This report suggests to me that it is a tactical decision to get businesses onto broadband, either copper or fiber - (moving faster) but it is still a strategic decision to invest in fiber infrastructure (what method has greatest future potential). | “Our estimates show that all these productivity gains can be attributed to adoption of slow relative to no broadband, with no discernible additional effect arising from a shift from slow to fast broadband.” |
| The report’s authors, which include NZ Reserve Bank chair Dr Arthur Grimes, wrote that despite well-articulated pleas for upgraded internet access, reference to rigorous research that quantifies benefits actually accruing from network upgrades is generally absent in supporting materials. Read more at computerworld.co.nz |
Managers’ Hiring Practices Vary By Race And Ethnicity, Study Finds |
| White, Asian and Hispanic managers tend to hire more whites and fewer blacks than black managers do, |
| The finding is clear evidence that the race or ethnicity of those who make hiring decisions can have a strong impact in the racial makeup of a company’s workforce, |
How strong is the impact? Consider a typical store with 40 employees located in the Southern U.S. According to the data, replacing a black manager with a non-black manager would result in the replacement of three to four black workers with white workers over the course of one year. Read more at www.sciencedaily.com |
An article discussing a significant study by Forrester. Real-Time Collaboration Has Stalled…For Now |
| A Forrester study reports that real-time collaboration has stalled in the enterprise due in most part to the lack of adoption in technologies such as web conferencing and instant messaging. That may be true with existing technologies but it is important to note the new generation of applications that extend real-time collaboration tools. |
The State Of Workforce Technology Adoption by Forrester is definitely comprehensive in its examination of how people use technology in the workforce. It’s a mass market report, meaning this is how people use technology today. They surveyed 2,001 “information workers” at organizations with 100 or more employees. It is Forrester’s first report in this realm. It covers devices, productivity, mobility, collaboration, intranet portals and Web 2.0. Read more at www.readwriteweb.com |
What Midmarket CIOs Care About Most |
Business analytics and self service, according to the newly released midmarket portion of IBM’s 2009 Global Chief Information Office Study, but CIOs of high growth companies have different priorities than those at slower growing organizations. Finally, no matter what size firm they represent, CIOs face a similar set of conflicting goals and contradictory roles. |
While the study covered over 2,500 CIOs overall, IBM has just released a Midmarket Executive Summary detailing the views of 158 CIOs of companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. As usual, bMighty is intensely interested in how midmarket CIOs differ from their enterprise counterparts. |
For example, more than half of the high-growth group gets involved in creating business strategy, compared to just 33% of enterprise CIOs. |
50% of midmarket CIOS expect to implement a virtual infrastructure in the next five years. |
11 out of 12 of the largest social networks leak personal information. Social networking sites leaking personal information to third parties, study warns |
Data allows tracking companies to attach unique identities to browsing behavior |
Wills told Computerworld that he and Krishnamurthy surveyed 12 of the largest social networks for the study. They discovered that 11 of these networks were leaking personal identity information to third-parties including data aggregators, which track and aggregate user viewing habits for targeted ad-serving purposes. |
What remains unknown, however, is whether or not data aggregators are actually recording any of the personal identity information being relayed to them from social media sites, Wills said. Read more at www.computerworld.com |
If you are seeking a leader, should you enquire about whether their parents used a firm parenting style? Do Your Children Push The Boundaries? It May Be A Sign Of Future Leadership Abilities |
| Children whose parents use a firm parenting style that still allows them to test the rules and learn from it are more likely to assume leadership roles as adults according to a new study published in a recent edition of The Leadership Quarterly. |
The study adds more weight to the idea that leaders are raised more than they are born. Behavioural genetics has shown that innate factors account for only 30% of who will end up in leadership positions and people’s leadership styles. Read more at www.sciencedaily.com |
New Keys For Diffusion Of Information In Social Networks |
ScienceDaily (Sep. 11, 2009) — The spread of information in social networks, something of crucial importance in awareness and marketing campaigns or the spreading of rumours and viruses, for example, is largely determined by the great heterogeneity of internauts in their response time, according to the researchers. Traditional models estimated that internauts respond in approximately one day and that, as such, it took one day for information to be transmitted. |
However, this study, based on an actual experiment by IBM to observe and quantify the spread of business information in social networks, points out that it occurs at two speeds due to user activity. “Those who respond very quickly to e-mails, technology addicts who are always connected, are the ones responsible for spreading certain rumours or campaigns quickly via Internet,” notes Esteban Moro, professor of Mathematics at the UC3M. Read more at www.sciencedaily.com |
How are today’s chief information officers successfully growing profits for their businesses? The 2009 IBM Global CIO Study explored this and other issues facing CIOs during challenging times. We talked with more than 2,500 CIOs from over 75 countries and 15 industries. Over the course of our one-hour, face-to-face conversations with them, we learned how they are:
- Driving technology innovation to make it a reality
- Increasing the return on investment (ROI) in information technology (IT)
- Expanding the business impact of IT
Read more at www-935.ibm.com |
iPhone users are twice as likely to use the browser (does that make the user more productive?) and are more likely to leave their laptop at work. New study shows iPhone users to be in a class by themselves |
| iPhone users are richer, younger, and perhaps even more productive at work than those who use competing smartphones |
The study, compiled by Ted Schadler, found that iPhone users are “more than twice as likely to access the Internet from their phone as working BlackBerry, Palm, or Windows Mobile device owners.” The research was inspired by anecdotal comments from companies such as Kraft Foods and Oracle that implied employees have a personal drive to use an iPhone at work, even when one is not provided by the employer. |
The research suggests that an employee with an iPhone could be more productive: Those who carry Apple’s handheld device are more likely to stay connected to their employer’s network. Workers with an iPhone also usually leave their laptop at work, suggesting the phone essentially replaces the need for a traditional full-form mobile computer. Read more at www.appleinsider.com |
Conversely NZ is near the top of self-employed and small business. U.S. Near Bottom In Proportion Of Small Businesses |
A recent study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research has found that, perhaps surprisingly, the United States has one of the smallest small-business sectors among developed nations.
The report, “An International Comparison of Small Business Employment” (PDF download) examined the status of self-employment and small business in 22 of what the report calls “rich democracies” — basically, Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in addition to the U.S. |
The results hold for the other sectors as well, even in what the report calls “high-tech services.” Only 32% of U.S. employment in computer-related services is in businesses with fewer than 100 employees, while in Italy and New Zealand the proportion tops 70%. And 25% of U.S. employment in R&D is in businesses of that size, while Italy is again over 70% and Spain is second with 48%. Read more at www.bmighty.com |
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Report: Faster broadband does not equate to greater productivity
