Constraints lead to failure to effectively manage SIEM systems

Businesses are struggling to effectively manage their Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, according to research.

A survey of 100 IT managers in large UK enterprises found that 59 per cent do not have the necessary time to regularly monitor logs for suspicious behaviour while 40 per cent of respondents have serious concerns about their ability to report on internal systems and the time it takes to analyse data and logs from systems.

According to SecureData who commissioned the research, the situation is leaving these businesses, who have a minimum 1,000 employees, vulnerable to security attacks, data breaches and compliance issues. The research also found that 43 per cent of respondents see the ability of their business to detect internal and external threats, such as the latest zero-day vulnerabilities, as a high risk IT security challenge.

Etienne Greeff, managing director at SecureData, said: “Businesses are clearly struggling to stay on top of the management, reporting and analysis of their SIEM systems. Rather than fire-fighting the situation, businesses should be seeking the support of an outsourced solution, so they meet compliancy standards and reduce the risk of security attacks on their data.”

Dave Hansen appointed as CEO of SafeNet

Dave Hansen has been appointed as CEO of SafeNet, succeeding current President and CEO, Chris Fedde.

Formerly vice president and general manager of BMC Software via the acquisition of Numara Software, where he was president and chief executive officer, Hansen also spent more than nine years at CA Technologies where he successfully led the development and execution of CA's enterprise solutions and cloud strategy, led its security business unit and served as the company's chief information officer.

Hansen said: “SafeNet has undergone a tremendous transformation over the past five years, and is uniquely positioned to solve the most complex security issues facing CIOs and CSOs today. With SafeNet's market-leading data protection and rights management portfolios, and the recent introduction of game-changing cloud and virtualisation products, the company is set to lead the way in securing access and data for the cloud and from the cloud.”

Dave Fishman, partner at Vector Capital and a member of SafeNet's board of directors, said: “Dave is a known innovator within the security industry that brings strong strategic and execution skills, a proven ability to lead high performing management teams and a successful track record of driving growth for multi-national corporations.”

Fishman also thanked outgoing CEO Chris Fedde 'for the strong leadership that he has demonstrated throughout his tenure at SafeNet'.

“During that time, the company has transformed from a diversified vendor of security tools into one of the industry's leading, pure-play data protection and rights management companies. Under his leadership, SafeNet significantly enhanced its market leading product portfolios and positioned itself to capitalise on the fast growing data protection for cloud and virtual markets,” he said.

Fedde said: “I have enjoyed the opportunity to work at and lead SafeNet over the past eleven years. I am proud of all that we have accomplished, particularly the company's transformation into an industry-recognised data protection market leader. SafeNet is a company with tremendous opportunities and I look forward to its continued success.”

Australian medical centre held by ransomware and $4,000 demand

An Australian medical centre is being held to ransom by hackers who are demanding $4,000 to decrypt sensitive information held on a server.

According to ABC News, hackers hit the Miami Family Medical Centre, encrypted thousands of patient health records using ransomware, and are demanding the ransom to decrypt the sensitive information.

David Wood, co-owner of the Miami Family Medical Centre, said that it despite having anti-virus in place, the attackers 'literally got in, hijacked the server and then ran their encryption software'. He said: “It's people who know how to break in past firewalls and hack passwords to get onto the server. It's secure in the sense that no-one's taken any of it. We're trying to work out how to pay the hackers or find someone to decrypt the information."

Wood said that the medical centre will continue to operate, even though he admitted that it is 'very, very, very difficult' without patient records.

Last week, Sophos director of technology strategy James Lyne predicted that ransomware infections will increase in 2013 with a massive increase in the quality of implementation. Recent statistics released by the Irish reporting and information security service (Iriss) and computer emergency readiness team (Cert) said that there had been an issue of ransomware, with six separate incidents targeting Irish businesses reported.

Mark James, technical team leader at ESET UK, said: “If a server is directly accessible from the internet, it's only a matter of time before it became susceptible to a hack, and any establishment that holds user records or data should be conscious of this.

“As ever, good backups and multi layered security will help, but data as important as health records should be backed up regularly and stored offsite in a secure location â€" any organisation holding such sensitive information and not taking these precautions is acting irresponsibly.”

No More Free Google Apps for Businesses

Since its initial introduction into the business world in 2005, Google Apps has been available to small business users for free. Even when the premium version was launched in 2007, Google still maintained a free standard version for individuals and small organizations.

But now, Google has announced that it will no longer offer the free version of Google Apps to new business customers. The premium version, now called Google Apps for Business, will continue to be available for $50 per user per year, regardless of company size. Free accounts will be reserved for personal users.

Google said that this change will not impact current Google Apps customers, even those using free business accounts. However, new businesses that sign up for Google Apps will have to sign up for a premium account.

Google Apps offers businesses many useful services, from Gmail accounts to Google Drive cloud storage. Premium accounts also offer a 25GB inbox, 24/7 phone support, and 99.9% uptime with no scheduled downtime.

Since the free version of Google Apps was previously available to both businesses and individuals, Google said that the overall user experience was lacking for both groups, and that's part of the reason why it chose to make these most recent changes. The company stated in a blog post that many business users tended to outgrow the basic version too quickly and personal users were left waiting on updated features that had to become business ready before launching.

Individual users will still be able to sign up for free personal Google accounts, which allow access to web apps across all of Google's services. In addition, Google Apps for Education will remain a free offering.

Google Apps is currently used by millions of businesses around the world, which, for now at least, won't be impacted by this news. But for the new startups launching daily and other businesses that haven't yet signed up for Google Apps, there will only be one account option available, and it is no longer free.

Netflix CEO Faces Investigation Over Facebook Post

As a business owner, everything you do is under scrutiny. This includes what you say in the world of social media as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is finding out the hard way. But other things, like the kind of content you decide to put on your Website, the validity of your claims about products or services, even the feedback left by your customers on review sites and how you react to that feedback, are important too. The way you communicate with your customers and the public is changing. Improving the way you talk about your company and how you react to what others say about you may be one of the biggest challenges you face as an entrepreneur. Be sure you get it right.

Miscommunication

Too much information. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings may be in hot water over a post on his Facebook page back in June when he announced the news that customers of the streaming video provider have watched more than one billion hours of content on the service, a significant milestone. The problem, according federal authorities, has to do with whether Facebook was an appropriate channel over which to release information that should have been more formally shared with investors. There are so many ways to have a conversation about your business. Be sure you use discretion. Reuters

Wrong choice of words. Matthew Inman, creator of the edgy Website The Oatmeal, is used to upsetting readers from time to time with his taboo subject matter and crude drawings. In fact, Inman's bad boy style has become an important part of his brand and something that brings fans back to his site again and again. Inman is also running a business with an online shop that sells books, gifts, and other products featuring his humor, artwork, and writing. So, it's interesting to see what happens when the bad boy brand and his business interests collide, as they did again recently when some of his readers seemed to feel he'd crossed the line. (This post includes some language not appropriate for viewing at work.) The Oatmeal

Things We Said Today

Truth in advertising. Small business owners know all about the importance of creativity when marketing products and services. Remember, however, that there are regulations, here in the U.S. and in many countries, governing claims you make about what your products and services can do. Make sure you are familiar with the rules in your country, and if your business is located in the U.S., be sure to review the relevant regulations including the Federal Truth-in-Advertising Laws. Avoid action by the Federal Trade Commission or your state government by making sure claims you make when communicating with customers conform to the rules. SBA.gov

Review your options. Communication between your company and the public isn't a one way street. Feedback comes in many forms, including comments on review sites like Yelp and Trustpilot. These sites can intimidate some businesses at first, says blogger Anthony Karibian. However, if you are providing great products and services there is no need to worry. Review sites can be great for marketing your business with testimony from customers who've become your biggest fans. bOnline Blog

Freedom of Speech

Learn to take criticism. By contrast, reacting badly or inappropriately to customer feedback can hurt your brand, even when you're sure you're in the right. Take, for example, the instance of a building contractor that sued a woman for leaving a negative review the company claimed was defamation. A court agreed and awarded damages, writes marketer Nick Stamoulis, but the company lost in the court of public opinion. Users left angry comments on the review site, infuriated over the company's treatment of a customer. Brick Marketing Blog

The invisible brand. When starting your business, bad press may be the least of your problems. For many business owners, the real challenge is trying to get people just to pay attention. You may think that a simple DIY marketing approach is all you need. The truth is that it may be harder than you think, writes Alex Hinojosa, a public relations expert. He tells the story of a father who hired an agency to assist his recently published daughter promote her book as a holiday gift. Business owners know the importance of good publicity. It's imperative to your success. EMSI

Learn a new language. The best way to learn how to communicate with your customers is to look at the way the public relations industry has changed, says Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based PR firm. Rather than a message sent from you to your customers, business communications has become a conversation. It's time to figure out how to join in the dialogue. It's time to learn a new language. Wood Street Inc.

Cyber Liability Insurance: Protect Your Business Online

Love it or Hate it, the Internet is here to stay (and you probably don't question that fact since you're reading this article online).  With each moment, the Internet becomes deeper ingrained in both our personal and professional lives.

Though technology and the Internet has helped to make our lives more productive, increased communication and access to information, it has at the same time created new dangers and pitfalls we must be cognizant of.

Small Business Now the Focus of Cyber Attacks

Twenty-first century businesses are under constant threat of cyber attack from individuals and organizations looking to steal and profit off the information stored on their computers.

Though all business industries are susceptible to a cyber liability loss, for the purposes of this article, we will focus on the risk concerns for professional trades such as lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, dentists, doctors, etc.

The professional trades listed above, (not an inclusive list, there are many others), are extremely vulnerable to a data security or privacy lawsuit because of the confidential and personal information stored in their computer databases.

Professional service businesses are also seen as easy targets.

American Express understands that hackers want the valuable personal and financial data stored on their computer mainframes… so American Express protects itself with both preventative systems and insurance coverage.

The average main-street law firm or accounting agency sees themselves as too small to be targeted.

WRONG!

These smaller organizations are seen as “easy pickins.” Hackers have turned their malicious gaze upon the small business.  According to Symantec, in first quarter of 2012, 36 percent of all targeted attacks (58 per day) during the last six months were directed at businesses with 250 or fewer employees. That figure was 18 percent at the  end of Dec. 2011.

That is DOUBLE the attacks in one quarter… Scary.

Cyber Liability Insurance

Today's cyber liability insurance policy (there have been many iterations over the 10 year life of cyber liability), includes network liability as well as the following first party coverages:

• Privacy Liability
• Regulatory Liability
• Expenses surrounding a security breach event

In an article by the Insurance Journal on cyber liability outlines further where exposures come from: including outsourced service providers for Web hosting, credit card processing, call centers, document storage, and data warehousing.

Covered Events Include:

If you feel your business is exposed to this type of loss (which it most likely is) I must caution you, cyber liability in insurance terms is very young.  Each insurance carrier's policy forms will not be the same.  There will be huge different coverage and exclusions from carrier to carrier.

Top Franchise Trends for 2013

2013 could turn out to be a terrific year to enter the world of franchise business ownership.  If you're thinking about exploring the idea of being your own boss, three things are in your favor if you decide to move forward.

1: Commercial Space Availability

A lot of businesses have had to close their doors during the last couple of years, so there's an abundance of decent space available in most areas of the country. With a franchisors help, you should be able to find a great location to set up shop.

2: They're Dealing

Franchise company executives have had to get rather creative to entice would-be franchise owners to sign on as franchisees. Most of the time, this “creativity” comes in the form of a franchise fee discount.

But, here's the thing: a discounted franchisee fee should by no means be the reason for buying a particular franchise. But, if you're seriously interested in a particular franchise and it just so happens to be one that's offering a “deal,” you could come out a winner. Just make sure that you've done great research.

3: Interest Rates

Small business loan rates (as of this writing) are generally in the 3-5% range. The caveat: with approved credit. That means that you have to qualify, which may not be so easy. (See below) But, if you do qualify, that's really cheap money for a franchise business startup, and interest rates will eventually go back up.  Check out SBA.gov for up to date small business loan information.

With those three things in mind, let's take a look at the top franchise trends for 2013:

Financing

I was really hoping that things would be better by now for would-be franchise business owners. And, as much as I hate repeating the same things over and over again, when it comes to the state of small business start-up lending, this is one drum that I must continue beating.  Now, one would think that with small business loans backed by the Small Business Administration reaching record levels ($30.5 billion â€" 61,689) it would be easier for potential franchise owners to borrow money.

But, it's not.

To combat the continued lack of significant lending to franchises, a few franchisors have decided to take matters in their own hands. It sure beats waiting for the major banks to loosen their underwriting requirements up. Forbes.com offers some great examples of franchisors getting into the finance game.

For 2013, look for more franchisors to start aggressively looking outside of the more traditional lending sources for small business loan capital.

Frozen Treats

We love our ice cream. And unless you've been avoiding retail plazas for the past couple of years, we obviously like our frozen yogurt, too. But why?

For one, yogurt is considered to be a healthy dessert. Well, kind of. Read what The Food Network thinks.  Secondly, there are around 25 different franchisors currently offering frozen yogurt franchises. That fact alone has made some of us in the franchise industry wonder how long the frozen yogurt craze is going to last.  Restaurant industry analysts are wondering the same thing.

On the other hand, I'd be willing to wager that the franchise development teams at Menchie's, Red Mango, Yogurtini, and Yogen Fruz aren't thinking about a slowdown in frozen yogurt franchising at all. As a matter of fact, they're probably working extra hours just to keep up with all the inquiries they've been getting from prospective franchise owners.

I expect interest in becoming the owner of a frozen yogurt franchise to remain strong. At the same time, there won't be too many new frozen yogurt franchise concepts entering this increasingly crowded market.

Disaster Cleanup

One of the biggest news events in 2012 was Superstorm Sandy, and the historic impact it had on cities and towns in the Northeast.  Cleanup efforts will go on for months in areas hit hardest by this huge storm.  And, some scientists are predicting that powerful storms like Sandy will become more commonplace in the months and years to come.

This could be a great time to get into the disaster cleanup and restoration business.

And, please don't suggest that I'm encouraging you to go into business to take advantage of the pain and misery that's experienced by others when large-scale disasters happen.  Here's an old sales axiom that may help you understand where I'm coming from:

“Fish where the fish are.”

In other words, if you're going to invest your hard-earned money in a franchise business, any type of business for that matter, look to the ones that provide products and services that are actually needed.  Here's a partial list of franchises that focus on cleanup and restoration:

Franchises in this segment are starting to get noticed more, and if we continue to get episodes of extreme weather in the next year, they'll really be on the radar screens of franchise buyers.

Education

When the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act was signed into law in 2001, tutoring franchise operators quickly filled out the necessary state paperwork required to be approved as vendors.  That's because part of the NCLB act included government funds for after school tutoring from approved vendors.  And having money coming in from the government was a pretty nice alternative to the original tutoring model which required, (and still does) payment from parents for the services.

Currently, though, there's an ongoing debate about NCLB, and the funding that it receives. It could end up that funding for after-school tutoring programs will decrease. If that happens, the tutoring industry could take a pretty big hit.

Except that I actually don't think that the tutoring industry, especially the franchise segment of tutoring, will be impacted all that much if a lot of the government funding disappears.

Here's why:  A lot of kids struggle with the science and math of today. Whether or not government funding is available doesn't change the absolute need for tutoring services to exist. One has nothing to do with the other. That's why tutoring franchises like Tutor Doctor continue to grow rapidly.  Some of the other tutoring franchises include:

For 2013, more tutoring franchises will start taking advantage of readily available online learning technology. Franchisees will start offering their customers online tutoring as an option, and at a lower price point than traditional face-to-face tutoring.

Technology Services

Today's small business owners are embracing technology-and its power, like never before. They know that it's almost impossible to remain competitive these days without it.  But, busy business owners don't always know what the best tools are for their individual needs. And, they can't keep up with every new and improved technology that comes down the pike.

That's where franchise businesses like Teamlogic IT and CMIT Solutions come into play. Franchisees have the opportunity to offer some of the latest products and services that are designed to help businesses run more efficiently-and safely.  But, businesses can't run at capacity unless their technology is working. Sometimes, things break.

Computer Troubleshooters is just one of several franchises that provides repair services for computers and other types of technology located at work-or at home. Others include:

Franchises in this sector will add numerous mobile technology products and services for their franchisees to offer their customers in 2013. That's because today's small business owners need to reach and sell to their clients and customers where they are these days â€" on their smartphones and tablets.

Thousands of different franchise opportunities are available today, with new concepts rolling out all the time. The trick is to choose one that makes sense for you…which allows you to utilize your best skills.

Once you've done that, make sure that you have several conversations with current and former franchisees of the concept you're looking into as part of your due diligence. Then, run the numbers, but don't forget to include what I call, “set aside money.” You'll need to have enough money set aside to take care of your living expenses for several months, while your new business gets up and running.

Finally, continue to do what you're doing right now â€" getting educated about franchise industry trends and learning how to go about purchasing a franchise.

Who knows? Maybe 2013 will be the year that you take control of your career, and become an owner.

Women Entrepreneurs: Alive and Well, Thank You Very Much!

I am often faced with whining articles about the lack of women entrepreneurs in our industry. Well, my response has always been to show examples of what is really happening. Let me introduce you to three interesting women in diverse industries from educational technology to online music.

Melanie Kusmik:  Cubert's Cube

Any teacher will tell you how hard it to teach elementary school kids to write. Because these students vary in cognitive and motor skill development, writing can be frustrating for many to learn such important skills. Entrepreneur, Melanie Kusmik, hopes to solve that problem by teaching kids to write through social web technology.

Years of experience in software development and product management at companies like Quantum, 3Com, Nortel Networks has helped Melanie learn to transform a concept into a business.

As a fun and social online writing environment, Cubert's Cube is an absorbing, social online writing program designed to creatively engage young students in all aspects of the writing process.  The idea of creating such a platform came while Kusmik was volunteering in her son's kindergarten class. She noticed the kids would become more engaged if someone collaborated on their story idea and allowed them to draw pictures. At the same time, she realized the students' interest in technology.

Kusmik brainstormed her ideas with a second grade teacher and came up with the first design of the website in 2010. They developed a prototype and introduced it to 250 second and third grade students and 10 teachers. Kusmik is currently offering a pilot program to validate the product across different teaching and learning environments:

• public
• private
• home school environments

School district-wide licenses will be available in the spring of 2013.

TAM for Cubert's Cube is estimated at $45.2M, supposing a 12.5% adoption rate of elementary school teachers and homeschool parents in the United States, where there are 88,000 elementary schools with an average of 30 classrooms in the United States.

With the subscription model, Kusmik is expecting an annual recurring revenue stream on a per teacher/single class or per school basis, and often 3 to 4 times more when school districts purchase a multi-year subscription. Writing portfolio and journal books could  make up a second revenue stream for the company.

Historically speaking, engaging K-12 teachers to adopt new technologies has been challenging, but Melanie is determined and passionate about it. She sees reluctant writers starting to find writing fun. They get to work with friends collaboratively and use features like drawing, inserting pictures, etc. And more and more tech-savvy teachers and parents are tech-savvy, willing to adopt educational technology to help their students learn better and more interactively.

Zoe Peden: Insane Logic

Kids with learning disabilities have been found to respond well to various types of education technology. Zoe Peden created Insane Logic to help these children develop key language and communication skills in a fun, useful and interactive way. Using the iPad and iPhone as a platform, Insane Logic provides games using signs and symbols to communicate and play.

Peden spent nine years working in the education and academic publishing industry in product development and editorial. In 2007, she started as a senior manager at The Makaton Charity, a UK-based charity that owns a proven language program consisting of sign language and symbols that aid language acquisition and development. It is primarily used for children and adults with learning disabilities but can also be used for unimpaired pre-school children.

Peden partnered with her friend and technical co-founder Andrew Jackman to release Insane Logic's flagship product MyChoicePad, targeting schools and the speech and language therapy markets.

As a result of a recent seed investment, the company is starting to build out its very small team. Currently, the company has 1,100 paying customers spending an average of £120, with 5,000 customers on the free version of the app. About 40% of all downloads have taken place in the last three months. The company is now getting the word out about how MyChoicePad can help language development and provide access to alternative communication for the 1 in 10 children in the U.K. who enter school with speech, language and communication needs.

Peden has also recently extended the brand to a more mainstream audience with the release of a three game series of apps for building effective language development through using sign language, symbols and pictures, called MyChoicePad Memory. They are aimed at the parental market, specifically for parents with children under five years old.

Cookie Marenco: Blue Coast Records

Cookie Marenco knows the music industry inside out. Starting as a fourteen-year-old piano teacher, she bootstrapped her recording studio in 1982 with a partner and received Grammy nominations and two Gold Records.

In 1987, she joined Windham Hill Records as a producer where she learned how a record label operates, legal issues of music, relationship development, the intricacies/ problems of music distribution and branding. In 1997, Cookie became the chief engineer for Liquid Audio, one of the first online music download companies.

She launched Blue Coast Records in 2007 as a cutting-edge music company pioneering super-resolution audio creation and innovative distribution methods. Blue Coast Records was the first to release DSD (Direct Stream Digital, Sony's newest digital format) audio, which was delivered to end-users through the internet. Since then, Cookie has created several revenue streams and launched many branded products.  All her activities revolve around the strong belief:

“Quality adds value.”

At times, she has gone against the trends, but it's her commitment towards quality that has made her successful.

Prior to Blue Coast, she co-developed a recording technique for surround sound, calling it Extended Sound Environment (ESE). When the rest of the world was turning to home digital recording and low-end mp3, Marenco returned to analog tape and DSD for recordings because the quality was so much better. High-end sound equipment manufacturers were the first to adopt the technology.

To sell the expensive gear, Marenco and her partner needed music that was recorded faithfully to the real sound so that it would show off what their products could do. Several manufacturers approached them to create co-branded products and their first sales were to audiophile manufacturers.

Marenco was bootstrapping even back then. To retain control over the product, she turned down many investors. She also continued with the studio operations to support Blue Coast Records. She decided to stick to quality audio and continued to sell the discs for $40. That was the best decision she made because demand for her products has increased with time.

She started Downloads NOW! as a platform for distributing files of any size. Within six months, manufacturers responded to customers' request and started building converters so that DSD files could be played on home sound systems. As word spread of the new hardware, software support and more recorded music became available.

There are more than 150 titles available at Downloads NOW!, with 19,000 users downloading  DSD audio in a year. The company is experiencing annual growth of 84%. They are negotiating with Symphony Orchestras, a nationally known major label, to release their content with Downloads NOW! In 2012 Blue Coast Records has already achieved 50% of the revenue required to cover the total operational costs and is very close to the tipping point.

These entrepreneurs prove the adage that a good idea coupled with persistence and focus on quality pays off in the end.

Gender is irrelevant.

Free Shipping Day Coming Dec. 17

Free Shipping Day is almost upon us. The day was created to entice online shoppers who have waited until the last possible moment to buy gifts and still want them delivered in time for the holidays at no charge. Here's more on how this remarkable day came about and what it can mean for your business:

If It's for Free, It's for Me

Are you ready? First of all, don't be like those customers, waiting for the last minute and then praying for a Christmas miracle. Business bloggers like Maria Valdez Haubrich have been talking about the event for a while now, so it's time to get cracking. Actually, as Haubrich points out, free delivery is always a good idea that will make online businesses more competitive, but during the holidays it's even more important. Grow Smart Biz

The more the merrier. Launched in 2008, the special day is growing rapidly. This year an estimated 2,000 retailers will be involved, offering free shipping and other bonuses. For online retailers, the day is becoming another huge push, like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to Daily News journalist Phyllis Furman. The day serves an obvious need on the part of both online merchants and consumers, a win-win for everyone this season.  New York Daily News

A Bright Idea

How it began. Like all great ideas, it seems, Free Shipping Day was born of necessity. Co-founder of FreeShipping.org, Luke Knowles, got his inspiration when he realized that while late Christmas shopping was practically a tradition, the new online shopping trend made Dec. 11 the cutoff for buying gifts online since customers knew placing orders any later would likely make it impossible to have them delivered in time to be placed under the tree…at least without paying extra. FreeShippingDay.com

Revenue in review. The effort has been well worth it, at least in terms of overall retail spending. Online sales on last year's Free Shipping Day were north of $1 billion, making it one of the biggest single shopping days of the season. Check out how the special day stacked up compared to other shopping events like Cyber Monday. comScore

Some Great Suggestions

Don't be left behind. If you still want to take advantage of Free Shipping Day, be sure to promote your offers through as many channels as possible. At the same time, clearly communicate deadlines and limitations on these orders to avoid holiday disappointment. Here's a checklist you can use to get your online business ready for a day that is already surpassing Black Friday in overall sales. Data shows customers love free delivery, so make it work for you. Marketlive

Canada gets into the act. And if you think Free Shipping Day is just for U.S. merchants, think again. An estimated 250 online retailers in Canada took advantage of an earlier Free Shipping Day on Dec. 12, this year. Together with Cyber Monday and the growth of online e-commerce in general, online holiday shopping is expected to push the Canada Post to process more than a billion letters and parcels in December. CTV News

Free shipping all year round. The success of Free Shipping Day should give online retailers pause. Imagine the orders you might receive if you offered free shipping all year round! Clearly challenges exist, but experts say there is no reason you cannot offer this wonderful service to customers everyday. See this link for more on how to realize what might be a significant strategic advantage in your online business. Business News Daily

I\'m Your Boss

Years ago, I pitched a comic strip idea where a man and a dog lived in an apartment, but the character's typical roles were reversed. The dog went to work every day and was the breadwinner, while his owner stayed home and caused trouble.

In the end, no one (including me) thought it was ready for the big time, but to this day I still like the basic concept.

Every so often, I revisit those characters in a cartoon like this one. It's like seeing old friends again.

Robert Wollan of Accenture: Consumers Are Switching It Up

Consumers switch the companies they buy from. It happens. But this past year, there's been a 5% increase in consumer switching and a whopping 85% of consumers feel that the companies could have encouraged them to stay. Tune in as Robert Wollan, Global Managing Director of Accenture CRM Practice, joins Brent Leary to share some eye-opening findings from their most recent annual consumer survey.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Robert Wollan: I have been with Accenture for more than 20 years now, one of the folks who help founded our practice in the early 90's. We've probably invested more time and energy and attention into figuring out what it means to be engaging customers.

Small Business Trends: What were some of the key things you picked out from your annual Accenture Global Consumer Survey?

Robert Wollan:  There are a few things that you might have expected. We have seen consumer switching arise steadily over the last number of years we've done the survey. So consumer switching hasn't necessarily been a new thing. But it has reached a new plateau:

• One: consumer switching is here to stay.
• Two: a thing we have seen steady over the last couple of years is rising expectations. Consumers are telling us that their expectations are rising every single year. This matters a lot to companies because if you are not thinking about making sure you keep pace with consumers â€" you will quickly fall behind.
• Three: we have seen an increasing frustration with obvious execution issues.  Having to repeat yourself three or four times, having to start over every time you have to engage a company. Those kinds of service issues have become prevalent.

Small Business Trends: What surprised you?

Robert Wollan:  Price isn't the primary reason people are leaving. In today's world, we can rapidly check a price online, go into a store, snap a UPC code with your mobile phone and find out how you can buy it on line. We thought pricing would become the dominant, lingering issue but it's not really the case.

Service experience is really driving reasons why people leave. In fact, the number one reason people leave is that the promise they were given when they chose the provider wasn't being met in the delivery world. That was a really surprise for us.

This year we found that 85% of consumers actually said that companies could have done something to keep them. We are looking at this through a different lens. Customers actually do want to stay with their providers.

These are the things that really stood out.

Small Business Trends: I am looking at broken promises; nearly two thirds said that was their top concern. That speaks to trust issues and how important trust is today.

Robert Wollan:  Well, trust is an issue that came up Brent. What we called “broken promises” was actually a way for companies to look thoroughly at how they are setting promises vs. how are they delivering. Surprisingly companies are spending very little time, energy and attention on how they set promises beyond the marketing realm.

Small Business Trends: A tailored experience is critical to a strong customer relationship, 48% of respondents said. Are you seeing companies understand and address this?

Robert Wollan:  What we are seeing is companies still clinging to this one size fits all model, trying to improve the base. It is time to move beyond the one size fits all model and start to isolate what matters to different customers segments. Then starting to implement those things.

Small Business Trends: 31% of respondents prefer companies that actually use their information that is available to create a better experience. But only a quarter of them found companies that are actually doing that?

Robert Wollan:  More and more today we are seeing the amount of information that is available that companies can act upon increase. Customers will give it to you, but they view it as an exchange. They are going to get some value out of it when they are providing that information.

As we talked about setting expectations, when customers do give it to you â€" whether it is through social media channels, through traditional voice, maybe face to face in the store â€" whatever the mechanism is, they are expecting you to treat that as a tool to make sure their lives are easier. And that exchange may be at the heart of some of what this broken promise is all about.

Small Business Trends: It looks like consumers get information from the buyers using a variety of channels. 79% say they get it from word of mouth, 71% from corporate websites, 63% from review sites. Lagging far behind are social networks like Facebook and Twitter at 47%?

Robert Wollan:  I think one of the hypotheses that came out of that is companies still haven't quite figured out how to make it easy to draw their products and services into the conversation, where it is more natural. It becomes pretty rare that companies will actually be leveraging social media beyond the generic messages, or specific promotions.

Small Business Trends: If there are one or two take-a-ways that a company should put in play, what would they be?

Robert Wollan:  I might make even four that really stood out, Brent:

• One:  at the heart they can stop assuming that customers are leaving because of something inherently nomadic in them. The customers are saying they would like to stay. So at the core, put that strategy in how you are executing.
• Two:  do a better job balancing how you set expectations at the front of the relationship. Get those expectations into balance.
• Three:  evaluate what data you're asking for from customers. And stop looking for all of this data that we don't do anything with.
• Four:  really reexamine what being digital means today. Focus on what channels you want to offer your services and products through, and then how well those meet different customer segments. Not the masses, but the folks that you most want to add to your customer portfolio, or keep with you as opposed to switching.

Small Business Trends: Robert, where can people learn more?

Robert Wollan:  The best place to do go is certainly Accenture.com.  You can also follow me on Twitter, @Wollan.

This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.

Dell World: BYOD is about management of about data not devices

The focus of a proper 'bring your own' policy should be on security should be of applications and not of devices.

Speaking at a roundtable on 'BYOX', at the Dell World conference in Austin, Texas, a panel of speakers from Dell's recently acquired software companies said that with the 'millennials' are now university graduates looking for jobs, these are people who have had the internet for their entire lives.

Roger Bjork, director of marketing mobility solutions, said: “Now we are recruiting and retaining the best and brightest, it is about how businesses harness this with the willingness to work and improve quality of experience.”

Ken Drachnik, director of marketing for Dell Kace, echoing recent comments made to SC Magazine by MobileIron CEO Bob Tinker, said that mobile management is not about hardware; but about the operating system and security policies.

“There are three ways to do this: the first way is virtualisation to keep the power in cloud but use the device as a rendering device, as you do not want to store data on device. Mobile device management (MDM) is about 'mobile management' and application management is about setting policies on accessing data and how it is encrypted,” he said.

“The second option is with a virtual cloud about storing data in a platform, where data remains on the cloud. The final option is end-client management.”

Rami Koren, product marketing for Dell Client Wise, said that there is also a pull for the use of personal applications and it was looking at ways to 'bring your own application and your own content'.

He said: “The analogy of BYOD is that you want service and application access. The next level of BYOX is the personal cloud. So if you can address policies at the access and device level, Quest will bring identity and access management (IAM) components to the picture.”

SonicWall's Patrick Sweeney, who were also acquired by Dell this year, said that Dell is not about putting the 'D' in BYOD, but it was more about what data was on the device and what is going on with connections and where the data goes to.

“It is about X - information. If you want to control information and if allocate it out, great, and if want to get zeros and ones out, want to control and distribute it but protect it. BYOD is about information and security solutions: I wish I could say there was a God box to solve this solution, but there isn't, but we bring cloud-based solutions for content or manage devices to a degree for information on them,” he said.

“If the user uses a client that cripples them, then that is the doom scenario. But if you use a solution that simply allows you to consume data through a thin client, then there will be rapid adoption. It is about enablement and corporate cost.

“We want to offer a single pane of glass and our strategy is to see the network and get an understanding of it, with different segments. We will bring more and more information to single pane of glass and that is our evolution for the future, we will have best class product in a silo but shouldn't act a silo.”

Dell World: Dell executives deflect \'30 billion incidents\' comment

Dell has cleared up a potentially dodgy situation by confirming that it sees its users face around half a million incidents per day.

Earlier, in a panel debate at the Dell World conference in Austin, Texas, Dell Services president Suresh Vaswani said that it manages '30 billion incidents every day'.

Later when asked to confirm this figure, Vaswani said that the knowledge and technology was gained from its managed security service provider SecureWorks that it has integrated with Dell.

Later speaking to SC Magazine, Mike Cote, general manager and vice president of Dell SecureWorks, said that at the top end, it sees 30 to 35 billion events a day and between deduplication of events and single events, it takes it down to between 500-750,000 events per day, with 2,000 connections with a client.

He said: “That security incident comes from the customer and we work with them to get them involved so it comes in a different type.”

Cote explained that the threats that SecureWorks counter threat unit (CTU) see is like a funnel, with the number of events rising year-on-year, and the real issue is the trajectory of growth. He said: “You can put different things in, and you see the same malware across the customers, so the question is was it one incident or one billion incidents? What we see is consistently doubling and CTU has to be intelligent so humans are not doing this, a system can handle it at a better scale.”

Dell World: Senior executives talk up software and security

Security and modern threats were some of the key talking points in panel session of senior executives from Dell.

Speaking at the Dell World conference in Austin, Texas, founder and CEO Michael Dell said that having made $5 billion worth of acquisitions this year, much has been invested in research and development and training its people.

With major acquisitions made in the security space in the last two years, specifically of Quest, SonicWall and SecureWorks, Dell said that he 'heard the challenges and saw the opportunities' and that 'having only products was insufficient', so it needed to go beyond the company's origins and into services to address the bigger challenges.

He said: “We are really able to address the problem that the customer has to put together, address the fundamental issues and help customers address IT security in a holistic fashion, this is more or less an issue that all businesses face. We bring it all together and help them address it.”

Suresh Vaswani, president of Dell Services, said that the company had a 'very pivotal role as a provider' that was all about consulting, managing across its software products and solutions. He said: “With security, we have the best in the world here. Dell is a full services provider.”

Dell software president John Swainson, talking about the formation of the software group within the company, said that software 'is the glue that ties hardware and software and services experience together' and gives the user what they want.

“With security and rise of advanced persistent threats, it is about how we give the ability to secure environments and secure data, our gems are stitched together to create a solution, it is integrated. What customers need is to see what is going on in their environment, across servers and hardware and see it together,” he said.

Swainson later said that it will do what is right in security, which is not everything, and leverage the device itself and manage the security on it, the currency of it, and access to it and the data. “We will partner with vendors and people who provide solutions, but we have a free way of security to monitor and have a well integrated security service,” he said.

Vaswani said: “We consult on the security services which users face, we have a knowledge of the sector and we implement security solutions on their intellectual property and manage that so customers get an end-to-end solution."

Dell concluded by saying that as the nature of attacks evolve so quickly and it is responsible for protecting thousands of customers, Dell can help protect its customers in an unprecedented way. “We have invested deeply in technology and in people who can protect in an unprecedented fashion,” Dell said.

FireEye launch managed service provider program, Dell SecureWorks first to join

FireEye has announced the launch of its certified service provider (FCSP) program to support users who opt for a service provider model for security.

According to the company, users benefit from having the protection that the FireEye Malware Protection System provides as well as working with a managed security service provider (MSSP) in order to minimise complexity, leverage malware expertise and reduce costs associated with owning and managing their own IT infrastructures.

Ashar Aziz, founder, vice chairman and CTO of FireEye, said: “At a time when an increasing number of companies fall victim to cyber criminals targeting their corporate data, CEOs and CSOs must now invest in more comprehensive security solutions that address the rapidly evolving threat landscape.”

the first MSSP to join the FCSP program is Dell SecureWorks, with users of Dell SecureWorks now offered FireEye technology for greater visibility into the extent of previous network and system compromises and cyber attack tactics, and the ability to take action to address similar cyber attacks that might occur in the future.

Jon Ramsey, chief technology officer for Dell SecureWorks, said: “Malicious email and web content are the top advanced threat attack vectors, and it is critical that organisations adopt advanced threat protection solutions in addition to other security layers. Dell SecureWorks is pleased to work with FireEye to bring our joint customers a solution that provides both technology and security expertise.”

Business decisions on cloud applications done without input of IT

Enterprises are running one-third of their mission-critical applications in the cloud today and expect to have half of all critical applications running in the cloud by 2015.

According to research by SailPoint of 400 business leaders, only a third (34 per cent) bring IT staff into the vendor selection and planning process when a cloud application is procured without using IT's budget. Yet, 70 per cent believe that IT is ultimately responsible for managing user access to cloud applications while 14 per cent of respondents admit that they have no way of knowing if sensitive data is stored in the cloud at all.

Jackie Gilbert, vice president and general manager of SailPoint's cloud business unit, said: “As organisations adopt cloud applications, they are very likely to increase their risk exposure by putting sensitive data in the cloud without adequate controls or security processes in place. Many companies lack visibility not only to what data is in the cloud, but also to who can access that data.”

The survey also found that less than a third of companies are fully locked down when it comes to application usage at work, with business users are much more comfortable using consumer or 'non-approved' applications for work activities which take place outside the purview of IT.

Kevin Cunningham, president of SailPoint, said: “This is due in part to the ever changing IT landscape that make existing identity management issues even larger. The consumerisation of IT has put enterprises in a difficult position: they want to provide business users the convenience and flexibility promised by cloud and mobile devices, but they must also make sure controls are in place to monitor and manage who has access to what.

“Regardless of where customers are with their identity access management strategy, they need to proactively consider how to govern these new technologies and behaviours within their corporate policies.”

The future of authentication - can you use a phone for physical security?

Almost three-quarters of delegates to a recent SC Magazine webcast have admitted to being 'very concerned' about the vulnerabilities of username and passwords.

In the recent SC Magazine webcast, entitled 'Axe Passwords: The Future's Mobile', examples such as LinkedIn, Sony and Epsilon were cited and the question was asked of the 200-strong audience of how well equipped username and password authenticators are to secure today's increasingly mobile-centric corporations?

The webcast moved from this to discussion of the various authenticators available and their respective pros and cons. Passwords, biometrics, smart cards and hard tokens were all among the options discussed, each weighed up according to their relative cost and effectiveness.

With no silver bullet solution identified, the discussion moved to the options for integrating the most effective authenticators into a user's mobile device.

Dave Mahdi of Entrust, who was among the speakers, said: “Users are asking why they can't use their phone to access say a building, when they can use it to access the corporate network. With the geo-location and biometrics available to us now mobile can move from being an organisation's Achilles Heel to being the ultimate authenticator.”

A podcast is available of the full discussion via this link.

Derby City Council select encryption solution from Egress

Derby City Council has selected the Egress Switch email and file encryption product to meet government connection compliance requirements.

Driven by an initial requirement from their social services team to exchange information securely with third parties outside the Government Secure Extranet (GCSX), Derby City Council needed a scalable solution that would also integrate with their Microsoft Exchange environment.

Miles Peters, technical project lead at Derby City Council, said that email and file encryption solutions were needed because a single team at the council had an immediate requirement to share information securely.

“What became apparent very quickly was that this wasn't an isolated case, and across the organisation we needed to ensure we were compliant and information was secure,” he said.

“Egress Switch was chosen because of its level of integration with Microsoft Outlook, the ease of use for end users and the fact that the implementation took no time at all so we could be up and running quickly.”

Tony Pepper, CEO for Egress Software Technologies, said: “We are seeing more and more customers with a requirement to securely share information outside their existing networks with third parties and there is a real concern that without the right system they could fall foul of data breaches and potentially fines from the Information Commissioners Office.”

Final Patch Tuesday of 2012 sees Microsoft issue five critical bulletins

Microsoft released seven bulletins on its final Patch Tuesday of 2012 this week.

Patching five critical flaws and two rated as important, patches were issued for Windows, Internet Explorer, Word and Windows Server. It recommended patching MS12-077 first, which covers three critical-class issues in Explorer. Microsoft said that there are no known attack vectors for these versions as yet.

Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, said: “Bulletin MS12-077 addresses vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 9 and 10, the newest versions of IE that run under Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Here, an attacker would have to lure the attack target to browse to a malicious webpage. This is a tad harder than sending the target a simple e-mail, another common attack method.”

Marc Maiffret, CTO of BeyondTrust, said: “There is a good combination of vulnerabilities that can be mixed together to provide a good arsenal for client-side attacks. Internet Explorer 9 and 10 are both susceptible to three different vulnerabilities (MS12-077) that attackers can use to execute malicious code on a user's computer. If the browser attacks don't appeal to an attacker's fancy, they still have the option of exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Word (MS12-079) that affects versions 2003, 2007 and 2010.”

MS12-079, which patches one issue in Microsoft Word, is also rated as critical and can result in remote code execution. Ziv Mador, director of security research at Trustwave SpiderLabs, said: “While Microsoft has not yet seen this one being exploited in the wild, they do expect exploited code to show soon. This one has to do with how MS Word parses Rich Text Format (RTF) files and again, could result in remote code execution. The problem is present in Word 2003, 2007, 2010 and even MS Word Viewer.  Users of Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 should also take note as MS Word is set as the default email reader for those email clients.”

Kandek said: “Of the five critical patches, we think that MS12-079 is the most important. The attack can be accomplished through email using a flaw in the RTF. An attacker can gain control of a computer without end user interaction because Microsoft Outlook automatically displays the malicious text in the Preview Pane. A potential work-around is to manually configure the preview pane in Outlook's Trust Center to use plain text only, but one loses a significant amount of functionality that way.

Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle,said: “As if the IE bug wasn't enough, attackers are also getting an RTF email bug in their stockings. Users who receive a malformed email don't even have to open the email to be exploited. Just showing malformed email in the preview pane is enough for a successful attack. Obviously, this is one that should be patched quickly.”

Maiffret highlighted MS12-080 as a key patch as this covers the WebReady component in Exchange, which uses Oracle Outside In libraries. He said: “For those unfamiliar with the previous vulnerability, here's a quick recap. Microsoft uses the Oracle Outside In libraries to parse and display documents in emails. Oracle recently patched a couple of vulnerabilities, which affect components of WebReady, thus making outlook Exchange vulnerable.

“These vulnerabilities affect the Outside In filters and the HTML Export SDK, which (if properly exploited) could allow an attacker to run code on the Exchange Server in the context of the LocalService account.”

Kandek said: “MS12-080 is this month's only server side bulletin and it addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange and Sharepoint that stems from the inclusion of the Oracle Outside In file conversion software. IT admins should treat this bulletin the same way that they treated MS12-058 in August 2012 which had the exact same root cause, i.e. Oracle's release of a new version of Outside In in their quarterly Critical Patch Update.”

Mador highlighted MS12-081, which fixes a critical remote code execution issue in Windows File Handling. He said: “This vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user browsed to a folder that contains a file or subfolder with a specially crafted name and it impacts pretty much everything from XP SP3 to Server 2008 R2.

“Of course ‘browse to a folder' can be accomplished with an email attachment if the attacker can get the receiver to open it. If you are still running older version of the OS Microsoft thinks this vulnerability will be pretty easy to exploit.”

Finally looking at the important-rated patches, Maiffret said: “MS12-081 addresses a remote code execution vulnerability in the Windows File Handling Component. MS12-082 fixes a heap overflow in DirectPlay, which affects all versions of Windows, except for Windows RT. Lastly, MS12-083 plugs a hole in IP-HTTPS that permits a security feature bypass.”

Dell World: The traditional firewall cannot protect against the type of attacks on the internet today

The 'legacy' firewall is redundant due to its inability to block malware, do deep packet inspection and reduce application risk exposure.

Speaking at Dell World in Austin, Texas, Daniel Ayoub, product marketing manager for Dell SonicWall, said in his presentation 'Preparing for the future: why legacy firewalls just do not cut it' that due to the holes in legacy firewalls, they are 'unable to stop malware and any type of attacks on internet today'.

Ayoub said: “The traditional firewall doesn't expect Layer 7 content and it is not looking at what is inside packets, just at the packets. There is holes in the firewall and it is unable to stop malware.”

Ayoub also said that legacy firewalls are 'blind' to applications as they are unable to identify on their content in order to throttle them. “Applications like Facebook and Skype come in over port 80, while business applications like Salesforce and Microsoft are all coming into the network whether you want them to or not,” he said.

“Now you allow almost anything in and with a legacy firewall, there is no way to throttle bad applications. A next generation firewall will help to solve this and also decrypt traffic on the fly. If you go to site which is compromised, a traditional firewall will not detect what is going on.”

Statistics from Gartner said that fewer than five per cent of internet connections are secured using a next generation firewall, Ayoub said that this is not a fad or trend, it is the way that the industry is going.

He finally pointed at the next generation firewall's capability to do deep packet inspection for advanced detection of threats, as he said it will examine the content and make decisions based upon that.

Dell World: Dell Kace to launch mobile management platform next year

Dell Kace has launched an on-premise mobile management appliance for iOS and Android operating systems.

Available on a limited release from next month, the Dell Kace K3000 mobile management appliance offers support and security for corporate and personal mobile devices and allows IT managers to offer a solution to track, monitor and manage desktops, laptops, servers and mobile devices more efficiently.

Joining Dell's mobile management portfolio that includes Dell Wyse's Cloud Client Manager and Dell MDM, it fits within the company's key strategy to allow users to offer bring your own device (BYOD) policies to staff and manage endpoints via a single console.

Rob Meinhardt, general manager for Dell KACE, said: “In the past, our customers managed laptops, desktops and servers. Increasingly, they need to say ‘yes' to devices of all kinds including smartphones and tablets. With the Dell KACE K3000 Mobile Management Appliance, our customers will have a well-integrated and easy to use system for managing and securing all types of devices, operating systems and endpoints in their IT environment.”

Dell World: CIO PowerBoard launched to offer insight into network and threats

Dell has announced the launch of the CIO PowerBoard to provide a unified view of a user's environment and stay on top of network security threats.

Saying that it aims to simplify IT challenges for customers with new software for management, security, mobility and data recovery, it combines technology from SonicWall, Quest, AppAssure and Kace to give a unified and open software interface that will allow organisations to maximise visibility and management across their preferred solution suites.

The Dell SonicWall Security Portal includes a threat centre for an up-to-date view into the current landscape of malware, intrusions and application usage information transmitted from sensors around the globe. This allows uses to view data from around the world and create customised graphs to see a variety of telemetry data ranging from country of origin, threat type and top attacks and much more.

The Dell SonicWall Security Portal also contains a 'Security Education' section containing product-neutral materials such as blogs, white papers, webinars, e-books and security-related games.

Speaking to SC Magazine, Daniel Ayoub, product marketing manager for Dell SonicWall, said that every time an attack is blocked the telemetry data is collected and sent to the Threat Centre. “You can see from one day to 60 days and choose a category from malware, intrusions and applications and average figure is created,” he said.

“This gives you an insight into what is going on and it really give you an interface to drill down into but also with an educational context. It is not just statistics, but a learning process too.”

The portal is free to download and it will eventually be integrated into all of Dell's sectors.

Carol Fawcett, CIO of Dell Software, said: “CIOs need to respond to ever changing IT environments while business goes on and orders are being placed and processed. If a system is unresponsive, we need to understand when it started and why, in order to quickly engage the right IT skill in order to resolve the issue. Having an end-to-end view like CIO Powerboard will give CIOs this critical information in a simple and efficient manner to help maintain business continuity.”

Crown Prosecution Service: No criminal charges to be brought against Gary McKinnon

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced that Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon will not face any criminal charges.

McKinnon, who has faced uncertainty over charges and extradition for the past ten years after he accessed the Pentagon network in search of evidence of aliens, learned this summer that he would not face extradition.

Announcing its decision on the same day as his mother Janis Sharp's birthday, the CPS said that the chances of a successful conviction were 'not high'. A joint statement by director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer QC and Mark Rowley QPM, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, said that the reason not to convict McKinnon in the UK were because 'most of the witnesses are in the US, as is nearly all the physical evidence and the bulk of the unused material, some of which is sensitive'.

It said: “The potential difficulties in bringing a case in England and Wales now should not be underestimated, not least the passage of time, the logistics of transferring sensitive evidence prepared for a court in the US to London for trial, the participation of US Government witnesses in the trial and the need to fully comply with the duties of disclosure imposed on the CPS. The prospects of a conviction against Mr McKinnon, which reflects the full extent of his alleged criminality, are not high.

“After consulting with the Metropolitan Police Service and the CPS and having carefully considered matters, on 4th December this year, US authorities indicated to us that they would be willing to co-operate with a prosecution in England and Wales if that would serve the interests of justice. However, they do not consider that making all the US witnesses available for trial in London and transferring all of the US material to this jurisdiction would be in the interests of justice given our representations and the reasons for the decision that the US was the appropriate forum as set out above. That is a decision the US authorities are fully entitled to reach and we respect their decision.”

It concluded by saying that against this background, the joint CPS/police panel recommended to the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police that he should not commence a new criminal investigation into McKinnon, and the assistant commissioner has accepted that advice.

Earlier this year, Home Secretary Theresa May announced that McKinnon would not face extradition to the US for a trial. In October, she said: “There is no doubt Mr McKinnon has been accused of a very serious crime but he is seriously ill. I have very carefully considered the medical evidence and have taken legal advice and have concluded that his extradition would give such a high risk that he would end his life that it restricts his human rights.

“I have come to the decision that extradition would not be appropriate. That is the decision I have taken [with] the evidence available.”

It is unclear if the US authorities will challenge the decision or press for further action.

Read SC Magazine's interview with Gary McKinnon here, and our article marking ten years of action for him and his family here.

Pay Per Click Advertising Four Challenges You Need To Know About

Recently the New York Times had a great article chronicling the journey of a small business owner with online advertising â€" specifically pay per click ads on Google.

Pay per click advertising is awesome as it allows you to ONLY pay for the ads that someone clicks on.

However, there's a few challenges with pay per click advertising.

• You can spend more and more money to get more and more reach â€" but not get more results (more BUYING)
• How do you really know what keywords work and which ones you should not use
• It takes TIME to properly manage a PPC campaign as the NYT article illustrates
• Getting clicks is nice but how do you get those clicks to CONVERT to sales

Ideagility launched a new service, AgileBid, which seeks to solve these problems.

AgileBid's recent press release reads:

AgileBid automatically optimizes a business's paid advertising spend across both Google AdWords and Bing Ads, honing in on keywords that convert the most sales and leads, while shutting down those that don't. After implementing AgileBid, customers eliminate time typically spent managing complex paid search campaigns or other PPC management tools and resources, reduce their ad spend and improve conversion results so they can focus on their business. With pricing as low as fifty dollars a month and no contracts, for the first time, advertisers of any size can now compete alongside larger brands to capture as many conversions and sales as possible.

There are a number of companies such as ReachLocal, Orange Soda, and local online advertising experts which can help with your PPC or CPC campaign. But if you're looking for an automated, DIY type of service, AgileBid could be what you're looking for.

Also, while Google's extensive, built in keyword tools are great â€" you still have to know what you're doing to use them, effectively.

 

 

Throw Out Your Old Phone System. Upgrade to VOIP. Laugh At The Next Storm.

Hurricane Sandy, Katrina and storms often bring with them tremendous financial, personal, business and other losses. People die. People lose their businesses. Hurricane Sandy, which hit NY, teaches businesses owners, yet again, the important of preparing for disasters.

One thing that was made very clear during hurricane Sandy, was that those business owners with traditional copper wire telephone systems, were suffering a lot. In fact even many telephone based door opening systems did not work â€" I know this first hand.

Hosted telephone provider 8×8 shared an example of how one of their new customers upgraded his phone system before Sandy hit and his phone system kept working through and after the storm.

Business continuity in a natural disaster is a pressing issue.  That's what Tom deBettencourt thought a few weeks ago as he learned of Hurricane Sandy approaching his Rockville, Md.-based PCR Educator business, which provides cloud communications for schools.  Tom foresaw that the strength of this storm could affect his business's communications and that his 13 employees might not being able to work from the office.

These considerations pushed deBettencourt to revisit his idea of switching from cumbersome, maintenance-heavy on-premises PBXs to cloud communications.  His priority in choosing a new service provider:  softphones.  That's when he called8×8, a San Jose-based provider of cloud communications services to SMBs.

It took only a day to convert the services, set up passwords and forwarding, and download 8×8's Virtual Office on desktops and mobile devices. Less than a week before the storm, PCR Educator was live and ready to weather the storm.  Just as deBettencourt predicted, his employees weren't able to make it to the office.  Instead, they worked from home through the worst of Sandy, using their iPhones and Android phones and tablets to stay connected to their customers and one other through the Virtual Office app.  The two 8×8 data centers on both coasts kept data secure with total redundancy that allows transferring 100 percent of data from one location to the other in case of disaster on either coast.

Through the storm and all, the company hasn't missed a beat.

Of providers of hosted phone systems you might want to consider including RingCentral and M5 Networks.

PS â€" You can “laugh” when the next storm comes and help others…but then again â€" hopefully your building infrastructure will be ok and other things beyond the phone system.

5 Ways Your Small Biz Can Copy The Apple Store Retail Experience. Mobile Retail Is One Answer.

Most all of us have been in the Apple, store, at least once. It's worth going just to see the “cool” retail experience. One thing you quickly notice is that there no “cash registers” but you can pay for  just about everything you purchase from one of their employees â€" on their iPhones.

Well, every small business can implement this type of experience, enabling employees to process transactions.

Intuit's GoPayment is one of many solutions you might want to consider, and in fact Intuit has updated their GoPayment reader with some new features.

Whether you use Intuit, Square or other options, download the app to your phone or tablet, and see if “retail anywhere” is for you.

Here's some new features in Intuit's GoPayment.

·         Personalize transactions: Customize the GoPayment app to meet their specific needs and tastes. Receipts can include the store's name, logo and contact information to promote their business and encourage referrals.

·         Track cash payments, apply discounts: Record cash transactions and apply discounts, such as Friends and Family offers, to orders.

·         Gain business insight: Manage one items list that syncs across devices and users, organize items by category or favorites across multiple devices and users, and see all transaction details in one place.

·         Better manage employees: Control employee access to information and set permissions by differentiating between administrator and associate roles. This is increasingly important during the holidays, when small businesses hire seasonal employees, creating a greater need to monitor sales and be more secure.

Want to see more on this. Check out my segment on MSNBC

If you want to fully copy the Apple retail store experience, here's a few more things:

• Ensure you have friendly staff
• Have knowledgeable staff
• Have a good retail design overall (open, clean, visually good)
• Think through your retail purchase experience

Stop Measuring Social Size. Measure Social Customer Engagement (Greg Tirico\'s Socially Fresh Insight)

Here's another awesome nugget of insight from Greg Tirico, Sage North America's Social Media Manager

“You can have 10,000 new Twitter followers in 3 days.  Ask me how.  I can help you.”

- Random Twitter Account

For the large majority of small business owners, one of the key challenges is awareness. If potential customers do not know about you then how can they buy from you?

As social media rose in popularity over the last few years it seemed like the Internet was poised to deliver on the great equalization we had hoped for â€" a platform that favors the big guy no more than it favors the little guy. Finally! We all had an equal voice and could thank the likes of Twitter and Facebook for delivering on this promise. Well, not quite.

The large brands that existed before the rise of social media figured out the platforms with the rest of us and eventually became pretty efficient at using them. How can you, as a local coffee shop, compete with the 33 million Likes and 3 million Followers that Starbucks has on Facebook and Twitter, respectively?  Simply put, you can't compete. Not by the numbers anyway. But if that is your frame of reference then I can tell you, like Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom, “You're doing it wrong.“

It's not about the math. It's not about trying to get to 33 million Likes on Facebook. The key lies in the opportunity before us, as small business owners, to connect with our real audience. You know, those customers that visit you every week and believe in your product or service? Yeah, them.

The wrong way to think about the effectiveness of your social media activities is best demonstrated by the way a small child approaches money.  If I give a child the choice between two pennies and one quarter, most of the time they will pick two pennies. By way of volume, 2 is more than 1 and small children do not see the penny for what it is worth (not even its weight in copper) compared to the quarter. In this respect they have fallen into the same trap that we do when chasing numbers in the social media space.

Put another way, would you rather have 100,000 Followers on Twitter who barely know about the existence of your business or 1,000 RABID fans?  Yeah, I thought so. On a side note, if you would rather have 100,000 random followers then I can hook you up for a very “reasonable” price. Just come see me after class.

Do me a favor. After you read this article, go to Facebook or Twitter and find one of your customers. I don't care which one. Thank them! Thank them for buying from you. Thank them because you know they have a choice. Do that once a week. Forever. After that, why not ask them what you could do to be even better next time?  It doesn't take 33 million Likes on Facebook and it doesn't take a lot of time either.

You see, the great equalizer we had hoped for on the Internet is here and it's called the personal touch. It doesn't have anything to do with the number of Followers you have on Twitter or Likes on Facebook.  It has everything to do with your ability to connect at an emotional level with your customers.  This is your biggest competitive advantage as a small business owner in the social media space and no one can take that away from you.

About Greg Tirico

Greg Tirico is Senior Social Media Manager for Sage North America â€" providers of business management software and services to over 3 million small and mid-sized businesses in North America.  In this role, Tirico stays current with social media trends and works across the Sage Business Units to help set strategy and success metrics for social media marketing programs.  Greg can be found through his blog (www.tirico.net), on Twitter (@gregt12), and LinkedIn.

Tired Of Doing Online Marketing Yourself? Want Expert Hand Holding and Guidance?

Successfully marketing ones business online is not easy. Sure, anyone can build a simple WordPress web site. Sure, anyone can spend $500 to buy some advertising on Facebook or Google or Twitter. But there is so much more â€" web site building, copy writing, setting up your Facebook page and  more.

• You can do these things yourself â€" but they take TIME and some measure of expertise.
• You can hire a consultant to do it for you â€" but if you're on a TIGHT budget this might not be an option.
• A 3rd, and mid level option is to work with a services company who can do these things for you.

Recently, Verio launched a service VerioVelocity that does these things, and more, for $160 per month.

The services they offer include:

• Individualized consulting to determine an SMBs website design needs and the delivery of a custom site
• Personalized website development, copywriting services,  hosting, logo design, mobile website development, SEO targeting and website statistics
• Business class technologies designed to help close sales and provide world class customer support including email, live chat and video conferencing
• Facebook page setup with company description
• Google Placesâ„¢, Google Maps™ and Internet Directory Submissions
• Cloud Hosting for unmatched flexibility and the only offering in this class of solutions hosted on the cloud

Why You Should Use SMS (TXT) As A Tool For Business Communications

It seems like the entire world is focused on social media, BYOD and all sorts of other geek terms. However, there are other communication terms, such as SMS (or txt) that are still quite useful and very powerful.

Think about it…during the course of the way when something is really important what do you do? Tweet or TXT? Your TXT of course.

Skype and Google Gmail are two communication services that can send SMS messages, now Ring Central (managed phone service provider) is enabling its customers to engage (yep you don't only “engage” on social media) and communicate with their customers through SMS.

• Text with customers, colleagues and suppliers using their business number, even on their personal mobile device;
• Text a department to send quick updates without needing every colleague's individual mobile number;
• Send and receive texts across devices including smartphones, tablets and PCs;
• Track text along with voice and fax messages in one location on mobile devices.

Being able to use txt, on a variety of devices and across your company means you can reach customers with more immediacy and directly â€" through their cell phones. Remember, because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should do it.

10 Easy Ways Social Media Can Get Your Business More Referrals

How Social Media Can Help Small Businesses Get Referrals

By Madison Jacobs, Content Marketing Manager, Infusionsoft

Madison Jacobs is the Content Manager at Infusionsoft and helps small businesses succeed by managing Infusionsoft's creation and promotional strategy for online educational content. Madison has written for several news publications including the Arizona Republic and 944 Magazine.

Social media is here to stay. Not only do we use social media to communicate in our personal lives, but it has become a successful lead generation, customer engagement and sales conversion tool for many small businesses. In fact, 50 percent of small businesses said they gained new customers from social media (Mediabistro, 2012). That's a big deal for small business.

Where should small businesses start when it comes to getting referrals from social media? Small businesses can't experiment with every channel, tool or tactic the market is excited about this week.  With limited time and resources, small business owners have to invest in activities that produce real results for the business and aren't a huge time suck. Here are a few pointers to help small businesses drive leads, engagement and sales from their social media activities.

Listen, care and serve

Encourage your customers to communicate with you via social networks about their experience or concerns. This creates an avenue where your customers can get real-time feedback and solutions to problems. It's also a place where they can celebrate their love for your brand. By the end of June 2012, over 30 million local reviews had been posted on Yelp, making it the leading online hub for real word-of-mouth marketing.

It's not always about you

Creating great content isn't easy. Reason being is that the content you create is not about you, it's about your customers. When you think about the forms of content you want to create and the message you want it to deliver, you have to focus on answering practical questions that are on the minds of your prospects and customers. What are their pain points with your product or service? How can you create a blog post or a video that will help address their issues? What are the questions you here the most from prospects about your product or service? You have to craft your content so that it serves their needs. To get some data around what kind of content your prospects want, ask them! When people sign up to receive content from you, ask them what they are looking for; give them the option to opt-in to certain types of content. If someone only wants videos, only send them videos. Always promote your content using social media, but keep in mind, social media is not just a plat form for you to push things out.  Make sure you engage in conversations about your content.

Don't sell, sell, sell

Consider a 1:10 ratio of self-promotion to great content. For example, for every tweet you send that promotes a product or service you offer, send 10 tweets that promote educational content that helps your prospects and customers educate themselves about the product, versus just telling them it is something you sell. Also, if you have a blog, you can generate leads at the top and bottom of blog posts. Always make it easy for people to opt-in to receiving your content.

Be part of the discussion

TweetChats and discussion on #hashtags are a great way to generate referrals and create awareness. Participate on a regular basis and establish yourself as a leader in your industry. Remember, you want to passively self-promote when participating in industry discussions on Twitter. Your contributions to the conversation are what really matter. Also, monitor and respond to meaningful #hashtags in your industry. Creating great content, using that content to generate leads and participating in industry discussions on Twitter can help you get more customers.

Make it shareable

No one will share your content if you don't give them a way to do it! When you create landing pages, always make sure they are interactive. This means that you need to place social elements on the page so that people can engage through social media. Consider using Facebook comments to drive activity and awareness to landing pages. Plus, you can solve questions that prospects have! It's pretty easy to set up the Facebook comments function on the landing page and it's free to use. Also, you can split-test to measure performance between an interactive landing page and a static one.

Keep it real

Most people trust the comments made by another person about a brand or a specific product or service that brand offers, so you want to let your best customers sell your product or service for you. Try to always keep any customer comments that you present on social media platforms raw and unedited because you want people to know that they are real. Also, think about using customer comments on landing pages to help boost social proof.

Say please and thank you

Customer referrals are very valuable â€" invest in them. Reward customers with discounts if their friends purchase your products or services. Host a monthly raffle on Facebook for the highest number of customer referrals. However, you want to make sure that you promote the referral rewards experience as a perk, not a bribe.

Connect online at events

Most networking events will have a hashtag-use it! Tweet out or share memorable moments from the event from speaker quotes to photos from the kick-off party. Run a search on the hashtag on Twitter to see who else at the event is active in the discussion. One time at an Inc. magazine event our team was able to drive a prospect to our booth because we responded to a Tweet she had sent out about the challenges of being a small business.

Share social proof

Use case studies not only to outline your product or service, but to focus your community's attention on very happy customers. You want people who are interested in your company to know who your satisfied customers are. Make sure your case studies have a personal element to them so that readers can relate â€" see themselves in the position of those that are already benefiting from what your business has to offer. Feature your successful customers on all of your social networks and make sure you create and keep a positive reputation on review sites like Yelp.

Engage customers with contests

You can use customer contests to drive more referrals and testimonials. Make sure that you always connect the contest with your brand's message and your company's key objectives. Make sure that the prizes you give away are relevant to the products and services that your business offers. Ask yourself: Why am I giving this iPad away? Is it relevant to my business?  Also, make sure you make it super easy for your customers to participate. Use social networks to announce the contests and communicate with participants throughout the duration of the contest. Also, use social media to announce your winners.  With the flurry of web-based tools available today, it's easy for small businesses to create social media contests that rival that of the big businesses they watch for ideas.

The truth is that the traditional way of generating referrals can only go so far for a small business living in this ever changing digital marketing world. Simply put: customers are going online to discover, qualify and purchase products so small businesses need to be there too. As I said earlier, small businesses can't try everything. Figure out where your customers and prospects are going online for information and start by building a professional presence there first.

For more tips on how to generate referrals through social media, download this free e-book, The ABCs of Earning Customer Referrals Always Be Connecting, from Infusionsoft.

 

SAP Holds ‘Power of Small\' Roundtable and SME Summit in New York City

On November 29th, SAP‘s NYC office hosted its first ever small and medium sized enterprise (SME) summit.

Leading the day with the ‘Power of Small' Influencer Roundtable panel discussion, which included panelists Bill McDermott, Co-CEO â€" SAP, Jorge Silva-Purus, Region II Administrator â€" US Small Business Administration, Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO â€" Partnership for New York City, Linda Rottenberg, Co-Founder and CEO â€" Endeavor Global, Sunil Hirani, CEO â€" trueEX Group LLC, and John Evarts, CFO and COO â€" Mediafly, thoughts were shared on solutions and strategies to help SME's remain competitive, not only in the New York City economy, but around the world.

Silva-Purus led the discussion by sharing his optimism for the health of SME's in the U.S., stating that not only has the small business community grown and recovered over the last several years, but has also added two-thirds of the U.S's recent job growth.

“Technology is the heart and soul of every business”, said McDermott. “Technology, it seems, is also the Power of Small”. Rottenberg commented that companies now have the ability to use social media to access the same information as CEO's, which is breaking the traditional hierarchy. To remain competitive and thrive, the panel discussed how within today's consumer-led revolution, in which enterprises are struggling to keep up, businesses of all sizes must adopt new technology solutions, such as cloud and mobile solutions, to decrease costs and access the customer. McDermott announced that SAP has powered over 150 startups in Silicon Valley with SAP HANA, which enables entrepreneurs and SME owners to make fast and informed business decisions, an ability that is essential in today's competitive market.

Additional points of discussion by the panel included public policy and human capital, as important factors that can either make or break a small business, and the effects of Hurricane Sandy on SME's in the NYC area.

On the topic of public policy and human capital, Hirani voiced his concerns over immigration policies and the effect they have on entrepreneurship and SME success in the United States. Wylde, who noted that one-third of small businesses in NYC are owned by first generation immigrants, also called for a change in immigration policy, citing that very successful entrepreneurs educated here in the U.S. cannot get visas and must return to their home country, which is not in the best economic interest of the U.S.

With regards to Hurricane Sandy and its effects on SME's in NYC, Wylde shared encouraging information on the status of SME's in the aftermath of the tragedy and recommended that businesses communicate with the NYC Economic Development Corporation and their local Chamber of Commerce to obtain information regarding available resources and aid. Silva-Puras also noted that the SBA set up recovery centers throughout NYC to help small business through the disaster recovery process, including disaster loan programs, which he reported they were now processing and granting in as little as ten days.

Regardless of the topic, we were constantly reminded of one thing during the panel discussions â€" that all businesses start off small and that people, policy, technology and capital are what drive small business growth. “What is often overlooked”, stated McDermott, “is the spirit of a leader with a big idea”.