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| Volume 6, Issue 6 |
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In This Issue:
 Industries in need of IT help
 You Schmooze, you win
 Homeland Security: Fix your Windows
AOLs disturbing glimpse into users’ lives
FAQ: Protecting yourself from search engines
Leopard nipping at Vista’s heels
 Vista upgrade coupon rumor spreads
New rules put laptops in checked baggage
Testing client-side risks
 Heading off the hackers
Eight tips for better brainstorming
Airport security goes high-tech
 Career advancement without experience
When Not to trust your gut
 Whose Who in IT: Relationship Managers
The stigma debate
The new guy’s guide to building trust
The Alamo dilemma
The elusive summer getaway
 How to survive a takeover
 Hard problems, soft answers
Disaster!
 25 greatest PCs of all-time
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Industries in need of IT help
Tech hiring is looking up in the finance, real estate, insurance, transportation sectors.
Just a few years ago IT hiring was in the dumps, but now experts say it's on a
rocket ride - comparatively - with some industries showing plans for hiring growth
well above national averages. Surveys across the board show IT hiring is hot in
many industries, and workers with IT skills such
as security or
Windows
administration have employers knocking on their doors. The hottest industries for
IT hiring are finance, insurance and real estate, according to a recent Robert
Half Technology survey of 1,400 CIOs from companies with more than 100 employees.
That survey projects hiring trends for July to September. The survey shows that 16%
of CIOs in those areas expect to add IT staff, and only 1% report plans to decrease
head count. The 15% net increase is five points above the national average, according
to the survey. The growth in construction also is fueling IT hiring increases.
Five percent of that industry's CIOs say they plan to add staff, and 3% says they
plan reductions, for an overall increase of 2%. "We are looking at hiring
another network administrator for configuration of network
routers and that type
of thing," says Winston Grey, IT manager for Consigliore Construction, in Milford,
Mass. The company, which is working to expand operations throughout New England,
just hired a Web designer and software specialist. [Another area where hiring is
on the upswing is the transportation industry, where 14% of executives report they
plan to expand staff, and none say they plan reductions. Yet another is
business services - advertising, personnel services and data processing. Of the
CIOs in business service firms, 18% plan to add IT staff, and 5% are
planning reductions, for a net gain of 13%.]...
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You Schmooze, You Win
Those rehashings of American Idol with your office buddies are actually good for productivity.
Your research shows that people who have a best friend at work are seven times
more likely to be engaged on the job. Why? Tom Rath, head of research and
leadership consulting at the Gallup Organization, whose new book, Vital Friends
(Gallup Press, 2006), draws on more than 8 million interviews: Close relationships
and friendships are the single most important human need when it comes to
our satisfaction with life. When people leave an organization after a short time,
they often talk about how they weren't able to connect with someone. On the flip
side, there is something about those relationships that keeps people in jobs, too...
Read the article. Back to top
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Homeland Security: Fix your Windows
In a rare alert, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has urged Windows users
to plug a potential worm hole in the Microsoft operating system.
The agency, which also runs the United States Computer Emergency Readiness
Team (US-CERT), sent out a news release on Wednesday recommending that people
apply Microsoft's MS06-040 patch as quickly as possible. The software maker released
the "critical" fix Tuesday as part of its monthly patch cycle...
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AOL's disturbing glimpse into users' lives
AOL's publication of the search histories of more than 650,000 of its users
has yielded more than just one of the year's bigger privacy scandals.
The 21 million search queries also have exposed an innumerable number of life
stories ranging from the mundane to the illicit and bizarre. For its part, AOL
has apologized for a researcher's disclosure of the massive database and has yanked
the file from its Web site. It was too late: The database already had been
mirrored. That database does not include names or user identities. Instead, it
lists only a unique ID number for each user. What that means is that it's possible
to view the search terms that users of a single account typed in while using AOL
Search during a three-month period...
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FAQ: Protecting yourself from search engines
AOL's publication of the search histories of more than 650,000 of its users
should reinforce an important point: What you type in online may not be as private
as you think.
Search engines place a multibillion-dollar infrastructure at the hands of any
random user who stops by their Web site. The price you pay, however, is that the
company may hold on to your search queries--which can provide a glimpse into
your life--forever. To offer some suggestions about preserving your privacy while
using search engines, CNET News.com has prepared the following list of frequently
asked questions...
Read the article. Back to top
Leopard nipping at Vista's heels
So which will come first, the Vista or the Leopard?
That is the question that was on the minds of many after Apple Computer at its
developer conference announced Monday that the new version of the Mac OS X
operating system will arrive next spring. Microsoft has said it plans to release
Windows Vista in January. However, it has hedged somewhat, and many analysts
believe the update won't arrive until later in the year. "One more thing the
odds-makers in Vegas can bet on is which is going to ship first," said
Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch. Apple CEO Steve Jobs first
talked about Leopard at last year's developer conference, saying it would arrive
in late 2006 or early 2007. Vista, meanwhile, has suffered through many delays,
most recently missing its target of being ready for PCs on sale in this year's
holiday shopping season. Apple has been making hay about Vista and its many delays
since the Windows update was still known by the code-name Longhorn...
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Vista upgrade coupon rumor spreads
Fears that users might put off buying a new PC until after Vista ships stoke
rumors that Microsoft will offer free vouchers with computer.
Unusual patterns in demand for motherboards lend weight to reports that well-known
PC vendors will ship computers with free upgrade coupons for the Windows Vista OS
in the fourth quarter, say analysts. But the truth remains elusive. History
also supports the claims, since Microsoft and some PC vendors have offered such
vouchers in the past ahead of major software or OS upgrades. For example, when
Windows XP came out...
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New rules put laptops in checked baggage
U.K. authorities banned passengers from taking electronic items on board
airplanes following the arrests of 21 people Thursday in connection with an
alleged plot to blow up aircraft mid-flight en route to the U.S.
Other items, including liquids and food, are also banned from airplane cabins,
with few exceptions. The rules, available
at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk,
apply
for all flights leaving or transferring through the U.K., the British government
said. The U.S. government also banned liquids of all forms, including beverages
and personal hygiene products, from being carried on to flights. All liquids must
be placed in checked baggage. Additional information on heightened security measures
in the U.S. can be found
at http://www.dhs.gov and http://www.tsa.gov.
Laptop
computers, iPods, and mobile phones must be placed in checked baggage on flights
out of the U.K. Airline passengers have become accustomed to additional checks
following the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. Airport security
checks require that laptops must be removed from their cases and X-rayed. But
the new security measures in the U.K. could mean an increased chance of theft or
damage to laptops and devices that must be checked and not carried on. From
January through June of this year, U.S. passengers filed nearly 1.8 million
reports concerning mishandled baggage, according to U.S. Department of
Transportation statistics. There are ways to reduce the risk of damage or the
impact of a lost laptop, said Richard Starnes, a computer security expert...
Read the article. Back to top
Testing client-side risks
How many of your employees can be tricked into opening malware? The answer may surprise you.
Normally, I don’t get excited about updates, but the main improvement to Version
6.0 of Core Security's CORE IMPACT penetration-testing tool got my attention: It
focuses on client-side attack improvements. Essentially, you can drag and
drop client-side attacks on top of one or more e-mail addresses. CORE IMPACT
will then send e-mails containing those attacks to the selected e-mail addresses.
At the very least, the client-side e-mail test can include a Web bug that dials
“home.” CORE IMPACT installs a Python-based Web server that records the
incoming connection, along with any other information collected along the way.
You can send real exploits, including executing a client-side agent that allows
further exploitation testing. For example, you can use a Windows Media Player bug
to inject the client-side process into Internet Explorer, so it can outlive the
use of Media Player. Metasploit, which I’ve also used and recommended, and other
testing tools have client-side attacks, but aren’t nearly as user friendly. CORE
IMPACT makes it a drag-and-drop process. My only complaint -- if you can call it
a complaint -- is that Core Security hasn’t made it a stand-alone testing tool
for client-side attacks. Most companies drastically underestimate their client-side
risk in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Nearly all (99.99 percent)
of the hacking attacks to any environment are client-side attacks...
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Heading off the hackers
File it under the category of "be careful what you wish for."
In early August at the Black Hat Conference, an annual meeting of computer
security experts in Las Vegas, Microsoft (MSFT) handed out 3,000 test copies
of its new operating system, Windows Vista, and challenged attendees to help
spot security glitches. A short time later, Joanna Rutkowska obliged. In a
packed ballroom at Caesar's Palace (HET), the 25-year-old Polish programming
whiz delivered a devastating presentation in how to hack an earlier but similar
test version of Vista. Before a crowd of fellow researchers and hackers, she
bypassed security measures and implanted a potentially undetectable piece of
malicious code called "Blue Pill." The presentation, titled "Subverting Vista
Kernel for Fun and Profit," was rewarded with a hearty round of applause...
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Eight tips for better brainstorming
A recent Wall Street Journal story took on the hot topic of brainstorming.
Titled "Brainstorming Works Best if People Scramble For Ideas on Their Own," the
piece quoted research showing that people are "more creative" when they
"brainstorm" alone rather than in meetings and offered supporting testimonials
from managers. This is a subject I am quite familiar with. Along with Andy Hargadon,
I completed an 18-month ethnography in the 1990s on how the innovation consultants
at IDEO do creative work, and we've both spent much of the past decade studying
other innovative organizations. At the time, Andy was my PhD student, and now he
is an associate professor at the University of California at Davis. We agree that
badly managed face-to-face brainstorms do stifle creativity and we agree that,
even when brainstorming is done right, people probably can still generate ideas
faster when they work alone. But it is total nonsense to conclude that if you
want creativity, you ought to keep your people in solitary confinement where they
can't "waste time" listening to and building on the ideas of others. Here's the
problem: Most studies of brainstorming are rigorous but irrelevant to the challenge
of managing creative work. For starters, comparing whether creativity happens best
in groups or alone is pretty silly when you look at how creative work is actually
done. At creative companies, people switch between both modes so seamlessly that it
is hard to notice where individual work ends and group work starts. THEORY VS.
PRACTICE. At group brainstorms, individuals often "tune out" for 5 or 10 minutes
to sketch a product or organizational structure inspired by the conversation, and
then jump back into the conversation to show the others their idea. In another
typical scenario, I recall an IDEO brainstorm about a cool haircutting device,
after which one participant, engineer Roby Stancel, ran off to build it. Drawing
a hard line between "individual" and "group" creativity in these and dozens of
other examples is pointless. What really matters is...
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Airport security goes high-tech
Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, life has changed for American
travelers. They have learned to drop off their knives on the way to the airport
and to take off their shoes before reaching the security checkpoint. But the
security machines at the checkpoints are not much different than they were five
years ago.
That may be about to change. The Aug. 10 announcement that British authorities
had arrested terrorists planning to use liquid explosives to blow up jets in the
air could be a catalyst for the introduction of new devices in the U.S. airport
security routine. Jack Riley, a homeland security expert with the RAND Corporation
says the plot will "accelerate the rate at which these machines are implemented."...
Read the article. Back to top
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Career Advancement Without Experience
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People who are good at presenting their prior experience can narrow the gap between their past experience and future capabilities.
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A worker seeks fulfillment in a new job involving expanded skills
and responsibilities. The dilemma: Without prior experience in the field,
how can she prove her capability to a potential employer?
The challenge is even more daunting for contract workers making their living
outside of an established organization. What they need, say researchers Siobhan
O'Mahony and Beth Bechky, is "stretchwork" that fits with an individual's
previous experience and yet extends their skills in a new direction. Stretchwork
can help workers bridge the gap to a more rewarding position and enable them to
manage and advance their careers in the less predictable world of contract labor.
But how do you land those kinds of jobs?In "Stretchwork: Managing the Career
Progression Paradox in External Labor Markets," forthcoming in the Academy of
Management Journal, the authors examine tactics used by contract workers to
obtain stretchwork. O'Mahony is an assistant professor at Harvard Business
School while Bechky is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Management
at the University of California, Davis. "More people are working in more
organizations over the course of their careers," O'Mahony says. "In addition,
they're moving in and out of contract work. There are a number of open research
issues here, such as questions of health insurance and retirement. What we did was
focus on a very specific problem: I'm qualified to do X, but what I want to do is
Y. How do I get there?" For their study, O'Mahony and Bechky surveyed two
strikingly different groups: high-tech contractors and film crew members. While
roles in the film industry tend to be more fixed—a key grip on one project will
most likely perform the same function on a different project—the work of
high-tech contractors varies widely from job to job...
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When Not to Trust Your Gut
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Illustration of two tables
© 1990 Roger N. Shepard
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In past issues of this newsletter, we have highlighted a variety of
psychological biases that affect negotiators, many of which spring from a reliance
on intuition.
Of course, negotiators are not always affected by bias; we often think
systematically and clearly at the bargaining table. Most negotiators believe
they are capable of distinguishing between situations in which they can safely
rely on intuition from those that require more careful thought—but often they
are wrong. In fact, most of us trust our intuition more than evidence suggests
that we should. For a simple example of this tendency, look at the following
diagram from Roger Shepard's book Mind Sights: Original Visual Illusions,
Ambiguities, and Other Anomalies (W. H. Freeman, 1990):
How do the two tables compare in size and shape? If you're like most people...
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Who's Who in IT: Relationship Managers
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| Ray Posch, senior relationship manager at Cendant Technology Operations |
Relationship managers keep IT and business focused on the big picture.
What is the most important contribution you make, and how do you make it?
I facilitate the relationship between Cendant Technology Operations -- the
part of the corporate IT organization that operates the data center and
networks -- and the travel division of Cendant. That travel division consists
of a number of business units. Galileo International, which runs the Apollo
reservation system, and Orbitz.com are two of the larger business units in our
travel division. My contribution is to facilitate that relationship to help us
deliver our IT services effectively. When I say "facilitate," a lot of what I do
is to help resolve issues that business units are having with those IT services.
Lots of those issues have to do with process, so it often requires making the
process work better. For example, one of the project managers might come to me
with a need for an outsourcing partner to provide very specific services or changes.
I help to make the request process work properly so their changes get done and
delivered on time. On the surface, you might expect everything to work
perfectly [without facilitation], but it doesn't always...
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The Stigma Debate
In my editorial last week, I took issue with a Carnegie Mellon University
computer science professor's contention that the IT profession's reputation for
being filled with "socially inept introverts" is "well-deserved."
I argued that perpetuating that stereotype is harmful to the IT industry because
it discourages young people from entering the field. I had no idea that position
would cause so many forehead veins to pop. "Aren't you just
'Mr. Cover-our-liberal-asses,' chided one reader. "Like all liberal 'journalists,'
you love to paint the world in one beautiful rainbow of colors as though there
is no difference in given populations of human beings.” This reader, who said he’s
been in the field for nearly 50 years – was especially critical of my contention
that the message young people should be getting from their educators is that people
in the IT profession don't hug walls, they knock them down. "So let's tell them
lies and paint a rainbow on the IT horizon for them," the reader scoffed. Another
reader told me to remember that I associate "more with the leaders of tech rather
than the workhorses." He pointed me to a December 2001 Wired article titled
"Geek Syndrome," the basic premise of which is that Silicon Valley is experiencing
an autism epidemic because of the prevalence of people with geek genes. Maybe the
answer is to prohibit programmers from mating. A reader who described herself as
a consultant in the trenches of mainframe programming echoed the suggestion that
my view is skewed because I'm "interacting with CIOs and higher-level executives
and people in the leading edges of the business." She said she agrees with
the assessment that IT people are socially inept. "In fact, I think that
'socially inept' is putting it kindly," she said. "At the place I work now, most
of my co-workers have the charm and social grace of potatoes. Many are
extremely dysfunctional." My problem with all of this is that...
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The New Guy's Guide to Building Trust
Managers' Forum
Paul Glen provides a holistic framework for a reader's least
favorite task: performance reviews; plus, he suggests a way to
stop business customers from poaching the services of your IT people.
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10 steps to clinching your most crucial leadership challenge. Whether you
are starting a new job, taking on a new assignment or transferring to a
different project, building trust is vital.
This became clear to me recently when I became the project manager on a supply
and demand application implementation. Being the "newbie" came with the stresses
of unfamiliar team members, new procedures and compliance requirements,
preconceived notions and unknown pitfalls. I had joined the team based only on
a couple of phone interviews and a vague description of the project. My first and
most crucial challenge was to convince both upper management and my direct reports
that I was trustworthy. On this occasion, there already existed a certain level
of trust, but that isn't always the case. Imagine if the first conversation with
your new manager began with, "If it had been up to me, we never would have brought
you in for this project." Or if your team lead said, "I was finally going to get
to manage a project, but then they brought you in." It happens. But even in
an adversarial environment, I've found that you can help build trust faster by
following these 10 practical steps:...
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The Alamo Dilemma
Sometimes work is a joy.
Sometimes we get to work with people we love. Sometimes projects are engaging,
exciting and meaningful. Progress seems effortless. Sometimes we even wonder
how we got so lucky as to get paid to do something this fun. But then, sometimes
work is a struggle, and we are confronted by intractable problems that can't be
solved or even managed. Since most of us trained as engineers, we're steeped in
the disciplines of problem solving, and we like to think that every problem has
a solution. Given infinite time and money, we think we can solve
anything. Unfortunately, it just ain't so. Some problems are battles that we
are doomed to lose. In my experience, there are two sources of constraints that
make situations intractable. The easiest ones to accept emotionally are those
that are just the result of circumstance. Reality has a way of dictating what's
possible and what's not. Technical constraints, legacy technology, economic
pressures, competitive positioning and regulatory requirements can make
things difficult. The hardest constraints to deal with are political. Sometimes
the boss is the obstacle, or the boss's boss, or even the boss's boss's boss.
There's something they want or some element of reality that they can't handle
that compels them to place requirements on us that can't be met. When you're
faced with the no-win situation, you have only a few options...
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The Elusive Summer Getaway
Many CIOs are tethered to the office, even during vacation.
Bernie Schumacher remembers the days before cell phones, laptops and handhelds
enabled regular contact with the office even while vacationing. In fact, he was
on a cruise during the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant meltdown in
1979, completely unaware of the crisis until his ship docked. Back then, there
was no guilt about being out of touch while away. Not so anymore. "With the
technology today, you do have that feeling of responsibility" to check in while
on vacation, says Schumacher, global CIO for Novartis OTC in Parsippany, N.J.
"But if you plan it right and have enough discipline, you can check [messages]
very briefly, take that burden off you and have the rest of the day to have a
good time."...
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How To Survive A Takeover
At most any company, few things are more unsettling than a new set of suits showing up at the office.
And yet that's just what's happening at an ever-increasing clip, as private
equity firms gobble up more and more companies, creating prolonged periods of
suspense and uncertainty for existing managers and other employees. This
week's announcement of a $33 billion private buyout of hospital chain HCA (nyse:
HCA - news - people ) by Bain Capital, Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people )
and Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts is the biggest deal yet in a year that's already seen
a record $158 billion worth of corporate takeovers by private equity groups,
according to data from Thomson Financial. Private deals now account for about a
quarter of all M&A activity. [For a manager whose unit has performed at or below
par lately]...
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Hard Problems, Soft Answers
You know your team is delivering quality, but the organization is not seeing it.
Why? Because you’re not delivering on your relationships.
An IT executive recently said, "As you move up in the organization, people spend
more time working on politics than they do on quality." That's a pretty
depressing thought for those who've spent years developing their technical skills
in the naive hope that the results will speak for themselves. But when it comes
to perceptions of quality, poor relationships can cast a dull patina on even
the shiniest portrait. On the other hand, for those who realize that delivery is
never perfect, the fact that the perception of quality can be enhanced by
strong relationships is empowering. If your team is delivering day after day
without receiving the recognition it deserves, take a look at how you are managing
the soft side of delivery. In our experience, we have found that there are two
common barriers to building relationships: being selfish and confining your
interactions to formal meetings...
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Disaster!
A little more than a year ago, terrorist bombs ripped through London, killing
people, disrupting communications and shutting down the city. Here's how one
global company quickly connected with its employees and kept the business running.
On the morning of July 7, 2005, Kenneth McCrae left his hotel in central London
and headed for Baker Street Underground station. It was a warm day and he
remembers looking longingly across the street at the green grass and trees in
Regent's Park before heading down to catch his train. McCrae boarded at 8:42 a.m.
along with the millions who jam the city's famous subway system each day. On a whim,
he decided to take the Metropolitan line instead of the Circle line. It turned out
to be a good choice. At 8:50, a series of powerful bombs exploded underground, and
one of those seriously damaged a train on the Circle line, just two trains ahead
of McCrae. Above ground, another blast would rip apart a bus in Tavistock Square
nearly an hour later. Meanwhile, McCrae and his fellow passengers sat in the
dark, silently, for 20 minutes. It wasn't until they left the train, filed down the
dark tracks and walked up the stairs into the daylight at King's Cross station that
they realized something very, very bad had happened. The terrorist bombings in
London that day killed 56 people, wounded 700, crippled lines of communication
and effectively shut down one of the world's largest cities. As sirens blared,
McCrae, managing director of real estate management company Gale Global Facilities
UK, a division of Gale Global Facility Services, pulled out his BlackBerry and
called his boss in New Jersey. "My immediate thought was, 'how lucky have I been?'"
says McCrae, who splits his time between his home in Scotland and a hotel in
London. "Then I knew I had to get in touch with the home office. I had to somehow
check on the safety of colleagues in London." Even though much of the area's phone
and cellular networks were quickly overwhelmed, McCrae was able to reach New Jersey
as well as a colleague in Toulouse, France, who went immediately to the
company's intranet site to open an "incident report," which would soon chronicle
the day's events and help account for the location and safety of Gale GFS employees
in the London region. McCrae used his BlackBerry to...
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