State Share and Open Discussion

How are you coping with budget cuts?

“Tech Council chairman: IT industry not in danger, but pay dropping”-Gazette.net

There is a “resource crunch we’re all facing today, whether that’s sequestration or whether that’s just the fact that IT budgets are getting rounded down,” said Jeff Eisensmith, chief information security officer at the Department of Homeland Security. “As IT budgets [decline], we’ll also see our security budgets falling as well.”

That means some agencies may be unable to afford robust software tools that can monitor critical networks for intrusions and mitigate intrusions when they occur.

-FederalTimes.com

Windows 8 / Tablets in the workplaceMore bad news for Microsoft and its new operating system, Windows 8.The president of Samsung's memory chip division, Jun Dong-soo, had a lot of negative comments about Microsoft in a meeting with reporters. The Korea Times transcribed his quotes.

First, he said the obvious: "The global PC industry is steadily shrinking despite the launch of Windows 8.”

Then he added this: "I think the Windows 8 system is no better than the previous Windows Vista platform.”

-BusinessInsider.com

Five reasons why Windows 8 has failed

Fewer than 10 per cent of enterprise users even considering Windows 8 migration

Mobile Computing and BYOD$429,000 per year for mobile computing security mishaps is a compelling numberSummary: If someone told you that each mobile computing mishap in your company would cost you almost a half million dollars, would you find that number compelling? Me too.

-ZDNet.com

Intel's Future Is Mobile, Not PC-SeekingAlpha.com

The Coming Second Wave of Mobile Computing: While most organizations are still struggling with just how to cope with giving mobile computing devices access to the corporate network, a second wave of mobile computing is already starting to gain momentum.

-blog.programmableweb.com

More innovation means less control. Is that bad?Innovation in mobile computing, search and social media increasingly means taking control away from users.

-ComputerWorld.com

Customer Relationship ManagementMagnetic: The latest innovation in cloud-based CRM and project management software

-BizCommunity.com

Fresh evidence of Microsoft's enterprise strength was on display at this week's Convergence Conference in New Orleans, where more than 11,000 gathered to hear about the latest on Dynamics CRM and Dynamics ERP. Dynamics CRM sales grew more than 30% in the most recent quarter (a 39th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth) and the product surpassed 39,000 customers and 3 million users (counting on-premises and cloud-based deployments), according to Microsoft.

-InformationWeek.com

Microsoft buys social listening tech for CRM system-Research-Live.com

Email Platforms / Segmentation and Delivery

Segmenting your database and sending targeted content can significantly improve results -- but it can also invite a host of new challenges. How can you start segmenting without overwhelming your team?

-MarketingSherpa.com

What has changed with the email service providers? They recently began incorporating a new algorithm that includes the original guidelines for identifying SPAM, and also incorporates engagement rates into the equation. Email engagement is defined as clicks, opens, unsubscribes and complaints. That means that human behaviors are now being taken into account when determining future deliverability. What’s even worse, email ISP’s are also generalizing behaviors across larger samples. If a few recipients do not open an email, then others are not interested either; if some users consider an email SPAM, it must be junk to others as well. Sure, the email ISP’s have the best intentions in mind, but there isn’t much good in it for companies and organizations using email as a communication channel.

-SearchEngineJournal.com

Securely exchanging information w/ school districts

What do your states do?

Ohio: https://transfer.ohea.org

IMS or other systems used to reconcile school district payroll files w/ member records

Neat Gadgets in Your States