Core BTS will transition to new CEO based in Madison

Over the course of the next 60 days the role of CEO will be transitioned from Mr. Don Eckrod to Mr. Frank Albi. The transition occurs nearly nine months after Core BTS, Inc. acquired Madison-based Inacom, where Albi served as the president and chief operating officer. After the merger, Albi assumed the same role at Core.

Adding it up: The politics of job creation mathematics in Wisconsin

Inside Wisconsin/Tom Still: The debate over how to create more jobs in Wisconsin will be virtually non-stop during the 2010 election year, as candidates for governor, the Legislature and other statewide offices trade ideas - and a few jabs - about what works. An opening salvo was fired recently when Republican candidate for governor Scott Walker promised to create 250,000 jobs and 10,000 businesses by 2015, the end of the four-year term for whoever is elected Wisconsin's next chief executive.

Press releases and other news

• Measure would force White House, private sector to collaborate in cyber-crisis
  Source: Washington Post

Farmville: The best and worst of Facebook

Social Meteor/Troy Janisch: Social games like FarmVille are serious business. With more than 84 million active users and 30 million daily active users, FarmVille remains the top game on Facebook — and the top nuisance for nongamers. FarmVille allows Facebook members to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, trees, and raising livestock. Since its launch in June 2009, FarmVille has become the most popular game application on Facebook.

What's the best way to support startups, services or cash?

Why there aren't more services-oriented startup firms? Most of the time, when a startup goes after venture capital, they're still in the process of building a product and bringing it to market. They need things like servers, developers, marketing tools and sometimes office space. Do they need money per se? Or is capital an increasingly arbitrary and unnecessary step in building a tech startup?

Press releases and other news

• Google's biggest blunder
  Source: The Big Money
• HHS announces $162 million in 16 state HIE grants
  Source: Healthcare IT News
• Fending off digital decay, bit by bit
  Source: New York Times

Technology transfers involving non-profit organizations: Special tax considerations

Guest Column/Douglas Pessefall: Many large non-profit research institutions have offices that are devoted to the transfer, development and commercialization of intellectual property, such as patents and copyrights. In today’s heavily regulatory environment however, the activities of non-profit organizations (in particular, colleges and universities) are being closely scrutinized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other state and federal government agencies.

Down To business: Electronic healthcare won't be denied

What we're witnessing is "the single fastest transformation of an industry in the history of the United States." The commentator: Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts. The industry: healthcare, where system vendors like Tullman's are at the center of driving that digital transformation.

Saying you're global is easy, being global is hard

CIO Executive Edge/Mark McDonald: Large communications and technology service providers like to tout their ‘global’ reach, particularly when seeking to attract large global clients. However, when talking with global CIOs about their concerns a surprising number say that there supposed global suppliers and partners are not really global. “Sure they say they are global, but there is no way they are. They are really multi-national with a thin layer of account management.”

IT Career Advice: Questions for a technology career expert

Technology career expert and author Janice Weinberg, gives job-seeking advice for IT workers in 2010. Questions to Weinberg cover resume trends in 2010, job-seeking approaches for laid-off technology professionals and advice on becoming a contractor. Weinberg has written the books "Debugging Your Information Technology Career: A Compass to New and Rewarding Fields That Value Computer Knowledge" and "How to Win the Job You Really Want."

Press releases and other news

• Tearing down walls to meld IT and business
  Source: Fierce CIO
• From the bubble to the burst: A look back at 25 years of Dot-Com
  Source: eWeek.com

What's IT worth? Northwestern Mutual Life CIO knows

CIO Tim Schaefer thinks words do matter. He looked at the words IT used inside Northwestern Mutual Life, and felt they sent exactly the wrong message about IT's role in meeting business goals. So, over the last 18 months, these words are out: IT costs, internal customers, IT leaders, Alignment, IT systems, and "IT and the business." In are these: IT investments, external customers, business leaders, integration, service levels, IT assets, and "our business."

Business and IT file for divorce

Guest Column/Tom Groenfeldt: Mark McDonald, a group vice president at Gartner, gave an amusing and provocative presentation at Fusion, a CEO/CIO forum in Madison, Wisc. on Wednesday. Just the idea of bringing together CEOs and CIOs in one place for two days is interesting in itself, and the conference drew a bunch of big name sponsors to the Fluno conference center near the University of Wisconsin business school.

IT companies optimistic towards growth, hiring prospects

Robert Half released their latest survey of Chief Information Officers which found most where optimistic towards growth and hiring that gave insight into the IT environment. The IT Hiring Index indicated 9 per cent plan to add full-time information technology employees during the second quarter, the highest forecast since the second quarter of 2009.

NY set to replace IT consultants with state workers

New York State has embarked on a plan to shift a number of jobs filled by IT contractors and consultants to the state payroll as part of an effort to save millions of dollars. As many as 500 new state IT jobs may be created under a new in-sourcing program that was recently approved by the legislature and backed by Gov. David Patterson.

Press releases and other news

• Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls
  Source: Washington Post
• Instant ads set the pace on the web
  Source: New York Times

Business and IT file for divorce citing irreconcilable differences

CIO Executive Edge/Mark McDonald: The headline highlights an old and ongoing argument within IT that assumes that the business is perpetually disappointed by IT and that IT is consistently undervalued in the enterprise. While the argument is an old one, the basic assumption for more than 30 years as the business and IT needed each other and therefore they would find a way to make it work.

Google Maps adds biking routes for the intrepid cyclist

After a long wait and more than 50,000 signatures on an online petition, cyclists will be happy to know that Google has finally added bicycle routes to Google Maps. In Google Maps, users can now find "Bicycling" in the tool's "Get Directions" drop-down box. After choosing the option, bikers can input two addresses and find the bike route that will get them to their desired destination.

Press releases and other news

• Phishing scam targets UW e-mail accounts
  Source: Badger Herald
• How CEOs See Cloud Computing
  Source: Bob Evans for InformationWeek
• HSBC Employee Stole Data on 15,000 Swiss Accounts
  Source: The Epoch Times

Before Apple vs. HTC: Tech's five most sensational patent cases

Imagine a world in which Microsoft wasn't allowed to sell Windows or Word, no one could use a Blackberry, Intel's chips were taken off the market and every company that wanted to deploy Linux had to pay an exorbitant fee to an obscure software vendor.

Leading in times of transition

CIO Executive Edge/Mark McDonald: We are nearing the end of the first quarter of calendar 2010 and a few things are becoming apparent. 2010 is a year of transition as the global economy begins to recover, strategies turn to a focus on growth and new technologies work their way into the market place.

Press releases and other news

• Google opens app store for business software
  Source: New York Times