Archive for April, 2012
Somebody’s Watching Me
Posted by doates in New Internet, Public IM, Social Networking, Web 2.0 on April 29, 2012
The last couple of weeks have seen UK newspapers filled with stories over UK Government plans to expand its monitoring activities to include email and social media. The two extreme ends of the point of view being it’s either the only way to stop criminal activity or one step away from a draconian privacy invasion something a kin to 1984.
Neither extreme is accurate. Obviously the more seriously criminally minded will start to use other methods of communication that are more secure, if indeed they are not already. In a humorous look of the proposed legislation comedian and presenter of the BBC’s Friday Night comedy, Sandi Toksvig recently conjured up the image of two terrorists in balaclavas talking to each other on Skype saying “Yes, I promise you it really is me under here.” However, with the right controls, it can play a significant role in the fight against crime.
At the same time, most people don’t have time to read their own email, let alone anyone else’s. If Government was planning on checking content, which incidentally it says it is not, then it would have to be using keyword or lexicon search.
Type “bomb site:twitter.com” into Google and it is easy to see that just the profile names of tweeters alone would keep someone busy for a long time let alone the messages, so it’s clear that some intelligence would need to be applied to make searching content worthwhile. It also highlights the challenges of scale, something that defeated the Labour government in its attempt to introduce similar legislation in 2009.
Perhaps one of the key issues is that of trust. With stories of local councils using RIPA (Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act) to accuse citizens of flouting the school catchment rules, it’s no wonder many people are wary of giving any government power to see who they call or chat to over the internet. If the TV programme Spooks is to be believed, the security services already have the technology anyway and are using it to listen in to every mundane conversation, text stream and email conversation anyway so what’s the difference? This of course is a long way from reality. However, the monitoring of suspicious traffic is a logical and more importantly, justifiable part of the crime-fighters armoury and with the massive strides being made in keyword and lexicon search and identification technology, also relatively easy to implement.
It is not the ability to listen-in to me telling the world what I am having for dinner on Facebook that is the issue, but how much control is in place to ensure we know who can listen to what.
The bottom line is that the growth of social and electronic media use by the criminal fraternity is a serious threat to our national security and well-being. Last summer’s riots grew at the pace they did because of the use of technology such as Blackberry Messaging, SMS and Twitter and monitoring will allow for the police and security organisations to react quickly and effectively to protect our safety. Terrorist communications have been proven to often be in the form of cleverly coded electronic communications.
“Ah”, I hear you say, “but what about human rights?”. Well, I think we have a decision to make – either we take the view that logically, there will be far too much traffic to allow for any investigator to focus on anything other than posts, tweets and blogs that trigger alarm bells OR we do nothing and run the risk of the criminal element enjoying unparalleled freedom of communication. The real issue is one of checks and balances to ensure responsible application of regulations around monitoring.
For this reason the UK Government, and indeed the others that are bound to follow suit, must ensure that the legislation protects society, whilst also protecting the rights of the individual.
When we look at most industry regulation today, that means implementing the technology to enforce a policy, archive it and provide a full audit trail to ensure that actions are accountable and that only authorised personnel have access. This technology is available today and its use needs to be factored into any policy discussion by government
Although we will have to wait until the full plan is revealed to truly analyse the consequences, I think it is inevitable that this type of legislation will eventually come into force. We live in a world where real-time communications is the norm, it is unrealistic to expect those we look to protect us to do so without the tools to combat others that use them for nefarious activities.
How to use social media to find employment?
Posted by himanshukec in Social Networking, Web 2.0 on April 25, 2012
This weekend, I was invited by my uncle to his place. On a gorgeous Sunday morning, when I reached his place, I found him playing on his laptop. I checked out what he was doing and, not surprisingly, he had four tabs open in his Firefox browser – one each for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
On the breakfast table, we started talking about gaming, politics, religion, science, and eventually employment. My uncle took me back to the early 70s, the time when he was young and struggling to find a job. He explained to me how the world was unconnected at that time. Telegraph was the only ‘fast’ medium for communication at the time (we’re talking India here). Job-related information was rare. Only a few newspapers and a few highly educated people were up-to-date on information and with the slowly changing social scene.
After more talking, I wondered how the man who had lived through several decades and witnessed many changes, especially how the world started connecting and how the information became easily available, viewed the Internet after it turned a gigantic world into a 14” (or even smaller) color screen.
The curious man was highly fascinated by social media because it gave him a chance to further narrow down the world. He was well-versed in the use of Facebook to connect and share with the people in his life and to make new friends with similar interests. However, he also wanted to explore more: “how could social media be used for employment?”
I, being a social media researcher, then decided to explore this possibility of social media with the old fella (though young in mind due to his curiosity). We started talking about LinkedIn, the biggest professional networking site in the world. We found it to be an effective platform in building a community of similar skills and job interests. New graduates can connect to professionals, join groups, and have a fairly good chance to attract HR managers by uploading an attractive CV. But, why wait for someone to come and look for your CV? The “Jobs” feature of LinkedIn appeals to not only fresh graduates but also the experienced folks. The feature can be used not only to explore available opportunities in the market but also to provide a useful medium to post job openings. Should HR managers have any concerns, there is “Hiring Solutions’ in the same drop-down menu to ease their lives.
Looking for a specific job in your dream company? Search by the company name in the search box.
Go to the Careers page.
In looking at the options, you find one that matches your profile and then you decide to apply for the job. Is it really that simple??
If you’re in dire need of a job, go for “Job Seeker Premium” account service, which doubles your chances of getting interviews and places your resume at the top of the heap, displaying it first to HR staff. Now, it totally depends on your profile if you land an interview. That’s why the LinkedIn team keeps informing you about your profile completeness.
The addition of fields like “Profile Overview,” “Specialties,” “Work experience, ” etc., may draw more attention to you. A potentially effective way to get noticed is to have several recommendations. Want job alerts in your mail? LinkedIn does that, too, offering users flexibility to choose among the most relevant options. LinkedIn can narrow down the results for you, if you provide enough profile information that helps the site with lexicon/keyword matching, thus enhancing relevance.
“Sharing a job update” quickly notifies all your connections. The message spreads quickly among your connections, with individuals being able to directly connect to the original sender. If the user wants to publish the information, he can check the Twitter symbol nearby the “Share” button. You never know when the micro-blogging site may help you in landing a job. Indeed, the possibilities are endless.
Facebook, too, is ready to expand its professional scope. The “Subscriber” feature, just like Twitter, allows you to follow experts, celebrities, and the persons you want to hear from. A job seeker, thus, can connect with HR managers, and if there is any news of a job, he could be notified via the Facebook Homepage. In addition, HR can use the social media giant to post various job-related information to make it accessible to a broader audience. Keep in mind that people’s mindsets are different for Facebook and LinkedIn. When a person logs into his or her Facebook account, s/he is more interested in getting updates of her/his loved ones and chatting with them than searching for a career-related solution. The biggest challenge facing Facebook is changing this user mindset. “Professional Feature” is totally dedicated to providing career-related solutions. “BranchOut” sensed this and started providing Facebook users a medium to build their own career communities.
Here, users absolutely have an added advantage to include everyone they know on Facebook. They have a good chance of becoming a member of a larger community. But, the question is, “Can a mere Facebook application compete against a dedicated site?” The current answer is a big “NO”. Yes, the future is dynamic and unpredictable, but in analyzing current statistics, one can easily anticipate a big NO again. At the end of the day, all users benefit – both socially and professionally.
It was at this time when my uncle’s wife also joined us at the table. We thought it best to end the conversation and shift the focus to family matters. However, my uncle and I decided to explore the potential of social media over the coming weekend since there was still some unfinished “business.”
What to do with IM & UC management post-Quest?
Posted by SarahActiance in Enterprise IM, Public IM, Unified Communications on April 9, 2012
For those who already utilize tracking, monitoring and control solutions for IM and UC infrastructure, it can be a real blow when you find out that your solution isn’t keeping current, or doesn’t plan to in the future.
In this real-time world, ensuring that your solution maintains the security, management and compliance of these real-time solutions is key to ensuring the future of your business. So what happens when your selected solution doesn’t?
Take the announcement from Quest that Policy Authority for UC has come to end of life and end of support at the end of last year. The hard part for customers is going to be pulling the pieces back together. No doubt you’ve transitioned your entire organization onto a specific platform, now only to find that it’s not keeping up to date with industry changes, or your vendor plans to stop development.
What should you do in that situation?
First, you should identify the timing of the change. Do you have three months or 12 months? Understanding your timeline can help you prioritize your next steps.
The next step is identifying a new partner that you can work with. Here are a few things to look for:
- Customer churn: How many customers have recently left them to work with a different vendor? This can also be indicative of the type of support you may receive
- Product roadmap: Has it been a while since they’ve deployed a new version of their solution? Do they support capabilities like Group Chat? Are they compliant with Live Meeting? Do they support the new Microsoft Lync Server? What about IBM Sametime Advanced? Skype?
- Company’s primary focus: Is security merely a component of their product offerings? Or, is security, management and compliance for the new Internet their primary focus?
- Social media capabilities: Do they support the big three (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn)? What are the specific features for each they offer?
- Partners: Who do they work with to get their updates? Are they members of industry organizations? Do they partner with platforms so they are the most up to date with new product and feature rollouts?
Why not – if this affects you, join us on one of our webinars, and look at just how easy it is to move!
If there are any doubts in your mind or issues that arise, it’s important to take a closer look at your relationship with this partner and reconsider the engagement.
In this day and age, it’s too easy to miss one update and find your network compromised. It’s critical to partner with a company who will be dedicated to your organization’s safety and success in real time communications – and who makes it their entire business, so that you don’t have to.
