Outsourcing News and Tips

In the beginning, Social Networks were perceived sceptically by most IT executives, as they always are cautious to invest in fashionable technologies, rather than the ones they can prove to make a difference to the bottom line. Several years ago Social Networks phenomena was taken quite controversial by CIOs, as they tried to understand the business benefits as well as the risks of Social Networks. It was common for IT executives to put blocks on staff accessing social network sites, as social networking was considered a distraction or fad that would soon move on.

However, the success of Social Networks in recruitment and retention processes, unique capabilities for Marketing in a buzz generation around new products and Triumph of Social Networks during US Presidential Campaign, where Peresident Obama has gained more than 5 million supporters in social networks has led to realising by IT leaders that social networking is an important factor in attracting and retaining the best talent as well as powerful tool for marketing.

This month, the Corporate IT Forum held a workshop session in which IT chiefs from more than 30 large businesses considered the benefits and risks of social networking. Without exception, all of the businesses were serious about understanding more about the technology. And not just about whether their peers were allowing access to such sites (or not) but rather why and how other businesses were actively adopting social networking tools.

Seems like IT chiefs now start to see the benefits of such networks and realize that large proportions of their younger members of staff consider messaging over Twitter and Facebook to be as natural as dial on the phone. The CIO’s of one company taking part in the Forum described how his company had developed their own version of microblogging site Twitter to communicate corporate information inside the company and to encourage staff to share their ideas.

Another example came from an HR director taking part in the workshop explained how his company had created a Facebook page to attract graduates. The mini-site allowed existing members of staff to talk to candidates and gave HR the chance to check out the online profile of candidates applying for a job. After they were hired, the new starters were able to help and support each other via an internal social networking site.

Those examples show that Social networking is becoming more essential for the business, but along with the benefits come risks CIO’s concerned about. One of them is Misusing of social networking sites – the newspaper headlines often talk about staff making unfortunate comments about customers on Facebook groups and when that happens, the CIO, HR and PR directors all get the call to sort it out. CEO’s realize that there is practically nothing they can do to control a member of staff networking in their own time on their own computer. And any rules and regulations are completely powerless there, while education and guidance are important.

Executives need to understand that Social Networks are here to stay and going to be more essential for the businesses during the recession, and then to understand what are the challenges and opportunities of social networks, and what should be done to ensure that risks are reduced and benefits are realized.

In my previous blogs I’ve written a lot about how Barack Obama’s Internet strategy and technology adherence have helped him to win the Presidential Election. And How technology-oriented he is . And analyze what he will do for technology industry.

So, it’s happened President Obama launch the bill, to be more precise $787bn economic stimulus plan, including the biggest $35bn US technology package for decades, with the goal to build 21st century high-tech infrastructure in the US.

President Obama earmarks billions for 3 main technology projects:

• Some $11bn has been ring-fenced for a smart electricity grid that would provide two-way information between electricity suppliers and consumers. Top suppliers IBM and Accenture have expertise in this area and already setting up a similar grid in Malta and Colorado.

• The largest handful of cash some $22bn – has been dedicated for modernising healthcare IT system, and developing an electronic care record system. Obama wants all patient records to be computerised within five years, as it’ll cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests.

• Another $2bn is earmarked for broadband deployment grants to achieve Obama’s vision that “a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world”.

Also, as part of $21bn (£14bn) for education, money will be spent on “new computers, new technology and new training for teachers so that students in Chicago and Boston can compete with kids in Beijing for the high-tech, high-wage jobs of the future,” according to the president.

So seems like President Obama is starting to paying back to technology industry in exchange for its help to him during Presidential Election.

According to Wikipedia “Telepresence” is a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at a location other than their true location.”

The challenge of current world economic conditions is set to drive uptake of video telepresence in the next three years, with the travel industry hit by the economic turmoil, analysts predict that high-definition based video meeting solutions will replace 2.1 million airline seats annually, costing the travel and hospitality industry $3.5 billion per year.

Industry insiders agree that in today’s tight economic environment, telepresence provides a viable alternative to travel and an effective means of facilitating communication among companies and customers. The challenge of the global conditions demands that every organization revisit the need for face-to-face meetings,” said Gartner’s analyst Steve Prentice. “Telepresence is not the answer in every circumstance and there will always be strong cultural and other reasons for face to face encounters, particularly in Asia. But not every meeting needs to be face to face and there is no doubt that telepresence and other approaches to virtual collaboration such as Immersive Workspace, will provide a real alternative for many businesses.

The traditional category of video conferencing has widened to include newer technologies such as telepresence which enables a life-like meeting experience – participants feel they are actually sitting at the same table and communicating face-to-face. Top players are already competing at this rapidly growing market among them Cisco, Polycom and Tandberg. Realizing that businesses have different needs which depend on budget, space requirements they continue to develop new immersive solutions for life-like experience, as well as xecutive desktop systems and cost-effective PC-based solutions along with VoIP solutions at affordable price. There are also other vendors operating on specific segments of the market: HP, LifeSize, Sony, Teliris and others.

Vendors of these solutions also highlighting the cost-cutting aspect and benefits to the environment, emphasizing that video conference, as an alternative to travel, can help companies significantly lower the costs and carbon emissions associated with travel. Many companies throughout the United States, Europe and Asia have begun their own initiatives, actively using video conferencing to reduce travel costs and help our planet.

Take into account an international nature of outsourcing business, opportunities provided by video and telepresence industry can be successfully employed by outsourcing providers to significantly reduce the costs and improve the quality of their services.

In my previous blog I’ve written a lot about how Barack Obama’s Internet strategy and technology adherence have helped him to win the Presidential Election. I also analyzed how skillfully he used social media in his campaign. In this entry I would like to attract your attention on recent extensive presentation about Obama’s overall Internet strategy made by one of the most popular technology blog “ReadWriteWeb”.

This presentation was done by Igor Beuker of viralblog.com, with research by Paul van Veenendaal – who apparently used over 250 different sources to create this impressive slideshow.

The presentation lists the following ways that Obama was “everywhere” in social media during his campaign:

Obama has gained 5 million supporters in third party social networks.
Obama maintained a profile in more than 15 online communities, including BlackPlanet, a MySpace for African Americans, and Eons, a Facebook for baby boomers.
On Facebook, where about 3.2 million (during the campaign) signed up as his supporters, a group called Students for Barack Obama was created in July 2007.
It was so effective at energizing college-age voters that senior aides made it an official part of the campaign the following spring.
And Facebook users did vote: On Facebook’s Election 2008 page, which listed an 800 number to call for voting problems, more than 5.4 million users clicked on an “I Voted” button to let their Facebook friends know that they made it to the polls.
Also check out these statistics from Obama’s main website / social network, My.BarackObama.com:

On MyBarackObama.com, Obama’s own social network, 2 million profiles were created
In addition, 200,000 offline events were planned
About 400,000 blog posts were written
And more than 35,000 volunteer groups were created – at least 1,000 of them on Feb. 10, 2007, the day Obama announced his candidacy

Here is the link to the presentation:
http://www.slideshare.net/socialmedia8/case-study-the-barack-obama-strategy