"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other” – Walter Elliot

"Stay the course, light a star,

Change the world where’er you are” – Richard Le Gallienne

Top Picks

The New Accountability in Governance
“Roiling markets, diminished returns, foreclosed neighborhoods, TARP bailouts, greedy grafters, careers lost, and leaders tottering in the dangerous dance of debts, defaults, and delistings, have all put Wall Street and Main Street on edge. Tone-deaf CEOs flew their private jets to plead for bailouts while millions of retirement savings died, along with fabled firms, after Sept. 15. Greed has taken trust hostage. Shareholders and consumers have lost money and a legacy of believing their leaders protected them. Or cared at all.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-fransecky/the-new-accountability-in_b_160416.html

[Very interesting about the loss of trust in executive management and the need to restore/recover trust. Here’s another quote: “This will demand tough, grown-up work, for boards will have to act with courage and clarity to reform old practices and toss out some cherished beliefs. For example, among the board members we spoke to, CEO evaluation existed in name only.” Definitely a good article to read this week and one I am purposefully putting as #1 in the newsletter.]

White House Offers New Details on Recovery Plan
“The report released Saturday by the White House on the $825 billion economic recovery proposal offered more detail about how Mr. Obama intends the money to be spent in several key areas and was meant to ‘put meat on the bones,’ as one White House National Economic Council official put it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/us/politics/25report.html

What it might take for the US to remain No. 1

“After the dust settles on the deepest economic slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s, will the United States retain its status as the No. 1 economic power in the world? If you listen to economists, the answer is very much in doubt.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0122/p25s09-wmgn.html

Expect the World Economy to Suffer Through 2009
“We enter the new year grappling with the most serious global economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression. The U.S. economy is, at best, halfway through a recession that began in December 2007 and will prove the longest and most severe of the postwar period. Credit losses of close to $3 trillion are leaving the U.S. banking and financial system insolvent.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123267029592108287.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Definitely a must-read.]

Book and Product Recommendations

Book: “Architecting ITIL” by Randy Steinberg
Randy's new book covers architectures involving: service management, functions, data, organization, process, and service. He then discusses assessing and governing the architecture. His style is very straight forward and offers many different points in each area for the reader to consider. Someone looking for issues to consider in the various areas are presented with bulleted lists to review and pragmatically leverage. For people involved with the design of configuration management databases (CMDBs) or configuration management systems (CMSes) this book will be very valuable. If you haven't checked it out yet and are involved with ITSM architecture, then you really should.
Order it on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1425180345?ie=UTF8&tag=georgespaffor-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1425180345

IT Audit / Internal Audit / Compliance

DHS ranks high on GAO's high-risk list
“The Homeland Security Department is tied for second among federal departments for having the most high-risk management challenges on the Government Accountability Office’s biennial high-risk list released Jan. 22.”
http://fcw.com/articles/2009/01/23/dhs-high-on-gao-list.aspx

Big trend: Offshoring audit work
“Here's another unintended consequence of Sarbanes-Oxley: Top audit firms are increasingly outsourcing core audit functions to their overseas affiliates. The logic goes like this: Sarbanes-Oxley has resulted in ‘fee fatigue’ for a lot of clients. To give them a break, more auditors are lowering costs via their overseas affiliates. This logic is hardly rock solid.”
http://www.fiercesarbox.com/story/big-trend-offshoring-audit-work/2009-01-23

The Satyam mess and Sarbanes-Oxley
“First, we should note that Satyam's ADR traded on the Nasdaq. As such, the big Indian outsourced service provider was required to comply with Sarbox. Which didn't prevent the fraud. In fact, it has has thrust PricewaterhouseCoopers onto the hot seat. How could it have signed off on the audit?”
http://www.fiercesarbox.com/story/satyam-mess-and-sarbanes-oxley/2009-01-16

Operational controls to combat a down economy
“Challenging economic times call for bold actions and creative approaches to stay ahead of the competition, or perhaps even afloat. Profitability, strategy, revenue growth, client satisfaction, cash flows, and other operational objectives are often magnified by boards, creditors, and the investing community during economic downturns.”
http://wistechnology.com/articles/5409/

PCAOB to Auditors: Focus on the CFO
“A sharp and experienced CFO with broad knowledge of a small company's operation can make for a much easier and cheaper audit of the company's internal controls over financial reporting. An unruly finance chief, however, can wreak havoc on the controls of a tiny firm. Through pithy scenarios, a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board staff guidance issued today reveals such down-home wisdom about the crucial role of the CFO in the audit process.”
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/13005719/c_13003803?f=home_todayinfinance

IT Process Improvement / Quality Management

Gutting Costs Guts Viability
“When we are looking at organizations, we can classify their approaches as focusing on a spectrum of independent and/or dependent variables. The news reflects a current overemphasis on dependent variables. Yet, cost cutting is not a long term strategy. It is, at best, is a short term tactic.”
http://www.cioupdate.com/features/article.php/3797311/Gutting-Costs-Guts-Viability.htm

The Biggest Mistakes in Managing Change
“From working with executives and managers, I’ve seen how management of change impacts a work force. Here are the biggest mistakes in managing change -- and the lessons learned.”
http://www.winstonbrill.com/bril001/html/article_index/articles/501-550/article506_body.html

Organizational Change and Development
This is a great resource for OC/OD info.
http://www.managementhelp.org/org_chng/org_chng.htm

Resource: Microsoft digs into green computing
“In an effort to provide datacenter architects with some guidance in making their datacenters greener, the latest edition of Microsoft's freely downloadable Architecture Journal focuses entirely on green computing.”
http://weblog.infoworld.com/sustainableit/archives/2008/12/microsoft_green_1.html
The Microsoft Architecture Journal is at: http://www.msarchitecturejournal.com/pdf/Journal18.pdf

Turning Up the Heat to Save Energy
“The temperature's rising in online brokerage Scottrade Inc.'s data center -- and that's a good thing. The move has allowed the St. Louis-based company to reap enormous energy savings while increasing reliability. Six months ago, CIO Ian Patterson hired the engineering firm Glumac to construct a computational fluid dymanics (CFD) model of Scottrade's data center. The model provided a complete picture of thermal airflows.”
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=331546

Bosses Demand More With Less In Data Centers
“A survey suggests IT executives may not have their finger on the pulse of their data-center staffs during this downturn -- but everyone’s on board with the need for efficiency and tech-driven business growth.”
http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Infrastructure/Bosses-Demand-More-With-Less-In-Data-Centers/

Green your data center
“There are many ways to green your data center, but we will go over only a few of the easiest and most obvious ways to cut costs.”
http://www.emqus.com/index.php?/emq/article/green_your_data_center_447

Kurt’s Corner

News and views from Kurt Milne, the managing director of the ITPI. He can be reached at: kurt.milne@....

There is an open thread on Google groups cloud computing discussion board – about the “killer app” for cloud computing. It includes some powerful thinking about enabling technology and the appropriate business model for cloud vendors. One train of thought suggests that the cloud is going to be driven by economies of scale and cost reduction. However, my sense is that it is not about infrastructure efficiencies. The real demand driver will be enabling business innovation and speed.

0,289483,sid183_gci1343492,00.html?track=NL-974&ad=684609&asrc=EM_NLT_5613439&uid=4561296#

So – what exactly is cloud computing?

The cement isn’t dry yet. The answer depends on your perspective. Some analysts and vendors define cloud computing narrowly as an updated version of utility computing: basically virtual servers available over the Internet. Others go very broad, arguing anything you consume outside the firewall is "in the cloud," including conventional outsourcing.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/07/15FE-cloud-computing-reality_1.html

Forrester to CFOs: Embrace cloud computing to cut costs.
However, first two reasons listed in this article are 1) speed – customers don't build; they subscribe and receive services. 2) skills - ship IT tasks to cloud computing specialists, who "worry about the nuts and bolts so that you don’t have to." And then 3) by-the-drink payment plans keep cash in the bank longer. I think #2 is most important. IT staff can focus on more important business processes.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/Forresters-Advice-to-CFOs-Embrace-Cloud-Computing-to-Cut-Costs/

Security and Risk Management

If you outsource your virtualisation, thoroughly check your provider’s security
“Bringing these together in the cloud is, from a security perspective, still an immature area of development. But this will need to be embraced to meet business demands and environmental restrictions, as long as traditional controls are still built in and enforced in virtualised environments.”
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/01/20/234315/if-you-outsource-your-virtualisation-thoroughly-check-your-providers.htm

Heartland data breach could be bigger than TJX's
“A data breach disclosed today by Heartland Payment Systems Inc. may well displace TJX Companies Inc.'s January 2007 breach in the record books as the largest ever involving payment data with potentially over 100 million cards being compromised.”
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9126379&intsrc=news_ts_head

Security demands land on desk of new President
“In an open letter to the new President, BigFix CTO Amrit Williams claimed that it was ‘imperative that we take this opportunity to implement a vision for how the United States and the world will securely and efficiently maximise the value of technology for the betterment of all’.”
http://www.scmagazineuk.com/Security-demands-land-on-desk-of-new-President/article/126100/

Obama 'to get spy-proof smartphone'
“Writing on his blog for the Atlantic magazine, Marc Ambinder reports that the National Security Agency has approved a $3,350 smartphone -- inevitably dubbed the ‘BarackBerry’ -- for Obama's use.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/obama.blackberry/index.html

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

The Greatest Healthcare IT Generation
“In Washington, Healthcare Information Technology policy planning is accelerating at a pace that is faster than at any time in history (at least my 30 years in healthcare IT). Over the past few days, the House Ways and Means Committee completed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), as part of the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.”
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/guest/22513/
Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH): http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/110/hit2.pdf
American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/110/sbill.pdf

Legislators want more physician payment disclosure
“A new federal bill requiring more extensive disclosure of payments to physicians by pharmas and medical device companies is now circulating on Capitol Hill. The bill, a new version of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, would require not only that such companies make annual online disclosures of how much money or other considerations were provided to doctors, but it would also demand that they explain the types of services for which doctors were paid.”
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/legislators-want-more-physician-payment-disclosure/2009-01-23?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal&cmp-id=EMC-NL-FH&dest=FH

COBRA out of reach for many, study finds
“Only 9% of eligible unemployed workers took up coverage under COBRA in 2006. Financial assistance of 75% to 85% of premiums could help far more laid-off workers—about two-thirds—maintain their health insurance through COBRA, according to the report. Average annual premiums for individuals under COBRA in 2008 were $4,704, while families paid $12,680 on average, a price tag out of reach for most unemployed Americans, the New York-based foundation said in the report.”
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090123/REG/301239963&nocache=1&nocache=1

The Commonwealth Fund’s findings are at: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=784702

Human Error / Safety / Environment

China warns of bird flu risk over Lunar New Year
“China has warned of the risk of further human cases of bird flu in the run-up to the Lunar New Year holiday after reporting two new cases over the weekend. Until this month China had not seen a single human infection in almost a year, but it has now confirmed three cases of the H5N1 virus in less than two weeks.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE50I1R020090119

European viral epidemic linked to global warming
“A n epidemic of the viral disease nephropathia epidemica (NE) has been linked to increases in the vole population caused by hotter summers, milder winters and increased seedcrop production by broadleaf trees.”
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=45057

Study: Antarctica joins rest of globe in warming
“Antarctica, the only place that had oddly seemed immune from climate change, is warming after all, according to a new study. For years, Antarctica was an enigma to scientists who track the effects of global warming. Temperatures on much of the continent at the bottom of the world were staying the same or slightly cooling, previous research indicated.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hFV9GIGdjTz4U0s0KVEPreiOUm6gD95ROFV81

NRC: Human error a factor in power and cooling interruption at Oconee Nuclear
“NRC and Duke officials met Thursday at the NRC’s Atlanta office to discuss a brief interruption of power and cooling at Oconee’s Unit 1 reactor during a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage last April 15.”
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090122/NEWS01/90122021/1004/NEWS01

Out on a Limb: Global Warming May Be Killing Old-Growth Forests
“The majestic old-growth forests of western North America, greening patches of the landscape from Arizona to British Columbia, may be far more vulnerable to subtle climate change than scientists previously believed. A study published today in the journal Science reveals that these western forests are dying at faster rates as regional average temperatures climb more rapidly than the global average.”
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=out-on-a-limb-global-warm

Global News / Business / Economics

Chinese economy likely grew nine percent in 2008: analysts

“The Chinese economy likely grew by about nine percent in 2008, the lowest rate in at least six years, as global financial woes wreaked havoc on its trade-dependent economy, analysts said. The government is expected this week to release key official economic data for last year, and observers believe they will show how the state uses its own spending to pick up the slack from slowing exports.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j624C0soYT98YUHA_Iu8GQpeqHNA

Chinese slowdown to cost Australia billions: PM
“China, Canberra's largest trading partner, buys about 25 billion dollars in exports annually, including commodities such as coal and iron ore. It provided the motor for Australia's stellar economic growth for nearly a decade.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iNQWrzM4h7tYYvcKe7lFfp_WPH-g

Trichet-Global economy to start rebounding in 2010
“The global economy is in a substantial slowdown but should start recovering in 2010, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Thursday.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/marketsNewsUS/idUKLM7578220090122

Expect loonie to fly low as U.S. goes slow
“Credit is not flowing for Canada's biggest trading partner, the United States. The U.S. Federal Reserve is pushing money out to all corners of the economy because banks are not. The problem is acute and widespread and not easily fixed. Until that happens, the U.S. economy will remain weak and trade growth will remain anemic.”
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Expect+loonie+goes+slow/1200503/story.html

Iceland business minister resigns
“Iceland's Minister of Business Affairs Bjorgvin Sigurdsson resigned Sunday, three months after the collapse of several of the country's leading banks and its stock market. He said the government had failed to restore confidence following the crisis.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/25/iceland.resignation/index.html

US News / Business / Economics

U.S. economy may sputter for years
“The sleek racing machine that was the U.S. economy is unlikely to return any time soon despite the huge repair efforts now underway. Instead, it probably will continue to sputter and threaten to stall for years to come. The prospects are so gloomy, according to a recent study, that unemployment may be slightly higher by the time President-elect Barack Obama's first term ends.”
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-econ19-2009jan19,0,1021931.story

U.S. has itself to blame for financial meltdown
The Chinese author is with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. He/she presents a chronology of the problems that have led up to the current US problems. It’s always interesting to get an external opinion to problems, so this article is worth reading due to the perspective from China.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/20/content_10688827.htm

Spy chief to Obama: Let DARPA fix economy
“The recommendations come from Pedro L Rustan, a senior figure in the US National Reconnaissance Office, the secretive agency which handles American spy satellites. Rustan delivered his exhortations to Mr Obama in the form of an open letter to the aerospace mag Aviation Week, titled Refocus DARPA Beyond Defense.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/21/darpa_economy_fix_plan/
The actual letter is at: http://aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=busav&id=news/P6Rustan.xml

Contrite US Treasury pick vows to move fast on economy
“Incoming Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner apologized Wednesday over past tax transgressions while vowing to act with "strength, speed and care" to revive the stricken US economy. At a confirmation hearing before the Senate finance committee, Geithner said President Barack Obama's new administration was forging a ‘comprehensive plan’ to address the nation's economic crisis, starting with the housing market.”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hEm4AbjX-0MKdxugLWxzebRl3f3A

Prescription for the battered U.S. economy
“Although the United States is aware of its illness, it has trouble facing it. If an urgent and concerted effort is not made to address it, the future is insecure given its US$12 trillion government debt and several more trillion dollars in state, personal and business debt. And if the United States falters, the rest of the world will follow suit.”
http://www.upiasia.com/Economics/2009/01/20/prescription_for_the_battered_us_economy/4727/

Obama faces pressure for faster action
“The rapidly unraveling U.S. economy is piling pressure on President Barack Obama to try bolder recession-fighting tactics even before all his economic advisers have found their desks. The headlines in the first 72 hours of Obama's term included up to 5,000 job cuts at Microsoft, a gloomy economic outlook from General Electric and the steepest Inauguration Day stock market drop on record.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/25/business/econ26.1-414920.php

Technology & Science

New data center boasts green, super efficiency
“San Francisco-based Advanced Data Centers (ADC) says its facility under construction in Sacramento, California, might be the greenest data center yet. The McClellan Park data center, being built at the former McClellan US Air Force base, has already been pre-certified LEED Platinum by the US Green Building Council — a first in the data center industry, according to ADC.”
http://www.greenbang.com/7149/new-data-center-boasts-green-super-efficiency/

Data Center Colocation Crisis: Act Now or Pay Later
“Across the pond in New England, I've seen monthly lease prices for colocation data center space increase 675 percent over the last five years. The same provider that offered Tier 3-type space for $4 a square foot back then is now charging about $30. In the metro New York market, don't be surprised to see prices in the $45 to $50 range.”
http://advice.cio.com/michael_bullock/data_center_colocation_crisis_act_now_or_pay_later

How to Leverage Data Deduplication to Green Your Data Center
“Data deduplication goes a long way toward reducing data storage costs by making storage much more efficient, which in turn can reduce the overall footprint inside the data center. Knowledge Center contributor Chris Poelker explains data deduplication's benefits, including how leveraging data deduplication can help green your data center.”
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/How-to-Leverage-Data-Deduplication-to-Green-Your-Data-Center/

Five ways to greener storage
“Only a small number of businesses in Asia have defined green storage strategies, but there is impetus for more to follow suit, say industry observers.”
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/hardware/0,39042972,62050249,00.htm

Hate Vista? You May Like the Fix
“One thing’s for sure: it won’t take Microsoft five years to produce the next Windows. The company wants to put Vista behind it as soon as possible. In fact, the next version of Windows is almost here already.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/technology/personaltech/22pogue.html?em

Sun Cloud CTO: 'Your Data Center Is Your Computer'
“’’In cloud computing, 'the data center is the computer.' We see a future where there are a bunch of clouds, both public and private clouds, and companies will be able to build scalable apps that are self-provisioning. These apps will be able to scale up automatically where requesting resources will be done in a self-service fashion.’”
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/01/sun_cloud_cto_y.html

World's smallest working fuel cell developed
“A researcher at the University of Illinois, where the 3 x 3 x 1mm hydrogen-fuelled ‘micro fuel cell’ was developed, said it’s able to generate power without consuming any itself, according to a New Scientist report.”
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/01/23/worlds_smallest_fuel_cell/

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@....

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George Spafford
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Pepperweed Consulting, LLC®
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