The on again off again potential collaboration between Microsoft and Yahoo seems to be on again.  Of course, the merger of giant internet companies is nothing new to the vast world of cyberspace business.  And ever since Google pretty much took over the world in regards to online activity, both these two huge companies have been playing footsie about merging, buying each other out or working together in some fashion.  The idea is to mount some kind of counter offensive against the mighty Google.  And it looks like that counter offensive may be about to shape up.

Of course, there are a lot of obstacles to very large internet companies like this getting together.  The first obstacle was a tough one when Microsoft set out to buy Yahoo outright back in 2008 for just shy of $45 billion.  Yes, that is billion with a "B".  At that time, Yahoo was not prepared to play ball with Microsoft.  But with a few high level changes in management, both companies have found common ground and a deal has been forged that could do be just the thing for Yahoo and Microsoft to get back in the ball game when it comes to who calls the shots in cyberspace.

Both companies walk away with this partnership with something that will benefit them both. For Yahoo, who has been hammered by the superior search engine design that Google has, they will be able to implement the Bing search engine logic into Yahoo searches. It is hard to remember now but there was a time when Yahoo dominated the internet as the premier search engine of choice for a lot of people.  Google stole that crown away from Yahoo and all other competing search engines in a big way.  But Bing has been an up and comer in the search engine wars ever since Microsoft launched it.  So that would put Yahoo back on the map when it comes to competing for lucrative web searching traffic.

Microsoft stands to win because Yahoo still retains a lot of brand recognition as a premier web site for a lot of services.  By empowering them to become serious competition to Google through the power of the Bing search capabilities, Microsoft can share in the explosion of internet advertising revenue that will come their way.  The deal has been in place for some time but for the two internet giants to work together required approval by regulatory agencies in American as well as in the EU.  In February, the roadblock of that approval was resolved so Yahoo and Microsoft can now roll up their sleeves and get busy with their plans to implement their partnership.

The regularity roadblock was no small issue especially in regards to getting approval from the EU commission.  There had been some long running disagreements that have been going back and forth between Microsoft and the EU that had to be overcome to allow this very large merger of two internet giants to go forward.  With the approval of the EU in hand, the lights are all green for both Yahoo and Microsoft go get moving making the power of their combined innovation to begin putting them back in the game in the internet search engine online competition.

There is definitely work to be done.  As of January of this month, Bing had grabbed control of just over 11% of internet search activity in cyberspace. Yahoo had fallen to a low of retaining just 17% of that business.  By comparison, Google continues to command a dominant position by holding on to an amazing 65% of the internet search activity that flows through ISPs all over the world. 

Yahoo and Microsoft will have the challenge of somehow displacing a company whose name has become a byword for finding information online.  You have to know that anytime someone on TV says the phrase, "I will just Google that", the heads of Yahoo and Microsoft are reminded of the tough job they have ahead of them to unseat Google as the dominant player in internet access and search activity.

In terms of how much this merger will be bad for competition, that point seems to be somewhat moot.  With Google dominating all interent search activity, any move to arrest some of that business away from one company is good for competition.  That may be one of the reasons that the EU and other regulatory commissions saw the value in approving this partnership. 

From a consumer point of view, having two giant companies keeping over 80% of the internet search engine business to themselves hardly seems like robust competition.  But in terms of the amazing products and services all three of these companies have brought to the internet community, there is something to be said for the big, rich and powerful companies doing a lot of the innovation that drives the internet.

For people who can remember the glory days of Yahoo, this deals seems to spell the end for the Yahoo approach to internet search logic.  Both Yahoo and Microsoft openly admit that the demise of how Yahoo used to operate a search engine is going away to be replaced by Microsoft's logic that has made Bing realize some of it's early success.  But in light of the fact that such a huge percentage of internet users have turned away from the old paradigm of internet searching, there is no room for nostalgia when there is such a need to create a new competitive dynamic. 

It remains to be seen whether the Microsoft and Yahoo combination can really challenge much less bring down the mighty Google.  It will take the better part of this year to implement the changes and for both companies to find their place in the partnership so that the power of their combined internet offering uses the best of what each can do.  Google is not the kind of company to sit still either so it is certain that they will be continuing to surge ahead capturing more cyberspace real estate which will compound the challenge of taking on Google's in interent technology.

The Microsoft and Yahoo partnership still needs approval from some markets such as in India, Japan and other big markets.  There are some real opportunities in some large markets like China where Google is in trouble.  But these approvals are not the war and they don’t even represent the first battle to take back some of the internet traffic that has been lost to Google.  But it is a start.  We will all just have to watch to see if Microsoft and Yahoo can pull off the coup against Google that they hope to achieve.  It will make for an interesting conflict.

It is virtually impossible to operate a home computer that is connected to the internet without being aware of the dirty and damaging programs that can infect your computer that we call viruses.  The term "virus" has been associated with a lot of different malicious programs that are downloaded to a computer without permission of the owner to do bad things.  To understand how to deal with a virus, the first thing is to understand what they are and then to develop a plan to defend yourself against this continuous threat to any internet.

An internet virus is not a living thing.  It is essentially a small computer program that performs some secret operation that may harm your computer or compromise your online security in some way.  The variety of bad things that a computer virus might be designed to is pretty amazing.  Some typical types of evil computer programs that could infect your computer might be…

• Programs that do harm to your computer such as to erase your hard drive or slow down your computer so badly that you cannot use it online or for any of your local applications. 
• Programs that spy on your activity online, capturing your security access codes and then uploading them secretly to a criminal so he can execute an identity theft.  These kinds of programs are often called spybots.  They do not interrupt your online activity in any way because they want to stay hidden.
• Programs that pop up advertising on your computer as you work online or on a local application.  These forms of computer nuisances are sometimes called adbots.
• Programs that hijack your browser and change your home page.

The number and variety of bad things people seem to think up to set loose on the internet world is quite amazing.  It would be nice to think that someday these kinds of evil computer viruses would stop being a threat do us.  But they have been around in one form or another almost as long as the internet was around.  So it is up to us to learn how to defend ourselves from the attacks of a computer virus and then to learn how to get rid of the problem once we become "infected" by some ugly little online program that means to do bad things to our computers.

Prevention is Essential.

As it true of any potential crisis, the more you are prepared to prevent and respond to an attack of a computer virus, the better you will do avoiding serious problems in your internet life.  Part of prevention is understanding how computer viruses get into your computer the most often so you can avoid "infection".

Generally a computer virus "rides" into your computer along with something else you are downloading.  A common method for a virus to infect your computer is as an attachment to an email.  Once you click on the attachment, the virus downloads and then you are infected.  A virus can also be downloaded to your computer as part of a file that you download like a music clip or a video.  So the first step of prevention is to be very careful what you allow to download to your computer.  If you do not open any attachment you don’t trust, avoid downloading things from the internet that are suspicious and stay away from risky websites, you will vastly reduce the chances of becoming infected.

Along with these precautions, finding and installing a good virus protection software package is a must.  Beware because there are plenty of virus software tools out on the internet that are not trustworthy.  Some of them are actually viruses themselves disguised as virus protection software.  To be absolutely sure, invest in one of the most trusted names in internet security such as Norton or McAfee.  These programs will be able to help detect any virus software on your machine and get rid of it and then block the download of viruses in the future as well. 

But you should also become aware of how to spot virus activity when it occurs.  Learn how to inspect what programs may be running on your computer.  Many viruses will teach your computer to start them when you log on to your windows profile and reside in memory to do their dirty work. Also learn how to search for files on your hard drive.  If the problem came from something you downloaded, you should know how to find that file and delete it so the source of the virus is eliminated.

Be an Alert Internet User

Even if you take all of the precautions, anyone can get a computer virus.  Be on the alert to the signs of a virus if it strikes.  If your computer mysteriously slows down or it seems there is a lot going on with your hard drive even though you are not causing it, that could be a sign of a virus or some other form of malicious software.  If advertising starts popping up all the time no matter what website you are on or even at times when you are not active on the internet, that is a sign of a virus or advertising software residing on your computer.

The first step in finding out if you have some form of malicious or sneaky software such as a virus is to activate your virus protection program so it can look for the problem.  Often a good interent security software package will update your computer regular with information on new threats.  So let it do that so if you are dealing with a newly developed virus, it can get rid of it.

If your virus protection software spots the problem, it will give you instructions on what to do.  Often it will go through several steps to eliminate the problem and at the end of each step, you will have to let the software restart your computer.  Cooperate with the cycle so that the virus repair procedure is completed.  

Your virus protection software should also have the ability to set up a scheduler so it can routinely update its databases with the most recent virus activity that is going on in cyberspace and perform full scans of your computer to catch any new infections that may have snuck into your PC.  By being on the alert and taking the right kinds of precautions, you can avoid the majority of computer virus problems.  And while nobody is immune from online attacks such as viruses and other malicious software, by being prepared and having quality anti-virus tools always active in your system, you can fight back against people who would invade your computer and threaten your online safety at any time.

Outsourcing the software development process is often the right decision for a business depending on what kind of in house technical resources you have.  If you have a software development project coming up, you may not wish to add an entire IT department to your staff with all of that overhead for a project that may only take a few months to complete.  It may make sense to turn over the development of the software to an independent software development company because they already have the technical expertise on hand that they can focus on delivering a quality product to you.

To have your software product developed or enhanced by a software development company, it is essential that finding a firm that is a perfect fit to your needs is given high priority.  In fact, as you lay out the systems development life cycle, the identification of the right software development company along with the subsequent process of building a business relationship with them should be given the same priority as any other of the phases of systems development from requirements definition through installation and documentation.

Know What You Need

Just as you would have a qualified project leader with any phase of software development, there should be an internal project manager who is charged with the selection process.  This project manager should have the authority to build the list of potential software development companies but not with the final decision. 

He or she should have the technical qualifications to fully understand the software specifications and to be able to interview software development experts and speak to them on their own terms.  But that project leader should also be someone who understands the business dynamics of negotiating a software development contract as well as the business requirements of the final product.

Before a search for a software development company is launched, the project should be fully defined, the needs assessment and requirements definition complete and the budget for the project is set.  By knowing exactly what you need, you are not going to allow a skilled software development company to expand your scope.  And by doing your project definition in significant detail, you will have an understanding of the technical abilities that any software development company you use must have mastery over including DBMS expertise, operating systems and languages, networking protocols and other technical issues that must be part of their proposal to develop the project for you.

Narrow the Field

Once you have your requirements for the project well defined, you can write an RFP.  A Request for Proposal will be sent out to qualified software development companies who you have identified as potential consultants to perform the work you need done efficiently, correctly and economically.  When you develop your initial list of software development companies who may be able to do the job, that initial list could be quite long.  But a number of factors may narrow the field.

If you have a specific hardware and operating system requirement that calls upon the software development company to demonstrate proven expertise in writing software for that platform, that will narrow down the number of potential firms who can bid on the job significantly.  For example, if the software product will run on your IBM mainframe and not on a distributed system or on client desktops, you need specific knowledge bout how to write for that environment.  In that case, you would also limit the number of software development companies that receive the RFP so that you do not have such a chore going through the proposals when they begin to come back to you.

It is also necessary that the software development company you select have experience writing applications similar to the one you are designing and that they can include interfaces to internet resources, database access, network delivery and controls and any other function of what is necessary for the software product to perform correctly.  If a software development company does not have the expertise in every aspect of the systems development requirements definition, that may mean they will have to bring in outside consulting to fill in that gap. 

Along with making sure any software development company that "makes the cut" because of their technical experience and background with the software and the application, the company must have a good reputation in the industry and check out as a responsible business entity.  You should perform due diligence to assure that the company you are about to work with is a viable business that has been around for a while.  They should have references you can check and the software development company should not shy away from any questions about any aspect of how they do business. 

In fact, it would not be out of line to visit their development facility to inspect their development resources, to validate they have adequate hardware and software to build the software you need.  During that visit, you can interview their subject matter experts in software development to confirm for yourself that the company who is submitting a proposal to develop your software can back that proposal up with the talent and resources to complete the development on time and under budget.

When you receive the proposals for development of the project, make sure that everything that is needed to complete the job is detailed in the proposal.  The company that gets the job should have complete control over their costs so there are no "surprises" as the development cycle gets underway.  The final cost to you, the customer should reflect that there is nothing left out.  If there are costs of the development that are left to you to cover, that should be specified.

Even after you accept proposals, the cycle of interviews may go on for some time.  A local company may be preferred because there will be local references you can go visit and because it may cut down on costs.  In the end analysis, there is also room for what we call "gut feel" in making the final decision.  Don’t overlook the wisdom of gut feel because sometimes your intuition as a business person and a software developer will tell you to go with a particular software development company based on impressions that they know what they are doing and that they are an honest group of business people.

If you make the investment up front to do a thorough job of building your requirements and making absolutely sure the software development company you select is qualified to do the job, you will have a greater assurance that when the project is done, you will have a quality software package delivered on time, tested and ready to deploy.  If you can find a software development company like that and they can meet you requirements with confidence and without flaws, keep their business card.  That will be a software development company you will want to use again and again and again.

If you used Surveymonkey to create a poll and asked people what social networks like Facebook and Twitter are for, you would get a lot of answers.  Probably the most popular answers would be for fun, to share pictures and to keep up with friends and family.  Maybe a good sized group would say social networks great because they allow them to play Farmtown or some other Facebook game.  But the odds are you would get precisely zero people saying that they think social networks are great places for spies.

But apparently our federal government thinks the big social networks are wonderful places to do some spying.  But they are not just spying on evil doers from the dark world of international espionage.  There is now plenty of evidence that the groups that some very large government agents are spying on are American citizens like you and I.

Fortunately there are groups who are keeping an eye on the government such as the advocacy group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation who brought a lot of this clandestine activity to light.  If not for the Freedom of Information Act, the public would have no idea that Uncle Sam was lurking out there on their social networks gathering information that could potentially be used against them.  The particular departments that were "busted" would be the ones that we might call, "the usual suspects including the IRS, The Justice Department, The Department of Defense, Homeland Security and several others. 

What the EFF found out when they dug into just released government documents could send chills up your spine.  These agencies are foraging around all of the major social networks gathering information that could eventually used to mount a formal investigation into the lives of American citizens.  One of the documents that really spilled the beans on this domestic espionage was an IRS training document that not only instructed IRS agents to go after taxpayers using social networking sites, it teaches them how to do it.

The social networks that were primarily targeted take in a huge population of anyone active on the internet.  They include, of course, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter but the investigations also extended their snooping into Google Groups, YouTube and even Second Life. 

One aspect of what has been revealed about how these agencies go about their spying on our own citizens is that they do have some limitations and rules they have to live under.  For example, they are only allowed to gather information that is "out there" for pubic viewing.  They are also not allowed to deceive citizens that they are snooping on or represent themselves as a fake person such as to set up a false profile to "friend" suspects to get access to their profiles and pictures. 

That is some comfort just knowing that even though this kind of spying is being done without our permission, there are some restrictions that keep the government from really digging deep into your social networking sites.  So if you use some of the security tools that are available on the better social networking sites, you should be able to block the prying eyes of government agents from snooping around in your affairs.  But who knows if they will be that conscientious forever.

This kind of spying is right up the alley of an agency like the IRS.  Because people are so open and transparent on their Twitter or Facebook sites, an IRS agent could detect enough information to launch a formal investigation into a citizen just using clues that were spilled online. For example, they might be investigating someone who pays a small amount of taxes and they want to get deeper into his pockets. 

By watching posts and other information leaked on social networking sites, perhaps they will find that the suspect has been moonlighting as a bartender or a cab driver.  By getting paid in cash, that suspect would be able to avoid paying taxes.  A few off the cuff comments about how their little side business is going may be just enough for the IRS to open a formal investigation which gives them the power to get into all of your accounts and do an audit to find out if they can get their mitts on more of your money.

But dodging taxes is not the only thing the government could be lurking around to catch citizens doing.  Law enforcement agencies are taking a lot of interest in citizen's private lives.  A photo of you smoking something in a suspicious way or being in the room with people who were breaking the law like that could be enough to get a warrant and haul you in for some serious interrogation.  The wrong comments on your Twitter or Facebook posts that reflect your disapproval of the government might excite the secret service or Homeland Security to put a grab on you to find out just how close you are to becoming a terrorist. 

Now, law enforcement has used social networks to nab real criminals who had committed real crimes.  There was a case where a bad guy went on the run after a robbery and then posted pictures of himself on the beach in Florida.  That brought the feds down on him in a big way.  Most of us would not argue that in cases like that, this kind of investigation is a good thing.

But when you have to be looking over your shoulder now even when having fun interacting with friends and family on Facebook or Twitter, that is too close to that "Big Brother" society we all want to avoid.  These documents reveal that our government is trading dangerously close to violating the privacy rights of citizens.  We can be thankful there are watchdog groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation keeping an eye on Uncle Sam to let us know what they are up to.  It is important that just as the government is finding new ways all the time to watch the citizens, we need to watch them just as much.

There is something perverse about an attacker who would fool us into downloading a very destructive package of malware and viruses by using our desire to make our passwords more secure as a way to make us less secure.  But the most recent internet attack on the broad population of Facebook users taps that desire people have to keep their Facebook profiles safe.  The malware that you can innocently be victimized by is called Bredolab and it’s a nasty one, to be sure.

Bredolab attacks internet citizens the way a lot of ugly things get spread around online, through an email.  This email appears to be coming from Facebook stating that as a security measure, they have reset your password for you.  This approach right away should set off alarms in the minds of users because…

1. Facebook doesn't reset passwords for people.  That is up to users to manage.
2. Security matters are not handled through email.
3. To get access to your new Facebook password, you are asked to open an attachment in the email.   Attachments are almost always suspicious because they are an open door for malware and other nasty code to enter your computer.

The attachment that is supposed to have your new password will have a file name that looks like this…

Facebook_details_ (random numbers).zip

And the message in the body of the emails reads…

Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.  You can find your new password in attached document.

Thanks,

The Facebook Team.

This all seems very innocent which is the idea.  By fooling you into thinking a trusted application like Facebook is looking after your best interests, that trust opens the door for this very ugly malware that functions as a Trojan downloader.  It is in that classification because once Bredolab lives on your system, it is very crafty as hiding out, avoiding capture by your security software and then downloading lots of other malicious stuff to do more damage on your system.

Bredolab wastes no time once it breaches the security of your computer because it gets busy downloading all of it's nasty friends.  Bredolab downloads a password stealer that captures how to get into all of your secure websites and sends your usernames and passwords to crooks.  But that is just the opening attack of Bredolab.  Just for good measure, an ugly virus is downloaded to your computer just to make your life miserable.

Bredolab is a very clever piece of virus software because, like a virus, it constantly evolves and changes how it looks in a computer.  A researcher at he University of Alabama at Birmingham documented 17 different variations on Bredolab had been sighted in just 24 hours which means that in a few short days, there would be thousands of more variations on the dirty program proliferating all over the interent.  This insidious malware knows how to "repack" itself which changes what is called its "signature" as a virus.  This makes it very difficult for conventional antivirus software to recognize where the dirty code is hiding and get rid of it.

This not just a random virus attack that is easily defeated by conventional means.  In the last month, companies that track the most potent cyberspace threats have given Bredolab a ranking of number six on the list of the most active and dangerous threat to internet users.  In terms of attempts to infect user's computers using email, Bredolab has been identified to be involved with as high as ten percent of malicious emails that are reaching computer users worldwide. That means that of all that spam that hits your email system, the odds are that you have seen a Bredolab attack come your way.

While the email that is being used to infect many thousands of user's computers says it is from Facebook, Facebook has nothing to do with this.  If you spend any time looking at how Facebook security is handled, they would never just change your password for you and they would never address a serious security issue with a user through email.  At very least, if a Facebook user were to get this kind of email from the system, the first thing to do is to go log on to the site.  When you do that and you realize your password was not changed, you know that the email is a lie and to delete it. 

Above all do NOT open the attachment!  Facebook is not the first major online application that has been used like this.  The bad guys of the internet know where the big traffic is going.  It doesn’t take a genius to know that a huge amount of people are using Facebook.  And it isn't hard to "harvest" email addresses from Facebook users.  Many of the "apps" that people play with on Facebook are really just scams designed to harvest emails for this kind of attack plan.

The use of a spam email to gain entrance to a user's machine demonstrates that even new and very potent malicious software like Bredolab is no better at getting to internet users than similar malware and viruses that have been around for many years.  While it is smart to have top quality virus and malware protection software on your computer, there is no substitute for being a smart internet citizen and knowing how these people attack so you can dodge their schemes.

It is a good rule of thumb to view with suspicion any email that comes in that you did not solicit, even if it "seems" to be from a service you use.  Many respectable online services have been targeted like this including MySpace, EBay and large online banking websites.  No respectable business would send out an email like Bredolab tried to use here.  And avoiding opening any attachments that you are not 100% certain of is always a good policy to follow. 

If you are careful and you can recognize a scam when you see one coming to you in an email, you can block even the nastiest virus from getting inside your PC.  It pays to stay informed though because fighting internet malware and virus attacks is something we can never relax about.  The bad guys are never going to quit trying to attack us so we can never stop defending ourselves either.

IT workers are a notoriously technical bunch.  Along with that technical expertise comes a certain "lore" about the personality of a typical technical guru who thrives in the cubicle canyons of an IT department.  If you are an IT professional, you know that many of those stereotypes are just that, images that the media likes to assign to a group of people.  But one image worth taking head on is the idea that IT people are notoriously unhappy.

IT people are problem solvers.  And many technical problems that are resolved by the "gurus" in your department are tremendously complicated and difficult.  So the focus and concentration that you have to put in to find good solutions to technical problems may be part of why IT people are considered to be unhappy people.  But IT people are also some of the most motivated workers who enjoy unique technical talents that give them an enviable job security and career path that many would kill for.  Who could not be happy about that?

If you make your career in a large organizational setting, there will be good times and bad times.  Projects encounter problems and sometimes go wrong and it is your job as an IT professional to try to guide them to success.  During those times when conflicts occur or the organization is going through hard times, it is possible for IT workers to become quite dissatisfied just as it is for anyone in any department to feel nervous about their working environment. 

So we need some tools to get through those times.  To have a long term career that allows you to climb up the latter toward management, coping with the hard times is a must.  Much of that coping includes learning to overcome your own feelings of dissatisfaction and disillusionment so you can maintain your focus on the prize of long term success and growth to your career.  But how do you do that?   Here are a few tips.

It Won't Last Forever

One way to overcome that sense of despair when it seems that your working world is a mess is to step back and get a wider view.  If you have been working in your organization for a number of years, you probably have seen a few economic slumps come and go. You have survived some lay offs and you have even endured some run away projects that were a disaster. 

None of these big problems that would like to convince you that your career in IT is about to come to an end will last forever.  Problems have a shelf life and it is amazing how often they disappear almost as fast as they came along.  Sometimes a hard time in your department just has to be endured.  Picture yourself as a turtle that knows how to pull your head neck and arms in when trouble comes and that knows how to hunker down and survive a storm. 

If you have done a good job at making your job essential to the organization and if the organization is fundamentally sound, it will come through the current storm. Even if your department is being reorganized, that too is something you can endure.  Use your history in IT and your ability to ride out trouble to not allow a short term season of trouble to end your long term brilliant career.

Misery Loves Company

One thing you can take comfort in is the friendships you have built in your own department.  Other IT workers are your allies in surviving difficult times.  If you have a good manager who has guided his or her team through a lot of bad times, trust in that management skill.  He or she got you through these little messes before and he or she will do it again.

Humor is a great resource in times of trouble.  Allow some good natured joking to help you keep your head up and your emotional balance working.  Lean on older workers who know well the lay of the land in good times and bad.  Don’t try to go it alone when despair tries to force you to make a rash decision during a bad time.  Use the friends, mentors and wise old owls of the department and get their help in making wise choices of how to turn a really bad situation into a really good long term career situation for you and for them as well.

Take a Little Joy in Your Work

There is a wonderful quote from the movie Men in Black that applies to trying to get through tough times at work in an IT department. The Men in Black were about to take on an impossible challenge from aliens because that is the theme of the movie. At one point as the young recruit, Will Smith begins to become unnerved, the old wise Man in Black played by Tommy Lee Jones says, "You’re a young man.  Try to take a little joy in your work."

Your work is why you get up and go to the office every day.  The one thing that IT professionals love it is performing their technical wizardry using their technical tools and toys.  So turn to the work you love to do.  Throw yourself into a project and disappear into the complexities of the challenge right in front of you.  Not only will that help you get through days were trouble is brewing, it will help you accomplish your work goals which is very good for your career.

Keep a Cool Head

It is amazing how just refusing to panic can often be enough to propel you through a crisis into a new day where the storm clouds have passed.  When it seems that the world is coming to an end, keep in mind that it probably isn't.  There will be people around you who will be losing their cool heads and speculating all types of wild ideas that project doom and gloom for everyone.  Don’t listen to those people.

This doesn’t mean you have to be a cheerful bird when everyone else is upset. Simply make a choice not to jump to conclusions.  If disaster is going to come, make it come all the way to the door.  Too often it will get as far as the street corner and turns away.

If you keep a cool head, you can be the one who survives the hard times and is there to pick up the pieces and the rewards when good times return to your organization and to the IT department that pays your rent.  And you will have survived another storm not only because you are a valuable employee but because you navigated the storm and your own emotions at the same time so you came out of the difficulty a winner.

One of the most respected and recognized individuals who seems represent the epitome of how powerful the human intellect can be is Stephen Hawking.  This brilliant physicist has often been compared to Albert Einstein because of his powerful mind and because of his contributions to physics that has made huge leaps forward in the knowledge mankind has about our universe.

It can come as quite a shock if you actually saw a picture of Stephen Hawking or saw a video of him addressing large gatherings of scientists, which he does often.  Hawking is confined to a wheelchair and the "voice" that allows the tremendous knowledge and insight in his mind is a computer generated voice because Stephen Hawking is an invalid. 

He has been suffering for many years with the debilitating effects of Lou Gehrig's disease which has stalled out allowing him to continue to live and make his contributions to the body of knowledge we have about the universe.  And the thing that makes it possible for this genius to continue to make his contributions is a branch of technological research called assistive technology.

Not Just Prosthetics Any More.

When we think of medical technology that helps disabled people cope with their disabilities, prosthetics naturally come to mind.  While prosthetics have in many ways worked miracles to help people who have lost limbs live normal lives, assistive technology has gone far beyond that level.  Today, the scope and diversity of ways that assistive technology can help people who are medically challenged is truly amazing.

Using a wide variety of sophisticated research, assistive technology has as its goal nothing short of restoring full functionality to people who have lost a natural ability due to a disability.  To respectfully reference the Bible, assistive technology has been able to literally restore sight to the blind, to give hearing to the deaf and enable people who could not walk (the lame) the ability to leap, walk and even run in a marathon if they wish to do so.  This is done not through the miracle of religion but through the accomplishments of technology working in concert with medical science to achieve better lives for many thousands of people.

The areas of life where assistive technology has benefited people are tremendously diverse.  Athletes who could never have competed again due to a damaged or lost limb find themselves able to get out there and win trophies and gold metals with the best of them because of assistive technology.  Fathers who may have lost their ability to make a living and support their families are able to work gainfully due to the restoration of sight thanks to assistive technology. Soldiers returning home from battle and patients who lost functionality from life threatening illnesses or injuries do not have to live in grief because assistive technology gave them back those things that were taken from them.

Probably one are of life that is most encouraging and where assistive technology has benefited the most people is how it has helped young people be able to continue their education because important functions they needed to continue their studies were restored to them. 

The Assistive Technology to Fit the Need

Those who work in the field of assistive technology understand that there are varying levels of sophistication that assistive technology offers that depend on the need of the patient and the financial resources that can be raised to help people with disabilities get functionality back.  For example, the ability to write in Braille using pens that technology has developed that can lay down raised lettering in Braille format is a low assistive technology application. 

Assistive technology has made it possible for teachers who are not trained in working with the blind to "read" Braille reports and tests written by their students. Braille interpretation technology is available that will translate the dots to letters and numbers that any teacher can understand.  This simple but effective assisted technology teaching aid makes the barrier between teacher and student disappear so that blind students can function in a normal classroom with sighted students without difficulty.

Medium level complexity assistive technology would integrate voice recording so that a student could "write" a term paper easily by recording it and then using that recording as a feed into transcription to a printed copy later on.  Voice recognition technology has come along so dramatically in the last decade that this is an excellent solution for a student who has a physical handicap that makes writing by hand or on the computer difficult or impossible otherwise. 

For visually handicapped students, higher levels of supplication in assistive technology are becoming available so that such individuals will be able to use digital research and read the outcome in Braille.  Computer displays are becoming available that can actually raise the surface of the screen in pin patterns that correspond to Braille characters.  The arrival and development of the newest cyberspace tools like the Ipad hold great promise in giving handicapped individuals the same advantages others have in using the internet.

Assistive technology is moving ahead by leaps and bounds to facilitate handicapped persons to be able to function in the context of the rest of society.  No longer will there have to be special classes that are presented to persons with handicaps which stigmatizes them and separates them from the rest of the community. 

By bringing persons with disabilities into the classrooms and workplaces with everyone else, the feeling that they are somehow "special" and therefore less than others around them will be erased.   This is very good for persons with disabilities who before the arrival of assistive technology missed out on much of what most of us take for granted.  

But it is also good news for non handicapped persons who miss out on benefiting from relationships with persons who have handicaps because of the artificial separation that their disabilities have imposed on society.  Assistive technology can "level the playing field" so nobody has to be excluded.  And when we see how wonderful assistive technology has benefited mankind in the case of a phenomenal genius like Steven Hawking, these technological breakthroughs will bring great things to everyone in society as well.

It has been observed that many times a former president of the United States does more good after he leaves office than during his term.  Bill Clinton has had more than his share of controversy during his public life.  But that principle applies to him because the work he has done with other former presidents to reach out and provide aid during huge global emergencies has been worthwhile.  And because Clinton has always been a forward thinking leader, he has championed the use of the internet and advanced communications tools to help the poor of the world and to speed aid to the needy during horrific emergencies.

Bill Clinton has been aptly named the first internet president.  It is no accident that the White House website was launched during his eight years in office.  Clinton also made it a priority by executive order to direct all federal agencies to become more internet enabled when interacting with the American people.  It was largely his influence that has opened up so much government information to the people via cyberspace and made interaction with federal agencies at least somewhat tolerable because much can be done online.

Where Clinton has shown his best skills have been in raising money for large international relief efforts through his foundation.  One aspect of his organizational efforts that has stood out is that online contributions have taken on a much larger percentage of the total amount solicited for disasters like the 2004 tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and right on down to modern crisis events like the earthquake in Haiti.

Through Clinton's leadership, some well established rescue organizations like the Red Cross have "discovered" much more effective ways to raise money for disaster relief using internet communications and other up to date digital systems like Twitter and text messaging.  The huge push to raise money to quickly help people in Haiti who were suffering after the earthquake was a textbook example of how to mobilize all aspects of the media and cyberspace to focus millions of people on a cause and to get help to them quickly.

This is Clinton stuff where he is at his best.  The most recent use of the ability to blend so many resources for generating relief aid has been mounted by the Millennium Foundation.  It is an effort that is being coordinated with the United Nations and given the name The MassiveGood Initiative.  This time the target of so much high level fund raising power will be on helping very poor nations fight deadly diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. 

MassiveGood has found more innovative ways to tap the power of technology to raise money to fight in these very worthy battles against human suffering.  The Millennium Foundation is working to build partnerships with the travel industries including rental car companies, hotels, travel agencies and online travel assistance websites like Travelocity and Orbiz. 

Through these partnerships, people using the internet to book travel will have a resource on each web page to click a box and dedicate a small donation to the MassiveGood initiative.  There will be a link there where interested web surfers can learn more about what they can do to help fight global poverty and disease.  Considering how successful online bookings of travel arrangements has become, this simple but effective internet strategy has a great deal of potential to raise funds to help others around the world.

This is the power that online commerce has made available to charities that otherwise could never have risen to the occasion when very serious global tragedies occurred.  But it took vision, an ability to mobilize a lot of high powered people, a heart for modern technology and a certain amount of star power to make it come together as well as it has so far.  Those qualities sound like a resume of what someone like Bill Clinton can do.  The fact that he has sunk his teeth so seriously into this kind of work and that he is using his status as "Mr. President" to help people sets a great example for leadership in all areas of politics, entertainment and business to follow.

Of course, just as the internet is being used for good as in the case of the MassiveGood imitative, there are plenty of people online who want to do bad things or use this surge of good will flowing through cyberspace for scams.  This can be a problem because online crooks are not above stealing the official logo of a program that is doing good things for people to steal money from well intentioned internet web surfers. 

There really is no way around the fact that such dangers are lurking online and most people who surf the internet are aware of how interent terrorists and thieves work.  By taking care to verify that you are only giving your money to a legitimate online charity that will use the monies to benefit people who are suffering around the world, causes like MassiveGood can continue to thrive and use cyberspace to mobilize armies of people to help those less fortunate especially in times of terrible crisis.

Despite any political leanings, when a national and international personality like Bill Clinton uses his skills and notoriety to help others, that is a good thing.  It has been helpful to these causes to see former political rivals like Clinton and both president Bush and the younger President Bush work together to use their popularity to help organize international relief efforts. 

If we could only use this kind of cooperation between political parties and the unifying force of good will that causes like MassiveGood inspire to motivate our politics in Washington, lots more would get done.  It is probably one of the most honorable aspects of national political life to see men who served their country as President working hard after their terms are over to do good things for people in need in this country and around the world.  And with the leadership of people like Bill Clinton to bring in the power of cyberspace to raise even more revenue for global relief efforts, we can have strong hopes of seeing these kinds of efforts become even more successful in the future.

It almost seems like the world of social networks exploded into full maturity in the last few years.  In fact, social networks have been around for some time.  Probably the one that began to really get a lot of media attention was MySpace. 

One reason for the tremendous popularity of MySpace was the feature that allowed you to build a large network of contacts.  Not only was this fun for individuals, it became tremendously useful to businesses and entrepreneurs to use for marketing purposes.  It was the world of MySpace that saw the music industry really begin to tap the power of social networks when new musical "stars" gained their early fame entirely through their MySpace networks.

But it was when Facebook burst on the scene that social networking really began to dominate a lot of discussions that had anything to do with the internet.  Today it almost seems inconceivable for anyone who is the least bit "plugged in" to not have their own Facebook account that they keep up with pretty much every day.  So when Twitter arrived with much fanfare and excitement, it seemed that we were watching the rapid evolution of social networking and that Twitter would steal the thunder from Facebook the way Facebook did to MySpace.

But the social networking world seems to have said, "Not so fast."  There is no question that Twitter has had some significant success.  It was only a few months ago when Iran was going through what seemed to be the beginnings of a revolution that Twitter became an important tool for those who were seeking freedom in that country to communicate with supporters around the world.  In fact, Iran finally had to shut down Twitter in the country because it was doing so much to further the unrest.

While that moment in history will always be associated with Twitter, it appears that in terms of long term success and growth, there may be trouble in Twitterland.  The Twitter social network has not toppled Facebook as the premier network out there by any stretch of the imagination.  While it is true that the Twitter network grew by leaps and bounds and it has gotten plenty of notoriety, the level of actual participation of Twitter members has been sluggish at best.

A recent study conducted by an e-mail and Web security company called Barracuda Networks Inc. has come up with some pretty striking findings.  One statistic that jumps out is that only about 21% of the people who have Twitter accounts use them on a regular basis.  That means that there are a lot of inactive accounts out there.  It also creates a false impression of success for Twitter.  The odds are the actual membership of Twitter may be almost as large as Facebook's.  But with such low participation, the traffic they can document is far lower than they would like.

Other statistics from the study are just as revealing including these numbers…

• Over a third of the users of Twitter have not sent out a "tweet" since they set up the account.
• 17% of Twitter citizens have no followers.  This is quite an accomplishment considering it is hard not to pick up at least automated marketing followers.
• Even more shocking is that 61% of Twitter citizens have less than five followers.
• 74% of people who have Twitter accounts have less than 10 followers.
• 51% of Twitter users follow less than 5 people

These are telling statistics and even more so because they have not changed or become more extreme over the last couple of studies.  It also runs against the image that Twitter is such a dominant internet presence and that it is taking up a lot of time for a lot of internet users.  Perhaps one reason that perception is so strong is because the media and Hollywood has embraced Twitter in a big way.

There are a number of big Hollywood celebrities who collect thousands and thousands of followers on Twitter.  So one of the most well known uses of Twitter is for fans to follow every action and movement of their favourite stars.  This is even more of a trend in young people as they seek to follow their favourite movie or musical celebrities.  In that way, Twitter is more of a marketing device than a social network.  When Miley Cyrus or one of the cast of Twilight Tweets a message every hour to hundreds of thousands of fans, that is the equivalent of a very active fan publication more so than a social network where there is interaction between the parties and interaction between members of a network.

If these statistics are not distressing enough to the Lords and Ladies of Twitterland, there are signs that even the young people are turning away from Twitter.  Some young celebrates have deleted their accounts and have made statements encouraging youth to abandon Twitter and even to get out of the social networking world entirely.  The influence of these celebrities will make a difference in that it is clear that many young people use Twitter almost exclusively to follow their favourite celebrities.

At this time, the decline in usage and interest by members of Twitterland do not seem to be having the same effect on Facebook.  While Facebook has its own problems, the way people can connect to each other seems to be stronger and able to keep people connected to the network and interacting with each other.  Twitter has worked hard to try to keep up by adding ways to display photos and to make their service resemble some of the post popular aspects of Facebook. 

Of course, to users, they have no reason to switch to Twitter when Facebook is satisfactory to them.   So, for the time being, Facebook continues to dominate the market with no signs of losing that hold on their vast population. 

This doesn’t mean the Twitter experiment will be a failure. Twitter has made a splash in the social networking world and one can easily foresee Twitter becoming absorbed into Facebook, into the new effort by Google to compete in the social networking world, Google Buzz or by some other upstart effort.  The people who have invested in Twitter will be rewarded.  And while Twitter may not survive for a long, long time in its current form, some of the catch words that we have come to associate it like "tweeting" will probably continue to be popular in internet culture for a long time to come.

There is something unique a peculiar about the place in the hierarchy of a business that an IT project manager occupies.  In many ways, both IT professionals and the business tier or management see project managers as the "guy behind the curtain" in the Wizard of Oz.  To upper management, IT management is able to take that mysterious and strange bunch of technical wizards and use their magic to cure all of the ills that the business suffers and make the organization wealthy beyond its wildest imagination.  To IT technical workers, management has the magic to turn their worlds into technical heaven and make the upper business management go away and quit bugging them.

For the most part, people who make it to the project management level deserve to be there.  You have to know IT well to succeed at the project management level.  If you don't have an in depth knowledge of the technology and what your technical team can deliver, you cannot represent them to management.  IT project managers also must be able to converse in business terms with the sponsors who make projects happen.  Without projects, IT cannot thrive to show off their technical wizardry.  And IT project managers must understand the project management methodology whether that is expressed in the formalized PMI model or in the old fashioned SDLC approach to the discipline.

But even if all of these wonderful qualities are well represented in a project manager, it is easy to trip up in performing this important business and IT function.  That is because very often there is a missing link in the requirements for a good project manager.  It is this missing link that is the biggest culprit in how often run away projects take off and chew up corporate and IT resources.  It is this missing link that causes projects to fail, money to be wasted and trust to break down between IT and corporate management.  This missing link is nothing more than good old common sense combined with what the cowardly lion was missing in that story of the Wizard of Oz - Courage.

Upper management in a business are very good at dreaming big dreams.  There is a mythology to managing a business at the top tier that somehow if they snap their fingers and throw enough money at it, just about anything can be made to happen by their technical gurus.  At the same time, the technical teams that thrive in corporate environments also foster a mythology that if enough money is thrown at them, there is no magic they cannot produce. 

Both of these fantasies are just that - mythology and it is up to project management to bring everybody down to earth so they know exactly what they can do and on what time frame and at what cost.  But if project managers do their jobs and only launch projects that have a strong potential of success, they will enjoy that high success rate that means a successful career.

Project managers are evaluated on one thing and that is their ability to deliver successful projects.  But that evaluation standard is itself flawed.  There should be another tier of evaluation and that is how often a project manager helps the business avoid making a disastrous mistake by using intelligent and well executed project evaluation before funds are allocated and valuable IT resources squandered on projects that are doomed from the start.

Any project manager who has been in the business for any length of time knows that the most important steps in the processes of project development are the needs analysis, the feasibility study and the requirements definition steps.  It is in these steps that flaws in the project definition should surface that can stop runaway projects from ever getting past the definition process.  But for those steps to save the company from disastrous mistakes, a project manager must be empowered to speak the truth about projects that have fatal flaws and then the courage to tell upper management the truth.

It is the inability to speak plainly to the most powerful people in the upper management tier that is the missing link in IT project management.  The idea that upper management can "mandate into existence" a solution that is doomed to failure that causes run away projects to be launched because middle management is afraid to lay it on the line that a project is a bad idea and that the risks are too high in launching a project that has little chance of success.

The culpability with the weakness in project management that keeps middle management from being able to "lay it on the line" with project sponsors is not entirely with the project management tier.  Upper management must also come to understand that sometimes the right answer to a project request is "no".  If a project manager returns after performing a well executed project evaluation phase and the verdict is the project is a bad idea, is not cost justified or is simply not technically feasible, that performs a value for the company that is just as valuable as completed projects.

Upper management needs to empower IT management to be honest about what can be done and what should be done.  A negative report on the potential of a project to perform to expectations or a negative potential of a project idea does not mean that IT management is lazy.  IT project managers live and breathe to produce successful projects for the company.  Project sponsors should embrace and reward a negative report just as much as they embrace a positive report or a successful project. 

Only when project managers can have the courage and are empowered to be that honest will they be able to do their jobs correctly.  But if the entire management team has that same courage to face the real world as it is, that will mean that projects that do go forward will be successful and use company resources wisely to make the organization more successful and more profitable.  Everybody wins when that happens.