LulzSec members sentenced to total of six years, accessory to 32 months

Three members of the hacktivist group LulzSec have been sentenced to a total of six years in prison.

Members Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis and Mustafa al-Bassam had been charged with attacks on the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Sony, Nintendo, 20th Century Fox and governments and police forces in a 50-day spree in the summer of 2011.

Davis was sentenced to 24 months in a young offender's institution and he will serve half of the sentence. Al-Bassam received a 20-month sentence, suspended for two years and 300 hours unpaid work. Ackroyd was given a 30-month sentence; he will serve half.

Among its other activities, LulzSec also put a fake front page on The Sun newspaper claiming News International chief executive Rupert Murdoch had died, and in its final act it published the details of 500,000 users. Ackroyd was known as 'Kayla', while Davis was the main spokesman known as 'Topiary'.

Ackroyd was arrested in September 2011, while Davis was charged with unauthorised computer access and conspiracy to carry out a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in August 2011. Due to his age, al-Bassam was not named until he pleaded guilty.

Both men were named by the FBI when LulzSec leader Sabu was revealed to have been working as an informant for the bureau in March 2012.

Ryan Cleary, who was arrested in June 2011, was not a recognised member of the group but did own a botnet of 100,000 PCs that was reported to have been used by the group. He was sentenced to 32 months in jail and will be required to serve half of his sentence.

Judge Deborah Taylor said that: "the name LulzSec encapsulates your desires to cause embarrassment and disruption, whole keeping your own identities hidden", and accused the four of each playing a role during a seven-month online campaign, "using your technical abilities to cause catastrophic losses for amusement".

LulzSec members sentenced to total of six years, accessory to 32 months

Three members of the hacktivist group LulzSec have been sentenced to a total of six years in prison.

Members Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis and Mustafa al-Bassam had been charged with attacks on the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Sony, Nintendo, 20th Century Fox and governments and police forces in a 50-day spree in the summer of 2011.

Davis was sentenced to 24 months in a young offender's institution and he will serve half of the sentence. Al-Bassam received a 20-month sentence, suspended for two years and 300 hours unpaid work. Ackroyd was given a 30-month sentence; he will serve half.

Among its other activities, LulzSec also put a fake front page on The Sun newspaper claiming News International chief executive Rupert Murdoch had died, and in its final act it published the details of 500,000 users. Ackroyd was known as 'Kayla', while Davis was the main spokesman known as 'Topiary'.

Ackroyd was arrested in September 2011, while Davis was charged with unauthorised computer access and conspiracy to carry out a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in August 2011. Due to his age, al-Bassam was not named until he pleaded guilty.

Both men were named by the FBI when LulzSec leader Sabu was revealed to have been working as an informant for the bureau in March 2012.

Ryan Cleary, who was arrested in June 2011, was not a recognised member of the group but did own a botnet of 100,000 PCs that was reported to have been used by the group. He was sentenced to 32 months in jail and will be required to serve half of his sentence.

Judge Deborah Taylor said that: "the name LulzSec encapsulates your desires to cause embarrassment and disruption, whole keeping your own identities hidden", and accused the four of each playing a role during a seven-month online campaign, "using your technical abilities to cause catastrophic losses for amusement".

How to Build More Confidence and Be More Successful

Confidence in yourself, others and in your business is vital to your success. If you are thinking of starting a business or you already own a business, you must already have some self-confidence to take such a big risk.

Having confidence in your abilities is vital to your success in business because without it, you might be able to start a business, but you will likely hesitate to expand or leave your comfort zone, which is necessary to grow and thrive in a competitive economy.

How do you build your own confidence and the confidence of your employees? How do you build it into the very structure of your organization? These questions are the focus of this article because they are so important to your overall success.

Build Confidence

To build your own self-confidence it is important to focus on your successes. Don’t be afraid to post your past accomplishments and successes on the walls of your office. Doing so will constantly remind you that you have a history of success and are worthy of more.

In building your confidence, focus on what you can actually change.  For example, if you know your communication skills are weak, take actions to improve them. Every little step in the right direction will build your confidence.

Also, don’t take on big issues at work without reaching out to your support network. You need to bring everyone to the table that can play a role in finding a solution. Keeping all the problems on your shoulders does nothing but bring you down. Showing confidence in your team builds up the overall confidence of everyone involved.

Your personal self-confidence also comes from trusting yourself to make good business decisions. Start by concentrating on the positive outcomes of your past decisions.  Have you made some bad decisions in the past? Congratulations, you’re human!

Take a lesson from them, and then let them go. Concentrate on all the right ones. You need to have a looping highlight reel of your successes playing in your mind in order to trust yourself enough to be successful in future decisions.

Instill Confidence in Others

Instilling confidence in your employees begins with training, and should incorporate systems and autonomy. For example, if an employee is tasked with dealing with customers, they must be trained, follow processes or guidelines, and be empowered to do their job.

They cannot be put in a position where they have to look to others to solve every little issue that arises. They need to know you trust them to find solutions to simple problems.

Remember Lessons of Confidence and Humility

There is no successful CEO or sports star that is suffering from lack of confidence. What can we learn from highly-successful people? First, there is such a thing as too much confidence. We must guard against that. There is a balance to be found there. Humility is an important part of success.

As you build your own confidence and that of your employees, your business will thrive, and you will enjoy running your organization more. Take a moment right now to think about some of your past accomplishments; your confidence will immediately start to soar.

Make a habit of this, and your business will start to soar too.

Confidence Photo via Shutterstock

Fine Tune Your B2B Targeting With Bizo Data Solutions

You’ve got Google Analytics, and you’ve read our Google Analytics 101 article, but you’re looking to soup things up for a more powerful marketing solution by fine tuning your B2B targeting.

Well, Bizo just announced Bizo Data Solutions, a service that enables B2B companies to better understand and more efficiently engage target audiences across their entire marketing funnel. Bizo Data Solutions integrates with a company’s existing marketing technology “stack,” allowing marketers to use Bizo’s demographic data on over 120 million business professionals (85 percent of the U.S. business population) to get more value out of their marketing programs and other technology investments.

Bizo’s new product is quite unique, and allows marketers to eliminate information silos and make better use of their data to nurture and convert new customers. By integrating Bizo Data Solutions with their existing CRM, marketing automation, web analytics, content management, data management platforms and media channels, brands can now:

• Identify which audiences are visiting their websites, landing pages and social channels;
• Engage website audiences with personalized content, messages and offers;
• Segment and nurture known prospect audiences with targeted display and social ads;
• Use precise business demographic targeting to power online social, display and video campaigns;
• Perform rich program attribution with audience engagement metrics across channels.

How the product integrates with the products you already use:

• Adobe AudienceManager, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud - Customers can use Bizo data to better understand how their marketing programs are performing and to reach their desired audience.
• Eloqua (AdFocus) - Enables customers to manage targeted, personalized display ads from within Eloqua to nurture known and anonymous prospects.
• Salesforce - Gives customers the ability to target online display ads to prospects that are already in a CRM or marketing automation system. This solution is available for any in-house prospect database.
• BlueKai - Allows marketers to access Bizo data for analytics, site personalization and modeling, as well as targeted advertising on their preferred media partners.
• [x+1] - Connects marketers’ data with their execution channels, including ‘owned’ media, ‘paid’ media, and CRM using [x+1]‘s Origin DMP.
• Google Analytics - Enhances analysis with knowledge of visitors’ business demographics: company size, industry, job function and seniority. (Check out our Google Analytics 101)

Bizo also offers a ‘do it yourself’ retargeting platform for help in increasing ad performance; another important aspect of your marketing program.  These solutions allow you to better manage your marketing efforts and finely tune campaigns so they reach those more likely to use your products and services.

Let us know what kinds of things you’d like to see in your marketing solutions!

Fine Tune Your B2B Targeting With Bizo Data Solutions

You’ve got Google Analytics, and you’ve read our Google Analytics 101 article, but you’re looking to soup things up for a more powerful marketing solution by fine tuning your B2B targeting.

Well, Bizo just announced Bizo Data Solutions, a service that enables B2B companies to better understand and more efficiently engage target audiences across their entire marketing funnel. Bizo Data Solutions integrates with a company’s existing marketing technology “stack,” allowing marketers to use Bizo’s demographic data on over 120 million business professionals (85 percent of the U.S. business population) to get more value out of their marketing programs and other technology investments.

Bizo’s new product is quite unique, and allows marketers to eliminate information silos and make better use of their data to nurture and convert new customers. By integrating Bizo Data Solutions with their existing CRM, marketing automation, web analytics, content management, data management platforms and media channels, brands can now:

• Identify which audiences are visiting their websites, landing pages and social channels;
• Engage website audiences with personalized content, messages and offers;
• Segment and nurture known prospect audiences with targeted display and social ads;
• Use precise business demographic targeting to power online social, display and video campaigns;
• Perform rich program attribution with audience engagement metrics across channels.

How the product integrates with the products you already use:

• Adobe AudienceManager, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud - Customers can use Bizo data to better understand how their marketing programs are performing and to reach their desired audience.
• Eloqua (AdFocus) - Enables customers to manage targeted, personalized display ads from within Eloqua to nurture known and anonymous prospects.
• Salesforce - Gives customers the ability to target online display ads to prospects that are already in a CRM or marketing automation system. This solution is available for any in-house prospect database.
• BlueKai - Allows marketers to access Bizo data for analytics, site personalization and modeling, as well as targeted advertising on their preferred media partners.
• [x+1] - Connects marketers’ data with their execution channels, including ‘owned’ media, ‘paid’ media, and CRM using [x+1]‘s Origin DMP.
• Google Analytics - Enhances analysis with knowledge of visitors’ business demographics: company size, industry, job function and seniority. (Check out our Google Analytics 101)

Bizo also offers a ‘do it yourself’ retargeting platform for help in increasing ad performance; another important aspect of your marketing program.  These solutions allow you to better manage your marketing efforts and finely tune campaigns so they reach those more likely to use your products and services.

Let us know what kinds of things you’d like to see in your marketing solutions!

The Real American Idol Winner: TXT MSG Marketing

We started watching American Idol crown winners back in 2002 and many of the “idols” have gone on to enjoy successful careers in the music industry. But the real champion to emerge from the hit show is text messageâ€"aka SMSâ€"marketing.

Millions of Idol viewers each week use the AT&T sponsored text message voting system. AT&T along with the television show itself then tap into that huge pool of text voters to build brand awareness and enthusiasm via marketing tools such as drawings and trivia contests.

Small Business Strategies

It’s easy to see how the Goliaths like AT&T can leverage text message marketing. They can afford advertising space on billboards, time on television shows and pages in magazines. Getting people to see their “Text BLAHBLAH to 54321″ message easily falls within their marketing budgets. But what about the small business Davids? Are there ways they can take advantage of this marketing channel?

The main hurdle that needs to be cleared is getting the initial opt-in. For smaller businesses with tight marketing budgets probably the easiest and most cost effective strategy for achieving this is by using social media. Piggybacking text message marketing from a Facebook page can be extraordinarily effective.

Deliver Value

Consumers are very touchy about text message marketing when they feel like businesses are abusing it. A few years ago an unwanted American Idol promotional message from AT&T spurred a firestorm of nasty instant commentary in the microblogosphere. Reporting on the misstep, Marketing Vox cited a survey where 56 percent of the respondents said they consider a text message spam if it’s “just not interesting to me.” Value is critical.

Value to consumers can be things like discounts, useful information and rewards. One movie theater chain has a simple and effective social media-text message promotional strategy that many small businesses could adapt. Fans of these theaters’ Facebook page sign up to receive a weekly mobile coupon via text message for a snack bar discount. It reminds consumers of a weekend entertainment activity to consider and for those who were a bit undecided about attending, it’s often the incentive they need.

For service providers, a text message can direct clients to an especially informative blog post. The key here is that the blog can’t just be a puff piece that rehashes information clients already knowâ€"that’s the downside. The upside is that smart phone users depend on their devices for news and updates. If your blog delivers real industry news, you have a winner.

Case Studies

As advertising and marketing strategies get more diffuse it creates both confusion and opportunities for small businesses. The number of options is huge so finding the best is difficult. But at the same time, when the ideal channel combined with the right offer is uncovered, the effectiveness can be impressive.

It’s all about creative ideas and the best way to prime the mental pump is to see what others are doing by reviewing case studies. For example, Vincenzo Ravina reviews ways that mobile app developers can leverage text message marketing to get an edge in that crowded fieldâ€"which is really what the goal is here.

Also meriting your scrutiny are the case studies at the Mobile Marketing Association’s website. Not all of the examples here are purely SMS based. You’ll have to do some exploring, but the way they have their case studies categorized is very helpful.

Once you have a general direction for a campaign that you believe will best serve your business, be prepared to do some tweaking until you are truly hitting the mark.

Consumers open text message within five minutes nearly 95 percent of the time, according to industry statistics. Is there any other way to get your customers’ attention that effectively?

Sounds like it could be time to text COUNT ME IN to SMS marketing.

Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brownpau/2788253333/

“Obama Text Message Announcing Biden as his VP,” © 2008 Paulo Ordoveza, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

Getting Things Done When You Have Too Much To Do

Productivity consultant David Allen - of “Getting Things Done” fame - says to be more productive and creative, you need to clear out your head.

Allen, founder of the productivity system called “Getting Things Done” or GTD for short, and author of a series of books, explains, “If there’s something on your mind, it’s not getting done. People who get the most done have the least in their heads.”

Allen made the remarks at the recent InfusionCon conference at the Westin Kierland Resort in Arizona recently. Allen was one of the most popular keynote speakers and the event I most looked forward to attending.

In a packed session, Allen gave advice how to be more creative as well as productive. He spoke about not letting the day-to-day details of running a business get in the way of leveraging your creativity to capture new opportunities.

Allen challenged the audience of entrepreneurs to think about “What [the word] ‘flourish’ means to you.” Define “flourish” for you. Once you define that, it’s easier to determine what your “purpose and principles” are, which is what Allen says really matters.

Creativity Comes From Being Relaxed, Focused, Inspired

The goal is to get to “the productive state,” which Allen calls the “best state to be in” where you’re “in control, relaxed, focused, inspired and engaged” you need to get out of the “stale” state you’re currently in. Creativity, Allen claims, happens when you have “the freedom to make a creative mess â€" and if you’re already in a mess, you can’t make one.”

But in order to progress Allen says you need to clear your head.

Entrepreneurs are famous for having ideas. But according to Allen, once you get your ideas, you need to get them out of you head.

“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them,” Allen says. The key, he adds, is to “capture your idea and put it somewhere.” You have to figure out what is actionable about your idea and then actually do something. However timing is key. As Allen says, “Decide what to do when it shows up â€" before it blows up.”

Keeping track of it all can sometimes be overwhelming for small business owners so organizing your ideas is a big part of Allen’s plan. And then he recommends an almost constant review process. Allen says take one to two hours at the end of every week to revisit how you’re doing.

Getting Things Done: Break It Down Into Steps to be More Productive

If this sounds a bit overwhelming Allen breaks it down into 6 steps:

1. Capture your ideas
2. Clarify what’s actionable
3. Take action
4. Organize
5. Review
6. Stay current

The 3-day InfusionCon gathering of entrepreneurs and experts was lively, entertaining and informative. InfusionCon is the annual user conference open to the 50,000+ users of Infusionsoft marketing automation software. This year the conference had more 2,100 attendees. CEO and Founder Clate Mask’s opening remarks dovetailed with Allen’s remarks. Mask urged entrepreneurs to learn how to run their businesses, and not have their businesses run them.

Clear Mind Photo via Shutterstock

Getting Things Done When You Have Too Much To Do

Productivity consultant David Allen - of “Getting Things Done” fame - says to be more productive and creative, you need to clear out your head.

Allen, founder of the productivity system called “Getting Things Done” or GTD for short, and author of a series of books, explains, “If there’s something on your mind, it’s not getting done. People who get the most done have the least in their heads.”

Allen made the remarks at the recent InfusionCon conference at the Westin Kierland Resort in Arizona recently. Allen was one of the most popular keynote speakers and the event I most looked forward to attending.

In a packed session, Allen gave advice how to be more creative as well as productive. He spoke about not letting the day-to-day details of running a business get in the way of leveraging your creativity to capture new opportunities.

Allen challenged the audience of entrepreneurs to think about “What [the word] ‘flourish’ means to you.” Define “flourish” for you. Once you define that, it’s easier to determine what your “purpose and principles” are, which is what Allen says really matters.

Creativity Comes From Being Relaxed, Focused, Inspired

The goal is to get to “the productive state,” which Allen calls the “best state to be in” where you’re “in control, relaxed, focused, inspired and engaged” you need to get out of the “stale” state you’re currently in. Creativity, Allen claims, happens when you have “the freedom to make a creative mess â€" and if you’re already in a mess, you can’t make one.”

But in order to progress Allen says you need to clear your head.

Entrepreneurs are famous for having ideas. But according to Allen, once you get your ideas, you need to get them out of you head.

“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them,” Allen says. The key, he adds, is to “capture your idea and put it somewhere.” You have to figure out what is actionable about your idea and then actually do something. However timing is key. As Allen says, “Decide what to do when it shows up â€" before it blows up.”

Keeping track of it all can sometimes be overwhelming for small business owners so organizing your ideas is a big part of Allen’s plan. And then he recommends an almost constant review process. Allen says take one to two hours at the end of every week to revisit how you’re doing.

Getting Things Done: Break It Down Into Steps to be More Productive

If this sounds a bit overwhelming Allen breaks it down into 6 steps:

1. Capture your ideas
2. Clarify what’s actionable
3. Take action
4. Organize
5. Review
6. Stay current

The 3-day InfusionCon gathering of entrepreneurs and experts was lively, entertaining and informative. InfusionCon is the annual user conference open to the 50,000+ users of Infusionsoft marketing automation software. This year the conference had more 2,100 attendees. CEO and Founder Clate Mask’s opening remarks dovetailed with Allen’s remarks. Mask urged entrepreneurs to learn how to run their businesses, and not have their businesses run them.

Clear Mind Photo via Shutterstock

The Real American Idol Winner: TXT MSG Marketing

We started watching American Idol crown winners back in 2002 and many of the “idols” have gone on to enjoy successful careers in the music industry. But the real champion to emerge from the hit show is text messageâ€"aka SMSâ€"marketing.

Millions of Idol viewers each week use the AT&T sponsored text message voting system. AT&T along with the television show itself then tap into that huge pool of text voters to build brand awareness and enthusiasm via marketing tools such as drawings and trivia contests.

Small Business Strategies

It’s easy to see how the Goliaths like AT&T can leverage text message marketing. They can afford advertising space on billboards, time on television shows and pages in magazines. Getting people to see their “Text BLAHBLAH to 54321″ message easily falls within their marketing budgets. But what about the small business Davids? Are there ways they can take advantage of this marketing channel?

The main hurdle that needs to be cleared is getting the initial opt-in. For smaller businesses with tight marketing budgets probably the easiest and most cost effective strategy for achieving this is by using social media. Piggybacking text message marketing from a Facebook page can be extraordinarily effective.

Deliver Value

Consumers are very touchy about text message marketing when they feel like businesses are abusing it. A few years ago an unwanted American Idol promotional message from AT&T spurred a firestorm of nasty instant commentary in the microblogosphere. Reporting on the misstep, Marketing Vox cited a survey where 56 percent of the respondents said they consider a text message spam if it’s “just not interesting to me.” Value is critical.

Value to consumers can be things like discounts, useful information and rewards. One movie theater chain has a simple and effective social media-text message promotional strategy that many small businesses could adapt. Fans of these theaters’ Facebook page sign up to receive a weekly mobile coupon via text message for a snack bar discount. It reminds consumers of a weekend entertainment activity to consider and for those who were a bit undecided about attending, it’s often the incentive they need.

For service providers, a text message can direct clients to an especially informative blog post. The key here is that the blog can’t just be a puff piece that rehashes information clients already knowâ€"that’s the downside. The upside is that smart phone users depend on their devices for news and updates. If your blog delivers real industry news, you have a winner.

Case Studies

As advertising and marketing strategies get more diffuse it creates both confusion and opportunities for small businesses. The number of options is huge so finding the best is difficult. But at the same time, when the ideal channel combined with the right offer is uncovered, the effectiveness can be impressive.

It’s all about creative ideas and the best way to prime the mental pump is to see what others are doing by reviewing case studies. For example, Vincenzo Ravina reviews ways that mobile app developers can leverage text message marketing to get an edge in that crowded fieldâ€"which is really what the goal is here.

Also meriting your scrutiny are the case studies at the Mobile Marketing Association’s website. Not all of the examples here are purely SMS based. You’ll have to do some exploring, but the way they have their case studies categorized is very helpful.

Once you have a general direction for a campaign that you believe will best serve your business, be prepared to do some tweaking until you are truly hitting the mark.

Consumers open text message within five minutes nearly 95 percent of the time, according to industry statistics. Is there any other way to get your customers’ attention that effectively?

Sounds like it could be time to text COUNT ME IN to SMS marketing.

Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brownpau/2788253333/

“Obama Text Message Announcing Biden as his VP,” © 2008 Paulo Ordoveza, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

‘The Office’ Finale Marks the End of the Traditional Office. 3 Rules For The Office of 2013.

When The Office debuted in 2005, the American workplace was still a sea of cubicles, with workers typing away on keyboards connected to tower-style desktop PCs. In the eight years that followed, the workforce shifted dramatically, trending toward tablets and smartphones-which didn’t yet exist in 2005. Today, offices are still evolving, and the traditional office is shifting. It’s a shift that flexible workspace provider Regus recently noted.

“It’s not only farewell to the ‘Dunder Mifflinites,’” Regus group chief executive Mark Dixon says. “It’s good-bye to 9 to 5 work days, permanently planted desk-tops and bosses looking over your shoulders. Today’s workforce is mobile, global and tech-savvy - and employers are searching for ways to meet the needs of this diverse workforce.”

Regus specializes in flexible workspaces, providing businesses the opportunity to lease conference rooms and offices only as they need them. In addition to real spaces, Regus provides virtual workspaces to provide a street address, receptionist services, and more to give a small business the appearance of operating in a physical location. Virtual customers can also have use of physical workspaces as needed.

As Americans try to decide what to do on Thursday night now that The Office is no more, Regus ponders the new rules of etiquette in the current work world. Hiding staplers in Jell-O is so last decade. Today’s worker is on-the-go, pranking co-workers on video chat or IM. To cope with these new rules, Regus came up with the following rules for the 2013 office.

• The Flexible Force. Regus conducted a survey that found that 77 percent of U.S. businesses agree that younger-generation workers are more easily embracing flexible workspaces, with the result that they are making it mainstream. Co-working spots and alternative office spaces are taking The Office to places like Shell gas stations.
• Co-work, the New Network: The New Network. When surveyed, the majority of U.S. workers said they believe the water cooler is the best place for forming new friendships. Regus recommends encouraging interaction among workers, including hosting social events to get conversations flowing.
• Don’t be the Jerk in Charge. As Regus points out, The Office showcased the top-down, dysfunctional corporate culture of the last couple of decades. Today’s bosses must recognize that hard work does not always equal sitting at a desk from dawn to dusk each day. Being tied to a desk inhibits creativity and productivity, Regus believes, and being micromanaged is equally as damaging.

As Millennials take over the workforce, it’s important that previous generations give them the support they need to grow. This includes providing a relaxed, flexible environment in which to grow. But mostly it includes throwing away preconceived notions about what an “office environment” should be in the first place. As your competition offers workers the opportunity to telecommute and report to fun, non-traditional workspaces, businesses that stick to 20th-century office environments will find it harder to attract and retain workers.

‘The Office’ Finale Marks the End of the Traditional Office. 3 Rules For The Office of 2013.

When The Office debuted in 2005, the American workplace was still a sea of cubicles, with workers typing away on keyboards connected to tower-style desktop PCs. In the eight years that followed, the workforce shifted dramatically, trending toward tablets and smartphones-which didn’t yet exist in 2005. Today, offices are still evolving, and the traditional office is shifting. It’s a shift that flexible workspace provider Regus recently noted.

“It’s not only farewell to the ‘Dunder Mifflinites,’” Regus group chief executive Mark Dixon says. “It’s good-bye to 9 to 5 work days, permanently planted desk-tops and bosses looking over your shoulders. Today’s workforce is mobile, global and tech-savvy - and employers are searching for ways to meet the needs of this diverse workforce.”

Regus specializes in flexible workspaces, providing businesses the opportunity to lease conference rooms and offices only as they need them. In addition to real spaces, Regus provides virtual workspaces to provide a street address, receptionist services, and more to give a small business the appearance of operating in a physical location. Virtual customers can also have use of physical workspaces as needed.

As Americans try to decide what to do on Thursday night now that The Office is no more, Regus ponders the new rules of etiquette in the current work world. Hiding staplers in Jell-O is so last decade. Today’s worker is on-the-go, pranking co-workers on video chat or IM. To cope with these new rules, Regus came up with the following rules for the 2013 office.

• The Flexible Force. Regus conducted a survey that found that 77 percent of U.S. businesses agree that younger-generation workers are more easily embracing flexible workspaces, with the result that they are making it mainstream. Co-working spots and alternative office spaces are taking The Office to places like Shell gas stations.
• Co-work, the New Network: The New Network. When surveyed, the majority of U.S. workers said they believe the water cooler is the best place for forming new friendships. Regus recommends encouraging interaction among workers, including hosting social events to get conversations flowing.
• Don’t be the Jerk in Charge. As Regus points out, The Office showcased the top-down, dysfunctional corporate culture of the last couple of decades. Today’s bosses must recognize that hard work does not always equal sitting at a desk from dawn to dusk each day. Being tied to a desk inhibits creativity and productivity, Regus believes, and being micromanaged is equally as damaging.

As Millennials take over the workforce, it’s important that previous generations give them the support they need to grow. This includes providing a relaxed, flexible environment in which to grow. But mostly it includes throwing away preconceived notions about what an “office environment” should be in the first place. As your competition offers workers the opportunity to telecommute and report to fun, non-traditional workspaces, businesses that stick to 20th-century office environments will find it harder to attract and retain workers.

‘The Office’ Finale Marks the End of the Traditional Office. 3 Rules For The Office of 2013.

When The Office debuted in 2005, the American workplace was still a sea of cubicles, with workers typing away on keyboards connected to tower-style desktop PCs. In the eight years that followed, the workforce shifted dramatically, trending toward tablets and smartphones-which didn’t yet exist in 2005. Today, offices are still evolving, and the traditional office is shifting. It’s a shift that flexible workspace provider Regus recently noted.

“It’s not only farewell to the ‘Dunder Mifflinites,’” Regus group chief executive Mark Dixon says. “It’s good-bye to 9 to 5 work days, permanently planted desk-tops and bosses looking over your shoulders. Today’s workforce is mobile, global and tech-savvy - and employers are searching for ways to meet the needs of this diverse workforce.”

Regus specializes in flexible workspaces, providing businesses the opportunity to lease conference rooms and offices only as they need them. In addition to real spaces, Regus provides virtual workspaces to provide a street address, receptionist services, and more to give a small business the appearance of operating in a physical location. Virtual customers can also have use of physical workspaces as needed.

As Americans try to decide what to do on Thursday night now that The Office is no more, Regus ponders the new rules of etiquette in the current work world. Hiding staplers in Jell-O is so last decade. Today’s worker is on-the-go, pranking co-workers on video chat or IM. To cope with these new rules, Regus came up with the following rules for the 2013 office.

• The Flexible Force. Regus conducted a survey that found that 77 percent of U.S. businesses agree that younger-generation workers are more easily embracing flexible workspaces, with the result that they are making it mainstream. Co-working spots and alternative office spaces are taking The Office to places like Shell gas stations.
• Co-work, the New Network: The New Network. When surveyed, the majority of U.S. workers said they believe the water cooler is the best place for forming new friendships. Regus recommends encouraging interaction among workers, including hosting social events to get conversations flowing.
• Don’t be the Jerk in Charge. As Regus points out, The Office showcased the top-down, dysfunctional corporate culture of the last couple of decades. Today’s bosses must recognize that hard work does not always equal sitting at a desk from dawn to dusk each day. Being tied to a desk inhibits creativity and productivity, Regus believes, and being micromanaged is equally as damaging.

As Millennials take over the workforce, it’s important that previous generations give them the support they need to grow. This includes providing a relaxed, flexible environment in which to grow. But mostly it includes throwing away preconceived notions about what an “office environment” should be in the first place. As your competition offers workers the opportunity to telecommute and report to fun, non-traditional workspaces, businesses that stick to 20th-century office environments will find it harder to attract and retain workers.

Kemp adds authentication features to security technology

Kemp Technologies has added authentication and log capabilities to its security offering.

The load balancing and application delivery controller vendor has added security features to its Edge Security Pack.

The company claims that it is helping fill the gap left by the discontinued Microsoft Threat Management Gateway, and the pack includes: endpoint authentication to validate access; persistent logging and reporting for user logging to monitor and track who is accessing virtual services and determine any unusual activities; and single sign-on across virtual services.

Peter Melerud, EVP of product management at Kemp, said: “As companies increase their deployment of web-facing applications, there is an increasing need for load balancers to provide high availability and minimise application security threats. Microsoft may have withdrawn its Forefront TMG from the market, but businesses still need to protect applications such as Exchange and SharePoint from unauthorised use.

“The addition of the Edge Security Pack will deliver superior protection alongside high-performance, reliable and scalable load balancing for the increasing number of hardware or virtual servers used to support the growth in internet-facing applications.”

Masters-level opportunity presented by UK universities and Cyber Security Challenge

The Cyber Security Challenge has partnered with 15 UK universities to find ideas from masters' students to discover new ways to improve trust in the online world.

The ‘Cyber integrity and meaning of trust competition' is the pilot for a national programme to put the issues of security, resilience and integrity into a business context and draw ideas from all UK masters students.

The universities: Bedfordshire; City University London; Cranfield; De Monfort; Greenwich; Kent; London Metropolitan; Strathclyde; London School of Economics; Northumbria; Nottingham Trent; Royal Holloway, University of London; St Andrews; Queen Mary, University of London; and University College London, will call on their masters students for ideas. In return, the students will receive an opportunity to present their ideas to employers.

Any MA, MBA or MSc student can enter a presentation based on their dissertation for assessment by a panel of policy makers and business leaders, as well as security professionals.

Initial entries must come in the form of a dissertation synopsis that addresses at least some of the key issues set by the competition organisers. These include measures to increase confidence in security products and services, as well as in those who develop, support and use them, and making the case for or against business, political or regulatory action to address security concerns.

Kevin Jones, professor of dependability and security at City University, said: “At City we are committed to the future prosperity of the City of London and we see cyber security as a critical problem that must be addressed. But this issue goes far wider. As more and more of our world and industry moves online this is increasingly an issue that affects the UK economy as a whole and requires the widest possible pool of talent to come up with the new ideas to help us tackle it.

“To help achieve this we are calling on masters students from a range of academic disciplines to think about online trust in cyber space as something that they could make a contribution to.”

Stephanie Daman, CEO of the Cyber Security Challenge UK, said: “One of the key priorities for the challenge from the beginning has been to demonstrate that the cyber security profession requires input and new ideas from all sorts of people with a variety of skills sets.

“Through this partnership, we hope to establish strong connections with university departments and encourage students of all backgrounds to enjoy the challenge's full programme of exciting competitions and test whether their skills are relevant to a profession actively on the hunt for new recruits.”

Registrations close on Wednesday 31st July. Students can register from today here.

ITV and Sky both hit by the Syrian Electronic Army

Fresh from Twitter implementing two-factor authentication last week, accounts for ITV news and Sky were hacked over the weekend.

The Twitter account for ITV News was hacked by members of the Syrian Electronic Army; with claims made that Prime Minister David Cameron had cut funding for education and backed Syrian rebels. It then followed this with a tweet that read: “Just kidding. The Syrian Electronic Army was here.”

Also, at least six Sky Android apps were hacked, causing a tweet to be sent by a compromised account that encouraged users to remove any apps that had been installed.

The hacking of the apps involved the group replacing all screenshots in the app with images by the hacking group, who also modified the developer website link on all of BSkyB's apps so that it pointed to its page.

This activity resulted in Google pulling all the apps from the Google Play Store.

This is seen as part of a campaign targeting media organisations, which has also hit the Financial Times, BBC, Associated Press and the Guardian, among others. In its activity, the Syrian Electronic Army tends to deface accounts rather than upload malware.

Security blogger Lee Munson said: “I can only imagine what effect this will have on the level of trust afforded to Sky and Google Play, especially the latter, since the major app stores have been quite secure lately with no apps being hacked from within.

“I'm also looking forward to hearing how the hack was achieved as well - my guess is that the signing keys and developer password may have been stolen from Sky, possibly via a socially engineered password?”

MagPointer Puts The Power Back In PowerPoint Presentations

With Prezi on the rise to becoming the leading competitor in delivering smooth, professional presentations, it’s hard to remember the days of simple PowerPoints. In fact, SmallBizTechnology.com has had several stories on Prezi, including one by our own Ramon Ray. With an increasing number of features and strong communication between users and the Prezi team, it’s easily one of the best methods for creating stellar presenations.

The team over at MagPointer.com, however, is working on bringing users back to Microsoft PowerPoint. MagPointer, an add-on for PowerPoint, seeks to help users relieve the stress of creating slideshow animations in advance by letting them do it on the fly. With MagPointer you can enlarge, focus, zoom, or highlight specific elements or areas of your slides as you go through them.

The focus on MagPointer is to allow presenters to better communicate with their audience, to better present and clarify information effectively. With the ability to draw the focus to a particular element or area of the PowerPoint, you can stop your presentation as questions arise, and address them easily. In doing so, MagPointer saves a lot of time in advance, relieving the presenter from having to add animations beforehand.

Overall, MagPointer seems to be one side of the coin, with Prezi on the other. With MagPointer and PowerPoint, you can easily convey information, focus on audience interaction, and efficiently train, teach, or otherwise instruct. With Prezi, your presentations will have that extra “wow” factor that will create a dazzling and interesting slideshow that captures audiences.

Surely in any business there is need to achieve both of these goals, and any good business should allow itself to be flexible and use all resources at hand. Is Prezi the “PowerPoint killer,” and does MagPointer make Prezi unnecessary? Of course not. Every business needs to use the tools at hand to better itself. These are both simply tools at a business’s disposal.

MagPointer Puts The Power Back In PowerPoint Presentations

With Prezi on the rise to becoming the leading competitor in delivering smooth, professional presentations, it’s hard to remember the days of simple PowerPoints. In fact, SmallBizTechnology.com has had several stories on Prezi, including one by our own Ramon Ray. With an increasing number of features and strong communication between users and the Prezi team, it’s easily one of the best methods for creating stellar presenations.

The team over at MagPointer.com, however, is working on bringing users back to Microsoft PowerPoint. MagPointer, an add-on for PowerPoint, seeks to help users relieve the stress of creating slideshow animations in advance by letting them do it on the fly. With MagPointer you can enlarge, focus, zoom, or highlight specific elements or areas of your slides as you go through them.

The focus on MagPointer is to allow presenters to better communicate with their audience, to better present and clarify information effectively. With the ability to draw the focus to a particular element or area of the PowerPoint, you can stop your presentation as questions arise, and address them easily. In doing so, MagPointer saves a lot of time in advance, relieving the presenter from having to add animations beforehand.

Overall, MagPointer seems to be one side of the coin, with Prezi on the other. With MagPointer and PowerPoint, you can easily convey information, focus on audience interaction, and efficiently train, teach, or otherwise instruct. With Prezi, your presentations will have that extra “wow” factor that will create a dazzling and interesting slideshow that captures audiences.

Surely in any business there is need to achieve both of these goals, and any good business should allow itself to be flexible and use all resources at hand. Is Prezi the “PowerPoint killer,” and does MagPointer make Prezi unnecessary? Of course not. Every business needs to use the tools at hand to better itself. These are both simply tools at a business’s disposal.

5 Reasons You Can No Longer Afford to Ignore Google Plus

Despite all the hoopla that surrounded the new social site when it was first released, many businesses are ignoring Google Plus completely in exchange for increased focus on sites like Facebook and Twitter. While 72 of the world’s largest 100 brands have a Google Plus page, nearly 40 percent of them haven’t posted any content on the site. But when you consider that Google Plus is the brainchild of the world’s most powerful search engine, is it really the brightest strategy to ignore Google Plus for business?

Even though it might not be a major traffic driver like Pinterest or other social sites, Google Plus has some incredible benefits.

Momentum

The Business Insider recently reported that growth for Google Plus has suddenly spiked. In fact, the boom is so noticeable that Google Plus is on track to overtake Twitter as the world’s 2nd largest social media site, assuming that the momentum doesn’t slow.

Up 33 percent with 359 million users, more people visit Google Plus on a regular basis than live in the United States. If there’s anything that marketing’s taught us, it’s that you always want to be ahead of the curve - and right now the curve is favoring Google Plus for business.

Growth

Aside from increased traffic, Mashable reports that Google Plus is also seeing an increase of time spent on the site. Users are now spending twice as much time on Google Plus than they did in February and the trend doesn’t appear to be slowing anytime soon.

As more and more people spend time on the site, the more powerful traffic driver this platform will become.

Authorship

Having a Google Plus account allows you to claim authorship of your original content. This keeps your unique and original content valuable and accredited to you, even if content thieves scrape your work.

Furthermore, the implementation of Google Plus means that links and referrals will be weighted based on who they come from instead of where they’re posted. Authorship gives you credibility and power.

Search Engine Recognition

It goes without saying that a strong Google Plus presence directly correlates to stronger search engine recognition. While it can’t replace solid SEO strategy, why not enhance your efforts?

Flexibility

Whether you want to host Google Hangouts or filter posts for your Circles, Google Plus provides flexibility options that many of the other platforms don’t. By taking advantage of these features, you’re making your brand’s online presence unique from everyone else’s.

To make your Google Plus page even more effective, be sure to incorporate profile links. Unlike other social platforms, you can link to other sites throughout your Google Plus profile, thereby strengthening your overall sales funnel. As more people engage with you by sharing and giving you posts a +1, your profile links will suddenly become powerful tools.

Be sure to optimize your Google Plus title tags for search engine results. Having a highly optimized Google Plus page is much easier to rank than a standalone website. Add a picture to your profile and an author picture for content that you will claim through “Authorship.”

Posts with pictures are clicked on up to 5 percent more than posts without. Once you’ve optimized your Google Plus presence, you can enjoy Google’s bias in quickly indexing posts that have received a+1.