Cobweb

Hosted, Managed Applications is Green Computing?

One too many Software as a Service computing fits very well with the requirement to drive environmental improvements in any companies operations. We are already holders of ISO9001 and ISO27001 to ensure process and data security standards and now the business is now implementing ISO14000. This standard addresses the growing need for international environmental management standards and covers all aspects of environmental management systems including auditing, life cycle assessment and performance evaluation.

We serve many 1000s of small and medium companies messaging and data management requirements from our multi tenanted infrastructure. I believe a major part of ensuring that we reduce the negative environmental impact of IT is multi-tenancy. Our platform right now operates on about 1-100 ratio, which means for every server we have deployed we are replacing around 100 on- premise servers and it gets better, our servers optimally operate at around 60% utilization and around the clock due to our worldwide user base. In a smaller business environment, servers are often only utilized during core office hours but are drawing power all the time, so replacing those servers adds up to significant savings in Kw Hours.

We have become more and more interested in green computing over the last two years for a number of reasons and the adoption of the international quality and process standards requires us to take a hard look at all aspects of our operations. We started to realise that at the scale we are doing this we are replacing 1000s of on-premise servers and this has to be a good thing, environmentally, we also realized that power consumption is going to be a huge deal in today’s and tomorrows connected world.

We have also reviewed our own internal IT operations, and when we moved into bigger offices to combine our to two office locations at the end of last year we had a problem, the data room in the new space was not up to taking the 60 or so servers that are used to internal systems and test and development environment. We needed to find a better solution than spending a small fortune on upgrading the power and air conditioning in the new building.  We looked at the options and got very excited about the possibilities of emerging blade and vitalization technologies. This was the next logical step for us and knew that these technologies would be an important part of the production platform strategy in years to come and will deliver even better server-saving ratios and save us power cost as well as being far more flexible. The move to the vitalized environment went better that could be expected and we are down to 3 blades and a few physical servers, easier to manage and great for the polar bears!

We also have a strong social and environmental culture, and worked hard to ensure the new office is as green as possible, Mark, our Quality and Security Manager is leading the effort. We have a young workforce who are all keen to work for a socially responsible company, so getting buy in is not a problem for most, but for some turning off their PC every night means a change of working practices, but they will get used to it! There is lots we can do.

What about your organization, I know it’s hard in a small business, but what are your thoughts?

Do Human Resources add value?

As I am in the profession I am swayed to believe that HR adds huge value to organisations, however, this is not always the case.  Malcolm Howard, Chairman of Maris Interiors was recently cited in a CIPD debate to have stated;

“I don’t need someone with a HR title sat in a room working out policies and coming up with plans and appraisals. Most HR managers are useless and don’t understand business needs or people needs and rarely do they have any power or authority to change anything anyway. In running a business you have a responsibility to your staff – it’s as simple as that and I don’t need a HR person to tell me how to do that.”

Ironically, Malcolm Howard points resonate strongly with me, I believe that if the Managers do not manage their people it will have detrimental effect on the company.  Not all managers are in the position where they can carry out this role without help, and HR Managers, if good enough, will look to equip the Managers with the skills they require to be self sufficient.  In my opinion, HR will add the most value when they are able to influence the company strategy, implementing the requirements before the need and ensuring the business makes the most of the people now and in the future.

I believe that we are seeing a new evolution of the HR function and indications of the market show that this function has to add value through sound business acumen skills coupled with the traditional HR role.

What do you think?

Facebook & Social Networking sites

The latest craze at the moment are social networking sites like Facebook, which are growing at a fantastic rate. On the surface they seem like an excellent idea but the potential for data being stolen from your site is great also. People that use these sorts of sites seem very keen to put lots of information about themselves on the web without any thought of the consequences. Fraudsters are now targeting sites like this to gather and harvest information, with these details they are then able to steal peoples identities. If you are using sites such as these then a little more caution must be exercised.

Now I'm not saying that these sites shouldn't be used as they are great for keeping in touch with lots of people that you might not do normally. Having an account on a few different sites like this I can see first hand how easy it is to get information off of people and it doesn't take too much to be just a little more aware of what you put on there without spoiling any of the fun on the site. If the explosion in these sites continues then potential fraudsters will start targeting them much more aggressively than they are at the moment. Beware!

Mark

Websites... how often should they be updated or changed?

Websites today for me and most businesses is a key part of our marketing activities, in that much like a high street shop window to any passers-by, if you get their attention or interest i.e. in website context via relevant search terms within Google, or other major search engines then great, you've caught their attention and hopefully built on their existing need more than they originally thought and then they're likely to come in a browse further. If however they walk past that same shop window the following week/month and it's the same old stuff which they've already seen before, would you go in again?  I'm not so sure... there is nothing worse than having a website with "breaking news" that actually broke in 2005!!

Websites... how often should they be updated or changed?

There's no hard and fast rule, it's more about the quality of change rather than the quantity of change.  So many websites are updated regularly but with no true meaning, others are never updated?  Granted I like change and something new to look at on a website, but I also like security that websites continue to do what the company has set out to do and is inline with their values, building your knowledge and understanding in both the company and their products and services, but not loosing people's confidence in who you are and what you do.

If however, this can be achieved through updating your site, to represent a growing, changing company, as well as remaining true to internal and external business values then great, but is it the content that's required to change or the overall look and feel?

You only have 3-5 seconds to impress a potential new customer and encourage an existing customer to read on, if your website appears old, outdated or doesn't work properly, then chances are you have just lost a customer before they've even started to make contact with your business other than your website, and that's not a nice situation to be in.

Do you believe a website should continue to stay updated to show an active company and encourage repeat visitors? - I think so (But that's my opinion)

What's your view on website change?

Are you for or against it?  What new things interest you?

Internet Users Scammed...

Leading on from the last post that I did I thought I'd follow it up with some statistics from a recently published report. The government-backed Get Safe Online campaign discovered that one in six adult UK internet users believed that it was the banks' responsibility to protect personal information online. 48% said that they didn't believe it was their own responsibility to secure their personal data online. 13% thought it was up to their ISP to do so. This niaveity could cause them huge problems if that data is comprmised in some way.

Almost 2500 adults were surveyed by the BBC website earlier in the year and of these 12% were victims of Internet fraud within the past year with an average lost of £875. 18% OF those surveyed has responded to spam messages and a further 10% had clicked on a link in a spam email.

More worrying though is that 50% did not have anti-spyware protection and 13% of users did not have a firewall installed on their PC. If you leave your house then you don't go before checking the doors and windows are shut should be exactly the same sort of security that you should look to have before logging on to the internet. If you leave the 'windows' and 'doors' open on your machine then it's just a question of time before someone lets themself in.

How safe are you? click here to find out....

Mark

And another thing while I'm at it....

The increasing need for data security is becoming more and more apparent and it’s profile within the news shows that the level of concern that is within industry is increasing dramatically. The amounts of different areas that you use potentially confidential data are increasing. They could be web-sites, over the phone or on documentation you send off to companies.

Protecting your identity is something that people should take far more seriously than they do at the moment. A recent BBC article which can be found here states that “a horrifying number of companies, government departments and other public bodies are in breach of data protection rules in the past year. Such breaches can increase the likelihood of identity theft.” Simply disposing of data like old credit card statements, bank statements, utility bills and the like in to your bins without shedding them leaves you wide open for someone to come and take the rubbish at night without your knowledge and before you know it they will be ordering things under your name. (Or worse!)

If you don't look after your data effecively at home then you could find yourself with a real headache should that information get into the wrong hands.

Mark

Dan's Cycle Adventure

If you always do what you always did

If you always do what you always did, you'll always always get what you always got...

At the moment it's an interesting time at Cobweb, one day you'll be happily continuing on your way and then the next thing you know you're picked up, spun around and bang! You end up back on your feet, but this time hitting the ground running and perhaps in the opposite direction.  Sound familiar to you? Then congratulations you're in the right place and doing something right.

It's a strange topic of conversation but a positive one.  Some people are scared of change and if that's you then perhaps we're not quite right for each other... change, it's good for the state of mind (and companies) and the best thing about it is, it doesn't have to come from you, you just need to learn from it and move with it.

Here at Cobweb we are always changing but at the same time, we know exactly where we want to be and where we're going, it just takes time to get there.  We're certainly not there yet and I'm not sure we will ever be "there".  We have the mentality as a company to keep going and keep changing and that's what's so exciting and exactly what we're going to do.

Some people like to think of it as an emotional roller coaster, which I guess is perhaps the slightly negative ones - where the glass is half empty. I like to look at it as the glass being half full and although we all worry about it at times, we all know change is for the best and that's what makes things happen. At Cobweb we have the routines, processes, commitment and stability, but we also have the exciting changing times, which we aim to achieve for the good.

Someone once said to me, do something you enjoy for 30 minutes every day, first thing in the morning and that's your routine that will get you started. Then... do something differently everyday, during the day, as part of the change and things will work out just right in the end. So, this is where I'm going to start...

Email Compliance

Following a recent study released by Radicati that showed very strong growth prospects for the email compliance market for the next 4 years, it is worth considering the impact of the trend towards greater control over email communications. For small businesses I am sure the management of email is generally considered a lower priority than the constant day to day business challenges they face. Responsibility is often divulged to individuals to maintain good practice. Like Cobweb, many businesses will have policies in force, often buried in the company handbook and often do not give any guidance about which e-mails should be kept and for how long. But it cannot be presumed that employees realise the implications of deleting e-mails, or even which e-mails need to be retained, and this task should not be left in their hands. Total email management needs to be much more than a policy and, with the quantity and importance of emails in today’s busy business increasing all the time, automation has to be the key to a successful strategy. Incorporating spam and virus management, long term store, search and retrieve capabilities and if appropriate, content management, as well as robust written policies are all vital components to a comprehensive email compliance strategy and will ensure that when the worst happens you will be ready. Of course, the situation gets more serious if you are lucky enough to work in a regulated industry!

I am pleased to say that all of the technical components are already available in our business email solutions and many of our customers are already sleeping soundly knowing that they are doing all they can to minimise the business risk.  I would be interested to hear about the challenges in you business and how you have tried to address this tricky area.

Mark