Add Evernote To List of Hacked Companies

Evernote, the wildly popular list and productivity app, has been hacked. If you are an Evernote user, you along with 50 million other Evernote users, are being asked to change your password.

According to Techcrunch, Evernote reported that it first noticed the breach two days ago, on February 28, 2013.   Evernote says that no credit card or payment information for premium or business users was accessed.

However, user information including email addresses and passwords, was accessed.  The company says password were encrypted (“hashed and salted”) and they believe them secure.

But in an abundance of caution they are asking users to change passwords anyway.  The security notice on the Evernote website today reads:

“In our security investigation, we have found no evidence that any of the content you store in Evernote was accessed, changed or lost. We also have no evidence that any payment information for Evernote Premium or Evernote Business customers was accessed.

The investigation has shown, however, that the individual(s) responsible were able to gain access to Evernote user information, which includes usernames, email addresses associated with Evernote accounts and encrypted passwords. Even though this information was accessed, the passwords stored by Evernote are protected by one-way encryption. (In technical terms, they are hashed and salted.)

While our password encryption measures are robust, we are taking additional steps to ensure that your personal data remains secure. This means that, in an abundance of caution, we are requiring all users to reset their Evernote account passwords. Please create a new password by signing into your account on evernote.com.”

Evernote joins a growing list of hacked companies. Others include Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter.  As we wrote earlier this week about the Microsoft hacking, it’s dangerous to reuse passwords. Why  Simply put, if a cyber attacker gets access to login data at one service or app, and you re-use that same login elsewhere, you’ve now put your other accounts at risk.

Evernote unveiled a small business version of its app just last December.  Evernote is growing fast.  Back in September 2012 we reported that it had 40 million individuals as users. Its user base is now up to 50 million.

This hacking is not likely to stop Evernote’s growth momentum â€" unless the situation turns out to be much worse than  reported.  With so many high-profile hacked companies, the public and business users will probably take it in stride.

Stitch Inventory Integrates With Xero Accounting: Two Small Business Lessons

Stitch Labs recently announced the integration of its inventory management software with Xero, a cloud accounting application.

The Stitch - Xero integration means that after a one-time setup, information and transactions can sync up between the two applications without needing to update the two accounts separately or re-key information manually.  Plus they get more granular data to understand their businesses better.

In an official announcement on the Stitch Labs Blog, the company explained the’re a simple rationale for the move. Marketing Strategist and Community Manager Camille Brenkwitz wrote: “We hope this new integration will help many of our existing customers and bring on some new ones.”

In other words, the message is:  integration is good for customers.

Just as you are hearing a lot more these days about “cloud” software, expect to hear a lot more about product integrations. For business systems, integration of one vendor’s product with another’s can make it easier, cheaper and better for the end customer.

This is one of several reasons the cloud is so valuable today. Cloud apps (a highfalutin term for a software application you get access to over the Internet) can make integrations easier to accomplish.

Cloud Integration: A Key Vendor Strategy to Serve Customers

Product vendors have two choices when it comes to product strategy.

One choice is to offer an all-in-one solution.  In other words, vendors build features into their products to serve the customer’s entire process, end to end.  However, it can take years to build all those features.  In some cases, it can make the product more expensive for the customer.

The other choice is to partner with other vendors already serving a function or slice of a process.  This way, customers already comfortable with using another product for a particular function don’t have to switch.  They continue using the product their staff is trained to use.

Stitch Labs has chosen the latter strategy.  Its integration with Xero is not its first.   In 2012, Stitch added integration with eight other partners including Shopify, ShipStation, PayPal, Big Commerce, Amazon, Google Drive, SAIL, and Storenvy.  The company says the partnerships are part of a customer philosophy to build a set of services “automating some of your most tedious operational activities.”

Not matter which strategy is chosen, the end goal is the same:  make it better for the customer.  A well-executed strategy that focuses on the customer avoids errors and delay that result from “gaps” in the workflow.  Instead of requiring manual action, data can be passed along electronically from one step in the process to the next.

What Small Businesses Can Learn

Stitch Labs’s strategy of partnerships provides a good lesson for small businesses â€" in two ways.

1) Think outside the box about your own product and/or service strategy.  Ryan Lawler of  TechCrunch observes that Stitch Labs’s approach is aimed at solving the typical kind of problem faced by small businesses.  They have important and complex workflow issues necessary to run their businesses. A tech solution can make it easier.

By the way, you don’t need to have a product to “integrate” with another provider.  Even if you offer a service, there may be a way to “integrate” a vendor’s product into what you do. You just need to think about how to make it easier on the end customer you serve.

Let me give you an example, using accountants, a quintessential service provider. These days many accountants interact with information from clients electronically, by working directly in the client’s accounting system or capturing data directly from it.  Clients don’t have to download spreadsheets or email information back and forth.  Instead, the accountant logs in to the client’s accounting system, balances the books,  and performs other activities.

It’s valuable for the client, because you don’t cause them unnecessary manual work. You’ve made the client’s operations more efficient.

Think about that model and how your business could offer similar benefits to your end customers.

2) Consider the vendor’s integrations when choosing technology.  When you are in a position to shop for  technology to run your own business, look for applications that integrate with systems you already use and don’t plan to stop using.  That should be near the top of your shopping checklist.

You don’t want to have to manually enter information from one system into another. Not do you want to jump through hoops such as downloading and then uploading spreadsheets.  Doing so just institutionalizes inefficiencies in your operations.

If your business is like my small business, you don’t have people or time to spare.  An hour saved here, two hours saved there, week after week, can really add up to higher profits.

Get Yourself Into the Power of Habit

A year or so ago, I sat in a seminar where the instructor said that we spend most of our days and our lives on autopilot.  ”You think that you are making choices and decisions, but you aren’t - your brain is.”  I knew he was right.

As much as I wanted to believe I was a highly evolved human being, I knew that deep inside, I was mostly nothing more than a stimulus-response mechanism.  I mean just the other day I got in my car, I showed up at my destination and couldn’t remember what happened in between.  Whaaaat

You’ve had that happen, too

Of course you have.

And this is why my latest read will interest you. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and in Business by Charles Duhigg (@cduhigg) was recommended to me by a friend and I purchased it on Kindle.  It took me a while to read it. That’s because Duhigg’s writing is so good that I didn’t want to miss a word.

Why I Wanted to Know More About Habits - And You Will Too

As a marketing professional, I’m all about habits.  If I can get my audience to create a habit that includes a purchase behavior every time they see or hear a trigger from my marketing campaign - I’m a happy camper.  And this is why I snapped up this book.  You will want to read this book for so much more than that.

From a personal perspective, The Power of Habit contains all kinds of insights and strategies that you can use to see behind your brain’s own veil or curtain.  You’ll begin to understand how habits are formed and how to recognize that a habitual behavior is at play and how to change the habits you don’t like and create habits you do like.

One of the best examples in the book comes from the author himself. He talks about having the habit of getting up from his desk at a certain time of the day, going to the cafeteria and grabbing a cookie.  At some point he decided that the cookie component of this habit wasn’t doing him much good and he looked for ways to change this habit.  He started by tracking his day to look for specific triggers.

For example, was it a specific time of the day that he had to have a cookie  Did an event occur during the day that triggered his need to get up and have a cookie  And so on.  With his data in hand, he had a clearer understanding of what triggered his need for a cookie and when the trigger occurred. He was able to replace getting a cookie by simply walking around and saying hello to fellow workers.  What he needed was a break. He didn’t need a cookie.

There are also plenty of business and organizational examples in the book as well.  Like the author’s example, all of them involve intense and dedicated observations of the environment. It’s about watching what happens and what the causes and effects are that surround the behavior you want to change.

A Little About Charles Duhigg

After reading the author’s personal habit-changing story, I remember hearing him on NPR telling that same story.  Maybe you’ll remember him too.  Duhigg is a writer for the New York Times and has written several popular business books, reported on the “The iEconomy,” and has contributed to several other award winning books.

All you need to know from that is that he’s a fantastic writer.  And you will enjoy his writing.  You’ll be engaged and you might even take as long to read this book as I did - just because you enjoy his style.

Duhigg didn’t write this book as part of an assignment - it actually came out of his own curiosity.  He had heard of an army major in Iraq who had been analyzing video tapes of riots.  After watching hours of footage, he spotted a pattern.  In each case, there was a person moving around the crowded marketplace - at the fringes of the crowds.  At some point, this person would throw something.  A riot would ensure.  The solution was to keep food vendors out of the plaza so that crowds wouldn’t form.  The food vendors caused crowds, crowds attracted trouble makers and trouble makers triggered riots.  There you have it - a book is born.

Can The Power of Habit Change Your Life

If you’re a business book junkie like me - you’ll love reading this book just because it’s fun to read. It will give you insights into the human condition.  If you’re looking for a more practical approach on changing habits such as how to structure your life or a program - this is not it.  What you’ll get from reading The Power of Habit, is an understanding of what to look for and how to track your triggers. You will have to do the rest on your own.

Overall, you’ll find The Power of Habit an enjoyable read. You may also pick up some useful habit changing skills that can benefit your business and your life.