Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Step Away From The Computer

2009-07-08T05:00:00-05:00

Don't Let Technology Inhibit Communication

E-mail, instant messaging and social media tools such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter have dramatically changed the way we communicate. While technology has made communication easier, it hasn't necessarily improved the quality of our communication.

The reason: We can hide behind technology and avoid the human interaction that is essential for good communication. But this doesn't mean we should abandon our technology. Rather, we need to strike a moderated balance in our use of technology.

Have you ever had conversation like this?

You: Joe, where are we on this project?
Joe: I've emailed Sam for the information but I haven't heard back.
You: Give him a call, we really need that information soon.
Joe: Okay, I'll send him another email but he never answers me back.
You: Don't email, give him a call.
Joe: Email is easier, I'll just try that again but don't expect any different results.
You (trying carefully to contain your frustration): No call him - better yet go see him and talk him. Explain what we need and why and ask for his help.
Joe: Well okay if you think that is really necessary.

Another common scenario is the endless e-mail chain back and forth, in which people are talking at each other rather than with each other. At lot gets said but not a lot gets accomplished.

As leaders, we need to take action to force better communication. Communications technologies should be a supplement to personal communication and relationships--not a substitute. We need to break down the barriers of technology when they are inhibiting communication.

Some things you can do:

Hold inter-departmental meetings so people get to know each other.
If you have staff in different locations, have an annual conference that allows your people to exchange ideas in an informal manner.
Throw an ice cream party and invite other departments so your staff gets to meet people in other areas and form relationships.
Implement a "three-e-mail rule.” After the third e-mail exchange--you send an e-mail, get a reply, you reply again--try to resolve the problem face-to-face or over the phone if people are in different locations.
When practical, arrange for your staff to travel to other locations to meet people and learn how the business operates.
Give your staff the opportunity make presentations to other groups as a way to build relationships.
When working on larger projects, physically embed your staff with the other departments.
Work with Human Resources to get training on different communications styles, how to recognize them and how to communicate effectively across styles.
Status meetings rather than impersonal status reports can provide opportunity for improving communications between team members.

As a leader, your job is to break down barriers and provide the needed resources. Don't mistake the flow of e-mails and instant messages for communication--sometimes an over-use of technology can be a barrier to good communication. Get out in front and take steps to force improved communications, even if that means downplaying technology.

What methods have you used to improve communications?

"Avatars" photo by brtsergio

This article is also posted on Forbes.com. Feel free to join in the discussion either on this site or at Forbes.com

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

Let's Hang Up The Gloves
Mind Your Posture or RTFM?
IT's Weasel Words
Or the posts in the "Communications" category

Saying Why Is A Powerful Tool

2009-07-01T05:36:00-05:00

Adding An Explanation For Our Policies Can Improve Their Effectiveness

Most IT policies are written like the Ten Commandments. Thou Shalt Not… Thou Shalt Not… Thou Shalt Not… When you read them you almost expect them to be accompanied by a roll of thunder and a flash of lightning as the rules are laid down by the IT god.

Sometimes a more enlightened IT department will write policies in a more positive fashion. Instead of Thou Shalt Not… they write it as Thou Shall…

But with both approaches there is still something fundamentally missing. What's missing is the explanation of why. People want to know why they can't do something and are more likely to comply if they understand the reason for the restriction.

While God may be able to put forth the Ten Commandments without explanation, IT, despite our own sense of self-importance, cannot and still expect full compliance. Mark Graban recently posted an interesting piece on the Lean Blog, The Power of Explaining Why - A Funny Example that highlights the power of including a simple explanation.

Explaining why treats people like adults. People will react in the same way that you treat them. If you treat them like adults, they'll act like adults. You treat them like children, they'll act like children. Adults, once they understand the reasoning in the policy will comply with both the letter and, more importantly, the spirit of the policy.

Complying with the spirit of the policy is important. I once had a boss that talked about draconian policies and how they fostered what he called "malicious obedience". As he explained all that it takes to bring things to a screeching halt if for everyone to follow our 'perfect' policies, perfectly. People doing nothing more than the minimum to comply with the policy is counter-productive to what we are trying to accomplish.

I think people are sometime reluctant to explain why as it might imply the topic is open for discussion or negotiation. It really doesn't. Saying that employees are not permitted to disable or shutdown anti-virus programs on their PCs because it opens their PC and the entire network to the possibility of a dangerous virus infection does not mean that it is optional or that deliberate non-compliance won't result in disciplinary action.

More significantly, we may be reluctant to give explanations because user may question the validity of that explanation. However, if there truly is a valid reason than justifying the explanation is easy and there shouldn't be a problem.

The difficulty comes when the underlying reason is questionable or self-serving. If for example, IT sets a policy because it makes IT's life easier at the expense of the users it may rightly be open to debate (at the appropriate levels of course). However, once the appropriate people have reviewed it and agreed we should have no problem saying it is being done for that reason.

It's actually very simple. If you don't feel comfortable with the explanation for a policy it probably isn't a valid reason. If it is a good justification then there is no reason not to share it with everyone. After all it's really not that hard to include a statement of explanation so why not do it?

Explaining why also has another added benefit - documentation. Policies have a bad habit of becoming eternal, once put in place it is hard to remove them. The reason for this is the underlying assumption that there just must be a good reason for the policy. The problem is that over time the good reason is forgotten and may no longer be valid. By adding the explanation we are also documenting it and it can easily highlight when a policy should be modified or made obsolete.

Make no mistake, explaining why will not guarantee full acceptance or compliance of IT policies. There will always be issues but telling people why may significantly improve the situation. If you can improve the effectiveness of your policies by including the explanation of why it certainly makes sense to do so.

"Ten Commandments" photo by robeeena

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

12 CIOs Who Love Social Media

2009-06-29T05:13:00-05:00

Michael Eggebrecht on CIOZone published an article on the adoption of social media, 12 CIOs Who Love Social Media. He writes "Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring social networking technology, as some large enterprises have opted to do, probably isn't the solution. But there are many CIOs who don't need to be told that -- they're already out there, blogging, twittering and networking on sites like CIOZone and Facebook." Eggebrecht was kind enough to include me and this blog on that list. Thank you, Michael.

What IT Needs To Give Up

2009-06-24T05:00:00-05:00

The best IT governance in tough times involves giving up some control--and a lot of information

Balancing requests for more services has always been a challenge but it is especially tough during tough economic times when adding more resource is no longer an option. It is in situations like this when the word "no" can be very powerful.

This may seem contradictory to my previous suggestions that IT should put more effort into saying yes but it really isn't. The concept of saying yes is about finding ways to help rather than looking for reasons why you can't help, why something can't be done or why something won't work. I still think we should look for ways to say yes in that context.

At the same time we have to recognize resources are thin. In many cases the rest of the business and IT have had staffing cutbacks and budget reductions. The hard reality is that there is only so much we can do effectively. Try to do too many things and you end up doing nothing well and failing at them all. It isn't a question of saying no to requests; it is a matter of prioritizing. Or as the saying goes. "Don't just say no, say yes to something more important."

The trick to being effective in saying yes to something more important is for IT not to say it all. Instead we have to get the business to decide on prioirties and projects. This goes beyond the trite and over-used phrase "just tell me what you want us to do and we'll do it".

If we're going to ask the business to make some hard choices there are a couple of things we need to do. First we have to ask the right people--the people that have not only specific responsibility but also a more cross-enterprise responsibility. Second, we have to provide them with the information needed to make a good decision - information on the project and the available resources.

Let's start with who we ask. Typically for this type of IT governance, a steering committee is formed to decide on projects. And just as typically, everyone wants to be on it to make sure that their interest are protected (read: to be sure their projects are selected).

I recommend that the steering committee be kept small, just the heads of business unit, someone to represent the corporate groups such as the Chief Administrative Officer or the CFO and the CIO with everyone but the CIO having a "vote" on which projects are done. Notably, I suggest leaving the heads of the functional areas, such as engineering, HR, etc., off of the committee.

My reason: in this case, you want the decisionmakers to have a more global perspective and not just their specific responsibilities. Business unit leaders will recognize the need for functional area projects and support them if they can be shown to support the core business areas. It really is in their best interest to support both "business" projects and functional area projects that have business value because both types will benefit them and the company as a whole. Ultimately that is the key--how does this project benefit the company?

Over and above, carefully choosing the committee involves an issue of size. If you have one functional area head on the steering committee, you'll probably need to have them all. You will end up with a convention, rather than a committee. Large groups are never quick to make decisions.

Once you've got a good committee, you have to give them the right information to make good decisions.

Start by having the project owner present what the project is about and its benefits are. Too often IT fills this role and that is a dangerous trend. If the project owner can't or won't "sell" the project, why should IT? What does that reluctance say about how important the project owner believes it is?

Project details aren't enough. The CIO needs to provide details on:

what will be required to complete each project, measured in resources, cost and time?
what is IT's capability to take on the project now? Are the right resources available?
when are existing projects ending and so freeing up resources?
what is the available mix of needed resources? What does each new proposal need? Not all IT skills are interchangeable.
what resources (especially people) are needed from the business?

These days, adding additional resources is seldom an option. That means the steering committee must pick its projects carefully by answering a couple of questions:

What are the most important projects that we need to take on?
What is doable? What can we accomplish?

The CIO can not answer those for the business but she or he can provide much of the information the steering committee needs to answer those questions.

If IT wants to get out of the mode of trying to do everything and accomplishing nothing, we need to step up and provide that needed information and guidance.

This article is also posted on Forbes.com. Feel free to join in the discussion either on this site or at Forbes.com

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

Guiding Principles For IT
Saying Yes
Are You a Policy Parrot?
Or the posts in the "IT Governance" category

Are You A Leader?

2009-06-22T04:45:00-05:00

There really is a difference between being a manager and being a leader

Arun Manansingh over at a cio's voice recently had a great post. I was going to include it in one of my Interesting and Useful Links post but I liked it so much that I thought it deserved a special mention all of its own.

Manansingh has done some excellent research and for his post Are You A Leader? (but don't go there quite yet). He list characteristic traits of manager and leaders in a comparison fashion which really highlights the differences.

In reading this, it struck me that many organization have the same characteristics as they take on the traits and characteristics of their managers or leaders. It is common to hear IT folks complain of being thought of as cost centers (and we all want to minimize cost) rather then value adders (where we should invest). I think that if you look at the list you'll quickly recognize cost center IT groups as managers and value adding IT groups as leaders. Ok, now go take a look (but come back, I'm not quite done yet).

I'll close by adding my own comparison which is not too dissimilar to Manansingh's next to last comparison:

Manager (cost center IT): Concerned with process

Leader (value adding IT): Concerned with results

What do you think distinguishes a leader from a manager?

Interesting and Useful Links

2009-06-22T04:31:00-05:00

If communication is so important... on Better Projects by Craig Brown reminding us we need to do more than just talk about how important communication is.

Whose Fault? Yours. on the The Effective CIO by Chuck Musciano about taking ownership of what we work on.

Alan Mulally's Mind Map Doesn't Include Lean? on Mark Graban's, The Lean Blog. An interesting reminder that we all need to keep Lean concepts in mind in all we do.

Your Name is Safe in My House on Jonathon Babcock's Practical Analyst which discusses the importance of relationships as we work with various people and groups and most importantly the importance of not betraying a trust.

Do you have a ‘go to’ person on your team? on Technology, Strategy, People and Projects by Eric D. Brown. We all have our "go to" person but we need to make sure we don't burn them out and we need to work on making everyone on the team the "go to" person.

How Social Networking Can Pay Off for Enterprises by Judy Mottl on CIOZone - a good discussion of how companies can use social networking tools.

Breaking the Paradigm

2009-06-17T04:25:00-05:00

How Do You Get People To See The Possibilities Of New Technologies?

I've been following a lot of the conversations about Twitter in the blogosphere/twittersphere and it is amazing the range of opinions. There are those that see no value in it and feel it is a passing fad and then there are those that think it is the greatest technological innovation ever and then there are many opinions in between. This all got me thinking about how people react to new technologies.

New ideas, new concepts, new technologies are scary. They "upset our apple cart" as the old saying goes. They represent change and change is difficult and messy. When many are presented with something new they cannot fathom the possibilities. How could this be used? What can I do with it? Their mind is closed to this way of thinking. And yet there are others who stop and think about what possibilities are now open to them.

Our way of thinking, the paradigms we live by, are probably influenced by our education, our parents, our background, our culture and our life experiences. But that doesn't seem (at least to me) to be the entire answer. I've seen people with similar backgrounds even siblings vary widely on this. Some are open to new possibilities and some cannot imagine beyond their current situation.

So that brings me to my questions. There are two and the order is specific since the first influences the second.

1. Why do you think some people are open to seeing the possibilities to new ideas, new concepts, new technologies?

2. As we are often the purveyors of new technologies and concepts what is the best way to present these?

Please comment and let me know your thoughts. I really would like some input on this. Thanks.

Photo by Cobber99

Twitter's Dilemma

2009-06-10T05:05:00-05:00

Has the popular microblogging service become a victim of its own success?

I started using Twitter five months ago with some reluctance. I wasn't sure if I'd like it or if I'd be willing to put up with the inane commentary. Since then, I've learned that Twitter is really about conversation that you can make as trivial or serious as you desire. I've even suggested that Twitter has a place in the corporate world.

Although I still see the value in Twitter, I am beginning to wonder about its long-term viability. Twitter is growing exponentially and has reported an astounding 1,382% year-over-year growth. This growth has, however, apparently caused scalability issues and may also cover up some disturbing trends that could adversely impact its long-term user base and possibilities for monetization.

Scaling up operations with that kind of growth is difficult, and Twitter is clearly struggling. Twitter's Fail Whale error page with its message: "Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again" is so common it's developed its own Fail Whale fan followers and merchandising opportunities.

Another problem involves users having difficulty uploading their profile background image. This has been going on for at least four months, according to the support tickets, although they indicate it was recently resolved. Other common difficulties include the "Find People" search not finding valid accounts, people you are following not appearing in your profile, and people you have stopped following continuing to appear. These are all clear indications of scalability problems.

As Twitter struggles with scalability, other groups are jumping into the mix, providing applications with additional functionality and allowing users to tweet without even visiting Twitter.com, except to set up their accounts. This may limit Twitter's opportunities for monetizing the program as others grab market share. Based on a Google search, I found the following statistics for the percentage of users who use the Twitter Web client to post their tweets:

April, 2008: 56% according to ReadWriteWeb.
February, 2009: 30% according to Mashable, and 32% according to TechCrunch
June, 2009: 24% according to Twitstat

Not an encouraging trend for Twitter. In addition to Twitter client competitors, Facebook offers a credible alternative way to stay connected to your community. Twitter, said to have turned down a $500 million buyout offer from Facebook, may find it a formidable competitor instead.

At the same time, I've seen frustration with Twitter's lack of new functionality. For example, the popular game "Spymaster" automatically tweets your activities to all your followers. However, many consider this spam. While the game reportedly allows you to turn this feature off, many users do not, inadvertently generating spam. I've heard a number of people lamenting the lack of a filtering option, leaving them to choose between getting spam or un-following otherwise interesting conversations.

Coupled with--or as a result of--all this is an audience retention problem. Many people start using Twitter but then quickly abandon it. Nielsen reports that more than 60% of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month. TechCrunch reports statistics indicating that 80% of Twitter accounts have fewer than 10 followers and that only 22% of the accounts have made 10 or more tweets.

Twitter's strategy so far has been that of building an audience and then monetizing it. However, monetization becomes an issue if you already have problems with usability and audience retention. It will be interesting to see how Twitter monetizes and how successful it is.

Last year, Twitter launched a Japanese version that included advertising on the Web site but has yet to do so on the U.S. version. A recent post on the Twitter blog states: "The idea of taking money to run traditional banner ads on Twitter.com has always been low on our list of interesting ways to generate revenue. However, facilitating connections between businesses and individuals in meaningful and relevant ways is compelling. We're going to leave the door open for exploration in this area."

A few days earlier, Reuters reported that Twitter co-founder Biz Stone indicated that providing revenue-generating services for businesses may be the company's approach. Reuters said Twitter is "developing various add-on tools and services" that could be in place by year's end. Twitter doesn't appear to be looking at advertising as a revenue generator.

At this point, it is not clear if offering premium services rather than advertising is a deliberate strategy or an implicit recognition that surrendering the client application share to third parties has blunted the potential for ad revenue. Businesses are beginning to understand the marketing potential of Twitter, but many may still need a lot of convincing and coaching to jump on board, and this could limit the premium services potential.

To recap, Twitter is battling scalability problems, churn in its user community, formidable competition and no revenue base. While Twitter clearly needs to monetize, the question is, has it waited too long? Time will tell.

This article is also posted on Forbes.com. Feel free to join in the discussion either on this site or at Forbes.com

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

Twitter in the Corporate World
Selling Web 2.0 To IT
Why Companies Need Web 2.0
Or the posts in the "Web / Web 2.0 / Internet" category

Interesting and Useful Links

2009-06-08T04:41:00-05:00

Twelve things every IT professional must know about their enterprise by Mark McDonald on Garter. A great reminder of what we need to keep in mind if you want to have a successful corporate IT organization.

Got a Halo or Horns? First Minutes Last by Liz Strauss about how are actions are perceived based upon how well people know us. A great illustration of why it is just as important for IT to get close to our customers users as it is for the salesforce to get close to their customers.

Who owns Master Data in your company? by cazh1 on the importance of working with the business in controlling and maintaining master data.

Can You Lose Your Fingerprints? on Scientific American. This really doesn't have anything to do with IT but I found it interesting. If it hasn't already I'm sure this will show up on CSI at some point.

This is a first…News site sued for the way Google summarised one of its pages (updated) on "the Next Web". We may be responsible for what we write but also for how Google summarizes it. - Scary.

Connecting to the Internet with a 1964 Modem on "the Next Web". An amazing story of connecting to the Internet with a 45 year old modem. I wonder is this is what Al Gore used when he invented the Internet.

Twitter Management on Thinking Faster on the need to employ tools such as Twitter and Facebook in the workplace as a new generation enters. I struck a similar theme in Why Companies Need Web 2.0.

Pondering Google, Facebook And Wasting Time by Andrei Codrescu on NPR presents an interesting perspective on social media in our life.

Identity Protection Goes Beyond Technology

2009-06-01T05:01:00-05:00

We need to include the "human element" in our identity protection schemes

Identity theft and security is always in the spotlight through the constant stream of news stories about companies losing confidential customer or client data, such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, health histories and so forth. These "breaking news" stories now seem to happen so frequently that we scarcely pay attention to them unless, of course, we are directly impacted by them. They have, however, heightened the public awareness and have even spawned new identity protection businesses.

IT companies rightly react to this by developing new technologies to improve security and eagerly market these to CIOs as a way to protect the personal information of their customers and clients. While we should use these appropriately we can't rely just on technology for identity protection.

While some of these security incidents involve someone hacking into a system, many involve a human failing. Examples include a laptop with confidential information being lost or stolen and employees e-mailing sensitive data to their personal e-mail accounts so they can work on it from home.

Network World recently tagged along an outside security audit of a Boston pharmaceutical company. They found "more than 700 leaks of critical information," such as Social Security numbers, pricing, financial information and other sensitive data in violation of the Payment Card Industry's standards. The publication also found serious lapses--more than 4,000--that ran counter to HIPAA and the U.S. Department of Defense's Information Assurance Certification rules.

Included in this were cases of sending out clearly labeled unencrypted confidential data. These lapses included both critical intellectual property, but also sensitive employee information.

It's not that the company was particularly lax. As the article states:

"While the CIO found these examples unsettling, he says it was the fact that they all happened within a six-hour span inexcusable. 'We thought we were in good shape. We had done internal and external audits in preparation for the Massachusetts Privacy Laws, we did extensive penetration testing, we have security tools such as intrusion detection and prevention and laptop encryption in place, and we do employee training. This just goes to show you can do all that and it's just not enough,' " the CIO said in the article.

We could take false comfort in the fact that at least this wasn't us. But the truth is, it probably could just as easily have been. So what can be done? I believe it is a combination of things, a so-called multi-layered security system based on both technology and human factors.

Some of the technology actions include:

Implement "kill pills" on laptops that allow you to send a signal to lost or stolen laptops that deletes all data.
In addition to the usual restriction of access to data, only allow data to be downloaded in an encrypted format, maintain logs of who is downloading data and the downloads should be reviewed by business staff security audit teams.
E-mail filtering that scans outbound e-mail for keywords and confidential data.
E-mail encryption technology.

The human factors include such things as:

Training, but not just once when people are hired. Why not have annual training and "certification" on security and identity protection issues annually? We often do this for safety and environmental issues. Why not for identity and data protection?
An awareness campaign for all employees, not just those that deal with sensitive data. We often assume that handling data "goes without saying," but it really doesn't. You have to explicitly let people know what is expected of them.
Make it easy for people to keep data secure by providing easy-to-use tools and methods to securely transmit and encrypt data.
Make protection of employee and customer data part of your company's culture. Does your company talk about this as part of their guiding principals? Is your attention to this issue part of your company's marketing strategy?
Tell employees they are prohibited from using personal e-mail and computers for company business.

If you are dealing with customers and clients connecting with you via online, you have to include them in your security scheme even though you don't have direct control over them.

Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo! e-mail account was hacked due in part to poor security design. Yahoo! allowed for a password reset based upon the requester answering some personal questions. The problem was that the hacker was able to determine the answers from publicly available data.

As everyone's online presence continues to grow with Facebook and other social media, asking which high school you went to or your pet's name may not be enough to truly identify you. Coupled with unlimited login attempts and resetting passwords, gaining control of an account was rather straightforward.

While we want to make things as simple as possible for our online customers we cannot forget that they expect us to protect their identity too and security should be improved. For example, my bank uses a site key that is composed of three elements. The first is a login and password using strong password rules that limit the number of login attempts before the account is locked. The second is an image and image title that I select that assures me I am on the real, and not a look-alike fraudulent, site. The third layer is that if the bank's system doesn't recognize my computer, it then asks me challenge questions in addition to the other provisions.

Protecting our employee's and customer's personal data is becoming an ever increasing concern and challenge. To do this properly, we must rely on our innate tools, not just the technology.

"Credit Card Theft" photo by d70focus

This article is also posted on Forbes.com. Feel free to join in the discussion either on this site or at Forbes.com

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

Writing policies with an attitude

2009-05-27T20:45:08-05:00

I received an email the other day that was offering to sell me pre-written IT policies to use rather than writing them from scratch. Using a template may be a good way to develop policies as long you review them carefully and adjust them for your particular situation.

But I'm not writing about policies. Although I think we in IT sometimes have too many policies for the wrong reasons I'm really all in favor of them and I also support the idea of enforcing them. With that behind us I wanted to point out what really got me about the way this particular company decided to market their product to IT people.

The email read:

"I enclose details of our report on the top 50 IT policies.

Looking to lay down the law? Don't write your IT policies from scratch - use…"

Looking to lay down the law? Now there's a phrase that really says a lot about how they think IT people operate. They could have said things like:

Looking to write policies to protect your companies valuable assets?, or
Looking to write policies to lower your costs while improving services? or
Looking to write policies to protect company data and intellectual property?

Instead they in effect decided to say "Looking to implement policies in a heavy handed way that ticks off your user community?" The sad thing is that apparently this marketing approach works for them.

As I said before I don't have an issue with policies. My issue is the way we in IT are perceived. Being service oriented doesn't mean you don't have policies and it doesn't mean you don't*enforce them. It does mean that you explain to people why policies are necessary and you work with them to comply. A "do it my way or else" is the last option, not the first.

Maybe this is just a case of someone falling into old stereotypes of IT people. I hope so. However, I've still seen plenty of this attitude out there in IT, too much to think it is a completely unfair characterization. The good news is I think this is changing as IT gets more involved with the business and isn't just the "geeks in the back room". We are getting better at working with and for our users and that's a very good thing.

Well that's my rant. Do you think IT still has an "Looking to lay down the law" attitude? What do you do to change this? Please share your thoughts.

[* Update May 29, 2009 - Oops left a critical "don't" out of the original sorry for the confusion]

"The Law" photo by smlp.co.uk

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

Saying Yes
IT Doesn't Have To Be Annoying
Are You a Policy Parrot?
Or the posts in the "Customer Service" category

Interesting and Useful Links

2009-05-25T05:23:00-05:00

An Expectation of Online Privacy on Schneier On Security blog presents an interesting discussion about online privacy.

The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming on Coding Horror presents some excellent "commandments" to remember when programming projects.

Chrome 2 announced, 30 percent faster - on FierceCIO's Tech Watch. I like Chrome, It's my default browser and now even faster - fantastic.

Gulags, Nukes and a Water Slide: Citizen Spies Lift North Korea's Veil on the Wall Street Journal. This article demonstrates the power of the internet both in finding information and in the collaborative potential of the internet.

Shell and Chevron plan storm Tweets from the Houston Chronicle outlining how some oil and gas companies are starting to experiment with Twitter for getting out communications. It's a start. It's especially interesting in light of the ExxonMobil Twitter hoax.

Fellow Twitterati @DougGtheBA has a guest post Making it Work Between Business and IT: Why and How to Reach Across Boundaries to Dissipate Potential Attitude Issues on Laura Brandau's Bridging the Gap between Business and IT Blog.