David Jacobson's External Insights

Disaster Planning

This article from Tech Republic goes into detail about Setting up a crisis communications center.

Re-establishing your organization's IT capabilities after an unplanned event requires planning before the disaster or a crisis happens. Business continuity is a key part of IT Governance.

IT and Document Security

We're all aware of firewalls for our networks but who thought of hackers trying to get into our photocopiers?

Sharp are warning that digital photocopiers need protection too!

They explain:

"Most MFPs store image data in memory such as hard disk drives, the kind used in PCs. And just like a PC, the latent image data remains until that disk sector is overwritten.

So, even if you think the data is deleted, it may not really be the case. The hard disk has a 'management data area' and a 'real data area', and when you delete data, you are only deleting data from the management data area, leaving the real data intact.

This means that documents could be accessed from the unit's hard drive from a PC and reprinted...or worse, what happens if the unit's hard drive is replaced, moved or even outright stolen... who has that data now? "

What Plaintiff lawyers look for

This article by US lawyer Ron Lee lists 10 points that lawyers look for when building a case against a defendant business. It applies equally in Australia.

His number 1 is:

"Bad policy management. ..Having a policy that is out of date or inconsistently applied can be worse than having no policy at all."

Mentoring

Law Practice Today's August issue features mentoring.

There are a number of articles with general application. I particularly liked this overview by Dan Pennington and this analysis of Generation X and The Millennials: What You Need to Know About Mentoring the New Generations.

Fraud Report

The US Association of Certified Fraud Examiners has issued its 2004 Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud and Abuse.
The report sheds light on occupational fraud and abuse while offering lessons and insights about its prevention and detection.

Shared services

Controlling costs through shared services is a dream of most businesses.

ATKearney discuss shared services in detail in this paper. They say that "functions such as finance, human resources, procurement and IT are back in the spotlight. They are not only being viewed as sources of cost efficiency, which has been the traditional focus, but also as tools for corporate strategy and competitive advantage."

And just to confirm that it is possible, ACCC has announced it will not intervene in the proposed joint venture of the voucher processing facilities of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank and Westpac Banking Corporation.

Directory of MindMapping Software

LOOSE wire has compiled a directory of mind mapping software.

Anything to help the brainstorming process.

Leadership Insights

In this article in the August 2004 BOSS Magazine, Amanda Sinclair discusses two principles that have guided her studies about doing leadership differently: increase our reflectiveness and working experientially.

The key quotes:

" It is not until we disentangle our history a little that we can start to unshackle ourselves from old habits and work out whether current patterns of acting and reacting are serving the contemporary context and the present moment, not some still-powerful but limiting life script. In short, in order to go forward with leadership, one needs to go back...

Trying to teach leadership through conventional didactic instruction in theories, or even the arms-length comfort of case studies, is like training for a marathon by studying cardiology and the respiratory system. Conventional pedagogy cannot capture the unpredictability, the emotion, the doubt, the improvisation that is the journey of leadership. "

This reinforces my intention to move from the "data dump" method of working to "action learning".

Technology Commercialisation

Further to my previous post on licensing, this article discusses the key elements needed for the development of a commercialization strategy.

UPDATE 16 August: The Business Council of Australia has released a Report on BUILDING EFFECTIVE SYSTEMS FOR THE COMMERCIALISATION OF UNIVERSITY RESEARCH

Negotiations

This Harvard Business School article discusses strategies of when to make the first offer in negotiations.

It argues that the person who makes the first offer has a greater psychological influence over the rest of the negotiations, even though waiting to receive an offer gives you an insight into the offeror's position.

Finally, the article says "What should you do if your opponent's first offer is close to your ideal—accept the offer and quickly finish off the negotiation, or raise your expectations and keep bargaining? My own research shows that if you immediately accept your opponent's first offer, she will likely be filled with regret. "