015, according to a new report from federal marketing analysis firm Input.

Federal IT spending will grow from $86 billion in 2010 to $112 billion in 2015, for a compound annual growth rate of 5.4 percent, according to Inputs new report "Federal Information Technology Market, 20102015."

The IT job market is looking up

Webmaster — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:29:07 -0600

Some IT job market trends from recent surveys include:

Expect more churn in IT staff as CIOs accelerate their move to more flexibile staffing models. CIOs are outsourcing more technical work, including managed IP services such as VoIP and VPNs. They're hiring more contractors for desktop and security services, and they're putting more applications such as remote backup in the cloud. At the same time, they're looking to hire IT people with business and analytical skills, such as risk management and project management. Indeed, CIOs report that they're having trouble hiring IT people because either they can't find IT professionals with the right business skills or they can't afford them. All of this means more turnover in IT departments.
IT hiring will grow in the second half of 2010. A Web site, which lists tech job openings, conducted a survey of IT hiring managers and recruiters, and nearly half of them said they plan to add 10% more employees in the next six months than they did in the first half of the year. Another 28% of respondents plan to increase hiring by 11% to 20%. Survey respondents are getting more optimistic about salaries, too. A quarter of survey respondents predicted that IT salaries will rise in 2010, compared to 10% of survey respondents making this prediction six months ago. Another good sign: 69% of survey respondents said layoffs are not likely at their companies during the next six months.
Banks are starting to hire IT staff, but they are in no hurry to fill open jobs. Banks are looking for IT professionals who can manage new technology or integration projects, but that they are taking from six to eight months to fill open jobs. This compares to three or four months to fill jobs prior to the recession. Banks are being "really selective" and are looking for "exact matches" for their detailed job descriptions.
IT pros are getting paid slightly more than last year, says Janco Associates' mid-year IT salary survey. Total mean compensation for IT pros has increased to $78,210 from $77,690 a year ago - a rise of less than 1%. However, most of the additional money is going to CIOs, and not their staffs. Compensation of CIOs in large enterprises rose 7.5% to $181,533, and in midsized enterprises it rose 3.7% to $169,303, Janco found. Lower-level IT pros, on the other hand, are experiencing reduced bonuses, frozen salaries and in some cases they are being asked to pay a greater portion of their healthcare costs, Janco said. One positive sign: companies are more willing to consider flexible hours and work schedules as a low-cost benefit for IT workers.
CIO confidence is up. 10% of CIOs plan to expand their IT departments in the third quarter of 2010, while 4% plan to reduce staffing. The states with the most active IT hiring are expected to include New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. Overall, 81% of CIOs said they are confident in their companies' growth prospects in the third quarter, while 40% said their firms are likely to invest in new IT projects in the next three months.
Job hopping is on the rise, prompting CIOs to worry more about IT staff retention. A recent report found that more Americans quit their jobs in the last three months than were fired. The rise in voluntary departures is prompting CIOs to worry about retaining their best IT staff. 34% of technology executives are concerned about losing top IT performers in the next year, up three percentage points from last month. Similarly, 43% of CIOs say it is challenging to find skilled IT professionals today.
CIOs say networking and security top their list of hot IT skills. CIOs say they had the hardest time filling jobs in networking, applications development and security. Other hot skills include software development, database management and help desk/technical support. Similarly, a recent survey of 400 U.K. recruitment consultants found that IT security skills were most in demand for permanent hires. Another survey found that full-time staff with enterprise software and developer skills were in short supply.
Government, usually the safest sector of the economy in a downturn, has announced more job cuts this year than any other employer. Government agencies and nonprofits announced more job cuts than any other industry segment in May. The sector shed 16,697 jobs in May, 12% more than the job cuts announced in April. All total, the sector has shed 93,470 jobs in 2010.

Disasters That All Businesses Face

rss@e-janco.com — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:24:31 -0600

Every business faces the risk of natural disaster and no plan to protect property can be complete without insurance coverage against potential damage and loss. It is important to know exactly what coverage you may need and what coverage is available to protect your property against all of the natural hazards it may be exposed to so that you are not underinsured or not insured at all.

Janco strongly encourages business owners, CIOs, CSOs, and line managers to fully explore their insurance needs and obtain adequate coverage before a disaster strikes.

Buy flood insurance
Find out if your busienss or prospective new location is in a flood zone
Get informed on the full range of insurance coverage available to businesses
Prepare financially for disasters
Create a Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Plan

Disaster Recovery and Business Contunity Back-up Requirements Defined by Janco

rss@e-janco.com — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:47:42 -0600

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity require data consistency with the synchronous replication of data over long-distances and / or journal replication to protect against local and wide-area disasters. This technology provides other benefits, including:

Maintaining more efficient data currency. Using synchronous replication over a short distance in a campus or metropolitan area cluster provides the highest level of data currency without undue impact to application performance.

Permitting swift recovery. A campus/metropolitan cluster implementation allows for fast automated failovers after a local area disaster with minimal to no transaction loss.

Permitting recovery even when a disaster exceeds traditional regional boundaries. A wide-area disaster could disable both data centers 1 and 2, but with some manual interaction, operations can be shifted to data center 3 and continue after the disaster.

Shifting to staffing outside the disaster area. A wide-area disaster also affects people located within the disaster area, both professionally and personally. By moving operations out of the region to a remotely located recovery data center, operational responsibilities shift to people not directly affected by the disaster.

Janco has defined a Template with a Backup and Backup Retention policy that is a complete policy which can be implemented immediately.

The document is provided in both Word 2003 and Word 2007 format and is easily modified. This policy is included in the Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Template.

Below is a table from the policy.

Type of Data	Minimal Backup Policy	Backup Retention Policy
System software	Latest Version plus patches At Least Weekly	Annual (verified) Backup Monthly Generations Weekly Generations
Application software	Latest Version plus patches At Least Weekly	Annual (verified) Backup Monthly Generations Weekly Generations
System data	Daily	Annual (verified) Backup Monthly Generations Weekly Generations Daily Generations
Application Data	Daily with real time transaction files	Annual (verified) Backup Monthly Generations Weekly Generations Daily Generations
Software licenses, encryption keys, & Protocol Data	Weekly	Annual (verified) Backup Monthly Generations Weekly Generations

87% of all enterprises now have disaster recovery plans

Webmaster — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:36:10 -0600

Businesses across the US are responding more to the need for business continuity planning according to a AT&Ts latest annual Business Continuity Study, in which 83 percent of respondents stated that they have a business continuity plan in place. This was up 14 percent in the past five years.

For its ninth annual study, AT&T surveyed IT executives throughout the United States that have at least $10 million in annual revenue to get their views on disaster planning and business continuity trends; 87 percent of respondents have revenue in excess of $25 million. Sixty-one percent of the companies surveyed this year have locations outside of the US.

CIO Success is Based on Business Alignment

Webmaster — Thu, 27 May 2010 00:19:57 -0600

What success CIOs and companies have in common is that IT doesn't just support the business; it enables and continually transforms the business, often creating new revenue and profit streams.

CIOs and everyone else in IT at these companies know precisely how their businesses make money and lose money. Infrastructure is the key. In fact, it's not at all unusual for employees to rotate through several jobs, moving in and out of IT and business roles.

Customers of these successful companies are king, and customer service, both internal and external, is supreme. For example, dedicated client service teams from a shared services group (which encompasses IT) meet with business unit presidents to discuss the terms of their IT supplier-customer relationship.

IT Policy Templates - Ready to download and customize

Webmaster — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:42:11 -0600

Documenting a clear set of IT policies is a resource-intensive process for IT managers, due to the research and writing time involved. And once policies are created, the next step is to communicate and gain acceptance for those policies throughout the organization. Wouldn't it be nice to start with boiler- plate templates that require only minor customization?