August 19, 2015

Demystifying Data Governance: What it Is and What it’s Not

The key to establishing a solid data governance foundation is to shift from a reactive approach to a proactive approach. It’s common to adopt data governance after poor data quality results in a bad business outcome or when no one takes responsibility for an error. Having a formalized, proactive data governance approach ensures that somebody is clearly responsible not only for fixing the disasters but also for reducing the likelihood of one occurring. ... The term “data owner” is actually a misnomer because, in practice, what is owned is not the data but the standards that guide users in how to achieve good quality. So while many departments may lay claim to the contents of the data, it is the data governance group itself that owns the structures and the quality rules.


BPM drilldown: Product leadership value discipline

As companies take steps toward digital business-ship, CIOs are increasingly being called upon to optimize customer-facing processes. And they're turning to business process management principles to make that happen. One useful tenet of BPM: deciding which of three core value disciplines -- operational excellence, product leadership and customer intimacy -- is most important to the business and then adopting the characteristics of that discipline. In this webcast presentation, Ken Lewis, ITIL consultant at PA Consulting Group, drills down into the product leadership value discipline, laying out goals for a company that prioritizes it above the others.


How the tech industry is greening its data centers

"Traditionally, data centers were call centers. You put them out in suburban and exurban areas," she says. That's where land needed for the center and cooling has been cheaper."When you start integrating renewable generation and DC power networks into your data center choices, you don't have to go to those exurban and suburban locations anymore. You can put them where you want them and where your talent really wants to be," says Redfield. "The road blocks are the same as to any increased penetration of renewables, she says. "Where the grid is already reliable and there's plenty of baseload power generation, renewals are particularly slow to penetrate." The challenge, she says, is to convince companies that they need renewables where there's already an energy infrastructure – even if that infrastructure is close to being maxed out.


3 Ways The Internet Of Things Will Change Every Business

A big part of the Internet of Things isn’t so much about smart devices, but about sensors. These tiny innovations can be attached to everything from yogurt cups to the cement in bridges and then record and send data back into the cloud. This will allow businesses to collect more and more specific feedback on how products or equipment are used, when they break, and even what users might want in the future. ... The most important thing to do when considering how the Internet of Things will affect your business is to think bigger — much bigger. It’s not just about what kind of products you can make “smart,” or how information could impact your business efficiencies, or how you might sell that data to customers and partners.


Why A Trillion-Dollar Enterprise Practice Desperately Needs Disruption

Clearly, the age-old IT procurement bureaucracy is unable to keep up with current advancements in technology. CIOs spend time and pay hefty fees to draft nebulous RFPs and short-list potential vendors. The RFPs are then floated, in response to which service providers churn out long, flowery proposals where they pitch their track records and show examples of happy clients. The whole process can take anywhere from 4 weeks to over 6 months. But in the age of Watson and the Hoverboard, is this really the right way to build technology? Through my own software services marketplace VenturePact, I work with hundreds of CIOs who'd say it wasn't and have moved on from RFPs.


Amazon's Data-Driven Approach Becoming More Common

"What they were able to do was to go in and increase the staffing before they had significant attrition," Barnett said. "The beauty of systems like this is you're able to link actions to outcomes." The downside to a data-driven approach is t can seem "Big Brother"-ish to staffers. But Glint said the surveys that the company sends out have an 80 to 85 percent response rate. "Employees tend to be willing to share," Barnett said. Another drawback: Relying strictly on numbers can lead to the perception of a cold-hearted workplace. "It's easy to get so hung up on statistics that you miss the value of what that individual brings to the table in terms of personality, connectivity and those intangible pieces," said David Lewis, CEO of HR outsourcing and consulting firm OperationsInc in Norwalk, Conn.


Cisco: Flash exploits are soaring

Corporate security pros need to be on the lookout for malware designed to evade detection and also damage the operating systems of the machines it infects if detection efforts become too persistent, the report says. It uses Rombertik as an example of such malware because it performs pointless operations while it is in security sandboxes in an effort to wait out analysis or to delay discovery. Rombertik attempts to overwrite master boot records and if it fails, will destroy all files in users’ home folders. Should it go undetected, then it starts its primary function, stealing data typed into browsers. “It’s a solid bet other malware authors will not only appropriate Rombertik’s tactics but may make them even more destructive,” the report says.


Physicists Unveil First Quantum Interconnect

One of the most promising forms of number crunching is the quantum computer and its various associate quantum technologies, such as quantum communication, quantum cryptography, quantum metrology, and so on. Physicists have made great strides in building proof-of-principle devices that exploit the laws of quantum physics to perform feats that would be impossible with purely classical mechanics. And yet a significant problem remains. These devices must work in isolation since nobody has perfected a way of joining them together effectively. Today, that changes thanks to the work of Mark Thompson at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and a few pals around the world.


Hacking Case Raises Question on Securities Fraud

Stealing confidential information to trade on it before publication is nothing new, although the cases now seem rather quaint because they involved getting advanced word before print editions were delivered to subscribers. The Carpenter case involved a Wall Street Journal reporter who traded and tipped others in advance of the publication of his “Heard on the Street” columns. As recently 2006, the S.E.C. brought charges against defendants who got an employee of a printing plant to steal pages from coming issues of Businessweek so they could trade on the companies discussed in it. The hacking is not all that different from those cases, except that these defendants did not owe a duty of trust and confidence to the news services or companies whose information they stole, unlike the reporter and the printer.


Microsoft Wants To Put Windows 10 On Every Connected Gadget

Microsoft just released Windows 10 IoT Core, a slimmed-down version of Windows 10 that runs on the $40 Raspberry Pi 2 and Intel's $140 MinnowBoard MAX—credit card-sized computer boards that makers use to prototype connected gadgets. A version certified for Arduino (the granddaddy of hardware hacker boards) is coming, says Tony Goodhew, a program manager in Microsoft's IoT Team. ...Microsoft is courting the garage developers of the connected future to build up support for its IoT platform. "We're presenting what we have to bring to the party," says Goodhew, "rather than trying to bring them to our party, which is what Microsoft has done in the past." Microsoft has partnered with Arduino and the Raspberry Pi foundation and become a Maker Faire sponsor, for instance.



Quote for the day:

“There are two kinds of leaders, cowboys and Shepherds. Cowboys drive and Shepherds lead.” -- John Paul Warren

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