CIO Insights editor, Doug Moran, lists 16 attributes of a leader, which he calls the “16 Ifs.” The “If” part he attributes to a Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name, which describes for Doug, “a leadership path that I have chosen to follow.” Doug says the first two lines might have been written for today’s CIOs:
“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;”
Here are Doug’s 16 attributes of a leader:
- Composure ― The Power to Keep Your Head
- Character ― The Wisdom to Know and Trust Yourself
- Patience ― The Strength to Endure
- Selflessness ― The Ability to Put Your Cause and Beliefs Ahead of Yourself
- Vision ―The Power of Having and Sharing a Dream
- Self-Efficacy ― The Confidence to Gain from Triumph and Disaster
- Integrity ― The Wisdom to Know the Truth and the Strength to Defend It
- Resilience ― The Ability to Bounce Back from Adversity
- Boldness ― The Ability to See and Seize Opportunities
- Accountability ― The Will to Take Ownership Regardless of the Outcome
- Courage ― The Ability to Face the Dangers When They Become Real
- Stamina ― The Will to Hold On When You Have Nothing Left
- Authenticity ― The Resolve Always to Be Yourself
- Inspiration ― The Ability to Connect With and Motivate Friends and Foes
- Enthusiasm ― The Energy to Fill Every Minute
- Ambition ― The Will to Make the World What You Want It to Be
To read the entire CIO Insights article, click here.
In these times of ongoing layoffs, orphaned accounts on the network are a growing concern. Or should be. These are accounts that still give ex-employees email access and default passwords to sensitive parts of the network.
“Whenever the risks from the insider threat are discussed, it’s usually about the disgruntled or malicious employee within the firewall, abusing permissions to steal data or plant malware,” says security evangelist Ryan Naraine with Kaspersky Lab Americas. “But the orphaned account is a bigger risk and, frighteningly, is often forgotten.”
In fact, some stats in a 2008 Symark survey point to an alarming situation.
- Forty-two percent of businesses don’t know how many orphaned accounts are on their networks, and 30 percent have no way to find them.
- In 30 percent of businesses surveyed, it takes at least three days to terminate an account after an employee or contractor departs. In 12 percent, it takes longer than a month.
- Some 38 percent of companies have no way of determining if an orphaned account has been used to access information.
- Of the few companies who can determine use of orphaned accounts, 15 percent said the account had been accessed at least once.
“In these tough economic times you have to be prudent about expending resources, but in your IT security budget you need to spare some room to create formal policies to deal with ex-employee accounts that are never disabled,” Naraine says. “It’s crucial that companies get serious about keeping detailed inventory of essential data, knowing where it’s stored and who has access to it, and staying alert for unusual data traffic.”
We’ve all heard the concern about massive electrical consumption in data centers, and new statistics confirm that half or less of that energy actually goes to the IT loads. “The other half goes to the network-critical physical infrastructure (NCPI) equipment including power equipment, cooling equipment, and lighting,” according to Neil Rasmussen, founder and CTO of American Power Conversion, Inc., a global leader in network infrastructure.
“Electrical power usage is not a typical design criterion for data centers, nor is it effectively managed as an expense,” he writes. “This is true despite the fact that the electrical power costs over the life of a data center may exceed the costs of the electrical power system including the UPS, and also may exceed the cost of the IT equipment.”
For efficient data centers, Rasmussen says: “The electrical power consumption is typically shared evenly between the IT loads and NCPI devices. Any rational approach to reduction in electrical usage must treat the combined IT / NCPI design as a system in order to maximize the benefit.”
The Big Recession has not hit the criminals operating in cyberspace, as more reports surface that the underground economy remained much healthier in 2009 than its more familiar aboveground counterpart.
“The pundits say it’s going to get worse,” writes IT security consultant and systems administrator Michael Kassner in his TechRepublic column. “Every prediction I read suggests that cyber criminals are going to continue leveraging existing vulnerable technologies and find new and more effective (for them) vulnerabilities to exploit.”
Three big areas where most of the security experts are in agreement include:
- Cloud computing: As more businesses move toward the cloud’s unprecedented storage and processing power, the bad guys are sure to follow.
- Data breaches: Security technology simply is not keeping pace with the rapid growth in data center size and capacity. “Data breaches in 2009 were minor compared to what’s expected for 2010,” Kassner says.
- Social networks: With a surge in their popularity in 2009, “social networks are ripe for plundering,” according to Kassner.
“We did learn a great deal in 2009,” Kassner concludes. “Amazing innovation in IT security also occurred. It’s now up to us, so I’m thinking 2010 will be a good year.”
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer believes new user-interface technology is ready to change our relationship to computers.
“I believe we will look back on 2010 as the year we expanded beyond the mouse and keyboard and started incorporating more natural forms of interaction such as touch, speech, gestures, handwriting, and vision — what computer scientists call the ‘NUI’ or natural user interface,” Ballmer wrote recently on The Huffington Post. “This process is already well underway through the proliferation of new touch screen phones and PCs, and in our growing reliance on voice-controlled in-car technology for communications, navigation, and entertainment.”
Yet it appears the IT community definitely has a “show me” attitude. A poll last week on the TechRepublic blog asked for responses to this statement: “I am ready to give up the mouse and keyboard for a natural user interface based on touch screens and hand gestures.” Of the first 500 respondents, 60 percent said, “Not quite yet, I’ll wait and see how these new natural user interfaces work first.” And another 31 percent said: “No, natural user interfaces are not better than the keyboard and mouse and I have no plans to switch.”
So, there’s 90 percent clearly less than enthusiastic. Ballmer may be a proverbial voice crying in the wilderness, but he’s undeterred.
“Simply put, NUI is about easing discovery so that the computing technology that surrounds you acts as a more natural and dynamic partner, not a tool, for helping you work, live and have fun,” he says. “And, I believe these advances will help usher in a new generation of human-computer interaction this decade.”
