After Some Fits And Starts, Uncle Sam Is On The Way!

February 27, 2013
Josh Heard

We’re well into the New Year, and state and local governments are continuing to find ways to do more with fewer resources, and they are looking to technology to improve efficiency in the delivery of services. What does the rest of the year look like for our state and local governments and how their employees do...

Battle For The Marketing Budget

Brian Solis

Social is as social does. That’s me doing my best attempt to channel Forrest Gump. Why? Because like in the movie, this expression essentially signifies that people will follow what others do, often without knowing why. Sometimes it’s important simply because everyone else is doing it. Call it a form of social proof if you will, the age-old psychological phenomenon where, in...

6 Critical Questions For Your Healthcare Cloud Vendor

February 26, 2013
Barb White

Security is always a concern with any cloud service, but the sensitive nature of personal health information makes security for cloud storage of medical records, including digital medical images, especially critical. Cloud services can actually be more secure than your own local server, but it depends on the vendor’s standards and practices for protecting the imaging data....

Say “Cheese” With Social

Cheryl Burgess

Small businesses are realizing that social media is here to stay, and they are taking notice because becoming a social brand can help drive revenue.  Traditionally, small business have used outbound advertising platforms like direct mail, cable television, newspapers or yellow pages, but today outbound marketing strategies have largely been replaced by inbound strategies.  Integrating social...

Defining Cardholder Data

February 25, 2013
Chris Mark

Understanding the conditions under which a company is required to comply with the PCI DSS  (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard for those of you who are neophytes to the subject) is critical to all organizations that work with payment card data.   It is not only important for those companies trying to determine whether or not they must comply with the standard,...

Don’t Feel Like Talking? “Good Times” Can Tell

Maureen Backe

What do you get when you combine a pair of plush kitty ears, M2M, an Arduino development board, and cloud-based call management? If you’re neuroscientist Ruggero Scorcioni, you get a mobile app called Good Times and the $30,000 first prize in the Fast Pitch competition at the 2013 AT&T Developer Summit....

Two Sides To Every BYOD Coin:

February 22, 2013
Jim Dillon

How do you corral BYOD and utilize it to allow your organization to be more effective in the marketplace? The common belief around BYOD is it can be a management headache and data loss risk.  This can be true if your BYOD inventory is not properly...

5 Ways To Re-Up Your Social Media Resolutions For 2013

Mario Armstrong

This year, among other New Year's resolutions, I decided to dedicate myself to increasing my following on social media, interacting more with followers, and inserting myself into more conversations online. But now that we're in the middle of February, and things are starting to slow down and we're all finding that we're...

Good Luck Or Hard Work?

February 21, 2013
Paula Waldron

As luck would have it, my family decided to move to the Jersey Shore shortly before “Super Storm Sandy” struck the East Coast in late October 2012.   Our house, a turn of the century bungalow, sustained no storm damage....

New Ways To Go Deep With Cloud

Bill Strawderman

I am sure you could regale me in cautionary tales of colleagues who have made impulsive or uninformed decisions. And you had to deal with the fallout. As they say -- fools rush in. Thankfully, that doesn’t describe you or me....

Simplify, Save, And Boost Productivity With BYOD

February 20, 2013
Sander Biehn

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is an awesome opportunity for businesses to reduce costs AND improve productivity. A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Trend Micro, July 2012 states that there are numerous ways to calculate these benefits, and they can be huge. But concerns about...

3 Habits Of Highly Successful Cloud Users

Catherine Scaramuzzi

The recent announcement of Atari filing for bankruptcy brings back misty memories of watching my brother’s epic Ms. Pac-Man-record-breaking afternoons when we were kids.  It was the stuff legends were made of.  I share these stories with my children in a magical way so that when they see the rare Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine, they are sure to say,...

How To Pull Your Marketing Budget Up by Its Bootstraps

Alan See

The term "bootstrap" is often used to describe situations of self-reliance.  It means to develop something that takes significant effort with little or no assistance.  In the world of marketing, this often equates to operating with a very limited budget.  The economic ruckus created by the fiscal cliff suggests 2013 will be a bootstrapping year...

3 Security “Must-Do” Policies: Show, Demonstrate, And Convince

February 19, 2013
Chris Mark

PCI DSS Requirement 12.1 requires that companies: “Establish, publish, and maintain an information security policy…” It then lists a number of requirements for a PCI compliance policy.   So, what exactly is a security policy? First, it is important to understand that a “policy” is NOT simply a document....

Make Content Marketing Work For You

Rieva Lesonsky

If it seems like you’ve been hearing and reading the words “content marketing” more often this year, you’re not imagining things. Content marketing—that is, creating and sharing content such as articles, videos or whitepapers—is one of today’s hottest marketing trends. BusinessBolts’ Content Marketing Survey Report polled small business owners and marketers about how they use content marketing,...

Are We Wasting Our Time On Cloud?

Shelley OBrien

With all the buzz around cloud, it sometimes seems like that’s the only option business leaders want to hear about when IT projects are in the mix. But, is cloud right for every application? According to the November 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Report by Bill Martorelli: “Managed Hosting: Still Relevant Despite Cloud's Rise”, it’s not.  While many business and IT leaders...

Making Peace With All That Data

February 18, 2013
Dave Johnson

Opening in Boston in April, To the Brink – an exhibit commemorating the Cuban Missile Crisis – will be the largest new exhibit hosted by the Kennedy Library in more than 10 years. As an AT&T employee, I wonder if visitors to the exhibit will be aware that there is a deeper connection between the company and this landmark event in history.  Back in 1962,...

Beat Office Bullies With Better Policies

Susan Solovic

Social media is a valuable marketing tool for small businesses.  No doubt about that.  And employees can be excellent brand cheerleaders via social media.  However, the misuse of social media by employees is infiltrating the workplace creating negative consequences for employers.  We’ve recently seen situations where employees have bad-mouthed their boss and/or the company they work for, sometimes resulting in termination. ...

Connecting The Dots In Healthcare

Geeta Nayyar

There are countless sayings about the power of teamwork and collaboration. One of my favorites is by Helen Keller: "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." The truth is that when we look across healthcare there are many touch points. The catch is to make sure the points are touching....

Why Mobile Application Performance Should Be A #1 Priority

February 15, 2013
Doug Sillars

In his presentation 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps, Fred Wilson asserts that the #1 principle for creating successful web apps is SPEED.  Did you know that for every one second of delay in loading, you lose 16 percent in customer satisfaction and 7 percent of sales conversions?  Mobile users have the exact same expectations about your mobile app/mobile website. ...

Cloud: There’s A Reason For The Rush

Allyson Fralish

It's hard to believe, but many of the technologies we now find indispensable took a long time to catch on. I ran across this chart with some interesting examples. It took 40 years for refrigerators to reach most U.S. households, 30 years for color televisions, and 55 years for air conditioners. Makes you wonder how people did without....