The Daily News is brought to you by George Spafford, Principal Consultant at Pepperweed Consulting, LLC.  Pepperweed is nationally recognized as a leader in IT Management and was recently recognized as one of the Inc. 500 fastest growing privately-held companies.  For more information, check out our website at www.pepperweed.com or call 888 229-0145. Please let us know if you see stories you think should be included in the next issue of the Daily News, and feel free to forward this email on to others.

 

"Good is not good where better is expected.” -- Thomas Fuller

 

The Picks of the Day

Risk Management Isn’t a Silver Bullet

“Risk Management is meant to provide a systemic means to identify threats, assess their probability and impacts, and then track their mitigation and levels of residual risks in such a manner that management decisions can be made. Unfortunately a number of groups have attempted to implement a formal risk management process only to find that it does not work – at least not for them. As a result, they have declared that risk management is flawed and not worth pursuing. This is alarming as the truth is just the opposite – they need risk management but they must also understand that there must be supporting measures in place for it to be effective.”

http://www.spaffordconsulting.com/Risk%20Mgt%20Isnt%20a%20Silver%20Bullet.html

 

Webinar: IT Governance: Sound Management Practices that Deliver Results
"Despite being used increasingly in recent years, the term "IT Governance" may seem so broad as to lack meaning. But at its most basic, IT Governance is all about sound management practices that deliver results. IT needs to focus on understanding organizational goals and enabling functional areas to attain the objectives that support these goals."
Click here to get the PPT :  http://www.spaffordconsulting.com/nov%2029%20-%20IT%20Governance_v2.ppt
Click here to go to the archived webcast:  http://www.jupiterwebcasts.com/_archives/2006/webcast_11-29-06/index.html

 

Robert Reich: The Economics of People

“Equal parts economist, professor, polemicist and politician, Robert Reich is quite unlike any other business thinker on the current public scene. These days, the former Labor Secretary under President Clinton is a professor of public policy at the University of California–Berkeley, National Public Radio commentator and sought-after public speaker. But in his spare time, Reich worries that the U.S. has reached an economic crossroads and could take the wrong path, choosing protectionism over globalization and failing to take advantage of its most important resource: its people.”

http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1540,2071453,00.asp

 

IT Process Improvement / Quality Management

Vendor Selection

“The use of automated information technology systems will directly affect the quality of services rendered to the business. With this in mind, it is essential to take the time to adequately assess not just the functionality of IT tools but the vendor as well.”

http://www.spaffordconsulting.com/Vendor%20Selection.html

 

ITIL gains momentum

“The adoption of ITIL best practices for managing organisations' IT services is accelerating rapidly across Europe with many firms claiming they are enjoying major productivity gains by following ITIL guidelines.”

http://www.techcentral.ie/corporate_it/ITIL_gains_momentum/view

 

Legal and Regulatory Compliance

Regulators Differ As Vote On Sarbanes-Oxley Changes Nears

“Amid a final round of negotiations on making it easier to comply with the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law, federal regulators appear to be of different minds on some of the details.”

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20061211%5cACQDJON200612111850DOWJONESDJONLINE000762.htm&

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2006/12/12/changes_to_sarbanes_oxley_to_ease_costs_for_small_firms/

 

E-discovery rules signal new era in federal practice

“Lawyers who practice in the federal courts are cautiously eyeing major rule changes dealing with electronic discovery, with some warning that the new amendments signal a seismic shift in federal court practice.”

http://www.masslaw.com/news1212.cfm

 

Security and Risk Management

UCLA warns 800,000 that hacker had access to their personal info

“The University of California, Los Angeles alerted about 800,000 current and former students, faculty and staff on Tuesday that their names and certain personal information were exposed after a hacker broke into a campus computer system.”

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/hacking/2006-12-12-ucla-hack_x.htm

 

Experts: Hackers to step up 'cyberwar' in 2007

“Computer hackers will open a new front in the multi-billion pound "cyberwar" in 2007, targeting mobile phones, instant messaging and community Web sites such as MySpace, security experts predict.  As people grow wise to email scams, criminal gangs will find new ways to commit online fraud, sell fake goods or steal corporate secrets.”

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/12/12/cyber.crime.reut/index.html?section=cnn_latest

 

New PCs ripe for Christmas hackers

“It is estimated that an unprotected PC can now be hijacked or infected with malware within minutes of logging onto the web; research carried out by one US firm Avantgarde showed that automated cyber attacks often take the quickest route to break through via security weaknesses in the PC operating system.”

http://www.pcw.co.uk/computeractive/news/2170728/pcs-ripe-cyber-attacks

 

Human Error / Safety

Long hospital shifts, lack of sleep can kill, study says

“The researchers found that when residents reported working five marathon shifts in a single month, their risk of making a fatigue-related mistake that harmed a patient increased by 700%. And the risk of making an error that resulted in a patient's death shot up by 300%.”

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061212/1a_offlede12.art.htm

 

After panic, experts ask: Where's Asian bird flu?

“The H5N1 virus - previously confined to Southeast Asia - was striking birds in places as diverse as Germany, Egypt, and Nigeria, and a flu pandemic seemed inevitable.  Then the virus went quiet. Except for a steady stream of human cases in Indonesia, the current flu epicenter, the past year's worries about a catastrophic global outbreak largely disappeared. What happened?”

http://www.theolympian.com/179/story/55256.html

 

BP execs worried about cost cutting, safety: paper

“Some top executives at British oil company BP (BP.L) are worried that cost cutting at a Texas refinery might have contributed to the plant's poor state of safety and equipment, according to an internal BP review, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Tuesday.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061212/bs_nm/bp_texas_dc_1

 

Outsourcing / Globalization / International

Force of China's impact grows in USA

“Marrying 1.3 billion Chinese to the global economy, however, has left its mark on the United States. Tens of thousands of jobs in textile plants in states such as North Carolina have been wiped out by low-wage Chinese competition even as U.S. consumers enjoy lower-priced clothes, toys and furniture made in Chinese factories. Through massive purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds, the Chinese government effectively finances Americans' consumption-heavy lifestyles.”

http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-12-12-china-impact-usat_x.htm

 

Managing Globalization: China as economic bogeyman may be wrong strategy for Washington

“The United States is often seen as globalization's biggest beneficiary. Its businesses are the ones stretching across the world in search of low-cost labor and materials, its markets are the ones receiving a flood of foreign financing, and its commercial culture is the one sweeping the globe. But then there is the nettlesome problem of the ‘global imbalances’ that Henry Paulson Jr. is supposed to solve.”

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/12/business/glob13.php

 

Economics / Business / Misc.

Kurzweil: Computers Will Enable People To Live Forever

The inventor, author, and futurist predicts that in 15 to 30 years, nanobots will roam our blood streams fixing diseased or aging organs, computers will back up our human memories, and conference calls will be replaced by meetings in virtual resorts.

http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=195200003

 

Fujitsu Unveils Prototype For Foldable Laptop

The company is gauging public reaction to an Ultra Mobile PC that folds up to the size of a CD case.

http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=195300010

 

Robot, Heal Thyself

Scientists have developed a robot that is not only self-aware and "curious," but it can take action to overcome handicaps or impediments in its environment.

http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=194700006

 

Interactive Patient Care Is Missing Link in Consumer-Directed Healthcare

“There are public and private pressures to raise not only quality of care but also patient satisfaction. The 2006 HIMSS Leadership survey revealed that meeting patient satisfaction and safety goals are the leading priorities on the healthcare IT agenda.”

http://www.bio-itworld.com/newsitems/2006/dec/12-11-06-consumer-directed-healthcare

 

Five U.S. Firms To Fund EHR Network For Employees As Way To Reduce Costs

“Five U.S. companies that provide health care coverage for 2.5 million employees, retirees and dependents announced on Wednesday that they will offer an interoperable electronic health record system beginning in mid-2007, the Los Angeles Times reports. The companies -- Applied Materials, BP America, Intel, Pitney Bowes and Wal-Mart Stores -- each contributed about $1.5 million toward development of the system, called Dossia.”

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=58481&nfid=rssfeeds

 

Wikipedia founder remakes Web-publishing economics

“Free software is about to get freer. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Monday his for-profit company, Wikia Inc., is ready to give away — for free — all the software, computing, storage and network access that website builders need to create community collaboration sites.”

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/software/2006-12-12-wiki-free-tools_x.htm?csp=34

 

End Notes

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Pepperweed Consulting, LLC, was founded by IT professionals who recognized a need for quality IT Management tools and specialists peaked in their implementation and use. Today, Pepperweed is nationally recognized for its unique ability to provide optimal infrastructure and process designs and to deliver on the promise of those designs through hands-on implementation of selected technologies. Recently listed as one of the Inc. 500 fastest growing, privately held companies, Pepperweed is one of the largest IT Management practices in the U.S.

 

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The Business of IT. Delivered.

George Spafford Principal Consultant Pepperweed Consulting, LLC® Office:  269-556-9597 Mobile:  269-208-1832 FAX:  208-978-6295 George.Spafford@...

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