Who Are You Going To Call

Leveraging technology to make a company run more efficiently, reduce cost or improve quality is simply not enough. A resume in which you offer to replicate this for any new company is going to be passed over by most. Today the head of technology is expected to be a full member of the

management team contributing to the development of new product and services, expanding the customer base, and opening new markets of all kinds.  The good news is we are empowered to do this with the affordable computing power, connectivity and data available.  Moreover, the world is finally in a state of readiness to accept these new ideas. The classic examples include Airbnb, Uber and the new similar application where people share boats.  The new norm is technology turning an industry completely inside-out.

We are now an on demand, variable supply, value-based micro-company society where every individual can be an entrepreneur, running an entire business, often without having to leave home. Business opportunities exist on both sides of this model. Traditional companies  leverage just-in-time supply of expertise, consuming just enough to meet their needs without incurring additional overhead or associated costs. Individuals can apply their deep knowledge and experience to a wide variety of issues across many clients, constantly learning and improving while delivering efficient and effective solutions. Instead of one individual with a little experience in several areas being on staff, engage six experts as needed for portions of the project achieving superior results with lower long term cost.  

What I envision is different from the classic consulting model where companies engage teams from well know firms like Accenture, Oracle or Mercer, and instead turn to vehicle such as e-lance to solicit bids for specific resources or solutions from individuals.  As the boomers age out of the work force they become increasing rare and valuable resources with exactly the right knowledge and skills to meet these demands. Orchestrating the match of needs to resources represents, in my mind, one of the most interesting and potentially rewarding business opportunities today and the near future.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Mind My Own Business

People often react to my use of social networks to "check in" at a location,  regularly posting my adventures in travel, food or special events. Those of you who may follow me on Facebook pretty much know where I am or where I am headed, what I am eating, drinking or cooking, and sometimes the people who are with me. "Why do you want everyone to know where you are and what you are doing?" I am asked, "Don't you want some privacy in your life?"

Allow me to explain.

First, I segregate my network activity into social and business, and while there may be occasional crossover, these social posts are purely for fun. My social posts are done using Swarm (successor to Foursquare), Facebook and a personal Twitter account. More recently I started posting via Instagram in an effort to keep up with current trends. The accounts are connected so, for example, a Swarm check-in automatically posts to Facebook and tweets. Similarly, my Instagrams also post to Facebook and Twitter.

My friends, family and I all derive a certain pleasure in sharing. I know this from the "likes" and comments garnered over the years. With people segregated in both time and space, this turns out to be a great way to keep everyone apprised of events, however important or mundane, in my life. Whether its a simply an extraordinary meal at a local restaurant or family wedding photos, what better way to 'broadcast' this small chapter of your life to those who care? Followers can choose to view, react or ignore each however they please.

So, what about privacy? Well the most effective means of keeping something truly private is to not tell anyone. So where I want privacy you are not likely to see any posts.  It's that simple.  Most of the time I have nothing to hide and no reason to be secretive. In fact, there have been a couple of instances where posting my whereabouts has lead to an unexpected and pleasant chance meeting with a friend or family member. Unless you are ducking bill collectors or the mob, why not let people know you are around?

Posting on LinkedIn, Google+ and my business Twitter persona are whole different kettle of fish. There the main purpose, as it says on this blog, is to educate, inform and sometimes entertain in a professional way. On these networks I share my blog posts, business knowledge, experience and even pieces of useful information gleaned at seminars, conferences, events and publications. It is important to remain informed, connected, active and visible in today's business world.

That's how I leverage social nets to keep friends and family informed, share life experiences and to remain ever present among my colleagues and peers in business.

How does that differ from what you routinely do?

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

The Static Role of the CIO

Frankly, I am growing tired of hearing about the changing role of the CIO. It's the same tired story being told over and over again. It is no different than the heralding of all of the other dramatic changes in technology, each supposedly changing all the rules and creating new challenges and opportunities for business.

Why do we single out these particular senior leaders and judge them by standards different from the other members of the C-Suite?  Surely the tools and techniques, problems and issues the CFO deals with have evolved over time as they have for the head of Marketing, Sales and business leaders in general.  Yet, the people who occupy these senior roles have not been repeatedly threatened with extinction.

Could it be because the members of the C-Suite are not focused on the tools of their trade but rather bring their knowledge, experience and discipline to bear on those most critical aspects of running the business and meeting their specific criteria for success? Sales, quality, customer satisfaction and, yes, even profitability are some of the key concerns of these top managers. They strive to please their customers, shareholders and employees.

As a member of the C-Suite this is what a true Chief Information Officer focused on 20 years ago and what CIOs will focus on 20 years from now.

Whether your data center is in the basement or the cloud is not the issue. Is it operating efficiently, with speed and agility? Waterfall, agile, extreme or whatever may come next is not the question but rather, are the developers delivering the capability to run the business? Buy or build is not the question. Are we investing our limited capital in the manner which generates the best overall return.

I would argue simply, if your focus has been on managing technology and not managing the business, you never were a CIO.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

All Clouds Are Not Created Equal

Every CIO is constantly challenged by management's demand to control operating costs, maintain a high quality of service and yet support the ever growing needs of the business. Add to that the new pressures of transforming the company to compete effectively in the new digital economy.

We are all familiar with the triangle of price, quality and schedule. The conventional wisdom is you can have any two out of three -- but rarely can you achieve all three. If you want it fast and cheap, it isn't going to be very good. Add a strong desire for quality into the equation and keep the time frame short, and costs are likely to soar.

Enter the "Cloud." This is a latter day timesharing, service bureau or remote computing model (for those of us who have been around a while) with a bit of a twist. The platforms, tools and software systems available today truly enable computing power to be delivered as a utility to anyone, anywhere and at any time.

The cloud presents an opportunity to push routine or commodity services out the door, reducing the burden on internal resources, increasing agility, flexibility and predictability of costs. The cloud makes it easy to scale up and scale down as needed, and can free limited internal resources to focus on higher value projects.

But with these benefits come new concerns. The top of the list is always security. How can we be assured our data will be safe from theft or misuse when we put it in the hands of some outside data center operators? Clearing that hurdle brings us to other make or break decisions. Does the provider offer the platforms, API or software tools that are needed to run our applications and support the business? Can I meet all of my regulatory obligations?

Assuming we can identify a player or players that meet these and other necessary criteria we eventually turn our attention to cost.

Here is where it becomes really interesting because costs are not always that predictable. For Software as a Service (SaaS) we can apply the rates per user per month and have a reasonable estimate of the cost. However, this is not as simple in other types of cloud services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) where costs will depend heavily on the actual resources consumed by our application.

We can estimate resource consumption and, using published rate charts, try to predict the cost. But it turns out this may not be a fair basis for comparison. Research shows not all clouds are created equal. A series of benchmarks run by Krystallize Technologies demonstrated the same workload run on identical machines provisioned at different cloud service providers will yield different performance levels. This would suggest we will can expect different levels of performance for our application depending on its characteristics and the provider we choose.

That was not too surprising given different providers will have different equipment, architectures and design. What was very surprising was the performance varied within provider. The representative work load executed on several identically provisioned machines at the same provider also yielded different performance levels.  Moreover, these performance levels varied significantly over time. Keep in mind these cloud service providers operate data centers that are in a constant state of change.


While there are plenty of tools to simulate workloads, monitor the performance of an application or the network, and monitor costs, Krystallize CloudQoS™ provides the kind of visibility into the cloud that no other monitor delivers. You will be able to detect when the "sand" under the platform has shifted.

Whether you are first choosing a cloud service provider, managing an existing provider or just trying to maintain a quality of service, having the ability to measure the true performance of the platform supporting your application will be essential.

With the proper visibility, you may be able to rest easy knowing your cloud service will remain as fast and cost effective, and will continue to provide the same high quality service throughout the life of your application.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Spam, Bam, Thank You Man

After watching a segment on Sixty Minutes tonight about a computer virus designed to infect a computer at the BIOS level, I was reminded about the ever present and growing cyber threat. Especially during this time of year, one has to be alert and extra vigilant to avoid falling prey to one of the many tricks used to gain personal information you didn't want to share.

The story was about a foiled plot to spread malware to computers at the level of the BIOS, the very heart of every personal computer. This is the code that sits between the operating system like Microsoft Windows and the physical hardware such as the memory and hard drives. Worse than stealing or destroying the data on the machine, controlling this layer could render the machine totally useless. Imagine the impact of massive computer failures in major financial institutions, banks or utility companies. What if a massive amount of government computers suddenly all stopped working and could not be restored?

Malware is usually spread through some form of social engineering. Clever tricks are used to fool people into allowing the bad code to gain access to their computer.  Email disguised as a legitimate message from a friend in need, a bank, retail store or web-based company arrives in your inbox. It invites you in some way to click on a button or a link where the malware resides. You don't realize it but when you click you allow that program to run on your machine with all the rights and access you have.

During the holiday season when we receive so many electronic greeting cards, photos and other messages

from relatives and friends, the challenge is to be sure we do not click before we think long and hard about what may happen.

We receive a message that looks as if it came from our bank warning of an overdraft, our favorite retail store with a special discount or the delivery service (Fed Ex, UPS, USPS) advising of a delivery.  They are each brilliant recreations of the formats actually used by these companies including actual logos.  It is hard not to be taken in.

Before clicking examine the links carefully. Browsers will show you where you are about to go if you hover over the link or hotspot without actually clicking on it.  Look very hard at the address. Note when it does not end with the company domain.  Visit the company site directly to see if the message is legitimate, or if warnings of fraudulent messages have been posted there.

A great way to protect yourself is to create an account with limited privilege for every day use. Use a different, special account to administer your computer. That way, malware will not have deep privilege and you can limit the amount of damage it can do. Change passwords regularly and don't use the same one for every account you have.

When all else fails, be sure you have good solid backup for that long, hard road to recovery.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Wave Goodbye

First thing this morning  I found this email in my inbox. It came as no surprise. As the note indicates Google Wave has been on its way out for some time. It was an interesting but failed experiment in a new and quite novel way to interact. Launched in May 2009, with great fanfare, Google Wave was going to revolutionize collaboration.

Being a Google fan it was immediately of interest to me. I set about obtaining the much coveted invitation for a beta account.  I jumped into it as soon as the invite arrived. The interface was intuitive but a little confusing. At first I tried using it like email. Then thought we could develop documentation with it. Finally, I thought we could use this to manage and coordinate projects. Of course this would mean getting a handful of other people involved.

Dear Wavers,

More than a year ago we announced that Google Wave would no longer be developed as a separate product. Back in November 2011, we shared the specific dates for ending this maintenance period and shutting down Wave. Google Wave is now in read-only mode. This is reminder that the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.

If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including Apache Wave. There is also an open source project called Walkaround that includes an experimental feature that lets you import all your Waves from Google. This feature will also work until the Wave service is turned off on April 30, 2012.

For more details, please see our help center.

Yours sincerely,

The Wave Team

Working with a couple of other brave souls, we tried valiantly to figure out what the heck it was. A mash-up of instant messenger, email and shared documents with multiple threads like a discussion forum made it incredibly powerful, innovative and confusing. It was an exciting and elegant solution desperately in search of a problem to solve.We explored all the ideas I mentioned above.

After a few feeble attempts to interact using this platform, my colleagues and I decided it was too radical to adopt for any purpose and we gave up. Most people believe among the reasons for its failure was simply too much too soon. It was significantly ahead of its time and more than people could accept, digest and fully understand.

Perhaps some learning and a little bit of new technology was derived from this experiment. Not all ideas are going to be home runs. Some will roll in with a big splash, crash on the rocks and then quietly wash back out to sea.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

How Did We Do This Before

We sometimes take for granted or don't even notice the incredible speed we are able to communicate, coordinate and collaborate today. How would we have done these things before?

Several times this week I worked on projects with people from one end of the globe to the other. For example, one project involved, among other things, the creation of a set of documents, guidelines, promotional materials and the development of a web site. No two people working on this were ever in the same location. Some are literally an ocean away.

But regardless of the separation by time and geography, we have incredible tools at our fingertips which allowed us to work as if we were together. Of course, in the past we would have used express mail, phone calls, fax or perhaps email with attachments to move content and graphics around for discussion.

But this week meetings were held using high quality, multiple party video conferencing. In these meetings it is possible to "share" your screen so others can see what you have on your computer. Documents, stored in the cloud, could be co-written, edited and shared among team members without having to send them around.

Moreover, simply by granting administrative rights, several people were able to contribute to the design and content of the web site. It can all happen synchronously or asynchronously over the Internet.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the tools we use is the fact that virtually all of them are free. From any Windows, Linux or Apple computer, desktop or notebook, the tools can be used. All the files and the web site are accessible. In addition, several mobile devices such as an iPad, Android phone or Apple iPhone could be used to coordinate, review and join in the video meetings.

If you can undertake a project using tools that cost nothing and accelerate your progress to near light speed, why would you ever work any other way? Yet many people still cling to the old ways because, well, that's the way we have always done it. As IT professionals we encounter this attitude all the time.

My view is businesses are in for a rude awakening. Beyond the already overwhelming trend of employees bringing their own devices to work, which is posing quite a challenge to old school company managers, they have yet to realize this new generation of digital natives have a whole new style of working. They are always connected, sharing, helping and communicating with one another.

Unlike the traditional regimented and serial approach to projects, the new generation networks, crowd-sources, collaborates and shares questions and answers continuously and at the speed of light.

Your company firewall doesn't have a chance.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Floating New Ideas With The Cloud Crowd

The Cloud Computing Consortium (C3) and Equinix hosted the breakfast seminar Maximizing Opportunity for Cloud Computing Success this morning at the Hyatt Regency in Jersey City. Well over 50 people attended and were actively engaged with the keynote speaker Jessica Carroll, Managing Director, IT and Digital Media for the US Golf Association and the full panel discussion that followed.

Ken Saloway, Program Director C3, opened the session, welcoming the attendees and introducing Jessica who spoke about her interest and experience in leveraging the cloud for her business. With over 30 offices in locations all over the country and the need to coordinate information, events and staff, the cloud offered the kind of speed and flexibility needed at an attractive price point. Starting small with Microsoft's Live Meeting application, Jessica took advantage of cloud hosting services. Based on success she slowly began to migrate several key applications at the USGA into the cloud. Surprisingly, email remains in-house as recent investments make it more cost effective to leave it in place.

Key to the success at USGA was the scalability of the cloud, allowing the organization to handle the inevitable spikes during the season and at major events. Moreover, there were substantial savings realized by only paying for the resources consumed instead of having to build and maintain an infrastructure sized to handle peak loads.  But Jessica also cautioned the group to have contingency plans and a workable exit strategy in place.

For the second half of the seminar, Jessica and Ken joined the other four panelists:

• Danny Allan, Chief Technology Executive Officer, Desktone
• Neil Brandmaier, former Chief Technology Officer, XL Group
• Jonathan Crane, Chief Commercial Officer, IPsoft
• Lou Najdsin, Director of Global Cloud Computing, Equinix

Despite its size, the panel covered a lot of ground in the 45 minutes allowed. As moderator, my goal was to get some key questions on the table, stimulate audience participation, foster a lively discussion and assure enough knowledge transfer to have made it worth while for our attendees.

In my view, the panel was successful on all counts. Beginning with the basics, what is the cloud and why should executives be interested, the discussion moved quickly though the benefits and opportunities with the cloud and into the impact on existing IT organizations.

It was roughly at this point when hands starting going up and audience engagement was in full swing. What do I do with existing staff, what tools are there for migration, how do I mitigate risks and others were fired at the panel who handled each one in turn quite well.

Redeployment and better utilization of limited capital, both human and financial, were cited. The opportunity to fail faster, saving time and resources, and various risk factors including SLAs, vendor lock-in, privacy and security were all addressed.

The panelists each contributed one closing thought to wrap up the morning. Get engaged with the cloud, make sure you take a business perspective, focus on the data, and make sure you fully understand and manage your use of the cloud, and, of course, participate in organizations like C3 dedicated to helping you.

My advice, attend seminars like this one. It has long been my belief when you hang around with smart people, you get smarter.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Join C3 - Next Meeting Wednesday February 8

One of the more interesting trends in technology  today is so called "cloud" computing. The cloud is riding high on the hype curve at the moment with every provider of every product or service trying to find a way to position it as part of the cloud movement. Companies need guidance to navigate through all the marketing speak, cut through the fancy veneer or repackaging of old concepts, and develop a clear understanding of  this innovative resource.

As a member of the Executive Counsel of the Cloud Computing Consortium (C3), part of my role is to help our member companies demystify  the cloud, better define exactly what it is and help them to obtain value through its proper use. Last year C3 organized five committees, ultimately publishing five papers and culminating in a very successful inaugural conference. Held at the Stevens Institute, the day long event was attended by over 100 people including many CIOs and other senior IT professionals from companies large and small throughout the New York metro area.

Following the conference new working groups were formed to examine additional aspects of cloud computing and a schedule of events for the coming year was released. More full day events and several half day seminars are planned while the committees are hard at work documenting the next set of findings.

Next Wednesday, February 8, in conjunction with Equinix, C3 will hold the first in a series of these half day seminars. Over breakfast at the Hyatt Regency in Jersey City the key note speaker Jessica Carroll, Managing Director US Golf Associate, will share her story on how and why USGA adopted the use of the cloud.

The session will also include a panel of distinguished guests sharing how each of their organizations have taken advantage of the cloud. I am pleased to announce I will chair this discussion.

As usual we will hold a teleconference with the panelists early next week. During the call we will review the questions which have been developed and circulated. You can anticipate the panelists will be well prepared with informative and insightful answers. Of course part of the role of moderator is to engage the audience and so I will be looking for additional questions or answers from the attendees.

This event promises to be another great opportunity to advance your knowledge and understanding of cloud computing learning from the experience of others who have been through it. If you schedule allows I would encourage you to attend this morning session. You should also consider joining C3 by signing up on the web site. There is no cost and you will be entitled to all of the papers and conference proceedings posted there.

Captain Joe

 Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Can You Bet Your Business On A Cloud

Being active in the "cloud" community, the story about MegaUpload being shut down naturally caught my interest this morning. MegaUpload is one of these new breed of services which allow customers to store files for other customers to retrieve. You can think of it like a giant hard drive in the sky with specific areas or directories for your use. Many people had stored untold numbers of files there and those files are now inaccessible. This article poses the question are we prepared should the cloud services we use suddenly disappear one day. The defense "it won't happen to me" won't stand up in light of the events that have now taken place. This happened with no warning and there is no process for getting at your files.

Even more frightening, what if the cloud service is more than just storage. What if the NY Times headline tomorrow is Marc Benioff indicted - Federal investigators seize all assets. Does this mean your entire sales process will grind to a complete halt? How long could you function without this application and the information contained within?

Of course there are no easy answers to this question. The point of storing files in the cloud is to avoid the cost and complexity of managing the equipment and software necessary to store the files yourself in the first place. So making local copies as a backup seems contradictory. Engaging a second cloud service as alternate storage is likely to change the economics and erase the savings of going to the cloud in the first place. In the case of a SalesForce.com, replicating the application in house or having an alternate supplier of the service is equally difficult to imagine.

My advice is to discuss the risk mitigation in the same terms as any other critical element of your business. The solutions have to be viewed in terms of the true risk and value of the service. For example, you may be in manufacturing and have one key production facility. What is the plan should the building be rendered useless by natural disaster? Property insurance will help with the replacement while business interruption insurance will help you muddle through the down time. Do we have the proper financial risk mitigation strategy in place for our key outside service providers?

File storage is like a warehouse. If we lose physical inventory it can eventually be replaced through purchasing or manufacturing. But intellectual property is not the same. We may be forced to keep copies in alternative locations and view the cost as insurance. Rewriting all the code or reconstructing all the customer records may not be possible in real time.

What would you do if there was a fire at HQ and all of your accounting records were destroyed? Typically we use some off site backup strategy to mitigate this. In the same way, special agreements could be included with your cloud service provider. For example, each month a complete dump in a mutually acceptable format could be provided or deposited with an independent third party. Should the cloud vaporize, you could retrieve your files from the alternate.

Proper use of cloud services can save money, improve service, enable growth and provide many benefits if managed properly. There is no silver bullet. Each investment in a cloud strategy must be fully evaluated and adequate contingency plans devised before you make the switch.

IT people love to "blue sky" but it's not a good thing when your clouds disappear.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Will Email Ever Die (Part 2)

Last week in Part 1 of this column we began to discuss whether the use of social networks for collaboration, cooperation and communication would reduce or eliminate the use of email. Using email can be inefficient and waste limited human and computer resources. The younger members of the work force, sometimes called digital natives, have more experience with social networks like Facebook and Google Plus and prefer this style of interaction. We imagine as they begin to dominate the work place, email might slowly disappear.

In Part 1 we took a look at the example of a small team collaborating first by sending email to each other, and compared it to an approach where they post into shared space. We could easily see how the second approach was so much better. All of the content was stored in one place, accessible by everyone on the team. This eliminated the problem of multiple versions and the need for reconciliation.

We didn't even explore more advanced forms of sharing actual documents using cloud based services like Google Docs. In that case, multiple parties granted view or edit rights, can all be working on the very same, single instance of a spreadsheet, diagram, presentation or memo. A complete audit trail is maintained showing every change and who made it.

But I also stated at the outset that I did not think email was going away any time soon. So why do I think this is so? Let me give you four reasons.

First, there are times when the message is a one to one, direct message and it may demand immediate response. For example, how would you accomplish a meeting invitation or conduct a poll? How would you deliver an invoice? How would you send an alert to the system administrator for excessive failed login attempts. Posting these and waiting for the recipient to visit would not be optimal.

Next, email often serves as a "back channel," an alternate means of sidebar discussions held privately and quickly among the participants outside of the shared space. Although you could use a phone call or text, email is convenient when you want to copy/paste from the shared space or create some new content and get feedback before proposing it to the whole group.

Third, there is an interoperability issue. Email has evolved into a standard that allows cross platform (and therefore intercompany) communication. Assuming one company is using a system like Lotus Notes, the only practical way to engage people in another company is to send them an email.  Even if the outsiders were convinced to learn and participate using this system, they would still have to be 'tickled' when new content has been added or their input is needed.

Which brings us to the fourth and final point. Every social network includes a mechanism to alert participants when they should visit. These networks are passive, meaning you have to decide to go an look at them. Those messages arriving in our inbox usually contain links that tell us exactly where to go. Otherwise we would spend a lot of time trying to figure out if anyone has added, changed or removed some content. Run down the list of all the major systems and you will see they each allow you to select the level of notification you want often dependent on the activity or trigger. Especially in our fast paced and highly mobile computing environment, you need a mechanism to point you to content that demands your attention.

By the way content management systems and other shared systems employ exactly the same logic. Whether its generated from a person or an application an email to you is still the most effective means of getting your immediate attention and engagement when needed.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Of Mice And Men

We covered a number of best practices for computer users in both their personal and professional lives. Using strong yet easy to remember passwords, turning on the PIN for mobile devices and having constant and current malware detection installed. Last week we talked about the need for regular and reliable means of backing up your critical data.

Once in a while, even the best, most careful and experienced individuals like, say, me, for instance, encounters some difficulty. This week I had a hard drive begin to go south on me. It cost me several hours of grief and lost productivity. It served, however, as a wake up call and inspired me to repeat the warning that you never know when your data will suddenly and inexplicably disappear or why your machine will feel like its not running on all cylinders.

For a couple of days, the machine had been a little more sluggish than usual. Video in Google Plus hangouts would have missing thumbnail video and "Max Headroom" syndrome on the main screen. Then, Windows began telling me is was sensing a problem with a drive (didn't say which one) and that I better contact my system administrator for help. I discovered its possible to chuckle and shudder at the same moment.

Being a long time geek at my core I dove in with both feet and began to troubleshoot using every diagnostic tool at my disposal. Windows has utilities built in that will scan and attempt to repair a faulty drive. These allowed me to determine it was my "D" drive that was exhibiting the problem. This is not the main "C" drive with the operating system but my secondary drive with all of my data. I made the usual progress. At one point in my recovery efforts I couldn't even get the machine to run.

Once past that minor roadblock I gave the hard drive a good scrubbing with MalwareBytes, another utility often used to augment your usual malware detection system. No one antivirus product is going to be 100% effective. Whenever I have errant behavior I use this program to ensure nothing nefarious has managed to slip past my first line of defense.

From Robert Burns: To a Mouse

The Boy Scout motto comes to mind. Perhaps one computer is simply not enough. One might need, as I have, a notebook or tablet computer as a spare. With multiple machines cloud based storage becomes a really good strategy for housing all of your work in process.

Yes, you better be prepared. Want some advice, call or write. Happy to help you now that my computer is working again.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Will Email Ever Die (Part 1)

Got into an interesting debate the other day over the question of whether social networks like Facebook or Google Plus would eventually replace email. We've all read or heard about one company that turns off email at the end of the business day and another banning the use of internal email altogether. Companies are encouraging the use of other forms of electronic exchange, phone or face to face meetings. Outside of work, more and more people are texting and posting instead of using email to communicate with family and friends.

In my view, email still servers a useful purpose and will be with us for a long, long time. However, this is a complicated topic and so I have broken the discussion into two parts. Today in Part 1 we will look at more efficient ways of using technology to collaborate. Next week in Part 2 we will come back to why email will stay around.

I have long been an advocate of moving the one to many communication model into another format, more suited to the process of asynchronous discussion and collaboration. Several times throughout my career I evangelized the concept of discussion space also known as forums, chat space, bulletin boards and a variety of other labels. All of the popular social networks and many commercial software systems offer this capability.

Imagine you want to solicit some ideas from five people in your company. The standard approach is to send an email containing your request to all five. Ideally, each of them will reply to you and you assimilate those responses into one final answer. But  what often happens is one of the five invariably responds only to you perhaps with a comment asking for clarification or adding a new dimension to the question. You are now forced to send a follow-up note to the others to bring them up to date.

In the meanwhile, they have sent some notes around to each other and people outside this circle to engage more people in the discussion. They too are collecting and assimilating multiple responses into the one they plan to send back to you.

Look at the myriad of problems with this approach. From a resource perspective we are generating an awful lot of extra emails increasing network traffic, using  limited bandwidth and consuming storage. Emails are flying everywhere delivering the same content over and over again. This is particularly acute when the messages contain attachments such as spreadsheets, pictures or diagrams.

Multiple instances of these messages are stored on each person's computer and on the mail system server, and ultimately in back up copies and archives.

In addition to wasting all these computing resources, we have people constantly comparing the last message received to all previous messages, trying to identify the new information and reconcile it with prior versions of the content.

Now, compare this with a model in which you post your initial message to one place much like an electronic bulletin board where the others can see it and post their response. The request for clarification is immediately visible to the other participants. They, in turn, can respond to it with additional comments which will also be visible to all. As each person responds, the thread grows and all the information is in one place at one time. Grant access to others and more people can read through the discussion and add their comments at the end.

This is the model most familiar to social network butterflies. Post a photo or status to Facebook and all your friends respond in the thread below. Post a link or a blog entry to Google Plus and the comments flow in orderly fashion below.

Since this approach is clearly more efficient and familiar to the younger generation entering the work force, should we assume that email will disappear from the office? Will email go the way of the acoustic coupler? Do you even know what an acoustic coupler is?

More on this next week in part 2.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Feel The Power

Spending the entire day yesterday in New York City, especially at this time of year, was most enjoyable. I had a few meetings and some parties to attend. It was lovely to get out of the "office" for a change. It struck me that I was still able, thanks largely to Starbucks, to use my free time between appointments as effectively as if I was in my home office. It further hit me that I am as technology enabled today, although an independent consultant, as I was when I was truly captain of the ship, a CIO at a Fortune 500 company.

We have often heard or read that the best technology used to be found in the office where massive amounts of computing power and storage, access to networks and the latest software would be found. Companies, particularly the larger ones, would always have the latest in technology.

Somewhere along the line, people started to have better equipment at home. Desktops, notebooks, tablets and smart phones all became affordable and moved into the realm of consumer products. Old style modems gave way to cable and fiber optics in the home bringing the internet to your front door, often at higher bandwidths than you had at work, and certainly less restricted.

The latest incarnation of the consumerization of technology is the virtual plethora of programs available in the cloud. Microsoft, Google and Apple all provide for little to no cost, whole collections of solutions for all your computing needs.

I am every bit as empowered to communicate and conduct my personal and commercial business as I was a year ago with the resources of a  $5 billion dollar company at my disposal. I cannot think of anything I want or need to do that cannot be accomplished with the equipment, software and capabilities I have.

For the price of a vanilla latte, I can park in Starbucks (or find other free WiFi zones) and use a notebook, tablet or smartphone to read and reply to email, scroll through Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus, write or edit my blog or conduct research.  I can shop or do my banking.

At home the capabilities are even better with dedicated high speed internet and a printer. My desktop is set up with an HD camera and headphones for telephone and video conferencing. No matter where I am, my Google voice phone number can be made to ring anywhere including on my desktop, house phone or mobile devices.

Perhaps the only thing I miss about the company is having someone to crawl under my desk and plug in the cables. Now I have to do that myself.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Big Data Is A Big Deal

When I began writing this column there were key trends in business and technology such as cloud computing, mobile devices and social media which provided a wealth of opportunities for discussion. Many of the columns over the last few months have included information, observations and my perspectives on these topics. Another major trend which has not occupied much space here on the bridge is so-called "big data."

This is a term, like the cloud, which can mean a lot of different things to different people. Let me see if I can shed some light on what we mean by big data and how it will, sooner or later, impact you and your business.

IT professionals have been collecting and finding ways of organizing data to help run companies since the dawn of data processing. Database technologies were devised and perfected through the years to capture ever more efficiently all of the transaction level data needed to adequately operate and control the business. Until fairly recently, the drive has always been to construct the "one truth" or central source for data which was collected from all parts of the company and rationalized, adjusted, corrected and published back for analysis and reporting.

When the central database became to large or unwieldy, the data mart was born. These extracts from the mother ship provided smaller, more focused data sets. Specific deprtments such as sales, marketing or finance would filter out only those data elements needed for a particular analysis or report. This also removed significant burden from underlying systems sensitive to the time needed to process transactions.

The advent of the internet, connected devices and social networking have lead to a data explosion. For a while, efforts were made to consolidate these external sources into the central database in the same manner as internal financial, production and other types of data. Faster database engines, new software and appliances have come along, but the data growth continues to outpace them.

The sheer amount of data can often be more than traditional database technologies can handle. For example, an oil rig may generate 25,000 operational  data points per minute. Trying to store and process this in conventional ways is nearly impossible.

Moreover, the preponderance of data extracted from social networks and other external sources is unstructured and, by its very nature, incapable of being handled by conventional database technologies.

Big data is the effort under way for companies to get their arms around these new sources of information and to try, using new technologies and innovative techniques, to derive some value from it.

We'll talk more about some specific examples of companies listening the the "voice of their customers" by monitoring social networks, and how they can shift from being reactive to proactive in the process.

Think about the new sources of data that may be important to your business and ask yourself are you ready to deal with it?

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

CIO Midmarket Summit - Day 3

Yesterday was the third and final day of the CIO Midmarket Summit. Though only a half day agenda, it was still packed with some very good sessions including the Think Tank I had been asked to lead.

Following breakfast was an informative session on Box, presented by Lesley Young, Vice President of Inside Sales. Painting an interesting backdrop of the evolving new work environment enabled Lesley to highlight how Box fits into and helps the CIO provide real value, meet increasing demands and leverage investments in other systems without losing control.

While a few participants went to one-on-one meetings or dealt with local, home or work related issues, the vast majority of the group remained for my session on security in the cloud. As usual, I started with a couple of stories to drive home the point we have been dealing with the so called cloud for over 40 years. Certainly, there  are subtle differences and nuances, however, the fundamental issues associated with the selection and contracting of cloud services are virtually identical to any third party provider. Moreover, many of the operational concerns are the same as you have with your own internal data centers.

The session was a lively debate, not without skeptics. We managed in the short half hour time span to work up a list of top concerns for the contract with a cloud provider. In each case, it reinforced the notion that these contract provisions could and usually do apply to every agreement with outside vendors.

Many thanks to my scribe who diligently noted the following list of key provisions. This is by no means an exhaustive list but the items that were top of mind with this group:

1. Service Levels : What is the cloud service providing (scope) and what are the guarantees around time to provision, add/delete resources, support (hours of operation, support) and key performance metrics (response time, up-time.)
2. Privacy Issues: Is my data protected and do we meet any regulatory requirements (PCI, HIPPA)
3. Ownership: Who owns/can use these data? Are there intellectual property issues or rights issues?
4. Accessibility: Account, password, token. VPN, mobile, etc. 
5. Term: How long am I committed? How fast can I get out? Can they end the agreement?
6. Liability: Who is holding the bag? Indemnification. Insurance. 
7. Exit Strategy: Am I prepared if I want to get out? If I am forced to get out? If they fail?

Given more time we could have easily doubled or tripled this list and we still wouldn't have gotten them all. Matthew Karlyn, partner at Foley & Lardner had an hour and over 100 slides at the C3 conference in November yet didn't get past the first few discussion points before he ran out of time. 

The fundamental lesson comes down to the recognition that we as IT professionals have been contracting for third party services for most of our professional lives. The Cloud is just another service that deserves our consideration for use from a technical or functional perspective. Just like other products and services, it may hold value and provide benefits to our companies. But we must treat the procurement of these services in the same manner as we treat any others by developing a clear understanding of the risks and rewards, costs and benefits, and ultimately documenting a clear and comprehensive agreement among all parties involved. Moreover, we have to consider the implementation, migration, operation and contingencies, and we must communicate these efficiently and effectively throughout the organization for the life of the project.

Please comment if you agree or take issue with the perspective. What are key provisions or concerns you have that we may not have covered here?

Tomorrow we will cover the balance of the last day of the conference in the final column on this wonderful event. 

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

CIO Midmarket Summit - Day 2

If you followed me on twitter yesterday you already know the second day of the CDM Midmarket CIO Summit 2011 was packed with great information, insights and discussions. From the opening keynote by HP right through to the last CIO presentation before the evening reception and dinner, it was almost impossible to absorb all the information coming at you.

Every session was good, but three of them really stood out as exceptional.

Alma Barranco-Mendoza moved from a faculty position to become CIO at Trinity Western University. It was apparent that the IT function was highly distributed resulting in significant issues of overlap, redundancy and lack of coordination. Alma reconfigured the organization into a central IT function. Moreover, she instituted proper project management controls leading to better utilization of resources and the recognition by the administration when IT was underfunded or understaffed. Her case study was a clear illustration of the need for the proper organization and governance of limited IT resources.

In his presentation, Peter Forbes, EVP at WorldPay, covered the need for changes in the US credit card payment system. He made it very clear smart cards and mobile payment systems are coming and those of us responsible for the equipment and systems had better be prepared. The major players like Master Card and Visa will demand end to end data encryption and the ability to handle cards with chips. Moreover, the recent introduction of Google wallet is a watershed event suggesting mobile phone payment systems have come of age and we can expect to see more of these as well.

Lastly, Rick Arthur, SVP & CIO at The Brickman Group, presented his work in progress reorganizing the IT function at his company. Moving from the common technology based org chart to one more functionally in tune with the business, Rick is transforming IT and shifting their focus from servers and networks to a clear focus on the business, its key processes and how these are enabled and supported by the technology. In the six months he has been there, he has completely changed roles and responsibilities of the people in IT to make them more accountable for business outcomes. His guiding principles, IT supply value chain perspective and organizational strategies were among the more fascinating and valuable aspects of the session.

Of course there were other interesting sessions and plenty of time to schmooze with the other attendees during breaks and over lunch. In addition, I had two blocks of time for me to get the skinny from a couple of the sponsors. We'll discuss those another time.

At the end of the long and productive day, it was nice to relax with a glass of wine, have a few laughs and enjoy a nice meal.  This was all arranged with a reception, a comedian and dinner. I find  this usually guarantees a good night of sleep, and it did.

I needed it to make it through the third and final day (today) before heading home.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Midmarket CIO Summit 2011

Good morning from the Montelucia Resort & Spa in Scottsdale Arizona. Now, I know what you are thinking but there are no bathing suits or golf clubs involved here (at least not for me.)  I am attending the 2011 Midmarket CIO Summit hosted by CDM Media.

This three day event is designed to enable senior business and technology professionals to interact, discuss and learn about key issues and developments across a variety of industries. While there are a few keynote speakers scheduled, the majority of the sessions will be smaller, intimate meetings including discussions with thought leaders, round tables and think tanks. There are also some scheduled one on one sessions with the sponsoring vendors.

I was invited to attend this event and asked to conduct one of the think tank sessions. My focus will be on the topic of cloud computing and, in particular, the security concerns and issues around its use. I was recommended by my good friend Larry Bonfonte, CIO at the US Tennis Association. Larry knows about my work with the Cloud Computing Consortium at Stevens and that I have written and presented on this topic several times. He suggested I do one here and the fine folks at CDM agreed. I am scheduled to conduct my session early Tuesday morning just after the morning speaker.

I arrived at the resort early enough to participate in the Executive CIO think tank conducted by Nick Eshkenazi, CIO of SanMar Corp. The moderator did a terrific job seeding the discussion with a few broad questions which led quickly to a litany of common concerns among the large group of people around the table. While we didn't solve many problems, the group did go deeper on a few topics including governance, demand management, and business intelligence.

The conference officially opened in the evening with a welcome reception and terrific dinner.

As always, throughout the conference, I try to capture anything of interest that can be conveyed in 140 characters or less. If possible, I will tweet during the session, starting with the topic and session leader so any comments will be in context. Since the groups are small it may not always be possible to contribute and tweet at the same time. Moreover, participants may object.

The event is sponsored by loads of hardware, software and service providers, some familiar and others new to me. If I encounter anything extraordinary there I will pass that along as well, although more likely in the form of a column and not a tweet. I really enjoy conversations with vendors in these more relaxed settings when they are in information exchange mode, and they are not trying to close a deal.

Naturally, the event is sprinkled with plenty of short breaks and networking sessions where some of the most interesting and unique exchanges usually take place. I won't be tweeting out what the folks are talking about in the halls between sessions. I tend keep most of those juicy tidbits to myself.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Google Music Is Singing A New Song

Sounds like the "beta" label came off Google Music yesterday. It is now a full fledged service offering a new way to maintain your music collection in the cloud, permitting you to load all the albums you currently own and providing a convenient way to find and acquire more. The Android market still has Apps but now includes a Book, Movie and Music section.

When the beta service was first announced, I uploaded all of my tracks which were "ripped" from all my CDs and had been comfortably housed on my local PC hard drive. Fetching the client software from the Android market enabled my HTC EVO to find and play any of my individual tracks, entire albums and my play lists. I no longer had to synchronize the two devices, or consume the limited storage space on the EVO.

The new music section of the Android market offers about 8 million titles from Sony, Universal and EMI. Conspicuously missing is Warner Music but they are rumored to be coming soon. The new Android market includes one more tab, My Library. This is the neat web interface for organizing or scanning through your personal collection.

You can shop the market on the web or your Android phone. Once acquired and added to your library, any music will instantly  be available for play on all devices. Needless to say, the search engine (Google) enables you to find whatever you are looking for. The market also offers a lot of free tracks including entire albums from new and old groups alike, trends, reviews, recommendations and other related content.

With Apple pushing the envelope on advanced search technology with the introduction of Siri, it makes sense that Google would fight back by attacking in the music arena. Ironically, I now find myself caught in the middle of this battle, having succumbed to the allure of the latest iPhone, my tracks have all been imported to iTunes. I no longer use any Android device making it difficult to continue experimenting with Google Music features.

I don't know when Google will get around to linking voice recognition and their search engine to some back end intelligence, creating their own Siri-like facility. This would not only counter Apple's attempt to steal search market share but might force me to again "face the music" on my choice of device.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Introducing TrapIt, Your Other New Assistant

My friend John Blossom recently turned me on to a new internet facility making its debut today. It seems Siri, the iPhone assistant, has a relative called TrapIt. Underneath this web site is the same intelligence originating from the DARPA funded project called CALO which gave rise to Siri and other AI tools.

Having played a bit with Siri, I wanted to discover more about TrapIt, so as soon as it was available this morning I went to the site. Registering for the service was really easy. It was facilitated by the acceptance of Facebook or Twitter credentials. More and more sites are doing this bringing the nirvana of a near-single sing-on environment to the web.

After a few introductory screens, the service begins to display topics. Initially, it looks around and reports on what is "trending" and top stories by the usual set of categories. However, you can "tune" searches with key words and phrases and TrapIt will continue to find more.

Asked to find information about itself, TrapIt cooperated by displaying a dozen recent postings. They are organized into a neat, grid configuration, with three boxes across all the way down the page. You can sort results by most recent or most relevant. Floating over any of the results will display an excerpt of the text, while clicking on the box will bring up the whole  article.There are convenient next and last buttons on the right and left of the screen making it easy to move through all the results.

It is no longer humanly possible to monitor and consume all of the information generated each day. The fire hose of content is directed at you through so many passive channels you clearly need someone or something to filter and curate, delivering only the most relevant information. TrapIt promises to learn over time what items of news it should bring to me. It will be interesting to see if my TrapIt feed could become a replacement for my Twitter and Google Plus feeds which take literally hours of time to scan.

It is supposed to be like RSS but with a rating system that drives more of what you like into your view. You define the topics with keywords and TrapIt constantly trolls the internet looking for new content to add to the results called traps. Moving through the results, a simple thumbs up or down indicates your degree of satisfaction and this is how TrapIt is going to learn about you.

No doubt it will take weeks of experimenting to determine how well TrapIt works and if indeed it can figure out what I am truly interested in reading about. Given that I am not always sure what to read about , this could be a real challenge for both of us. But, if it delivers on the promise, it could be a real time saver.

I'll lay a few traps and see what we catch in the coming weeks. If you try it, let me know how you make out with the service.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC