Backblog

I've been writing a fair bit about last week's Cisco Collaboration Summit, but that's because there's a lot to talk about. This time, I've channeled some new thoughts into my latest Focus Brief. The idea here is to summarize five themes that I believe business decision-makers need think more critically about, and for you to mull over during the Thanksgiving break.

I've previously blogged about on getting Canadian graduate grants including my top ten tips. This year, I had the opportunity to look at several prospective masters programs of study. Below are common concerns that I noticed.

Bill C-28, the anti-spam bill without a name, has passed third reading in the House of Commons.  The bill now heads to the Senate for review.

Last week sure was busy in the IP comms space, and while a few of us were busy at Cisco's Collaboration Summit, others were busy following news from Microsoft and HP. I've shared a few things about Cisco's event already, with one more coming today.

Industry Minister Tony Clement delivered an update on the digital economy strategy in a speech that was disappointingly short on specifics.  There were some comments on timelines for spectrum auctions and foreign investment (heading into 2012), but no reference to open access or open data and no real benchmarks or targets for Canadian networks.

Recently Facebook announced their new messaging system to the world, and while it won’t be made available in Canada yet, if your business has an international scope it will affect your marketing, especially your email marketing strategy.

Anyone following me regularly knows that my writing sometimes comes in spurts, and today is a great example of that. I'm posting here about my latest Brief on Focus.com, with the topic being titled "Five Things You Should Look for With an IP Telephony Vendor".

A new Ontario Private Member's bill introduced by MPP David Orazietti focused on wireless services would establish new transparency requirements and mandate unlocking cellphones upon contract expiry.

I recently finished three days of orchestrating webcasts for a local social media conference. Prior to this, I had participated in the back-end production and front-end participation of webcasts, but hadn't gotten deep into the trenches of overseeing all aspects of the webcasts. It was a learning experience, to say the least. Without getting into the details of the decision whether or not to webcast or the event management details, I'll outline my experience to offer tips and caveats for anyone considering webcasting.

We just finished another webinar, and, as usual, we didn't have time to get to all the great questions we received. So, without further ado, here are the answers to the questions we didn't have time to answer.

It was another volatile and unpredictable year in the ERP software industry in 2010. Just a few highlights from 2010 ERP market include:

Most of the time when we write posts regarding social media, we’re talking about its ability to act as a word of mouth marketing tool to help businesses make connections with their target audience, and we’ve also written about the ways that other organizations, like higher education institutions can use social media as a way to build communities and strengthen understanding. Sadly, because of these very reasons, there are also some darker aspects of social media and the effects that it can have on people’s lives, both personal and public.

Ever heard of Software-as-a-Service? Well if you haven't you should make note, it is definitely one of the best options available for you when it comes to several different types of software including CRM systems (a popular example is Salesforce.com) and many CMS tools (like Marqui).

March 2011 will see the publication of Guy Kawasaki's latest book, Enchantment. Had the pleasure of hearing him give an overview of many of his key points on 'how to be deeply + truly enchanting'. In many ways, a highly instructive take on what sales people need to do to successfully 'storysell'.

Last week hundreds of privacy regulators, corporate officers, and activists gathered in Jerusalem, Israel for the annual Data Protection and Privacy Commissioner Conference.  My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the conference theme focused on the perception of a growing privacy divide between generations, with older and younger demographics seemingly adopting sharply different views on the importance of privacy.

The recent launch of Microsoft Office 365 is big news on a few fronts. Google is certainly changing the game with the cloud, and the time has come now for Microsoft to counter. There's a lot at stake here, and we started to explore that on this week's UCStrategies podcast call.

As a daily web surfer since 1998, I have encountered almost innumerable webpages, many of which I wish to record or revisit. Without a robust and scalable solution, I would not be able to easily store and retrieve online resources essential to my career and personal life. For the past four years, I have used Delicious for my web bookmarks.

Tier I ERP systems are generally more robust, complex, and as a result, more difficult to implement than Tier II counterparts. SAP implementations, in particular, get a bad rap because of the large, high-visibility companies that have tried and failed to implement SAP. Marin County is the most recent example of a company that failed with its SAP implementation. In addition, the media has covered the SAP failures of Hershey, Waste Management, and Shane Company in great detail in recent years.

Apple is extending the length of iTunes music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds for songs longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds.  It appears that the extension is a take it or leave proposition to music labels.

Ok. A confession. I'm in the tool business, yet I generally hate business tools. For the most part, I've found over the course of my career that they're generally over-hyped in terms of their contribution to my productivity and way more time consuming to learn how to use than anyone ever led me to believe at the outset. In fact, even in instances where the tools had great potential to improve my productivity, people often impeded the contributions business tools could make.

Howard Knopf posts an exceptionally important update on the latest developments in the Access Copyright tariff proposal, including the attempt by the copyright collective to exclude 99 of the 101 objectors to its proposal and subsequent demand for an interim tariff to be set by the Copyright Board that would keep the cash flowing even without a formal agreement in place.  Knopf points to many legal shortcomings in the Access Copyright position, most notably the serious questions about its repertoire and its ability to actually sue successfully for copyright infringement.