How to Get Results: Be Strategic, Get Focused, Show Grit

People regularly tell me they want business results fast, like in 30 days, to grow new customers, get more referrals, have more LinkedIn or Twitter followers and get more likes or comments. Those things are all possible, as long as your “operating system” and certain strategies are in place, driving momentum.

Please stop trying to speed up success and results by taking short cuts, doing the minimum or not being willing to put the right things in place. It simply just doesn’t work that way and is actually a waste of precious time.

Success and business results leave clues, follow a process and unfold over time. We all have to put in the grunt work, pay the dues and follow the path that naturally unfolds as we gain experience and wisdom and find the right formula for ourselves.

Overnight success, quick success and results is a myth, very difficult to sustain, unrealistic and short lived most of the time. Our greatest assets for sustaining success and getting results is clarity, focus, patience, consistency and grit.

Look at the legacy and longevity of the impressive careers of Jonathon Winters, Margaret Thatcher, Dick Clark, Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, Zig Ziglar, Steve Jobs.

They all had a clear sense of their:

• Pace
• Timing
• Opportunities
• Self-management

What did they do? What was the formula they developed to sustain their brand and likability, yet still change? How can you build the “operating system” for your success, brand and platform around the same principles?

Be Very Strategic, Very Focused and Very Specific

Smaller is better, laser niching is smart. Have a clear, thought-out, purposeful strategy for everything you do and everyone that you invest time and energy with and on. Know what roles you both play in each others story and why you are doing what you do.

Don’t get distracted for too long, stay focused. LinkedIn has done an amazing job climbing to the top of the professional online platform space, and is on pace to continue to lead with 200 million+ members in 200 countries.

Pace Yourself and Be Consistent

Easy does it. Run for the marathon, not the sprint. Always train for the second half of the race so you don’t start out too fast, then fizzle and burn out toward the end. A steady pace and then a kick at the end always wins.

Sense When The Timing is Right or Wrong

If it feels right, then trust your instincts and go with it. If it feels wrong or there is any hint of reservation, wait and let more unfold and be revealed. BlogTalkRadio is one of the most popular online audio podcasting sites and networks.

They recently re-branded their site and technology to keep pace with their growing hosts,  listeners and the exploding podcast space. It was very timely, smart and needed.

Assess Opportunities That Fit and Make Sense

A lot of opportunities come across our path, but not all are right for where we are and where we are going. Pounce on the ones that make the best sense and fit your goals and direction to the present. Did Mark Zuckerberg make a smart move by building a Facebook phone?

Have a Self Management Plan and Network to Help and Support You

Do you have a mentor, accountability partner or group and confidants? Trusted professional colleagues, friends and family create a network to support and keep us honest and on track. Who do you trust to call you out?

Two years ago, Heidi Grant Halvorson wrote about the “Nine Things Successful People Do Differently,” which became HBR’s most-read piece of content over that time span. It was a list of strategies, based on decades of scientific research, proven effective for setting and reaching challenging goals.

To help answer that question, last spring she created “Nine Things Diagnostic.” It’s a free, online set of questionnaires that anyone can take, designed to measure your own use of each of the nine things you do in pursuit of your personal and professional goals. In order of effect magnitude, here are the top 9 most impactful strategies she collected from her 30K surveys. Fascinating, but not surprising.

In the words of the comical genius and benchmark, (RIP) Jonathon Winters:

“I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.”

What strategic things do you do daily to get business results?

Get Results Photo via Shutterstock

Nokia Invests In Camera Technology to Compete with Apple and Android

Nokia, the Finnish smartphone company, wants better cameras in its smartphones. Nokia Growth Partners, the manufacturer’s venture arm, is investing $20 million with other partners in California-based startup Pelican Images, which commercializes technology that improves on conventional camera technology including pixel size.

Bloomberg reported recently that Nokia hopes better cameras will help the competitively priced Lumia compete with rivals from Apple Inc. and those using the Android operating system.  Nokia shares have fallen more than 80 percent since the iPhone was introduced in 2007.  Nokia was once at or near the top of lists of most popular phones but now has just 3 percent market share.

Pelican Images offers thinner hardware, better image quality and more editing capabilities, according to the company. Here’s how the company describes its camera technology in a prepared release:

“Pelican Imaging’s computational camera technology provides depth mapping at every pixel, enabling ‘the perfect picture’ every time and allowing users to perform an unprecedented range of selective focus and edits, both pre- and post-capture. The camera itself is about 50% thinner than existing mobile cameras.”

Pelican’s technology is “at the cutting edge of mobile camera technologies,” asserts a spokesman for Nokia Growth Partners.  Nokia has bought or invested in other image-related technology companies in the past year. Those include  Sweden-based Scalado, as well as California-based InVisage Technologies Inc. and Singapore-based Heptagon.

Small business owners and their teams are using cameras in phones for all sorts of things these days: customer service calls, impromptu shots to share on Facebook, and even marketing images of products for your online store or blog posts.

With the Web becoming more visual today, most of us need more images than ever.   Quality, cost and speed all have to be balanced when it comes to photography.  Images taken by a professional photographer are still going to be used for some purposes. For other purposes, an impromptu and informal shot taken by one of the team â€" perhaps at a customer site or in the field â€" may be in order.  For those kinds of shots, you want high quality images and practically-speaking, that requires a high-quality camera in a smartphone.

The Nokia Lumia line runs on Windows software, which also tends to be used in laptops and desktop computer systems used by small businesses.  Nokia often touts its cameras in its Lumia marketing materials today.

Lumia image credit: Nokia

How Big Data is Changing Small Business Marketing

Big Data. It’s the marketing term of the moment, or so it seems, but is it a passing trend or a vital use of technology that’s here to stay? These are questions small businesses are asking as technology companies advertise services to help mine and analyze Big Data.

First, an explanation of what Big Data is. Each day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created, according to IBM. Combing that data for marketing research purposes is often more than a small business can handle, even if that data resides on its own servers.

SMBs are currently turning to tools like Google Analytics, Alexa, and tools built into social media sites to provide the reporting they need. But mining Big Data is only a small part of the process. Businesses must also be able to analyze and utilize that data for it to be effective. For small businesses without intensive I.T. staff, this can be a challenge.

In response to this need, marketing companies are turning attention to insights, providing services to businesses that can help them break down volumes of data into reports that make sense. InsightsOne recently released a portal that grants small businesses 24/7 access to their data.

“With the launch of our new Marketing Workspace, we put the marketers in control of powerful predictive analysis technology,” said Waqar Hasan, founder and CEO of InsightsOne. “We are handing over the power of prediction to those who can use it most, and we are delivering it to them in a format that they can both understand and take advantage of. With InsightsOne, the marketer has the power to ultimately improve their top line and their consumers’ experience.”

InsightsOne’s Marketing Workspace gives small businesses access to the following features:

• The ability to analyze and predict customer behaviors, using that information to optimize campaigns.
• Review Big Data analytics through enhanced unstructured analytic capabilities.
• Integration with some of the most popular SMS and e-mail service providers.
• Web instrumentation to enable real-time data and offer feeds.

InsightsOne also allows small businesses the ability to automate predictive analytics into multi-channel campaigns, as well as optimize those predictive analytics. Key performance indicators like revenue, profit, and click-through rates can be used to alter future campaigns for maximum impact.

As InsightsOne points out, 87 percent of Americans are fed up with bad ads and 43 percent of Americans say they will ignore a company completely after seeing only two bad advertisements. Each ad needs to be optimized to reach those customers in a careful, directed manner.

Whether small businesses market through social media, online ads, or traditional methods such as TV and radio, a seemingly unlimited supply of data is available. Big business is using that data to work for them and, in order to compete, small businesses must find a way to access and use that same data. Thankfully, big business is learning that by providing Big Data services to small businesses, they can make money while helping smaller businesses succeed in reaching their long-term goals.

10 Tips for Getting Your New Product Onto Store Shelves Faster

Congratulations: You’ve spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears developing what you think is an incredible new product. Perhaps you’ve even built an entire company around that product. Now you’re finally ready to bring it to consumers or other businesses.

But as arduous as product development can be, getting that product onto shelves can be just as challenging, especially to first-time business owners.

To glean some tips for getting a new product the store placement it deserves, we asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question:

“What’s one piece of advice you’d give entrepreneurs trying to get a new physical product into a large store? What should they bring to the table to seal the deal?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Have a Reputable Track Record

“One thing entrepreneurs should bring to the table when trying to get a new product into a large store is solid proof of a reputable track record. If you’re a startup, big box retailers won’t give you a second look. The entrepreneur must also be willing to adjust to any requests made by the supplier, such as improving the product or adjusting the price point.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

2. Offer a Consignment Deal

“If the store is privately owned or managed by one or two individuals, you may have a great chance of getting your product on the shelves by offering a consignment deal. This means the vendor doesn’t have to take any upfront financial risk to stock your goods, but can still make money. It’s a great way to test and prove what their customers will buy, and everyone can make money at the same time.” ~ Benjamin Leis, Sweat EquiTees

3. Build Brands, Not Products

“Many entrepreneurs have developed great utilitarian products, but often forget that consumers don’t connect with products; they connect emotionally with brands. You must build a brand around your product in order for it to compete (or have credibility) in a large store setting. Stores need to see that you’re building more than a functional product â€" you’re committed to building a brand.” ~ Jake Stutzman, Elevate

4. Have Traction, Traction, Traction

“Ideally, you should have existing revenue or pre-orders. If you can show that your product is selling well, you greatly increase your chances of getting in. It is also important for entrepreneurs to bring production-quality prototypes and packaging, and be prepared to supply a large retailer. Crowdfunding is a great way to raise funding from customers to help achieve these milestones.” ~ Eric Corl, Fundable LLC

5. Have a Turnkey Wholesale Offering

“Large stores carry thousands of products. When you sell your product, you certainly need to demonstrate the product’s credibility (great press and a strong social following are helpful). Entrepreneurs cannot forget that large stores have very specific ways of working with vendors. Make it easy to integrate your brand by having a simple solution. Limit choice and mold your offer to their needs.” ~ Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

6. Build Your Online Marketing Assets

“Build up your online marketing assets. Stores look at a company’s ability to support the marketing efforts for the products they’re carrying. If a small business owner or entrepreneur has the ability to drive customers to the store, the store has that much more incentive to carry the entrepreneur’s product. So, start building up that Facebook following.” ~ Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

7. Focus on Customer Service

“Look at competing products sold in your product’s distribution channel, and then read the reviews. It’s amazing the positive feedback you can garner from users when you listen to their complaints and make a move to respond by changing your product. Even when you’re trying to compete on price, having customer support is crucial to establishing your product as a value buy and not a no-name lemon.” ~ Nanxi Liu, Enplug

8. Make Sure You Can Deliver

“Big-box stores are going to be looking for a partner who can fulfill and deliver upon orders. If you aren’t set up to scale, then don’t waste a large store’s time. You don’t have to have the inventory or the money to fulfill the order; all you need to do is have the processes worked out so you can call your manufacturers and have them flip a switch as soon as you need to.” ~ Matt Wilson, Under30Media

9. Know the Store

“You need to know the store you are pitching to, inside and out. Know which aisles/floors carry which brands and products; show them that you can fit in with these products. Nothing turns wholesale buyers off faster than when they feel you do not know their customer and/or product choices.” ~ Benish Shah, Vicaire Ny

10. Build a Network Before You Need It

“Just like in everything else, who you know matters. If you already have connections at a large store, you’re going to have a much easier time getting a meeting. That alone won’t seal the deal, but having the right connections will certainly smooth out the process.” ~ Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

Store Shelves Photo via Shutterstock

10 Tips for Getting Your New Product Onto Store Shelves Faster

Congratulations: You’ve spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears developing what you think is an incredible new product. Perhaps you’ve even built an entire company around that product. Now you’re finally ready to bring it to consumers or other businesses.

But as arduous as product development can be, getting that product onto shelves can be just as challenging, especially to first-time business owners.

To glean some tips for getting a new product the store placement it deserves, we asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question:

“What’s one piece of advice you’d give entrepreneurs trying to get a new physical product into a large store? What should they bring to the table to seal the deal?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Have a Reputable Track Record

“One thing entrepreneurs should bring to the table when trying to get a new product into a large store is solid proof of a reputable track record. If you’re a startup, big box retailers won’t give you a second look. The entrepreneur must also be willing to adjust to any requests made by the supplier, such as improving the product or adjusting the price point.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

2. Offer a Consignment Deal

“If the store is privately owned or managed by one or two individuals, you may have a great chance of getting your product on the shelves by offering a consignment deal. This means the vendor doesn’t have to take any upfront financial risk to stock your goods, but can still make money. It’s a great way to test and prove what their customers will buy, and everyone can make money at the same time.” ~ Benjamin Leis, Sweat EquiTees

3. Build Brands, Not Products

“Many entrepreneurs have developed great utilitarian products, but often forget that consumers don’t connect with products; they connect emotionally with brands. You must build a brand around your product in order for it to compete (or have credibility) in a large store setting. Stores need to see that you’re building more than a functional product â€" you’re committed to building a brand.” ~ Jake Stutzman, Elevate

4. Have Traction, Traction, Traction

“Ideally, you should have existing revenue or pre-orders. If you can show that your product is selling well, you greatly increase your chances of getting in. It is also important for entrepreneurs to bring production-quality prototypes and packaging, and be prepared to supply a large retailer. Crowdfunding is a great way to raise funding from customers to help achieve these milestones.” ~ Eric Corl, Fundable LLC

5. Have a Turnkey Wholesale Offering

“Large stores carry thousands of products. When you sell your product, you certainly need to demonstrate the product’s credibility (great press and a strong social following are helpful). Entrepreneurs cannot forget that large stores have very specific ways of working with vendors. Make it easy to integrate your brand by having a simple solution. Limit choice and mold your offer to their needs.” ~ Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

6. Build Your Online Marketing Assets

“Build up your online marketing assets. Stores look at a company’s ability to support the marketing efforts for the products they’re carrying. If a small business owner or entrepreneur has the ability to drive customers to the store, the store has that much more incentive to carry the entrepreneur’s product. So, start building up that Facebook following.” ~ Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

7. Focus on Customer Service

“Look at competing products sold in your product’s distribution channel, and then read the reviews. It’s amazing the positive feedback you can garner from users when you listen to their complaints and make a move to respond by changing your product. Even when you’re trying to compete on price, having customer support is crucial to establishing your product as a value buy and not a no-name lemon.” ~ Nanxi Liu, Enplug

8. Make Sure You Can Deliver

“Big-box stores are going to be looking for a partner who can fulfill and deliver upon orders. If you aren’t set up to scale, then don’t waste a large store’s time. You don’t have to have the inventory or the money to fulfill the order; all you need to do is have the processes worked out so you can call your manufacturers and have them flip a switch as soon as you need to.” ~ Matt Wilson, Under30Media

9. Know the Store

“You need to know the store you are pitching to, inside and out. Know which aisles/floors carry which brands and products; show them that you can fit in with these products. Nothing turns wholesale buyers off faster than when they feel you do not know their customer and/or product choices.” ~ Benish Shah, Vicaire Ny

10. Build a Network Before You Need It

“Just like in everything else, who you know matters. If you already have connections at a large store, you’re going to have a much easier time getting a meeting. That alone won’t seal the deal, but having the right connections will certainly smooth out the process.” ~ Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

Store Shelves Photo via Shutterstock

Website vulnerabilities down, but progress still needed, survey finds

Fully one-third of all websites surveyed last year were found to be vulnerable on a daily basis to a "serious" flaw like cross-site scripting, information leakage or content spoofing, according to a report on site vulnerabilities released today by WhiteHat Security.

The bad guys just need one vulnerability to ruin your day.

Jeremiah Grossman,
founder and chief technical officer, WhiteHat Security

While industries like entertainment and media were relatively quick to fix website vulnerabilities (an average of 33 days), WhiteHat's survey found that industry-wide the average was 193 days from first notification.

Retail, health care and insurance websites were among the laggards, each taking well over 200 days to fix their sites after notification. Frequently updated retail sites, for instance, generally pose greater security challenges for Web developers, experts said, because each code deployment introduces new vulnerabilities.

"It's an unforgiving environment," stressed Jeremiah Grossman, WhiteHat Security's founder and chief technical officer. The proliferation of "broken code" results in a "race to see who can exploit vulnerabilities." Hence, most security patches for websites don't work.

Still, the remediation rate for all sites surveyed was 61% in 2012, the Web security firm found, compared to only 35% in 2007.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based WhiteHat defines "serious" vulnerabilities as "those in which an attacker could take control over all, or some part, of a website, compromise user accounts on the system, access sensitive data, violate compliance requirements and possibly make headline news. In short, serious vulnerabilities are those that should really be fixed."

Cross-site scripting (43%), content spoofing (13%) and information leakage (11%) again emerged as the top website vulnerabilities during 2012. Half of all scripting vulnerabilities were resolved, but WhiteHat's survey also found that it required an average of 227 days to do so.

On average, websites contained 56 vulnerabilities last year. WhiteHat's Grossman acknowledged that the total seems high, but noted it has been drastically reduced from an average of 230 per year in 2010.

Websites "are getting more secure," said Grossman, a former security specialist at Yahoo. "But the bad guys just need one vulnerability to ruin your day."

Indeed, an actual system or data breach often seems to have a salutary effect on enterprises, much as a heart attack survivor is jolted into a healthier lifestyle, Grossman explained. WhiteHat's survey found that organizations that withstood a website breach resulting from an application layer vulnerability had 51% fewer vulnerabilities, resolved them 18% faster and had a remediation rate 4% higher than average.

Fixing problems still takes on average about three months, but Grossman again noted that remediation times continue to drop steadily. The challenge for enterprises with limited security resources is deciding which vulnerabilities to tackle first.

One reason for this form of triage, WhiteHat found, was that many of the companies they surveyed said the number one driver for Web security was compliance. Paradoxically, respondents said the top reason for why it takes so long to fix a website breach was also compliance.

The takeaway, Grossman said, is that enterprises use up a lot of their security resources on compliance, leaving few resources for other fixes.

Dan Cornell, chief technology officer at the San Antonio-based Denim Group, agreed that compliance programs like PCI have a "distorting effect" on overall Web security efforts. The result is inefficient use of security resources. Instead, Cornell continued, enterprises need to "use that [Web] breach to [develop] a meaningful strategy for how your organization deals with risk."

Grossman stressed that companies need to assign accountability for breaches all the way up to their board of directors. Along with accountability, Web developers must be empowered to take the actions needed to fix vulnerabilities, he added.

Cornell went a step further, saying the onus should be on software developers to change the way they work in order to spot vulnerabilities and move quickly to deploy the appropriate fixes.

Tech Thursday (5/2): News from AOC, Zoho, Dell, and Wasp Barcode Technologies

It’s Tech Thursday from Smallbiztechnology.com. Each week we take a quick look at business and technology news and updates for the small business community and share them with you in a quick and simple round-up.       AOC’s Cinematic 29-inch UltraWide Display Brings Dual Monitor Productivity to a Single Screen     AOC, worldwide...

The post Tech Thursday (5/2): News from AOC, Zoho, Dell, and Wasp Barcode Technologies appeared first on Small Business Technology.

6 Tips To Help You Avoid Having One Of The 650,000 Laptops Stolen This Year and Software That Covers You If You Are!

We talk about security on Smallbiztechnology all the time: Securing your data, your identity, your networks and your devices. Smallbiztechnology recently had the opportunity to speak with Mark Grace, Vice President of Consumer Division, Absolute® Software, the makers of LoJack for Laptops (consumer) and Computrace (commercial) device security and recovery software. Mark shared with Ramon what makes the Absolute Software products unique and effective and why having security software, like theirs, is essential in this day and age.

Who Is Absolute Software

Absolute Software, based out of Vancouver Canada, specializes in technology and services for the management and security of mobile computers, netbooks, and smartphones and has been doing so for the last 20 years. 

The technology provided by Absolute Software is unique from any other device security / recovery in the market. Since 2005, their software has been built into the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) of every IBM laptop. Today, their software is built into every PC manufacturer on the market (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.), except for Sony and Apple.

Why is this so unique and important? Simply put, because the software is built into the BIOS, it becomes a persistent agent, which means that if a device that has employed this software is stolen and the thief attempts to remove data or reformat the hard drive, the software will ‘self-heal’ and reinstate itself. You simply cannot get rid of it. Because of this, you do not lose any functionality of the software and the recovery / data deletion process.

The Process of Recovery / Data Deletion

To date, Absolute Software has recovered 28,000 devices in 98 countries. Essentially, they are retrieving 3 out of 4 laptops that are stolen or lost. That’s a significant recovery rate and far exceeds any of their competitors. They are able to obtain such a large recovery rate due to three significant factors:

1. The fact that their software is built into the BIOS of so many devices.

2. The ease of their process.

3. The fact that they employ 50 - 60 ex-law enforcement members on their team that have built over 6000 relationships with judicial and law enforcement agencies across the globe.

We already spoke about the significance of the software being built into the BIOS. Lets talk about the simple process one goes through when they lose a device or discover it’s stolen. First, the device is tracked using one of three options: IP Address, WiFi or Triangulating 3G /4G access. The User then logs into the software interface and as soon as the device comes online, they can see the proximity of where their device is. Next, the user has the ability to take any of the following steps:

• Enable data delete of all, or specific, files on the device
• Freeze the device
• Send a pop-up message that appears on the device noting who to contact to return the device (in the case of a lost device)
• Choose recovery, which promps for the completion of a police report and the start of the recovery process.

If the device is reported stolen and the device goes into the recovery process, the recovery team  begins by telling the system to call the device every 15 minutes in order to track the device. They then download forensic tools into the machine that allow them to try to identify who’s using the device. For instance, if the thief, or someone who acquires the machine from the thief, uses the machine to log into Facebook or purchase something from Amazon, the forensic tools can use that information to identify the individual and they then hand that information over to the police so they can do a ‘door knock’ to attempt to retrieve the device.

The Staggering Statistics On Lost / Stolen Devices

Now, I know that devices get stolen or are lost everyday, but I had no idea of the numbers! For instance, Heathrow airport reports that an average 1000 laptops go missing at their facility every week. Yes, I just said every WEEK! In their largest reporting, they had a reported 12,000 devices in one month.

Additionally, the FBI reports that 650,000 laptops are stolen every year. That’s almost 1800 a day! Mark offers some tips that people should think about when traveling with their devices or using them in public spaces to stay secure:

• When connecting to a business network, always use a VPN for a secure connection.
• Never leave your laptop unattended when at a coffee shop or other public space - not even to just go to the bathroom!
• Never put your devices in the seat pockets of an airplane or train - you may forget them!
• When traveling, try using a non-traditional carrier for your laptop, such as a backpack, which draws less attention to thieves.
• Never leave your device sitting in open site in a locked vehicle.  Either lock it in the trunk or hide out of sight.
• Never leave your device sitting in the open in your hotel / motel room.

“I am always amazed at how many unattended laptops I see at a Starbucks or other coffee shop that I frequent”, stated Mark.  ”It just blows my mind! So now every time I see an unattended laptop I drop a free trial card for LoJack onto the keyboard!”.

Products To Secure Your Devices

Absolute Software offers a few different products to secure devices. Their most popular, consumer based product, is LoJack for Laptops. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial of the product for your laptop. Beyond that, cost for the standard edition is $39.99 and for the premium edition, which includes a $1000 guarantee, it’s $59.99.

They also provide an app in the Google Play Store that can be added to android phones and tablets that allow you to track and wipe the devices, but does not include retrieval services. You can try the app free on a 60 day trial.

On the commercial side, Absolute Software offers Computrace. This service allows business IT administrators or Office Managers to manage all the assets of a company on one interface. At the touch of a button, the admin can perform any task needed to control the device, including wiping it’s data, freezing it or requesting retrieval.  The product acts as a solid asset management system for companies looking to inventory and control numerous devices. You can see all the features of this product here.

We’ve provided some simple tips to help protect you from being a victim of device theft and offered a solid solution to recovery and data protection if you do get hit, or just happen to lose your device. So, hopefully you won’t join the ranks of the 650,000 people each year that have to deal with this enormously time consuming tragedy - and if you do, hopefully you’ll be one of the 28,000 who uses an Absolute Software product and gets their device back!

You Can Use Wikidata Facts in Apps - But Perhaps Not Yet

Wikidata is a free, open source knowledge base.  The intention is for Wikipedia to draw its data from Wikidata, and someday you also may be able to use data from Wikidata in your apps and websites â€" just not quite yet for most of us.

Wikiconfused yet? Let us explain.

Wikimedia, the parent foundation behind both Wikipedia and Wikidata, has announced that Wikipedia will begin drawing more of its data from Wikidata. Wikidata.org was launched Oct 30, 2012, and is a relative newcomer compared to Wikipedia which has been around since January 2001.

Here’s how Wikimedia Executive Director Sue Gardner explained it last week on the official Wikimedia Blog:

“Before Wikidata, Wikipedians needed to manually update hundreds of Wikipedia language versions every time a famous person died or a country’s leader changed. With Wikidata, such new information, entered once, can automatically appear across all Wikipedia language versions.”

In other words, Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia publication.  But Wikidata is the underlying source of certain data it will pull from.

What this means is that Wikipedia data can be more accurate and easier to update, because information only need be updated in one place â€" in Wikidata. Then all pages within the Wikipedia resource will be automatically updated because they pull from a central source of data.

What This Means for Entrepreneurs

But here’s where entrepreneurs, app developers and businesses may be interested: Because the data is created under a Creative Commons license, it is available for use for free by anyone.

For example, if you are an app developer, you will be able to retrieve data from the project for apps you create. That data will be updated in one central place by the community, through Wikidata.

Automatically-created charts and lists using information gathered through Wikidata will next be available, Wikimedia announced last week.

The only catch is finding and retrieving Wikidata facts you can use.

In our test of a dozen searches, we were unable to find usable Wikidata data, that we would use â€" probably because it is still new.  But “your mileage may vary,” as the saying goes.

Another issue, as Gigaom reports, the API to tap into the data is still being developed and is not publicly available yet.  That means for the time being, you’d need some other method of retrieving any usable data from Wikidata if you could find it, such as manual entry.

Wikidata Facts Not Quite Ready for Prime Time

Our verdict: Sounds like an intriguing and promising idea for the future. However, it’s not quite ready for prime time for most in the small business community.  But you can see the benefits of having a ready source of structured data that could be used.  It may be something to figure into your future plans.

Three Key Points To Developing A Mobile Application For Your Small Business

Increasingly a mobile presence is essential to the well-being of a small business, which can be overlooked with the thought that it’s only for larger enterprises. However, one of the easiest and most integral parts of growing your business is creating a mobile platform that consumers can interact with in the manner of their choosing. Tablets, laptops, smartphones, all must be configured, and having hiccups in your company’s mobile platform can be costly to your business.

Perfecto Mobile is a provider of cloud-based mobile testing and monitoring for businesses, that focuses on helping small businesses test their mobile apps on real devices, remotely in the cloud. Eran Kinsbruner, Perfecto Mobile’s Director of Product Marketing, had a few insights that businesses should keep in mind when thinking about developing a mobile application.

First, you need to choose the right devices. When starting or expanding a small business, often they cannot afford to make their application compatible with all mobile devices. Therefore, they should choose the devices that people use the most, and a good place to start is by finding what devices are sold most in the location that the application is going to be used, as well as the most recent and common versions of them.

Second, businesses need to prepare for the future. Eran states that it’s important to build automation into the application’s lifecycle management (ALM) for future testing, and to improve the ROI. This will save time in the testing process, and likewise save money. It’s also important to scale your research and development to your business. Choosing the right application type, whether it’s native, hybrid, or fully web-based, is a crucial early step in the application process. Native app development requires more efforts, as opposed to simpler web-based applications.

Next, leveraging a cloud-based solution for mobile testing allows small businesses to enable offshoring and reduce labor costs, especially for the manual testing parts in the ALM. Often, small businesses don’t reside in the same area as the target market, so testing in said market is critical. Cloud-based solutions allow businesses to do just that. Finally, small businesses should consider continuous integration. This involves integrating code changes early and often, and testing these change for regression bugs, which helps to avoid the pitfalls of low quality code integration. Adding this to the lifecycle helps to increase application stability and quality, and saves time, money, and resources.

So what does that mean for businesses? In short, go mobile now. The sooner a business can build and test an application, the better. Whether native or web-based, every opportunity to reach a larger market and expand your consumer base should be taken. The explosion in the tablet and smartphone markets make mobile platforms very appealing, and an almost essential aspect to any growing business.

Three Key Points To Developing A Mobile Application For Your Small Business

Increasingly a mobile presence is essential to the well-being of a small business, which can be overlooked with the thought that it’s only for larger enterprises. However, one of the easiest and most integral parts of growing your business is creating a mobile platform that consumers can interact with in the manner of their choosing. Tablets, laptops, smartphones, all must be configured, and having hiccups in your company’s mobile platform can be costly to your business.

Perfecto Mobile is a provider of cloud-based mobile testing and monitoring for businesses, that focuses on helping small businesses test their mobile apps on real devices, remotely in the cloud. Eran Kinsbruner, Perfecto Mobile’s Director of Product Marketing, had a few insights that businesses should keep in mind when thinking about developing a mobile application.

First, you need to choose the right devices. When starting or expanding a small business, often they cannot afford to make their application compatible with all mobile devices. Therefore, they should choose the devices that people use the most, and a good place to start is by finding what devices are sold most in the location that the application is going to be used, as well as the most recent and common versions of them.

Second, businesses need to prepare for the future. Eran states that it’s important to build automation into the application’s lifecycle management (ALM) for future testing, and to improve the ROI. This will save time in the testing process, and likewise save money. It’s also important to scale your research and development to your business. Choosing the right application type, whether it’s native, hybrid, or fully web-based, is a crucial early step in the application process. Native app development requires more efforts, as opposed to simpler web-based applications.

Next, leveraging a cloud-based solution for mobile testing allows small businesses to enable offshoring and reduce labor costs, especially for the manual testing parts in the ALM. Often, small businesses don’t reside in the same area as the target market, so testing in said market is critical. Cloud-based solutions allow businesses to do just that. Finally, small businesses should consider continuous integration. This involves integrating code changes early and often, and testing these change for regression bugs, which helps to avoid the pitfalls of low quality code integration. Adding this to the lifecycle helps to increase application stability and quality, and saves time, money, and resources.

So what does that mean for businesses? In short, go mobile now. The sooner a business can build and test an application, the better. Whether native or web-based, every opportunity to reach a larger market and expand your consumer base should be taken. The explosion in the tablet and smartphone markets make mobile platforms very appealing, and an almost essential aspect to any growing business.

NYC Events: Upcoming NYC Business and Technology Events (5/3 - 5/9)

Here is a listing of NYC Business and Technology Events for the upcoming week (4/26 - 5/2) that we thought would be beneficial to our small business community in the Greater NYC area.

Have a business and/or technology event coming up in the New York City area that you’d like us to add to our weekly post? If so, email us at eve...@smallbiztechnology.com.

Finding Your Customers

May 3, 2013, -  1:00 PM to 4:00 PM, Science Industry and Business Library, 188 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10018

Identifying and locating the right target customers is essential to generating business for your company. Developing regular, meaningful contact with customers and prospects should be the engine for generating new business. What is the best way to communicate? What are the strategies to develop new prospects and get more business from current customers? In this seminar we talk about ways to efficiently drive sales by “touching” Customers, Prospects and Referral Sources in a planned, focused approach. This workshop will help identify why prospects make buying decisions, making it easier to close the sale.

 

Maximize Results: Creating a Solid Marketing Foundation Workshop

May 6, 2013 at 9:00 AM, 71 West 23rd Street New York, NY 10010

The communications landscape has changed and continues to evolve. How we speak, engage with, and
market to consumers has also changed. What hasn?t changed, however, are the principles and pillars of a solid marketing program foundation. A successful marketing program isn?t just made up of tactics, actions, and daily posts on social media channels. A successful marketing program is built on a solid foundation of pillars and principles. It is on this solid foundation that all of your marketing and communications initiatives, including social media, should be built to maximize results.

 

TheBizDen Business Summit: The Rise of the Chief Listening Officer

May 6, 2013, - 12:30 PM to 5:00 PM, 1871 Broadway, New York, 10023

TheBizDen Business Summit is back and more rocking than ever. This year’s focus is on the emergence of social media and its importance to startups, individuals, students and even large fortune 1000 companies. Do you listen to your audience on social media platforms? Why should one even bother? Join us on May 6 and hear from our esteemed speakers on why it is more important than ever to leverage such tools to get ahead (both as a company and individual). See you there! You are awesome!

 

Building Websites for Today’s Social and Mobile World

May 7, 2013, - 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM, Science Industry and Business Library, 188 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Last year’s websites are not going to cut it in today’s mobile and social world. Learn what customers and clients expect today when they look for your business online, and how to get a website that will attract and keep clients. With all the options online for building a website today, you need to understand the differences. Websites today need to be search engine compliant, social media friendly and mobile compatible. Find out what questions to ask when hiring someone or how to do it yourself.

 

Innovative B2B Marketing Strategies

May 7, 2013, - 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, The New Yorker Hotel, 481 Eighth Ave, New York, NY 11210

Companies that use full-feature integrated marketing strategies are more likely to expect to outgrow their competitors in one year, when compared to those that don’t have a marketing plan. We invite you to join Ajax Union’s CEO, Joe Apfelbaum, and President, Zevi Friedman, as they teach you these results-driven business to business marketing methods. Our Ajax Union leaders will go over a medley of business techniques, including Strategizing and Planning, Data Acquisition, Reading Analytics, Campaign Planning, and Reporting Results

 

5 Leaders in Multicultural Digital Marketing

May 9, 2013 - 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM, 488 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10022

Please join the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York’s Media and Entertainment Committee on May 9th, when five leaders in the field of multi-cultural digital and multi-channel marketing share their experiences, challenges, successes, opinions on what it means to be a multicultural marketer today, view of why digital is a key component of an effective multicultural strategy, and vision for the future with us.

Insider and mobile threats worry IT managers when it comes to data security

More than three-quarters of organisations had experienced some form of data security incident in the last year. 

According to research by Clearswift of 300 organisations, 83 per cent experienced an incident, while 58 per cent of respondents estimated that data security incidents within their organisations over the last year have come from across the extended enterprise, in comparison with 42 per cent from ‘outsiders'.

Guy Bunker, senior vice president of products at Clearswift, said that internal threats do not make the headlines quite as much as rogue hackers, but must be taken more seriously by businesses.

Heath Davies, CEO of Clearswift, commented: “This research validates how much of a priority security is for businesses; we know that it is a fast-changing environment and that organisations do struggle to keep up with the external, as well as the emerging internal, threats.

“A comprehensive security plan will cover all of these and should be backed up with a visible and tangible security policy to ensure the enemy within is not afforded the opportunity to incur any damage.”

The research also revealed the potential problems posed by consumerisation, as the top three threats were: employee use of USB or storage devices to save company data; inadvertent human error (e.g. sending an email to the wrong recipient); and employees sending work-related emails via personal email accounts or devices.

It found that seven per cent of security breaches caused by ex-employees were made possible by weak security measures around ‘bring your own device' (BYOD), especially with 31 per cent of organisations accepting or proactively managing BYOD. More than half (53 per cent) of respondents felt that users would continue to use their own devices on the network, whether it is sanctioned by IT or not.

Bunker said: “Any organisation that does not take BYOD seriously is simply setting themselves up for a fall. It must be recognised within the security policy or there will be repercussions for the business - compliance, regulation, financial costs in the form of hefty fines, as well as reputational damage of the organisation.”

Mobile Marketing: Find The Right Apps For Small Niche Markets

You know who your customer is, but reaching them is the issue. If they only knew about your product, they’d love it more than their family. Mobile marketing ad networks like MoPub and Google’s AdMob can get you out to a broad variety of people, and Infusionsoft’s Lifestyle Marketing Planner can help you figure out what you need to do to target your audience.

But truly targeting a small niche is still difficult, despite all the tools available. If your niche market is girls between the ages of 6 and 16, MobiGirl Media is for you. The ad network caters specifically, and only, to that demographic. The way it works is that the advertisements appear in apps that are made for girls, like My Pony Girls or Doodle Text. MobiGirl Media is the only mobile ad network devoted exclusively to girls between the ages of 6-16, and it’s quite a clever idea.

Apps allow for a tremendous amount of targeting. With many apps, it’s very easy to see the kind of person who would use it. You can get a good idea of which apps have users that would gel with your brand or be interested in your product.

Another example of a very niche ad network is The Deck, which caters exclusively to web, design and creative professionals. What’s interesting about this ad network is that they say they are very picky about who they do business with. “We won’t take an ad unless we have paid for and/or used the product or service,” they say on their website. “Sell us something relevant to our audience and we’ll sell you an ad.”

There are a lot of options out there, and if you want to get a more thorough education on mobile marketing, you should take a look at a new, free mobile course from New York University that educates users about how to do mobile marketing right.

Below, we have some additional details on MobiGirl and the Deck.

Has mobile marketing helped your business? Let us know about your experience in the comments!

MobiGirl Prices and Features

Rates run from $5 per month to $395 per month per app with no minimums!

Advertisers can:
- Choose exactly which app(s) your ad will be seen.
- Every app has been pre-screened for quality and girl appeal.
- Your ads can be saved and shared by girls for added exposure.
- Easy self-serve checkout process.
- Interactive dashboard to track stats.
- We offer custom design services at a competitive rate.
- 24 hour customer service.

Developers can:
- Control what ads are shown on your app.
- Set the price and number of ad slots.
- Receive 65% of the revenue.
- Every ad has been pre-screened for quality and girl appeal.
- Join the app-to-app ad exchange and get thousands of users for free.
- Run house ads.
- Easy to install SDK.
- 24 hour technical support.
- MobiGirl Media is COPPA compliant.

The Deck Prices and Features

The current rate for ads is $8900 USD per slot per month.

The Deck sells ads a little differently than most. According to their website, “there are only thirty-three advertising slots available each month for the entire Deck. Only a single ad will be shown for each page viewed. In essence, buying a month on The Deck gives you an exclusive showing on three percent of all the pages viewed for that month across all fifty-two sites and services. And there won’t be Google or other third-party ads diluting your exposure. The Deck ad is the only ad on the page.”

Mobile Marketing: Find The Right Apps For Small Niche Markets

You know who your customer is, but reaching them is the issue. If they only knew about your product, they’d love it more than their family. Mobile marketing ad networks like MoPub and Google’s AdMob can get you out to a broad variety of people, and Infusionsoft’s Lifestyle Marketing Planner can help you figure out what you need to do to target your audience.

But truly targeting a small niche is still difficult, despite all the tools available. If your niche market is girls between the ages of 6 and 16, MobiGirl Media is for you. The ad network caters specifically, and only, to that demographic. The way it works is that the advertisements appear in apps that are made for girls, like My Pony Girls or Doodle Text. MobiGirl Media is the only mobile ad network devoted exclusively to girls between the ages of 6-16, and it’s quite a clever idea.

Apps allow for a tremendous amount of targeting. With many apps, it’s very easy to see the kind of person who would use it. You can get a good idea of which apps have users that would gel with your brand or be interested in your product.

Another example of a very niche ad network is The Deck, which caters exclusively to web, design and creative professionals. What’s interesting about this ad network is that they say they are very picky about who they do business with. “We won’t take an ad unless we have paid for and/or used the product or service,” they say on their website. “Sell us something relevant to our audience and we’ll sell you an ad.”

There are a lot of options out there, and if you want to get a more thorough education on mobile marketing, you should take a look at a new, free mobile course from New York University that educates users about how to do mobile marketing right.

Below, we have some additional details on MobiGirl and the Deck.

Has mobile marketing helped your business? Let us know about your experience in the comments!

MobiGirl Prices and Features

Rates run from $5 per month to $395 per month per app with no minimums!

Advertisers can:
- Choose exactly which app(s) your ad will be seen.
- Every app has been pre-screened for quality and girl appeal.
- Your ads can be saved and shared by girls for added exposure.
- Easy self-serve checkout process.
- Interactive dashboard to track stats.
- We offer custom design services at a competitive rate.
- 24 hour customer service.

Developers can:
- Control what ads are shown on your app.
- Set the price and number of ad slots.
- Receive 65% of the revenue.
- Every ad has been pre-screened for quality and girl appeal.
- Join the app-to-app ad exchange and get thousands of users for free.
- Run house ads.
- Easy to install SDK.
- 24 hour technical support.
- MobiGirl Media is COPPA compliant.

The Deck Prices and Features

The current rate for ads is $8900 USD per slot per month.

The Deck sells ads a little differently than most. According to their website, “there are only thirty-three advertising slots available each month for the entire Deck. Only a single ad will be shown for each page viewed. In essence, buying a month on The Deck gives you an exclusive showing on three percent of all the pages viewed for that month across all fifty-two sites and services. And there won’t be Google or other third-party ads diluting your exposure. The Deck ad is the only ad on the page.”

Mobile Marketing: Find The Right Apps For Small Niche Markets

You know who your customer is, but reaching them is the issue. If they only knew about your product, they’d love it more than their family. Mobile marketing ad networks like MoPub and Google’s AdMob can get you out to a broad variety of people, and Infusionsoft’s Lifestyle Marketing Planner can help you figure out...

The post Mobile Marketing: Find The Right Apps For Small Niche Markets appeared first on Small Business Technology.

The Future of Mobile Marketing: Smartphones and Augmented Reality

With each new year, marketers continue to say that mobile marketing is going to be huge. Has the time already come, or are there more developments in mobile marketing and technology yet to be seen?

Mobile is one of the most innovative technology platforms out today, and with about 50% of mobile users (and 70% of affluent customers) owning a smartphone, the market for apps and further technological advancement is greater now than ever before.

Smartphone users are expecting a deeper personalized engagement and assistance from their phones. Many people are dependent on their phone as their sole source of telecommunication, as well as a way to connect via social media and email. They also use it for entertainment and consuming content. This means that app and operating system developers need to fulfill a hefty order: To continue to make smartphones an integral part of user’s lives.

Facilitating Experiences

FourSquare and Yelp have released app updates in the last year that allow users to be notified when their friends have checked into the same location or are nearby. This type of GPS-location for a user’s social network is even further reducing the need to communicate directly with friends to find out where they are. This can be useful when attending large events, going out with new friends while running into some new ones or even avoiding an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife or boss.

Besides utilizing mobile to market locations as a place where a user’s friends are hanging out, mobile apps can also be used to market events or unique experiences. This includes secret concerts or performances for only certain app users or a special on hot air balloon rides that a user just happens to be a few blocks away from. Users like the gratification of having apps do the work for them. That way, they can focus more on their friends and the experience itself, rather than spending effort having to find it.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) continues to be the golden child in the minds of those thinking about the future of mobile marketing. Think of all the potential for local businesses - instant restaurant reviews (which Yelp has already been utilizing since 2009), hotel locations, online prices for products on shelves and more. Not to mention all the games and entertainment experiences that augmented reality can bring into users’ homes.

The potential of augmented reality is seemingly endless, especially because it is still in development and its potential remains vastly untapped. HowStuffWorks (who has a great video on AR) estimates that by 2020, there will be 50 billion devices connected to the internet. This means that online sensors can influence how users see reality in relation to their individual preferences and past history.

Price Comparison

Mobile makes it easy to instantly check for product and service prices, as well as for coupons and discounts, from anywhere there is wifi access or cell phone service. While many mobile marketing apps, like CouponSherpa (available at Google Play and iTunes) and Apple’s passbook, have utilized this to create services based on a user’s location, search and available connected profiles, the future still remains wide for further possibilities.

For instance, what if a restaurant’s app noticed a user’s negative tweet about a competitor and instantly text them a lucrative coupon? Or if a user’s smart phone GPS says they are in the area, a business could pay to be part of an app that offers instant, unique deals personalized to that user, depending on where they are (Groupon is going down this road with their instant deals).

The future of mobile marketing will depend largely on apps reacting to the customer, instead of the customer initiating the request for information themselves. GPS location, as well as inter-connected social media APIs will make this second nature.

Interaction With the Outside World

In relation to augmented reality and mobile marketing based on a user’s behavior and location, mobile technology may also continue to make a user’s life easier by increasing their ability to interact with the outside world. Instances may include:

• Using Shazam to listen to an infomercial to instantly buy the advertised product.
• Ordering photos from Shutterfly directly from a user’s smart phone camera album.
• Using apps or bluetooth to pay for purchases at a department store.
• Scanning a piece of furniture’s barcode to search for tutorial videos on how to assemble it.

There are many instances where the Internet already makes smartphone users’ lives easier than ever, but the key to future development is fine-tuning what has already been done while also innovating further ways to streamline and make things more efficient.

While mobile marketing has already come quite far in just the past few years, the fact remains that there is much more that can still be done. With almost every electronic device available being built to connect to the Internet, smartphones and other gadgets alike will bring marketers and users together to create experiences, influence purchases and make life a little easier.

Mobile Future Photo via Shutterstock

The Future of Mobile Marketing: Smartphones and Augmented Reality

With each new year, marketers continue to say that mobile marketing is going to be huge. Has the time already come, or are there more developments in mobile marketing and technology yet to be seen?

Mobile is one of the most innovative technology platforms out today, and with about 50% of mobile users (and 70% of affluent customers) owning a smartphone, the market for apps and further technological advancement is greater now than ever before.

Smartphone users are expecting a deeper personalized engagement and assistance from their phones. Many people are dependent on their phone as their sole source of telecommunication, as well as a way to connect via social media and email. They also use it for entertainment and consuming content. This means that app and operating system developers need to fulfill a hefty order: To continue to make smartphones an integral part of user’s lives.

Facilitating Experiences

FourSquare and Yelp have released app updates in the last year that allow users to be notified when their friends have checked into the same location or are nearby. This type of GPS-location for a user’s social network is even further reducing the need to communicate directly with friends to find out where they are. This can be useful when attending large events, going out with new friends while running into some new ones or even avoiding an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife or boss.

Besides utilizing mobile to market locations as a place where a user’s friends are hanging out, mobile apps can also be used to market events or unique experiences. This includes secret concerts or performances for only certain app users or a special on hot air balloon rides that a user just happens to be a few blocks away from. Users like the gratification of having apps do the work for them. That way, they can focus more on their friends and the experience itself, rather than spending effort having to find it.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) continues to be the golden child in the minds of those thinking about the future of mobile marketing. Think of all the potential for local businesses - instant restaurant reviews (which Yelp has already been utilizing since 2009), hotel locations, online prices for products on shelves and more. Not to mention all the games and entertainment experiences that augmented reality can bring into users’ homes.

The potential of augmented reality is seemingly endless, especially because it is still in development and its potential remains vastly untapped. HowStuffWorks (who has a great video on AR) estimates that by 2020, there will be 50 billion devices connected to the internet. This means that online sensors can influence how users see reality in relation to their individual preferences and past history.

Price Comparison

Mobile makes it easy to instantly check for product and service prices, as well as for coupons and discounts, from anywhere there is wifi access or cell phone service. While many mobile marketing apps, like CouponSherpa (available at Google Play and iTunes) and Apple’s passbook, have utilized this to create services based on a user’s location, search and available connected profiles, the future still remains wide for further possibilities.

For instance, what if a restaurant’s app noticed a user’s negative tweet about a competitor and instantly text them a lucrative coupon? Or if a user’s smart phone GPS says they are in the area, a business could pay to be part of an app that offers instant, unique deals personalized to that user, depending on where they are (Groupon is going down this road with their instant deals).

The future of mobile marketing will depend largely on apps reacting to the customer, instead of the customer initiating the request for information themselves. GPS location, as well as inter-connected social media APIs will make this second nature.

Interaction With the Outside World

In relation to augmented reality and mobile marketing based on a user’s behavior and location, mobile technology may also continue to make a user’s life easier by increasing their ability to interact with the outside world. Instances may include:

• Using Shazam to listen to an infomercial to instantly buy the advertised product.
• Ordering photos from Shutterfly directly from a user’s smart phone camera album.
• Using apps or bluetooth to pay for purchases at a department store.
• Scanning a piece of furniture’s barcode to search for tutorial videos on how to assemble it.

There are many instances where the Internet already makes smartphone users’ lives easier than ever, but the key to future development is fine-tuning what has already been done while also innovating further ways to streamline and make things more efficient.

While mobile marketing has already come quite far in just the past few years, the fact remains that there is much more that can still be done. With almost every electronic device available being built to connect to the Internet, smartphones and other gadgets alike will bring marketers and users together to create experiences, influence purchases and make life a little easier.

Mobile Future Photo via Shutterstock

Awareness programmes should be engaging and allow users to learn

Employees should be able to apply a level of risk management in order to protect the business and themselves.

Speaking to SC Magazine, Amar Singh, News International CISO and chair of the London Chapter security group of ISACA, said that staff awareness and training were huge opportunities to invest in.

He said: “I think the balance in running an awareness campaign is all good, but engaging with the user for what is information security is the main thing. If I can engage and can have a framework or process that every user can engage with me, I believe I can increase awareness by doing that.

“The problem is with training and awareness. Someone I spoke to said they achieved 90 per cent awareness with an exam every six months, but if that is the only measurement of success, then people just click through.”

Singh said that in his role at ISACA, one of his objectives was to increase awareness in information security, especially in schools where nothing was being taught. “I want to spread and engage with people on information security, as I want to engage my users so I can make the awareness much more effective,” he said.

Singh said that he is currently trying to convince users to adopt a policy by talking to people face-to-face for the top five things for News International, as exams statistical key performance indicators have no real level of engagement.

In terms of what he was training on, he said that this was "in every possible way" on spear phishing, social networking and removable media, as users need to know what threats look like.

He said that he came in ‘post incident' and was working with the company's data protection officer to build a security division.

Asked if he felt that it was hard to drive security home to people who were not security conscious, Singh said it was "definitely a challenge", as the younger generation are easier to engage in these issues.

“They may not appreciate security, but they are more tech-savvy than ever before and they know how to use the basic technology,” he said.

“The challenge here is that they may understand technology but they may not agree with it. A simple example is to share, but ask yourself if you want to share less, as the media is full of stories of people who do the wrong thing.”

He said that trying to build a risk-based culture should involve applying risk to everything you do, as today everything is everywhere. He concluded by saying that security should be as transparent as possible, but users should be able to step up to the plate.

“I am not saying get rid of controls, let them do what they want but offer training on password management and if you see constant issues with a user, you can offer further training and awareness,” he said.

FinFisher command-and-control hubs turn up in 11 new countries

Researchers from a Canadian academic institution plan to release new findings pointing to the continued global spread of cyber surveillance software.

The report, authored by Citizen Lab, part of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, detected command and control (C&C) servers supporting a spy software toolkit known as FinFisher in 11 new countries: Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Panama, Lithuania, Macedonia, South Africa, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bulgaria and Austria.

That brings the total number of nations found to be housing FinFisher C&C servers, either actively or in the past, at 36, according to researchers Morgan Marquis-Boire, Bill Marzack, Claudio Guarnieri and John Scott-Railton.

FinFisher, billed as an ‘IT intrusion and remote monitoring solution' that is ‘solely offered to law enforcement and intelligence agencies' to covertly monitor criminals, is distributed by UK-based Gamma International. However, according to researchers, it has been used by repressive regimes, for example by the Bahraini government to spy on dissidents.

Citizen Lab has said in the past that evidence of C&C servers is not necessarily indicative that the surveillance technology is being used by the government or authorities in those countries. Researchers instead appear to be using the new findings as ammunition to further justify the need for international policy debates around the expansion of this style of software.

“This research is one of the first extended projects to map out the operation and prevalence of commercial surveillance software,” researchers said in a blog post on Tuesday.

“Our work opens a window into this space, but it remains crucial that the nature and impact of the commercial surveillance market must be better understood. Technical research in this field has only just begun, but it is already clear that the stakes are high. We hope this report will contribute to discussions on this issue in technical, civil society, and policy making communities.”

In previous communication with SC Magazine, Martin J Muench, founder of Gamma Group, defended its technology "as powerful tools in the fight against sophisticated groups involved in terrorism and organised crime".

He said: “FinFisher provides the capacity for the law enforcement agencies carefully to monitor and control the extent of any investigation and provides a comprehensive activity log for the entire operation. As the system also comes with a pre-set limit on the number of suspects that may be investigated at any time, it prevents ‘trawling'".

Fixing the security skills gap is \'in every organisation\'s best interest\'

The skills gap will not be solved in the near future while security is not a national topic.

Asked if employees come in with the right information skills, Amar Singh, News International CISO and chair of the London Chapter security group of ISACA, told SC Magazine that there is a gap that needs to be filled.

Recently, a number of computer science students at the University of Surrey claimed that there was more value in real world experience than qualifications. Singh said that there was a general IT gap, as his children can only use Microsoft Word and no one was talking about programming now.

“I cannot find a solution for this and I want to see 11-14-year-olds learn about information security, I am not sure where the barriers are,” he said.

“I want to use the ISACA initiative to try and bring information security and technology to as many people as possible. It is in every organisation's best interest.”

However he said that people are so fixated on being technical that they lose sight of social and business skills, especially in being able to talk to management - so there was a need for ‘hybrid' people.

Research released last week by the National IT Skills Academy found that only seven per cent of information security professionals are aged between 20 and 29, and there was a need to attract more young talent into the industry by creating additional entry routes such as apprenticeships and signposting to relevant training more clearly.

Its research, carried out by e-skills UK in partnership with Alderbridge Consulting, showed a need for better entry routes into security-specific careers, with nearly a third of professionals progressing to their current positions from general IT or non-IT roles.

Asked if he felt that skills as a CISO were interchangeable, Singh said that while he was not "married to one particular sector", he could apply them other businesses and a security professional should be able to do that.

He said that employees should have a "bit of understanding of how the business works" and all skills can be applied across any sector, but it was not dependant on technology.

Awareness programmes encouraged to be engaging and allow users to learn

Employees should be able to apply a level of risk management in order to protect the business and themselves.

Speaking to SC Magazine, Amar Singh, News International CISO and chair of the London Chapter security group of ISACA, said that staff awareness and training were huge opportunities to invest in.

He said: “I think the balance in running an awareness campaign is all good, but engaging with the user for what is information security is the main thing. If I can engage and can have a framework or process that every user can engage with me, I believe I can increase awareness by doing that.

“The problem is with training and awareness. Someone I spoke to said they achieved 90 per cent awareness with an exam every six months, but if that is the only measurement of success, then people just click through.”

Singh said that in his role at ISACA, one of his objectives was to increase awareness in information security, especially in schools where nothing was being taught. “I want to spread and engage with people on information security, as I want to engage my users so I can make the awareness much more effective,” he said.

Singh said that he is currently trying to convince users to adopt a policy by talking to people face-to-face for the top five things for News International, as exams statistical key performance indicators have no real level of engagement.

In terms of what he was training on, he said that this was "in every possible way" on spear phishing, social networking and removable media, as users need to know what threats look like.

He said that he came in ‘post incident' and was working with the company's data protection officer to build a security division.

Asked if he felt that it was hard to drive security home to people who were not security conscious, Singh said it was "definitely a challenge", as the younger generation are easier to engage in these issues.

“They may not appreciate security, but they are more tech-savvy than ever before and they know how to use the basic technology,” he said.

“The challenge here is that they may understand technology but they may not agree with it. A simple example is to share, but ask yourself if you want to share less, as the media is full of stories of people who do the wrong thing.”

He said that trying to build a risk-based culture should involve applying risk to everything you do, as today everything is everywhere. He concluded by saying that security should be as transparent as possible, but users should be able to step up to the plate.

“I am not saying get rid of controls, let them do what they want but offer training on password management and if you see constant issues with a user, you can offer further training and awareness,” he said.

Awareness programmes encouraged to be engaging and allow users to learn

Employees should be able to apply a level of risk management in order to protect the business and themselves.

Speaking to SC Magazine, Amar Singh, News International CISO and chair of the London Chapter security group of ISACA, said that staff awareness and training were huge opportunities to invest in.

He said: “I think the balance in running an awareness campaign is all good, but engaging with the user for what is information security is the main thing. If I can engage and can have a framework or process that every user can engage with me, I believe I can increase awareness by doing that.

“The problem is with training and awareness. Someone I spoke to said they achieved 90 per cent awareness with an exam every six months, but if that is the only measurement of success, then people just click through.”

Singh said that in his role at ISACA, one of his objectives was to increase awareness in information security, especially in schools where nothing was being taught. “I want to spread and engage with people on information security, as I want to engage my users so I can make the awareness much more effective,” he said.

Singh said that he is currently trying to convince users to adopt a policy by talking to people face-to-face for the top five things for News International, as exams statistical key performance indicators have no real level of engagement.

In terms of what he was training on, he said that this was "in every possible way" on spear phishing, social networking and removable media, as users need to know what threats look like.

He said that he came in ‘post incident' and was working with the company's data protection officer to build a security division.

Asked if he felt that it was hard to drive security home to people who were not security conscious, Singh said it was "definitely a challenge", as the younger generation are easier to engage in these issues.

“They may not appreciate security, but they are more tech-savvy than ever before and they know how to use the basic technology,” he said.

“The challenge here is that they may understand technology but they may not agree with it. A simple example is to share, but ask yourself if you want to share less, as the media is full of stories of people who do the wrong thing.”

He said that trying to build a risk-based culture should involve applying risk to everything you do, as today everything is everywhere. He concluded by saying that security should be as transparent as possible, but users should be able to step up to the plate.

“I am not saying get rid of controls, let them do what they want but offer training on password management and if you see constant issues with a user, you can offer further training and awareness,” he said.

What Google Fiber Means to Small Businesses

Recently, Google announced the third city that will receive its super fast Internet service. Provo, Utah, will be the third home to Google Fiber, with most residents connected to the grid by the end of this year.

“Once connected, Provo will be one of the first cities in the world where access to broadband will flow like water or electricity,” Kevin Lo, general manager of Google Fiber said. Kansas City and Austin, Texas are the two other cities slotted to receive the ultra-fast Google Internet.

Google Fiber is Google’s new ultra-fast Internet service. The cities chosen to receive this service will have access to 1 Gigabit, 100x faster than normal broadband. Google is also offering free broadband service in those areas for a simple $30 installation fee.

Well, Google seems to be targeting areas with lesser known, but thriving tech scenes.

“Utah is already home to hundreds of tech companies and startups, and many of them are based in Provo,” Google’s Kevin Lo wrote in a blog post. “In fact, the Provo area ranks second in the nation in patent growth, and is consistently ranked as one of the top places to live and do business in the US. We believe the future of the Internet will be built on gigabit speeds.”

Local companies such as Trafficado are excited about the growth that Fiber will bring to the Provo area. Austin, Texas, is also known as a hub for technology and innovation:

“Access to more bandwidth is like rain in Texas â€" it’s good for everyone,” said David Bresemann, senior vice president and chief product officer at Silicon Laboratories Inc., a locally based semiconductor company, in Statesman. “Austin’s tech-savvy residents and businesses have an insatiable appetite for higher bandwidth.”

Google’s targeting of areas that already have growing startup and tech scenes will bring even more growth to these areas.

Why would businesses care about being part of Google Fiber?

It’s the next big thing and any chance to be on board at the beginning is a good thing. Plus, with fast Internet you can get things done more quickly. This is especially enticing for SaaS businesses and any company looking to quicken their uploading and downloading processes.

It is not known where Google will be taking Fiber next, but they are set on expanding and making this the future of the Internet.