The outcome was headlined as follows: Hackers shame Oracle, Apple, Delta and more as part of the DefCon corporate hacking contest

Hackers taking part in the competition on Friday and Saturday found it ridiculously easy in some cases to trick employees at some of the largest U.S. companies to reveal information that can be used in planning cyber attacks against them.

The contestants also managed to get employees to use their corporate computers to browse websites the hackers suggested. Had these been criminal hackers, the websites could have loaded malicious software onto the PCs.

Defcon is organized by benevolent hackers, partly to promote research on security vulnerabilities in order to pressure companies to fix them. The contest was sponsored by so-called white-hat hackers to show companies how weak their security is and encourage them to better educate their employees about the risks of hacking.  It was the second year that Defcon has held a contest in "social engineering," or the practice where hackers con people into handing over information or taking actions such as downloading malicious software.

Social engineering is frequently used in attacks where the hackers send a "spear phishing" e-mail in which they impersonate a friend of the recipient and ask him or her to open a tainted file or visit a malicious website.  Security experts say spear phishing have led to many hacks over the past year, including ones on U.S. defense contractors, the IMF, EMC Corp’s RSA Security division and government agencies around the world.

This is not a new topic but does not receive the attention it should.  One of the earliest examples on the record dates back to 1999 when Moore Publishing was the corporate hacking target for the prestigious law firm of Steptoe and Johnson.

Moore Publishing charged that, among other things, Steptoe employees cracked into Dig Dirt and other Moore Publishing sites some 750 times, posted defamatory messages about Moore on Usenet, and tried to cover it all up by doing their evil deeds under an e-identity swiped from an Alexandria, Virginia, furniture store owner.  Dig Dirt was a site that fronted an enormous database of personal data gleaned from public records. Dig Dirt then sold the data to private investigators, lawyers, and law enforcement agencies.

Corporate hacking does not affect only corporations and indeed we are all now aware of documents and information that governments might not wish to reveal through the actions of WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. It provides an innovative, secure and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to journalists. It publishes material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of their sources anonymous, thus providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices.

WikiLeaks relies on its supporters in order to stay strong. Since 2007, when the organisation was officially launched, WikiLeaks has worked to report on and publish important information. It also develops and adapts technologies to support these activities.

If you need any further reminder of the major impact such corporate hacking can have, then just read a short history of corporate hacking as published by the Guardian in 2009.  This shows some major intrusions into private data banks.

The scale of hacking activity from China and Russia has started to emerge through a series of frantic announcements. Rumours of the activities of Russian hackers and their involvement with organised crime had circulated since 2000 but it was not until 2003 that the Chinese emerged as big players.

Protracted attacks targeted networks at Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal and NASA, and came to light in 2005. At around the same time the Russian Business Network, a cybercrime organisation that specialises in identity theft, denial of service, computer extortion and child pornography, emerged. The RBN established itself as prepared to do anything for a price.

Undoubtedly the scale of corporate hacking has continued to grow ceaselessly since then using ever more sophisticated technologies.

Post from: BPWrap

Corporate Hacking

Technorati Tags: business, corporate, hacking, wikileaks

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Google could be an organization that is ruled by the functioning of the Intelligence Trap, as Edward de Bono defined it.  In other words people so highly intelligent that they too quickly accept their first hypothesis on how things function.  They move to defend their first hypothesis rather than continuing to probe on why other hypotheses might fit the circumstances better.

Luckily in early 2009, statisticians inside the Googleplex here embarked on a plan code-named Project Oxygen.  Their mission was to devise something far more important to the future of Google Inc. than its next search algorithm or app. They wanted to build better bosses.

Perhaps only a data-mining giant like Google would have followed this approach.  They began analyzing performance reviews, feedback surveys and nominations for top-manager awards. They correlated phrases, words, praise and complaints.

Later that year they produced the following list of directives in order of importance – as well as a few managements pitfalls it found.

Eight Good Behaviors

1. Be a good coach
2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage
3. Express interest in team members’ success and personal well-being.
4. Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented
5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team
6. Help your employees with career development
7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team
8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team

Three Pitfalls of Managers

1. Have trouble making a transition to the team
2. Lack a consistent approach to performance management and career development
3. Spend too little time managing and communicating

What is important in that list of Good Behaviors is the order.  It runs quite counter to how Google behaved in much of its 13-year history to that point.  Particularly in the early years, Google had a pretty simple approach to management: Leave people alone. Let the engineers do their stuff. If they become stuck, they’ll ask their bosses, whose deep technical expertise propelled them into management in the first place.

In that list, technical expertise — the ability, say, to write computer code in your sleep — ranked dead last among Google’s big eight. What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.

“In the Google context, we’d always believed that to be a manager, particularly on the engineering side, you need to be as deep or deeper a technical expert than the people who work for you.” Laszlo Bock, Google’s vice president for “people operations,” says. “It turns out that that’s absolutely the least important thing. It’s important, but pales in comparison. Much more important is just making that connection and being accessible.”

What is not mentioned in this article but is equally important is that this ensures more people who are ‘close to the coal face’ as Shell describe it are having their voices heard.  The more customer inputs are heard within the organization, the more likely it is that the organization will be delivering what customers really want.

For a similar perspective just remember what Commander D. Michael Abrashoff was saying some 10 years earlier on Grassroots Leadership.

He commanded the USS Benfold, a $1 billion warship, which was in 1999 one of the U.S. Navy’s most modern, most lethal fighting machines.  This is how he described his management approach.

“In most organizations today, ideas still come from the top. Soon after arriving at this command, I realized that the young folks on this ship are smart and talented. And I realized that my job was to listen aggressively — to pick up all of the ideas that they had for improving how we operate. The most important thing that a captain can do is to see the ship from the eyes of the crew.”

It’s taken Google another ten years to prove this same approach by extensive analysis but at least they’ve got there in the end.  Of course knowing these preferred behaviors for managers is only a small part of the challenge.

Much bigger is to get the cultural change within the organization so that these behaviors become the way of life for managers.  It takes real talent in managers to have faith that your team will deliver better results if you give them the responsibilities.  Undoubtedly some hired for other skills will not be able to make that cultural change.

Post from: BPWrap

Google Rules on People Management

Technorati Tags: Googleplex, Grassroots Leadership, New York Times, USS Benfold

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Outside.In for example is a new way of looking at what is going on around you using what has been called a hyper local news aggregator.  It aims to tell you: What’s happening. Where you are. Right now.  It is a much more evocative name than its major competitor EveryBlock from MSNBC.   EveryBlock is one of scores of competing services including Nozzl, Outside.in, Fwix and more that serve up public records, social media content and local announcements on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood, or in this case block-by-block, basis.

There are even more mind-blowing examples of that Outside In duo.  There is even a movie, Outside In, made by IMAX, which will show on massive screens and concert-level surround systems with a synchronized light show to audiences in planetariums, museums, galleries and limited IMAX release.

Using hundreds of thousands of still images manipulated to create full motion, «Outside In» takes the audience from the big bang to our present day. With visual and audio mashups & photo-motion collages, the camera journeys into the zeitgeist of our age of mass media but music carries us to Saturn. There, we soar around, into and through the incredible photographs of Saturn taken by Cassini using an «2.75D» photographic fly-through technique created using Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.

That stunning example of Outside In should not blind us to more interesting examples of these contrasting words.  The Outside In social service agency is dedicated to serving low-income adults and homeless youth. It began in 1968, and has continually revised services to meet changing client needs. Current programs include a community health clinic, a homeless youth program designed to help homeless youth obtain independent living, and risk education.  It has had outstanding success helping Portland, Oregon’s homeless youth transition off the streets and into stable lives.  80% of youth who go through their transitional housing program never return to the streets.

The final example of the Outside In contrast could well the one of the most powerful.  Many companies have bought into the notion that they should be more customer centric.  They interpret that as trying to focus on the customer and provide what customers need.  However this often results only in lip-service to the concept.  Indeed they often assume that they know best what customers should have and then strive hard to deliver that.

Cartoon originally appeared on CustomersAreAlways

HBS professor Ranjay Gulati, suggests a better way is to adopt an Outside-In Approach to Customer Service.  This is an excellent way of describing what is involved in becoming a more customer-centric selling organization.  The alternative is to remain a product driven company that nevertheless tries to make sure it produces high quality products.

The term Outside In makes a clear distinction that we are talking about what the customers on the outside see in the products and services the company delivers. Professor Gulati, an expert on leadership, strategy, and organizational issues in firms, believes that companies must evolve through a series of major transitions on the way to becoming more customer-centric. He covers this in his book, Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business. Key.  There are many examples of where this process has brought success such as Best Buy, Cisco, Target, Starbucks, and Jones Lang LaSalle.

In a way it all goes back to that quotation from Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, on customer service:

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

That customer is on the outside looking in.  It is important that she or he is enthused by what they see.

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Outside-In For A Different Perspective

Technorati Tags: customerservice, EveryBlock, Outside.in, Sam Walton, Wal-Mart

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Although you might assume we are about to discuss that new Ford Focus automobile, that is the resultant of what we really want to talk about.

The word focus is what Peter Drucker felt so strongly about that he emphasized it three times: focus, focus, focus. Although it is clearly essential advice for small and mid-sized companies, it is equally applicable in mega corporations too.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, that is what Ford’s Renaissance Man is now pushing.

Alan Mulally, an engineer from Boeing, arrived three-and-a-half years ago when Ford seemed on death’s door. It suffered a $12.6 billion loss in 2006, when industry-wide car sales were strong. But in 2009, Ford became the only U.S. car company to avoid bankruptcy, and posted a $2.7 billion profit. After plunging below $2 a share a year ago the company’s stock is now bumping $12.

“Improve Focus, Simplify Operations,” is for Mr. Mulally a sacred mantra. Soon after his arrival Ford began shedding brands – Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin among them – that the company couldn’t afford to support. Volvo will be next to go. Meanwhile, the core Ford brand got an investment infusion to replace aging cars and revive a model lineup that had been heavily tilted toward gas-guzzling trucks.

In the process, Ford cut its number of global platforms, or chassis, to eight from more than 20, and the number of nameplates to 25 from 97. Each platform and model involves hundreds of millions of dollars of engineering costs, which translated to billions of losses when Ford couldn’t sell enough of each model.

Product-development chief Derrick Kuzak is methodically implementing the “One Ford” strategy of developing cars in a single region (say Europe, or North America) and selling them globally, instead of developing slightly different cars in each region at enormous extra cost. The first of these, the subcompact Fiesta, was engineered in Europe and will arrive in the United States this summer. In 2011, we will see a new version of a slightly larger car, the compact Focus, also engineered in Europe and designed as a global car from the start.

It’s all another triumph for that KISS principle. As Albert Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

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Ford Focus

Technorati Tags: Alan Mulally, Ford Focus, Ford Motor Company, Wall Street Journal

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Most posts on this blog derive from incidents and events that come up on my radar screen. I was delighted to see that one of my online friends, Rand Fishkin, was Bringing SEO to Small Business in Scotland.

I spent a day with small business owners in Glasgow, Scotland teaching the basics of online marketing and SEO. It was a remarkable experience to be faced with such a different crowd than what I’m used to. As a comparison, the week prior, I’d been in Mountain View presenting to the Silicon Valley Search Engine Roundtable, comprised of heads of SEO and marketing directors from Fortune 500 companies – all very savvy operators.

This was all in support of a program, Online Xcellence, sponsored by the Scottish government and organized by Brian Mathers, a real enthusiast in the search marketing world.

Two things came to mind as I read this post. The first was that this is another example of the generosity that Rand Fishkin so often displays. This not surprisingly permeates the culture in the company he founded, SEOmoz. It is part of what they call the TAGFEE Tenets. The acronym stands for:

• Transparent and Authentic
• Generous
• Fun
• Empathetic
• Exceptional

Recently SEOmoz has taken a new direction and a new focus: The End of Consulting: A New Partnership & Our Focus on Software

Today I have two very big announcements. First, SEOmoz is exiting the consulting business to focus exclusively on our software model. And, second, we have an expanded partnership with Distilled (new US site: Distilled LLC), who’ll be taking over many of our consulting clients and opening offices here in Seattle. I’m going to … add detail on why we’re so bullish about the SEO software market.

I will have more to say on this change in a future post. What I wished to comment on in this post was the indication that Scottish entrepreneurs think online search engine marketing is central to future success.

Indeed it is. However there is a topic that is even more essential and must be discussed prior to this. It is the whole question of strategy. It can be called a marketing strategy since unless a company works well in its market place, it will not survive. I find that many companies slide by this question and do not answer the tough questions that deciding on strategy should pose. As Michael Porter, the strategy guru, said, strategy is about what you must say no to. It’s all about focus, focus, focus.

All this is by way of introduction to the E-Book, Marketing Right Now. This is now available as a free download. (This is a 1 Mb PDF file so please be patient.) Although it is intended for entrepreneurs and SOHOs (small office, home office), there are many big companies that could benefit from the rules set out in this slim book.

Some readers will find this book challenging. It has some very simple rules which most would accept as important and yet they do not apply them. Growing a business should take you out of your comfort zone. Unless you do that, you are not likely to succeed. This book’s chapter headings can give you a checklist of the key steps you must take to have a chance of being successful. Why not download it now and see what you should be doing differently.

Post from: BPWrap

Marketing First

Technorati Tags: Glasgow, Michael Porter, Scotland, SEOMoz, Small Business

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It now has been updated and brought together in one place in an e-book (PDF file).  Here are more details on the Marketing Right Now e-book.  The aim is to help entrepreneurs and SOHO (small office, home office) workers start their business in the right way and then grow it successfully.  It covers all aspects of this in a concise 55 pages.

It is intended as a work book, which is the reason for presenting this as an e-book.  It discusses throughout what are the success keys of business and in an Annex presents these keys to success in a single page work sheet.  It does suggest ways of doing extra reading, but the action-oriented entrepreneur will find the essential first steps are covered so that the action plan can start quickly.

Three Key Factors

Why is this book different from all the others that appear so frequently?  The major difference is that this is geared for rapid action rather than slow and leisurely planning.

There are also three important principles that influence how actions should be taken:

• Internet mindset
  The Internet creates greater openness and changes the balance of power between buyers and sellers
• Customer-centric
  Unless you see things the way the customer does, you may be surprised when they are cool about what you thought might be good for them.
• Time Is Job One 
  Time is valued by customers much more than companies acknowledge.  Offering attractive time-related services to your customers will give a competitive advantage.

Why Pay For An E-book

One reaction to an e-book may be to question why it is not free.  There are so many things written on the Internet that are free.  Why would someone not explore those? 

Well of course they can but their own time must be factored into the equation.  It is the principle that Chris Anderson discusses in his book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price.  In this case you can see a good part of the information in the blog posts mentioned earlier and very little has changed since then.  However if your time is valuable, then you may feel it is an equitable arrangement to pay the author a modest contribution so that you have the content in a more usable format that will save your time.

The advantage of an e-book is that you know exactly what you are paying for.  Many sources of marketing information are put behind walls and you must pay a monthly entry fee to have access. One cannot be sure exactly what is the ROI for such more hefty investments, but usually there are a few glowing customer references to encourage you to enter the door. 

If you want to get a better appreciation of such ‘closed gardens’, Chris Garrett wrote a description of how he Built His Authority Blogger Member Site.  As he says there  is a good deal of interest in Teaching Sells and membership sites in general, so he wanted to set out how you can easily create your own membership site using WordPress.

Membership sites are certainly one possibility if you think you will have the time and dedication (and money) to follow all that they have to offer and then take the necessary actions.  If you are not sure about what is in that ‘brown paper bag’, then a more appropriate way to go may be a modestly priced e-book that covers all you need.

Post from: BPWrap

Marketing Right Now e-book

Technorati Tags: Authority Blogger, Chris Anderson, Chris Garrett, Marketing, Small office/home office, Teaching Sells

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Microsoft Corp. has finally roped Yahoo Inc. into an Internet search partnership, capping a convoluted pursuit that dragged on for years and finally setting the stage for them to make a joint assault against the dominance of Google Inc.

The 10-year deal announced Wednesday gives Microsoft access to the Internet’s second-largest search engine audience, adding a potentially potent weapon to the software maker’s Internet arsenal as it tries to better confront Google, which is by far the leader in online search and advertising. Microsoft didn’t have to give Yahoo an upfront payment to make it happen, as many Yahoo investors had hoped.

It will take up to 2 years to get put in place, so don’t expect sudden changes. It’s the kind of headline to yawn about.

There’s another headline that really should be getting all the attention: Google Pulls Apple from Search Results. Since it is the kind of headline that cool thought may attempt to bury, here is the start of the story:

Perhaps the final paragraph of the story, although humorous, may correctly indicate the seriousness of this item:

Some industry analysts think the retaliatory moves could result in all-out war like back in 1939, when a Polish sausage company stopped using pork from Germany. In response Germany invaded. “We don’t want another situation like that,” said Bank of America’s George Pendry.

It all confirms that the company which has set as its high ideal to catalogue all knowledge while doing no evil is driven by the advertising bottom line. Relevancy of results takes second place to that.

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Google, Apple In Conflict While Microsoft, Yahoo Agree

Technorati Tags: Apple, bing, Microsoft, search engine, Yahoo

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The dollar hit its lowest level in more than four months against a basket of major currencies on Wednesday, continuing its slide as investors stuck to the view that the worst of the global financial crisis had passed. That reduced safe-haven demand for the dollar and bolstered assets perceived to have higher risk, such as emerging market currencies, including commodity-based units such as the Australian and New Zealand dollars.

This view that the Fundamentals Are Returning to Currency Trading was a widely held view:

Not only did the currencies rally versus the dollar yesterday, but gold and silver took part in the proceedings too! It’s been a long time since we’ve seen this happen. For the most part, whenever the currencies (minus yen) rallied, gold would back off, and vice versa… Not yesterday! For the first time in a long time, the negativity toward the dollar was front and center.

A return to more normal currency markets does not reduce the risk involved in currency trading. Trading foreign currencies on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. Before investing in forex currency trading you should carefully consider your investment objectives, your level of experience, and your appetite for risk. You should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. You should seek advice from an independent financial advisor if you are in two minds about this.

If you do want to get involved in currency trading, then you may well wish to use forex trading software, which can provide all the background knowledge you wish to have and analysis of your trading actions.

With the right forex charts, you can better analyse trading patterns and spot trends and deviations. This ongoing analysis of what is happening in the foreign exchange currency markets is essential if you are to manage the risk that is involved in currency trading.

Post from: BPWrap

Forex Currency Trading Returns To Fundamentals

Technorati Tags: currency, foreign, forex, trading

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Have you ever wondered when and why people felt the need to create logos to stand out from others? The history of logo designing dates back more than 2,000 years when the Ancient Greeks used to have ciphers on their coins. They carved in different designs on different coins just to give them an identity and recognition. This practice proved to be very effective in distinguishing between coins from different regions. The importance of logo designing became even stronger in the pre-industrial era, when many people began to get involved in barter trade. At that time, everything that was sold or bought carried a signature stamp that differentiated one trader from another.

The next evolution was that people expanded their trading activities and set up companies for their trading. Just as traders felt the need to identify themselves, companies also wished to have instant recognition.

Logos have stood the test of time and if anything, there is now an even stronger need for logo designing. IBM is a great case study to see how one company has adopted this idea of creating an identity and instant recognition for itself and how much this logo has been modified over time.

The IBM Story

IBM is perhaps the most recognized name in the field of IT products and services. But, people may not realize that it was not IBM when it started its operations in 1888. Its name then was the International Time Recording Company (ITR), whose major products were mechanical time recorders, invented and patented by William L. Bundy. This is ITR’s initial logo with its initial letters, ITR, inscribed on it.

In 1891, ITR decided to make changes in its logo again and came up with this. The changes they made were quite complex and the logo was not easy to understand at a glance. Nevertheless this logo lasted for 20 years till they made a merger with another company.

Later in 1911, ITR was merged with the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company and as a result the company had to modify the logo. Clearly companies must alter their logos to reflect the changes they are undergoing and the evolving IBM is a really good example. When one company merges with another company, they need to create a new identity to signal the change to the rest of the world.

However, in 1924, the company wished to signal an expanded business role. The ornate, rococo letters that formed the ‘CTR’ logo were replaced by the words ‘International Business Machines’ which were written in more contemporary sans-serif type font. The design of it was arranged to have the look of a globe, which confirmed the company’s intention to be ‘International’.

Over 20 years later in 1947, International Business Machines (IBM) decided to eliminate the globe from its logo. Besides this, they also had a major change in their business; they expanded from the punched-card tabulating business to the new world of computers. The typeface of this logo was called Beton Bold. The logo was cut short to IBM alone.

After 9 years, in 1956, Thomas J. Watson appointed Tom Watson Jr. as the CEO. As soon as he took over, he decided to change the logo of the company. He hired Paul Rand,  who was a famous logo designer. He asked Paul to make subtle changes to the current logo and make it more solid, grounded and balanced. He wanted a logo, which would be an evolution of their logo and not a design which would look entirely different.

So, IBM retained the basic design of their logo and made a subtle change of filling black color in place of white in the letters to give it a solid look. Later Paul Rand decided to design another logo with horizontal stripes on it which depicted ‘Speed and Dynamism’. He also changed the color as well.

After that the logo has remained basically the same, with just a color change. It was blue previously, and this is now changed to black. However, there have been no design alterations in the logo.

There are several lessons that can be drawn from the evolution of the IBM logo design. There are countless other companies who have also gone through major alterations in their logos. Any business owner must realize that your logo needs to be refreshed from time to time in line with changing business goals and objectives. Only in that way can the world have the best image of your company and what it offers.

The way logos evolve is a fascinating study. If you are struck by other examples of how particular company logos have evolved with time, why not add your thoughts in a comment.

Post from: BPWrap

Logo Designs – the IBM story

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That message is to be found in a Business Interview in The Hindu: Hard-edged diagnostic of business is critical in a downturn. The Four Laws in the book, ‘Breakthrough Imperative – How the Best Managers achieve outstanding results’, are fundamental.

• Costs and prices always decline.
• Competitive position determines options.
• Customers and profit pools don’t stand still.
• Simplicity gets results.

Mr Mark A. Gottfredson, a co-author of the book, and a Partner in Bain & Company, Inc., US, affirms that the Four Laws are timeless concepts that work in economic boom times and in times of downturns. A performance improvement diagnostic using the four laws will identify the key imperatives for surviving the downturn and for gaining advantage as the market turns back up.

The Four Laws in a way reflect a view on what is happening around and outside the company.  The Balanced Scorecard approach (bsc) suggests that the organization should consider its strategy with respect to four key dimensions, rather than only the Financial dimension.  These dimensions are:

• Financial
• Customer
• Learning and growth and
• Internal processes

A do­wn­t­ur­n­ bsc  forces a­ mo­re h­o­listic view­ o­f­ p­erf­o­rma­n­ce as o­rga­n­iz­a­tio­n­s develo­p­ a­n­d review­ their stra­tegic o­bj­ectives, rather than just adopting a shedding-assets and cutting costs approach.  Taking the right corrective actions in line with your recession scorecard  means that the organization will be in the best possible shape once the recession passes. 

Weaker competitors who do not adopt this downturn scorecard approach will either not survive or will have fallen back in their competitivity.  The Chinese curse says, ‘May you live in interesting times’.  Provided you take the right steps that curse can signal an opportunity.

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Business Performance Management During Crises And Recessions

Technorati Tags: balanced scorecard, bsc, four laws, recession

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