Monday, April 4, 2011
The future of email is here today (April 1) through Gmail Motion
Remember technologies like the PlayStation Move or the ever-so-popular Kinect for the Xbox 360? Then take a look at this, Google has unveiled what seemed to be the latest innovation in email interactivity through Gmail Motion. So what is Gmail Motion? From the name itself, it uses gestures that the user does and is captured by your PCs webcam to navigate your Gmail, producing an all new experience you’ve probably never had before. Google says that it uses their patented “Spatial Tracking Technology” that does the translation of your movements to commands and characters you can use to compose your mail. Excited? Head on to Gmail Motion BETA today,
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Hurt by the Algorithm Change? Do the Google Rain Dance
Where we went wrong was in planting seeds without nurturing them at all. Had we done it right the first time, a day's worth of time would have been dedicated to each page. Had we done that, we'd probably have one of the better resource bases on the Net. Instead, we created the pages, then got caught up in running a business, got traffic from some of those poorly fertilized pages -- then Google kicked us where it hurt.
If you are a victim of the latest Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) algorithm change and experienced an 85 percent traffic drop like the disgruntled fellow penning this article, you may be feeling the heat right now.
It's easy to blame others and point out competitors who are "getting away with worse," but what all of those wounded really need to do is look into the the mirror and figure out how to get better.
Here is a quick guide on how to right the ship if you've keeled over -- or, if you're just starting your website, how to avoid disaster to begin with.
Plant the Seed When It Is Ready to Grow
There is a ton of thinking and planning ahead when it comes to developing a website. In our case, the website was ready before the company officially formed. Oftentimes, this happens in reverse, but the business side of things had to be sorted out.
This led to creating pages ahead of time, with certain "plans" that were to be accomplished soon in regard to content. Most of the pages had some original content, but it was largely generic.
At the same time, we provided consistent updates to our blogs to help the site along for when the business end would be good to go. Google has (or had) a way of rewarding websites that consistently updated their blogs, because it showed fresh content was being added to the mix.
We never copied content, but many of our updates were shallow in terms of coverage. In addition, the blogs were named for the search terms we wanted to rank them for. Not all of them, but many of them were named this way. At the time, it seemed like a good common-sense strategy. Now it looks like a big mistake. We did not monetize off of the traffic at all, and it still backfired.
In sum, create the pages offsite or don't publish them until they are absolutely ready and valuable to readers.
Attacking the Problem
As soon as we realized how Google's algorithm change was affecting our rankings, we went through a checklist of products we wanted to feature and what was still on the back burner in terms of content and resources that could eventually be provided. After that, we went on to delete half of the "resource" pages that had been created.
We then went back to the blog updates and deleted nearly half of those. On Day 1, we deleted probably about 100 pages that were of no real use. Some of those pages were linked to from the home page, yet they offered no real value.
All remaining page guides for the different model phones already had -- or will have -- the proper content and resources in the next few days. After that, we can think about expanding in the never-ending quest to add quality content.
Where we went wrong was in planting seeds without nurturing them at all. Had we done it right the first time, a day's worth of time would have been dedicated to each page. Had we done that, we'd probably have one of the better resource bases on the Net.
Instead, we created the pages, then got caught up in running a business, got traffic from some of those poorly fertilized pages -- then Google kicked us where it hurt.
This is not to say that our competition does not do some lame things that apparently have been overlooked or that Google's system is completely, ahem, fair.
How Long Do We Live in Purgatory?
Right now, we don't even show up for the important local terms, and we don't even have local storefront competition. Many of the websites that clearly don't provide anything of value and fill up the Web with pointless "state pages" rank higher for our local searches.
We still are found on Google, though, and my assumption is that once we have completed many of our resource updates over the next couple of weeks, the new algorithm will reward our efforts.
The obvious question is how long will this take? Our assumption is that it could take one-to-three months. Google is forcing us to go old school, think local and make the website better.
Still, when will it give us the "get out of jail free" card we feel entitled to? After all, if the banks get a bailout surely Google can feel for the plight of a few young and eager repair techs.
Special Treatment
Reports have come out that some website complained and got its rankings back immediately. We don't pretend to think Google master Matt Cutts or the rest of Google give a darn about our 85 percent drop.
Unlike many others who are upset about the crash, though, we understand why we lost favor with Google, and the problem is being corrected.
This is America -- our get-out-of-jail-free card will come. All we have to do is the Google dance, and the search giant will make it rain with rankings, once we've done our penance. With that in mind, maybe we can all start to sleep comfortably
If you are a victim of the latest Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) algorithm change and experienced an 85 percent traffic drop like the disgruntled fellow penning this article, you may be feeling the heat right now.
It's easy to blame others and point out competitors who are "getting away with worse," but what all of those wounded really need to do is look into the the mirror and figure out how to get better.
Here is a quick guide on how to right the ship if you've keeled over -- or, if you're just starting your website, how to avoid disaster to begin with.
Plant the Seed When It Is Ready to Grow
There is a ton of thinking and planning ahead when it comes to developing a website. In our case, the website was ready before the company officially formed. Oftentimes, this happens in reverse, but the business side of things had to be sorted out.
This led to creating pages ahead of time, with certain "plans" that were to be accomplished soon in regard to content. Most of the pages had some original content, but it was largely generic.
At the same time, we provided consistent updates to our blogs to help the site along for when the business end would be good to go. Google has (or had) a way of rewarding websites that consistently updated their blogs, because it showed fresh content was being added to the mix.
We never copied content, but many of our updates were shallow in terms of coverage. In addition, the blogs were named for the search terms we wanted to rank them for. Not all of them, but many of them were named this way. At the time, it seemed like a good common-sense strategy. Now it looks like a big mistake. We did not monetize off of the traffic at all, and it still backfired.
In sum, create the pages offsite or don't publish them until they are absolutely ready and valuable to readers.
Attacking the Problem
As soon as we realized how Google's algorithm change was affecting our rankings, we went through a checklist of products we wanted to feature and what was still on the back burner in terms of content and resources that could eventually be provided. After that, we went on to delete half of the "resource" pages that had been created.
We then went back to the blog updates and deleted nearly half of those. On Day 1, we deleted probably about 100 pages that were of no real use. Some of those pages were linked to from the home page, yet they offered no real value.
All remaining page guides for the different model phones already had -- or will have -- the proper content and resources in the next few days. After that, we can think about expanding in the never-ending quest to add quality content.
Where we went wrong was in planting seeds without nurturing them at all. Had we done it right the first time, a day's worth of time would have been dedicated to each page. Had we done that, we'd probably have one of the better resource bases on the Net.
Instead, we created the pages, then got caught up in running a business, got traffic from some of those poorly fertilized pages -- then Google kicked us where it hurt.
This is not to say that our competition does not do some lame things that apparently have been overlooked or that Google's system is completely, ahem, fair.
How Long Do We Live in Purgatory?
Right now, we don't even show up for the important local terms, and we don't even have local storefront competition. Many of the websites that clearly don't provide anything of value and fill up the Web with pointless "state pages" rank higher for our local searches.
We still are found on Google, though, and my assumption is that once we have completed many of our resource updates over the next couple of weeks, the new algorithm will reward our efforts.
The obvious question is how long will this take? Our assumption is that it could take one-to-three months. Google is forcing us to go old school, think local and make the website better.
Still, when will it give us the "get out of jail free" card we feel entitled to? After all, if the banks get a bailout surely Google can feel for the plight of a few young and eager repair techs.
Special Treatment
Reports have come out that some website complained and got its rankings back immediately. We don't pretend to think Google master Matt Cutts or the rest of Google give a darn about our 85 percent drop.
Unlike many others who are upset about the crash, though, we understand why we lost favor with Google, and the problem is being corrected.
This is America -- our get-out-of-jail-free card will come. All we have to do is the Google dance, and the search giant will make it rain with rankings, once we've done our penance. With that in mind, maybe we can all start to sleep comfortably
Using network management tools to catch mistakes of non-engineers
Whenever someone other than a network engineer plugs a cable into an Ethernet port, bad things can happen. A good set of network management tools becomes essential for network engineers who have to sort through someone else's mess.
When the performance of the Extreme Networks switches in his campus network degraded recently, network engineer Brian Saunier looked at his network monitoring tool, Ipswitch’s WhatsUp Gold, to see what was happening.
"When we started looking at it, we could see that the CPU usage was getting high on certain ports and bandwidth was just through the roof," said Saunier, who manages the network at Cobb EMC, a not-for-profit electric utility based in Marietta, Ga.
Using the WhatsUp Gold network monitoring tool, Saunier traced the problem to two specific ports on a core switch. He realized he was seeing the telltale signs of a network loop, with the CPU usage on both ports sky high. A quick visit to the core switch and a little detective work revealed the problem. A help desk technician had plugged a cable into two ports on the same switch, creating a loop. One port on the switch had been pulled to an Ethernet port mounted on a nearby wall. Apparently the help desk tech thought he had found a cable that had been unplugged from the wall, and he simply plugged it back in. A network engineer would have known that the wall port was an extension of one of the ports on the core switch.
Is your portfolio of network management tools complete?
Learn about the network management capabilities of Netflow v9
What network management tools are engineers using on their smartphones?
Asset management is a key element of a network management plan.
Saunier uses several Ipswitch network management tools to keep an eye on what's happening in his network. In addition to the networking monitoring tool, he uses the WhatsConnected network discovery tool and the WhatsConfigured network configuration management tool.
WhatsConnected is a simple network discovery tool that automatically creates a network topology map, offering details on all switches and routers, along with what devices are plugged into each port. By cross-referencing results of that topology map with the records Saunier has of where each port is physically located on Cobb's campus, he can quickly find the physical location of a device. This capability is essential when looking for devices that are plugged in where they shouldn’t be. WhatsConnected has come in handy for Saunier as he prepares his network for a new network access control installation.
"We did a discovery of printers because we were doing a NAC project where we're trying to lock down the network with 802.1x," he said. "We were trying to locate where all the non-authenticated devices were. Printers were our main problem. We did it once or twice during that early phase, and we'll probably have to do it again to make sure nothing else has been plugged in recently."
Ultimately Saunier will apply this knowledge to use Unified Access Control from Juniper Networks to lock down every port that is supporting a printer. .
"We [will] lock down those ports according to the MAC address of the printer so that no other network device could be plugged in there," he said. "If someone came up and said, 'I want to unplug this printer and plug in my laptop,' their laptop is not going to work."
WhatsConnected originally had some trouble with the switches in Saunier's network. Extreme Networks' method for forwarding SNMP information on multi-link aggregation came through garbled, he said.
"Extreme switches do some funky things with their forwarding database, and they didn't release some information through SNMP that Ipswitch needed. It didn't reveal information for [Extreme's] link aggregation groups. When we would run [WhatsConnected], it would look like we had links going everywhere."
Ipswitch provided some quick software customization to deal with the bug, Saunier said. His topology maps have been accurate ever since.
Even network admins can make network configuration mistakes
End users aren't the only ones who can threaten a network by doing something they shouldn't. Even a network administrator can cause trouble by making a network configuration mistake on a switch.
Saunier uses WhatsConnected to audit network configuration changes on his network. If he detects a problem on the network, he can use those audits to track down whether a network configuration change caused the problem.
"It's on a schedule to download configs from all my switches daily," he said. "I can audit it to make sure certain lines are in the configs in a certain way. We're auditing to make sure the RADIUS servers are set on every switch and that the NTP [network time protocol] server is set right on every switch."
WhatsConfigured alerts Saunier if a major configuration change happens or if some other configuration change failed. For instance, if a NTP server configuration change didn't take on a certain switch, he'll hear about it. However, Saunier is careful not to let WhatsConnected overload him with alerts.
“We don't go down into the very granular stuff, like if someone logs in and deletes a port off a certain VLAN,” he said. “I'm not auditing for that because those changes happen so often. When you have a 100-switch network, stuff changes hourly, and I don't really want alerts when every little thing changes."
When the performance of the Extreme Networks switches in his campus network degraded recently, network engineer Brian Saunier looked at his network monitoring tool, Ipswitch’s WhatsUp Gold, to see what was happening.
"When we started looking at it, we could see that the CPU usage was getting high on certain ports and bandwidth was just through the roof," said Saunier, who manages the network at Cobb EMC, a not-for-profit electric utility based in Marietta, Ga.
Using the WhatsUp Gold network monitoring tool, Saunier traced the problem to two specific ports on a core switch. He realized he was seeing the telltale signs of a network loop, with the CPU usage on both ports sky high. A quick visit to the core switch and a little detective work revealed the problem. A help desk technician had plugged a cable into two ports on the same switch, creating a loop. One port on the switch had been pulled to an Ethernet port mounted on a nearby wall. Apparently the help desk tech thought he had found a cable that had been unplugged from the wall, and he simply plugged it back in. A network engineer would have known that the wall port was an extension of one of the ports on the core switch.
Is your portfolio of network management tools complete?
Learn about the network management capabilities of Netflow v9
What network management tools are engineers using on their smartphones?
Asset management is a key element of a network management plan.
Saunier uses several Ipswitch network management tools to keep an eye on what's happening in his network. In addition to the networking monitoring tool, he uses the WhatsConnected network discovery tool and the WhatsConfigured network configuration management tool.
WhatsConnected is a simple network discovery tool that automatically creates a network topology map, offering details on all switches and routers, along with what devices are plugged into each port. By cross-referencing results of that topology map with the records Saunier has of where each port is physically located on Cobb's campus, he can quickly find the physical location of a device. This capability is essential when looking for devices that are plugged in where they shouldn’t be. WhatsConnected has come in handy for Saunier as he prepares his network for a new network access control installation.
"We did a discovery of printers because we were doing a NAC project where we're trying to lock down the network with 802.1x," he said. "We were trying to locate where all the non-authenticated devices were. Printers were our main problem. We did it once or twice during that early phase, and we'll probably have to do it again to make sure nothing else has been plugged in recently."
Ultimately Saunier will apply this knowledge to use Unified Access Control from Juniper Networks to lock down every port that is supporting a printer. .
"We [will] lock down those ports according to the MAC address of the printer so that no other network device could be plugged in there," he said. "If someone came up and said, 'I want to unplug this printer and plug in my laptop,' their laptop is not going to work."
WhatsConnected originally had some trouble with the switches in Saunier's network. Extreme Networks' method for forwarding SNMP information on multi-link aggregation came through garbled, he said.
"Extreme switches do some funky things with their forwarding database, and they didn't release some information through SNMP that Ipswitch needed. It didn't reveal information for [Extreme's] link aggregation groups. When we would run [WhatsConnected], it would look like we had links going everywhere."
Ipswitch provided some quick software customization to deal with the bug, Saunier said. His topology maps have been accurate ever since.
Even network admins can make network configuration mistakes
End users aren't the only ones who can threaten a network by doing something they shouldn't. Even a network administrator can cause trouble by making a network configuration mistake on a switch.
Saunier uses WhatsConnected to audit network configuration changes on his network. If he detects a problem on the network, he can use those audits to track down whether a network configuration change caused the problem.
"It's on a schedule to download configs from all my switches daily," he said. "I can audit it to make sure certain lines are in the configs in a certain way. We're auditing to make sure the RADIUS servers are set on every switch and that the NTP [network time protocol] server is set right on every switch."
WhatsConfigured alerts Saunier if a major configuration change happens or if some other configuration change failed. For instance, if a NTP server configuration change didn't take on a certain switch, he'll hear about it. However, Saunier is careful not to let WhatsConnected overload him with alerts.
“We don't go down into the very granular stuff, like if someone logs in and deletes a port off a certain VLAN,” he said. “I'm not auditing for that because those changes happen so often. When you have a 100-switch network, stuff changes hourly, and I don't really want alerts when every little thing changes."
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Verizon Wireless aims to boost sales with updated retail systems
Whether they're rushing in to buy the long-awaited Verizon iPhone or just stopping by to check out new accessories for their old phones, shoppers at Verizon Wireless stores can expect fast and relatively straightforward transactions, thanks largely to Craig Young and team, who spent most of 2010 working on projects designed to simplify and improve the shopping experience.
"As a company, we are focused on three key IT imperatives: simplifying the customer experience, promoting self-service and reducing costs," says Young, the carrier's CIO for the Northeast area. To meet that goal, Young and his team designed and implemented a new Internet shopping portal and a new self-service feature for retail stores that has the same look as the online shopping portal. These tools help drive shoppers in busy Verizon Wireless retail stores toward the self service-option, he says.
"Three to five years ago, it was a lot like it was at an airline terminal when you were trying to buy a ticket and there was a lot of typing going on and you had no idea what the clerk was doing," he says. "Today, we're very focused on shortening the input cycle, which also makes for a better customer experience."
Each of the store's digital touch points are interconnected, allowing clerks to view customers' shopping behaviors so they can customize product offerings, Young explains.
"For the customer, we are focused on making sure we put the right offer in front of them, calling out targeted actions every time they check in at one of our retail greeter stations," he says. "We have a powerful data warehouse and are constantly doing a lot of modeling" of customers' behaviors and preferences both in stores and online.
To cut costs, Young's team continually looks for ways to simplify sales processes. For example, redesigning the refund/returns process shortened the length of those transactions by nearly three minutes. "I'm very focused from the retail perspective on productivity. So we have the same size retail workforce [as in 2009], but it is 40% more productive," Young says.
"Craig has shown tremendous leadership with his focus on using IT to deliver a great experience for our customers," says Verizon Wireless CIO Ajay Waghray. "He has led his team to find ways to make our online and in-store experiences better every year. Everything he does, he makes sure to look through the eyes of our customers."
"As a company, we are focused on three key IT imperatives: simplifying the customer experience, promoting self-service and reducing costs," says Young, the carrier's CIO for the Northeast area. To meet that goal, Young and his team designed and implemented a new Internet shopping portal and a new self-service feature for retail stores that has the same look as the online shopping portal. These tools help drive shoppers in busy Verizon Wireless retail stores toward the self service-option, he says.
"Three to five years ago, it was a lot like it was at an airline terminal when you were trying to buy a ticket and there was a lot of typing going on and you had no idea what the clerk was doing," he says. "Today, we're very focused on shortening the input cycle, which also makes for a better customer experience."
Each of the store's digital touch points are interconnected, allowing clerks to view customers' shopping behaviors so they can customize product offerings, Young explains.
"For the customer, we are focused on making sure we put the right offer in front of them, calling out targeted actions every time they check in at one of our retail greeter stations," he says. "We have a powerful data warehouse and are constantly doing a lot of modeling" of customers' behaviors and preferences both in stores and online.
To cut costs, Young's team continually looks for ways to simplify sales processes. For example, redesigning the refund/returns process shortened the length of those transactions by nearly three minutes. "I'm very focused from the retail perspective on productivity. So we have the same size retail workforce [as in 2009], but it is 40% more productive," Young says.
"Craig has shown tremendous leadership with his focus on using IT to deliver a great experience for our customers," says Verizon Wireless CIO Ajay Waghray. "He has led his team to find ways to make our online and in-store experiences better every year. Everything he does, he makes sure to look through the eyes of our customers."
IT's A-listers: Recharged and ready for business growth and speed
All security projects undertaken at Kodak in the past two years have supported very specific business needs. For example, when the business needed a streamlined process for provisioning third-party contractors, Jones' team implemented a server log monitoring application for that purpose.
"I view this relationship with the business as the most important part of the job," Jones says. "In the past, IT security was one of those organizations that sat in the corner and said no. I've challenged my organization to never go in and tell a business manager no, but help them by going in and figuring out a good solution."
Indeed, taking a proactive stance and heading the innovation efforts to achieve an overarching business vision is another defining characteristic of the 2011 class of Premier 100 IT Leaders.
At St. Louis-based bioMérieux Inc., for example, Global Senior Director of R&D Information Systems Haroon Taqi and his team were out in front in analyzing how the maker of diagnosis systems could improve its diagnostic software and its competitive positioning with customers.
"In the past, the norm was for marketing to come to us and tell us what they need. But instead, we [in IT] decided to work with marketing and our customers to determine the biggest hurdles to expanding our product and our market share," Taqi says.
"We drove the change we wanted to create," he notes. "IT did the competitive analysis, and I did some of the analysis myself."
Ultimately, the IT group conceived and developed a new software architecture and system that enables bioMérieux to automatically deliver software updates to customers without having to dispatch IT personnel to do so. BioMérieux's software is embedded in instruments used to identify new and evolving types of bacterial infections.
"What we've done is make it easy for customers to do updates themselves, much like installing patches," Taqi says. "Before, it could take as much as a year for us to have all of the delivery mechanisms in place to do installations for customers."
Quick Turnaround
Accretive Health, a provider of financial management services to the healthcare industry, also has a business goal of speeding its software products, services and updates to market. Cottey's challenge as CIO is to continually work with business managers to decide which updates and services are most critical. Last year, he and his IT team designed and implemented an agile development methodology to deliver new software capabilities that match and/or stay ahead of the flood of new and changing healthcare regulations that Accretive's clients must track.
"One of the ways we get things out quickly is we plan to get things out quickly," Cottey says, adding that all work IT undertakes is rated on a scale designed to measure its business impact.
"We're in constant touch with business owners to measure what impact a certain change might yield on our efficiency," he says. "It's not the time to invest in eye candy or gee-whiz things without a good bottom-line value. We focus on that 10% to 20% of capability that is worth delivering right now."
The Seeds of Future Growth
Many of the IT projects that delivered business value in 2010 will continue to yield big dividends going forward, especially at companies like JetBlue Inc. and Scottrade Inc., where IT leaders deployed new, foundational systems that transformed the business.
JetBlue CIO Joseph Eng says a new customer service system that his team rolled out last year enables the airline to quickly establish new partnerships with other airlines, and thereby helps it expand its global network.
"We're able to grow the number of destinations, routes, places and people who travel via JetBlue through these partnerships," Eng explains. "It's all very technologically based because you have to connect the two airlines' systems, sharing route, inventory and network information so you can also share itineraries."
Soon after the system went live in January 2010, JetBlue announced several new partnerships, giving travelers the ability to use a single system to make plans to fly from Tel Aviv through JFK Airport in New York and on to any of JetBlue's domestic locations. Eng says the airline will announce additional partnerships this year, extending its international network to London and Johannesburg, South Africa.
"We went to work on the customer service system with the knowledge that we wanted to enable these kinds of partnerships much more quickly," Eng says.
"Our leadership team has a fundamental belief that this is actually an opportune time, which is why we continue to invest in the business from a products, services and operations perspective. The idea is, let's drive through some of these tough times but also prepare ourselves so that when we do have an uptick, we can do even more to stimulate growth," he says.
At St. Louis-based Scottrade, IT completed building a brand-new secondary data center. The financial services company is initially using the facility as a fail-over data center, but it eventually plans to use it to geographically split up the systems that serve the independent investors who make up its customer base. The goal is to offer faster response times and better service by handling customers' needs in the data center located closest to them.
Also in the works is the launch of a new division of Scottrade Bank that will enable customers to move seamlessly between trading and banking transactions -- a setup that will give Scottrade an entirely new revenue stream.
"In the year ahead, we'll be focused on positioning ourselves for continued growth so that when the recession turns around and the economy begins to grow, we'll have the right applications in place," says Anne Coleman, director of trading applications.
The bottom line: Expect seamless leadership from these IT executives in 2011 and beyond, regardless of what happens with the economy, the unemployment rate or their corporate IT budgets. As long as the business vision is clear, Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders will continue to deliver innovation and value.
"I view this relationship with the business as the most important part of the job," Jones says. "In the past, IT security was one of those organizations that sat in the corner and said no. I've challenged my organization to never go in and tell a business manager no, but help them by going in and figuring out a good solution."
Indeed, taking a proactive stance and heading the innovation efforts to achieve an overarching business vision is another defining characteristic of the 2011 class of Premier 100 IT Leaders.
At St. Louis-based bioMérieux Inc., for example, Global Senior Director of R&D Information Systems Haroon Taqi and his team were out in front in analyzing how the maker of diagnosis systems could improve its diagnostic software and its competitive positioning with customers.
"In the past, the norm was for marketing to come to us and tell us what they need. But instead, we [in IT] decided to work with marketing and our customers to determine the biggest hurdles to expanding our product and our market share," Taqi says.
"We drove the change we wanted to create," he notes. "IT did the competitive analysis, and I did some of the analysis myself."
Ultimately, the IT group conceived and developed a new software architecture and system that enables bioMérieux to automatically deliver software updates to customers without having to dispatch IT personnel to do so. BioMérieux's software is embedded in instruments used to identify new and evolving types of bacterial infections.
"What we've done is make it easy for customers to do updates themselves, much like installing patches," Taqi says. "Before, it could take as much as a year for us to have all of the delivery mechanisms in place to do installations for customers."
Quick Turnaround
Accretive Health, a provider of financial management services to the healthcare industry, also has a business goal of speeding its software products, services and updates to market. Cottey's challenge as CIO is to continually work with business managers to decide which updates and services are most critical. Last year, he and his IT team designed and implemented an agile development methodology to deliver new software capabilities that match and/or stay ahead of the flood of new and changing healthcare regulations that Accretive's clients must track.
"One of the ways we get things out quickly is we plan to get things out quickly," Cottey says, adding that all work IT undertakes is rated on a scale designed to measure its business impact.
"We're in constant touch with business owners to measure what impact a certain change might yield on our efficiency," he says. "It's not the time to invest in eye candy or gee-whiz things without a good bottom-line value. We focus on that 10% to 20% of capability that is worth delivering right now."
The Seeds of Future Growth
Many of the IT projects that delivered business value in 2010 will continue to yield big dividends going forward, especially at companies like JetBlue Inc. and Scottrade Inc., where IT leaders deployed new, foundational systems that transformed the business.
JetBlue CIO Joseph Eng says a new customer service system that his team rolled out last year enables the airline to quickly establish new partnerships with other airlines, and thereby helps it expand its global network.
"We're able to grow the number of destinations, routes, places and people who travel via JetBlue through these partnerships," Eng explains. "It's all very technologically based because you have to connect the two airlines' systems, sharing route, inventory and network information so you can also share itineraries."
Soon after the system went live in January 2010, JetBlue announced several new partnerships, giving travelers the ability to use a single system to make plans to fly from Tel Aviv through JFK Airport in New York and on to any of JetBlue's domestic locations. Eng says the airline will announce additional partnerships this year, extending its international network to London and Johannesburg, South Africa.
"We went to work on the customer service system with the knowledge that we wanted to enable these kinds of partnerships much more quickly," Eng says.
"Our leadership team has a fundamental belief that this is actually an opportune time, which is why we continue to invest in the business from a products, services and operations perspective. The idea is, let's drive through some of these tough times but also prepare ourselves so that when we do have an uptick, we can do even more to stimulate growth," he says.
At St. Louis-based Scottrade, IT completed building a brand-new secondary data center. The financial services company is initially using the facility as a fail-over data center, but it eventually plans to use it to geographically split up the systems that serve the independent investors who make up its customer base. The goal is to offer faster response times and better service by handling customers' needs in the data center located closest to them.
Also in the works is the launch of a new division of Scottrade Bank that will enable customers to move seamlessly between trading and banking transactions -- a setup that will give Scottrade an entirely new revenue stream.
"In the year ahead, we'll be focused on positioning ourselves for continued growth so that when the recession turns around and the economy begins to grow, we'll have the right applications in place," says Anne Coleman, director of trading applications.
The bottom line: Expect seamless leadership from these IT executives in 2011 and beyond, regardless of what happens with the economy, the unemployment rate or their corporate IT budgets. As long as the business vision is clear, Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders will continue to deliver innovation and value.
Fast and Focused
For Avnet, growth was the primary business imperative in 2010, and it remains so today, as the Fortune 500 company continues to expand by acquisition. Since 2009, Avnet has purchased six companies, and it is in the process of finalizing three more acquisitions, including the largest such deal in its history. Phillips himself came from a company that Avnet acquired five years ago.
"These acquisitions are strategically important in terms of our long-term ability to be the leading value distributor," he notes. The faster Avnet can close an acquisition, the faster it can accrue the benefits of its larger scale and minimize disruptions to customers and employees. To streamline the integration process, Phillips and his team developed a step-by-step playbook of best practices for completing all technology integrations within 90 days of an acquisition. "We now have a set of repeatable tasks and responsibilities, and that allows us to move fast with a fair degree of competence," he says.
Another key strategic project for Phillips in 2010 was the design and creation of a consumer-like e-commerce site to expand Avnet's base of smaller-volume and specialty customers such as engineers and prototyping firms -- a key but previously untapped market for the distributor of electronic components and computer products. As the economic news worsened throughout the year, Phillips says, executives looked at expenses and considered where to continue investing and where to cut.
Ultimately, Avnet decided to preserve the e-commerce project. "We could see the need was still there, and it was an investment that would pay out beyond the economic cycle," Phillips says.
It was the right decision. "So far, we've seen a 75% annual increase in e-commerce revenue and a 50% annual increase in site visitors," says Phillips.
Delivering Return on Risk
Regardless of the economic climate, a key component of every IT leader's job is keeping the rest of the executive team apprised of the range of alternatives -- and their associated risks -- for meeting strategic business goals, according to Bruce Jones, head of global IT security and risk at Eastman Kodak Co. in Rochester, N.Y.
"At the end of the day, business managers are in charge of bringing in profits, so they're going to take risks," Jones says matter-of-factly. "Whether they are technology, security or business risks, there's a need to understand and manage [them]." As IT leaders, he says, "we have to be the educators, helping them to understand the risks and giving them alternatives that can reduce the risk but not cost more."
In 2010, Jones saw a reduction in both his budget and staff, yet "we still haven't found that it's been disabling," he says. "We've held true to our values and our process to work with the business" while keeping costs down.
This is largely the result of following a robust risk management program that Jones and his team developed as a way to map all security and compliance goals to specific business goals. As an added bonus, the program, which capitalizes on lean principles, has shaved costs by $500,000 a year. All risks are documented in terms of impact to the business, giving IT a way to demonstrate potential consequences, costs, effect on brand, legal and regulatory ramifications, downtime and liability.
Before the risk management program was established, "security was seen in terms of black vs. white and them vs. us and was not aligned with the business well," says Jones. "This risk management program is highly focused on actions that map back to specific business goals, objectives and potential impact to the business -- financially, legally and operationally. This has helped to consistently drive the right decisions as well as sales and revenues, brand value, customer and brand loyalty, and other business posture measures."
"These acquisitions are strategically important in terms of our long-term ability to be the leading value distributor," he notes. The faster Avnet can close an acquisition, the faster it can accrue the benefits of its larger scale and minimize disruptions to customers and employees. To streamline the integration process, Phillips and his team developed a step-by-step playbook of best practices for completing all technology integrations within 90 days of an acquisition. "We now have a set of repeatable tasks and responsibilities, and that allows us to move fast with a fair degree of competence," he says.
Another key strategic project for Phillips in 2010 was the design and creation of a consumer-like e-commerce site to expand Avnet's base of smaller-volume and specialty customers such as engineers and prototyping firms -- a key but previously untapped market for the distributor of electronic components and computer products. As the economic news worsened throughout the year, Phillips says, executives looked at expenses and considered where to continue investing and where to cut.
Ultimately, Avnet decided to preserve the e-commerce project. "We could see the need was still there, and it was an investment that would pay out beyond the economic cycle," Phillips says.
It was the right decision. "So far, we've seen a 75% annual increase in e-commerce revenue and a 50% annual increase in site visitors," says Phillips.
Delivering Return on Risk
Regardless of the economic climate, a key component of every IT leader's job is keeping the rest of the executive team apprised of the range of alternatives -- and their associated risks -- for meeting strategic business goals, according to Bruce Jones, head of global IT security and risk at Eastman Kodak Co. in Rochester, N.Y.
"At the end of the day, business managers are in charge of bringing in profits, so they're going to take risks," Jones says matter-of-factly. "Whether they are technology, security or business risks, there's a need to understand and manage [them]." As IT leaders, he says, "we have to be the educators, helping them to understand the risks and giving them alternatives that can reduce the risk but not cost more."
In 2010, Jones saw a reduction in both his budget and staff, yet "we still haven't found that it's been disabling," he says. "We've held true to our values and our process to work with the business" while keeping costs down.
This is largely the result of following a robust risk management program that Jones and his team developed as a way to map all security and compliance goals to specific business goals. As an added bonus, the program, which capitalizes on lean principles, has shaved costs by $500,000 a year. All risks are documented in terms of impact to the business, giving IT a way to demonstrate potential consequences, costs, effect on brand, legal and regulatory ramifications, downtime and liability.
Before the risk management program was established, "security was seen in terms of black vs. white and them vs. us and was not aligned with the business well," says Jones. "This risk management program is highly focused on actions that map back to specific business goals, objectives and potential impact to the business -- financially, legally and operationally. This has helped to consistently drive the right decisions as well as sales and revenues, brand value, customer and brand loyalty, and other business posture measures."
Computer world
Computerworld - Editor's note: Each year, Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders awards program honors the brightest talent in the IT industry. Even through economic turmoil that for many meant budget cuts and staff downsizing, these 100 men and women continued to deliver innovative projects and measurable business value.
Explore the full Premier 100 package by viewing the list of this year's honorees, along with their photos, predictions, cool projects and more. This year's class joins a fellowship of hundreds of Premier 100 alumni, listed here, each of whom has demonstrated leadership qualities throughout their careers.
To learn the secrets of successful IT leadership, check out the best management advice from Computerworld's editors and learn more about the 12th annual Premier 100 IT Leaders conference, which draws together these IT leader alumni and other top IT executives for three days of learning and networking.
Last year, CIO Steve Phillips and his team turned an 8% uptick in the IT budget into a 75% increase in Avnet Inc.'s e-commerce revenue with a new Web site aimed at a brand-new market segment and unique customer niche for the $19 billion, Phoenix-based electronics distributor.
IT's A-Listers
* IT's A-listers: Recharged and ready for business growth
* The Honorees: Predictions and projects from this year's IT leaders
* View Premier 100 IT Leader alumni from 2000 to 2011
* Editor's Picks. Read Computerworld's best stories on leadership
In a year that the national monthly unemployment rate hovered just under 10%, CIO Paul Cottey grew the IT staff at Accretive Health Inc. by almost 20%, and he set up an agile development process, enabling the delivery of new or enhanced business functionality to healthcare providers every 30 days.
And while most other companies were spending only about one-third of their IT budgets on new projects, Southwest Airlines Co. CIO Jan Marshall was investing a full 50% in new revenue-boosting services, including a new ticketing system, a new customer loyalty program and an entirely new Web site, which is the heart and soul of the airline's distribution channel.
"Whether it's a great or a terrible economic time, we take the same approach. We always focus on opportunities to grow our airline," says Marshall.
This kind of clear, unwavering business vision, bolstered by seamless leadership and integrated technology planning, is what best characterizes the success strategies of Computerworld's 2011 Premier 100 IT Leaders. Rather than pulling the plug on new or ongoing projects during tough times, these leaders instead continually readjust and recalibrate, seeking out new, imaginative and/or lower-cost ways to realize an abiding business vision. They cut costs not so much by narrowing or shifting their business focus or withdrawing investment dollars, but by coming up with creative systems and processes for enhancing services while streamlining operations.
Many of the honorees are heading into 2011 with more cash than they had last year. In fact, 51% of them said their IT budgets had increased in the past 12 months; in comparison, just 36% of the 2010 honorees reported a budget increase in a survey last year. And honorees' IT staffs are bulking up, too: 40% reported adding employees in the past 12 months; in our survey of last year's honorees, just 28% said they had expanded their IT departments.
Marshall says Southwest's IT operations may grow because the airline is expanding into new markets or because it's offering new products or services -- or for all those reasons simultaneously. "Instead of 100 parallel [IT] projects going on, we have some big projects that all relate to the 100 requests we have," she explains.
"We've learned how to synchronize our deliveries," she says of the airline's 1,200-person IT organization. "We've gone to a release-based strategy across our entire portfolio that's helping us manage multiple initiatives and delivery of those initiatives in a predictable way."
For example, in addition to highly visible, big-bang projects like the new Web site, "we also have an underlying thread of work that is aimed at foundation components," Marshall says. This includes things like upgrading the database environment or enhancing the ticketing system, which gives the airline continued flexibility. "We build a plan once a year and then adjust it monthly through a series of executive steering group meetings, to make sure we're prioritizing the right things," Marshall says.
She says the leadership skill she relies on most is the ability to help IT staffers understand how their work fits into the broader business vision. "Seamless leadership comes at all levels," she notes. "This recognition is for the great work the IT organization is doing and the leadership they're taking at every level."
Explore the full Premier 100 package by viewing the list of this year's honorees, along with their photos, predictions, cool projects and more. This year's class joins a fellowship of hundreds of Premier 100 alumni, listed here, each of whom has demonstrated leadership qualities throughout their careers.
To learn the secrets of successful IT leadership, check out the best management advice from Computerworld's editors and learn more about the 12th annual Premier 100 IT Leaders conference, which draws together these IT leader alumni and other top IT executives for three days of learning and networking.
Last year, CIO Steve Phillips and his team turned an 8% uptick in the IT budget into a 75% increase in Avnet Inc.'s e-commerce revenue with a new Web site aimed at a brand-new market segment and unique customer niche for the $19 billion, Phoenix-based electronics distributor.
IT's A-Listers
* IT's A-listers: Recharged and ready for business growth
* The Honorees: Predictions and projects from this year's IT leaders
* View Premier 100 IT Leader alumni from 2000 to 2011
* Editor's Picks. Read Computerworld's best stories on leadership
In a year that the national monthly unemployment rate hovered just under 10%, CIO Paul Cottey grew the IT staff at Accretive Health Inc. by almost 20%, and he set up an agile development process, enabling the delivery of new or enhanced business functionality to healthcare providers every 30 days.
And while most other companies were spending only about one-third of their IT budgets on new projects, Southwest Airlines Co. CIO Jan Marshall was investing a full 50% in new revenue-boosting services, including a new ticketing system, a new customer loyalty program and an entirely new Web site, which is the heart and soul of the airline's distribution channel.
"Whether it's a great or a terrible economic time, we take the same approach. We always focus on opportunities to grow our airline," says Marshall.
This kind of clear, unwavering business vision, bolstered by seamless leadership and integrated technology planning, is what best characterizes the success strategies of Computerworld's 2011 Premier 100 IT Leaders. Rather than pulling the plug on new or ongoing projects during tough times, these leaders instead continually readjust and recalibrate, seeking out new, imaginative and/or lower-cost ways to realize an abiding business vision. They cut costs not so much by narrowing or shifting their business focus or withdrawing investment dollars, but by coming up with creative systems and processes for enhancing services while streamlining operations.
Many of the honorees are heading into 2011 with more cash than they had last year. In fact, 51% of them said their IT budgets had increased in the past 12 months; in comparison, just 36% of the 2010 honorees reported a budget increase in a survey last year. And honorees' IT staffs are bulking up, too: 40% reported adding employees in the past 12 months; in our survey of last year's honorees, just 28% said they had expanded their IT departments.
Marshall says Southwest's IT operations may grow because the airline is expanding into new markets or because it's offering new products or services -- or for all those reasons simultaneously. "Instead of 100 parallel [IT] projects going on, we have some big projects that all relate to the 100 requests we have," she explains.
"We've learned how to synchronize our deliveries," she says of the airline's 1,200-person IT organization. "We've gone to a release-based strategy across our entire portfolio that's helping us manage multiple initiatives and delivery of those initiatives in a predictable way."
For example, in addition to highly visible, big-bang projects like the new Web site, "we also have an underlying thread of work that is aimed at foundation components," Marshall says. This includes things like upgrading the database environment or enhancing the ticketing system, which gives the airline continued flexibility. "We build a plan once a year and then adjust it monthly through a series of executive steering group meetings, to make sure we're prioritizing the right things," Marshall says.
She says the leadership skill she relies on most is the ability to help IT staffers understand how their work fits into the broader business vision. "Seamless leadership comes at all levels," she notes. "This recognition is for the great work the IT organization is doing and the leadership they're taking at every level."
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