"'I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” – Albert Einstein

 

Top Picks

OGC unveils new logo to red faces

“It cost £14,000 to create, but clearly no-one at the smart London design outfit that came up with the new logo for HM Treasury thought to turn it on its side.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/24/nogc124.xml

[You just can’t make this stuff up!!]

 

Who Moved My Cheese

“What I came to realize was that in most cases my discomfort was because I didn’t have the level of experience with v3 that I did with v2.  Someone moved my cheese, so to speak, and knocked me out of my comfort zone for a good reason.”

http://blog.itsmwatch.com/

[ITSM Watch now has a blog that I, Sharon Taylor and others will be posting entries.]

 

Travel group warns: Corporate data at risk from laptop searches at border

“The warning follows a recent ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that basically upheld the right of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to search laptops and other electronic devices at U.S. borders without reasonable cause or suspicion.”

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9081358&source=rss_topic17

 

IT Audit / Internal Audit

The Beginning of the End of GAAP

“FASB chairman Robert Herz announces that a public forum, slated for June, will kick off an effort to move American companies to international accounting standards.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/11318747?f=alerts

 

IT Process Improvement / Quality Management

Using ITAM to Save Money in Tough Times

“ITAM is a proven means to manage costs and improve the quality of services provisioned by IT, not to mention better risk management by avoiding potential software fines. In fact, the vast majority of organizations see true ROI within a year’s time and then on-going savings from there.”

http://www.itsmwatch.com/itil/article.php/3744536

 

New set of IT Governance rules announced: ISO standard will carry the number ISO/IEC 38500

“After the initial announcement of the new ISO standard as ISO/IEC 29382 (working title), the ISO organization now determined the formal number to be ISO/IEC 38500. The unique new set of IT Governance rules will be presented at a seminar on May 26, in Amsterdam.”

http://en.itsmportal.net/en/node/15762

 

Legal and Regulatory Compliance

To Err Is Human, and Common

“Marlene Plum, of the University of Utah, and Teri Lombardi Yohn, at Indiana University, looked at 3,744 restatements from 2003 to 2006 and found that, across companies of all sizes, simple human error on the part of internal staff is to blame 56 percent of the time. Not that vexing accounting standards are a nonissue: they finish a strong second, responsible for 38 percent of restatements.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/11080109?f=insidecfo

 

Security and Risk Management

Report: small merchants biggest threat to credit card fraud

“The quarterly report belies the popular perceptions that using credit cards online is riskier than using them at a physical store and that large merchants' huge wealth of data make them primary targets for credit card fraud. Rather, it points a finger at traditional small merchants, such as storefronts and fast food outlets.”

http://www.scmagazineus.com/Report-small-merchants-biggest-threat-to-credit-card-fraud/article/109595/

 

Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS)

Was published April 18, 2008

https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/tech/pa-dss.htm

 

Healthcare / Bio-Informatics / Care Delivery Organizations (CDOs)

 Department Focus: Quality--Quality on the Front End

“Many hospitals are discovering that preventing infections and other complications costs a lot less than treating them.”

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/209246/topic/WS_HLM2_MAG/Department-Focus-QualityQuality-on-the-Front-End.html

 

Healthcare IT plays key role in curing diseases, researchers say

“Over and over again at the Bio-IT World Conference in Boston this week, researchers, providers, pharmaceutical companies and vendors alike hailed the role of electronic data exchange as central to the advances being made in disease research.”

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9124

 

Privacy, shmivacy: How many people can see your medical records?

“Between 2006 and 2007, hospital data breaches exposed more than 1.5 million names attached to personal health information. That is according to a patient data security study undertaken jointly by Kroll’s Fraud Solutions in Nashville and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, with offices in Chicago, Ann Arbor and Washington, D.C.”

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=87383

 

Human Error / Safety / Environment

China on alert over deadly child virus

“China's Health Ministry strengthened surveillance and dispatched specialists to the eastern Anhui province as the death toll from a virulent virus climbed to 22, the Xinhua News Agency reported.”

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/03/china.virus/index.html

 

The Greening of America – A special Report from CFO Magazine

http://www.cfopub.com/guides/guide.cfm/10007226?f=insidecfo&x=1

 

Outsourcing / Globalization / International

Confessions of a (Former) IT Scoundrel

“Study the ways this information technology services provider has failed its clients—and you'll know the warning signs”

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc2008051_076548.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech

 

IDC Says Indian IT Revenues to Double by 2012

“India's information technology and IT-enabled services industry will more than double in size by 2012, led by a fast-expanding domestic market, according to a report released on Wednesday.   The industry's revenues, including those from export markets, will reach Rs 5.3 trillion (132 billion dollars) in 2012, from Rs 2.46 trillion last year, said the report by market-research firm IDC India. “

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/may2008/gb2008051_392546.htm?campaign_id=technology_AK

 

Economics / Business / Misc.

Hunting for oil beneath the ice

“The combination of falling reserves and $100-plus oil is sparking a frenzy of oil and gas activity in Alaska the likes of which hasn't been seen since the state's initial oil boom more than three decades ago.”

http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/01/news/companies/hunt_for_oil.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

 

Forget gas: Get ready for $4 a gallon milk

“Higher costs for feed and fuel are driving farmers to cut back on milk production - and that means higher prices.”

http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/02/news/economy/milk_prices/index.htm

 

End Notes

The News is brought to you by George Spafford, Principal Consultant at Pepperweed Consulting, LLC.  Pepperweed is nationally recognized as a leader in IT Management Consulting.  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 News, and feel free to forward this email on to others.

 

Titles and links to articles written by me are listed at:  http://spaffordconsulting.com/articles.html and if you have news or feedback you’d like to share, please send an email to george.spafford@....

 

To subscribe, please send an email to:  SGC_Daily_News-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

To unsubscribe, please send an email to:   SGC_Daily_News-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

 

Archives of The News newsletter are available at http://www.spaffordconsulting.com/dailynews.html .

 

_____________________________________________

George Spafford
Principal Consultant
ITIL Service Manager, IPRC, CISA

Pepperweed Consulting, LLC®
Office:  269-556-9597
Mobile:  269-208-1832

FAX:  208-978-6295
George.Spafford@...