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Customer Focus Is an All-Hands Exercise February 10, 2012 
Last week, after dropping off my Prius at the dealership for routine service -- as I've done regularly since I bought the car in 2007 -- I ambled over to the shuttle stop for a ride home. "Where you headed?" barked the driver, never raising his head from his newspaper. When I let him know where I was going, he immediately recognized me and his demeanor changed entirely.
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BPM + HR = A Lean, Mean On-Boarding Machine February 09, 2012 
Let's face it, even though it's 2012 and the recession technically ended in 2009, we're not out of the woods yet. If anything, this recession has made businesses of all sizes think critically about their processes and optimize their current resources to maximize efficiency. HR processes are no exception.
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Enterprise Web Apps: The Next Generation February 08, 2012 
When the bright folks at Zeebox, a killer social TV site, decided to build their website, they naturally turned to cloud services because they are a startup and had to use their money wisely. They also turned to the Scala language and open source community because they had very specific scalability and performance needs.
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Meeting the Productivity Challenge in a Consumerized IT World January 31, 2012 
Employees are growing more comfortable working from their own devices, particularly with the increasing adoption of portable technologies like the tablet computer. They are also accustomed to self-service delivery of applications in their personal lives, with almost instant access to apps and new services. IT managers need to learn how to get a handle on these devices rather than fight a losing battle with regulation.
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No Rest for the E-tailer January 28, 2012 
Your online store did record sales this past holiday and you are a happy person at the start of the year. After a few days of rejoicing, it is time to get back to the grind and look at how you can move forward and take your online store to even greater heights. There are a few fallouts of the holiday season that you will need to manage, and then there are some initiatives that you should plan.
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5 Ways to Sell Salespeople on CRM January 26, 2012 
The way the concept of CRM is defined during the sales process can sow the seeds of its ultimate failure. Because the decision makers are often sales managers rather than actual salespeople, the pitch is usually made that CRM makes it easier for the managers to manage their sales staff. Which is true. But what's in it for the sales staff?
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Big Data's Big Challenges for Content Management January 25, 2012 
As many know, content is getting bigger -- way bigger -- and this is scary to many technologists. At the same time, it's also getting smarter. Applications are growing more complex, challenging IT pros as never before. How will these changes impact content management technologies? It's difficult to predict exactly, but there are insights to be found and used to plan for the future.
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A Strategy for Post-Virtualization Security January 24, 2012 
Virtualization has been one of the most rapidly and widely adopted technologies in recent memory. It's huge, and it's here to stay. And as security professionals know, setting up a virtual environment securely isn't easy. Significant effort goes into tasks like evaluating off-premise service providers, ensuring regulatory compliance, and standing up technical controls like monitoring and encryption.
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When B2C and B2B Worlds Collide January 20, 2012 
Having spent more than 20 years in the tech industry, I've seen many trends (and related buzzwords) come and go. One trend that I continue to see each year is the "consumerization of IT." While it hasn't always been referred to by that label, consumer demand has manifest itself across a variety of sectors in the industry, from PCs and email to the cloud.
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Website Scaling, Part 2: The Metrics of Measuring January 18, 2012 
Measuring Web scalability is a critical component of website scaling. The way you do this in a testing environment is, of course, called "load testing." In this second series installment, I'll go over what Little's Law is and how it can be related to load testing, determining how to scale the Web and data layers. Finally, I'll share my tips for troubleshooting common scaling bottlenecks.
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Website Scaling, Part 1: What It Means and How to Get There January 17, 2012 
The stories of websites that fell over and died when they got unexpected traffic are legion. A recent example of what not to do would be Target's introduction of a low-priced Missoni collection. The site attracted so much traffic that Target.com was swamped for several hours on Sept. 13, 2011, leading would-be shoppers to face a cute but frustrating site-down page.
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Ensuring Software Quality Across a Global Supply Chain January 16, 2012 
Companies commonly rely on a myriad of software suppliers, from internal teams that share and re-use code to third-party commercial software suppliers and outsourcing development partners. Companies are increasingly being held accountable by their customers for the quality and security of the complete product. Yet third-party code typically isn't tested with the same level of rigor as internally developed code.
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The Nitty Gritty of the Virtualized Data Center January 11, 2012 
In 2012, we will see the rise of the data center fabric. Within the year, multiple Ethernet fabric technologies will mature into shipping products. This is very timely because server virtualization is now giving rise to a whole new set of data center challenges that traditional switching technologies were not equipped to address.
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Identity and Access Management: A New, Less Excruciating Approach January 10, 2012 
As essential as open systems and mobile applications are for doing business, they also put significant strain on an organization's security systems and, in particular, the key line of defense: identity and access management systems.
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Shifting the IT Mindset to Grasp the True Impact of the Cloud January 07, 2012 
A colleague of mine recently remarked in frustration that IT often finds itself in the worst possible position: taking the blame for a host of problems -- including increasing costs, growing capacity needs and poor responsiveness -- while being limited by a lack of real influence and control over the solutions.
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Effective Retail Mobilization: New Rules January 06, 2012 
Over the past year, we have seen many retailers making the switch to in-store mobility. Retailers such as Sears, Home Depot, Urban Outfitters and Nordstrom are not only equipping their staff with mobile devices -- they're handing them to customers as well, to help make shopping more efficient and convenient for all parties involved.
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