What worries the big boss? A significant number of CEOs expect the world economy to get worse this year, and a shrinking minority anticipates revenue to grow at their own companies during that time, according to research from PwC. But CEOs can’t just hide under their desks. They’re revising strategies to take advantage of shifting opportunities, via mergers and acquisitions and other forms of restructuring, and are committed to improving the way they recruit talent. They’re also looking to reduce risk and increase their investment in green strategies. More than 1,250 CEOs took part in the research that supported most of these findings, with additional data taken from a recent PwC quarterly technology forecast. For more about the CEO survey, click here.

You know who we’re talking about -- that one coworker who just gets under your skin. Working alongside someone you can't stand can undermine your own effectiveness, but uncomfortable relationships are part of life. "There are always other people — be they relatives, fellow commuters, neighbors, or coworkers — who we are at risk of tangling with,” said Robert Sutton, a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University and author of Good Boss, Bad Boss and The No Asshole Rule, to the Harvard Business Review. See also Worst Bosses Ever Daniel Goleman, co-director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University, says you can manage these folks by focusing less on their actions and controlling your own behavior. Relaxation exercises, he told HBR, "enhance your ability to handle stress, which means the annoying person isn't that annoying anymore." For more on managing jerks, click here.

Routine expenses for office workers add up over time, often reaching into the thousands of dollars in a year and possibly into six figures over the course of a career. And that’s just for coffee and lunch. Accounting Principals crunched the numbers, and reports that younger workers are most prone to these extravagances. See also What People Gave Up for the Recession Good news: You can spend a lot less by packing a lunch and making your own coffee. And employers can help by providing better alternatives in-house to going out for food and caffeine. “Small — but consistent — expenses add up quickly, and it can be difficult for consumers to realize it because they're only spending a few dollars at a time,” says Jodi Chavez, senior vice president at Accounting Principals. “Small improvements around the office -- such as better food and drinks -- can make a big difference in workers' morale.” An estimated 1,000 American workers took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

CareerBuilder has released its annual survey on tardiness in the workplace and the reasons given for it, and, as usual, creativity reigns supreme. See also Worst Excuses for Missing Work CareerBuilder cautions that workers should take the topic seriously or risk the consequences, including a pink slip. “Punctuality – or lack thereof can impact how your commitment, reliability and performance are perceived by your employer,” says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of Human Resources at CareerBuilder. “So make sure you get to work on time. Get organized and plan ahead. Lay out whatever you’ll need for the workday the night before, plan to be at the office early, account for expected commute delays and eliminate distractions in your morning routine.” Or at least come up with better excuses than these. More than 7,000 U.S. workers and 3,000 employers took part in the research. See last year's list of weak excuses for tardiness.

We know your expense reports include only items necessary for business, but some people are downright shameless. Robert Half Management Resources turned up some incredible examples of reimbursement requests when surveying roughly 1,600 CFOs in the U.S. and Canada. "While these examples may seem incredible and in some cases humorous, they highlight a serious matter which can negatively impact a company's bottom line," says Paul McDonald, senior executive director of Robert Half Management Resources. "Employees who are unsure if an item can be expensed should not include it on a report and hope it gets approved. Companies can help the process by writing clear policies, making them easy to find and keeping workers informed of any changes." For a complete list of items, click here.

Super Bowl XLVI is nearly upon us, but there’s still time for a list of X lessons for business and IT derived from previous iterations of the big game. The event itself represents a major business success: More than 110 million Americans tuned in last year, and ads go for $3.5 million each. The game was once so low-key that it featured college marching bands at halftime; these days, you’ll get the likes of Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Prince, U2 and (this year) Madonna. The game itself, magnified by media exposure, has transformed players and coaches into legends. Some of their stories translate well to a business environment, whether you favor the New England Patriots or the New York Giants (or neither) on Sunday.

Managers and IT folks freaked out when workers started bringing their smartphones and tablets to work. Now? Not so much, according to a survey from Avanade. See also 10 Ways IT Deals With Consumer Technology. Users expect organizations to green-light and even support the use of personal devices, and many shops are happy to oblige. “Progressive CIOs and IT organizations have moved from gatekeepers of consumer technology to enablers of these innovative devices, applications and services,” says Tyson Hartman, Avanade’s global chief technology officer. “The consumerization of IT can transform the role of IT from a function focused on mitigating risk into a strategic enabler that leverages the breadth of today’s powerful consumer technologies to drive business results.” More than 600 global C-Suite level execs, IT decision makers and business-unit leaders took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Doing good while doing well is the new corporate mantra. Business leaders say profits alone are no longer enough, according to a survey from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and the Economist Intelligence Unit. Integrating community values and global causes into company activities, decisions, and identity matters to workers -- especially younger employees. See also Rich Technohippies and Their Utopian Fantasies. "CEOs' voices are being joined by an emerging generation of future business leaders who see personal responsibility, corporate responsibility, and societal responsibility as one continuous line," says Barry Salzberg, global CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. "There's a real appetite for new ideas, original insights and spirited debate.” An estimated 1,400 global executive leaders and Millennial workers took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

The more mobile devices that enter an enterprise, the worse its information security gets. A study by the security firm Check Point shows the rising risks imposed on companies by a flood of iPhones, iPads, and other smart devices. Part of the problem lies with the security of the devices themselves, part with their portable nature, and part with the habits and focus of users. Still, mobile usage seems likely to become even more pervasive in the years ahead, so companies need to get their acts together on the next wave of security procedures See also Android's Security Disaster.

Tech Envy has come to work. As more people use their own smartphones and tablets on the job, jealousy over cool devices is on the rise, according to a survey from Captivate Networks. The consumerization of IT is widespread but not evenly distributed, creating haves and have-nots where uniform, company-issued gear once reigned. Says Scott Marden, research director at Captivate Network, "Professionals want what they don't have, whether it's an upgrade to an existing device or the next new technology." The survey also looks at the pervasiveness of smartphones in our everyday lives. More than 580 professionals took part in the research. For more, click here.

Have career, will travel? You might need to relocate for the right job, and a survey from CareerBuilder says a lot of people are willing to do so. The good news: many companies are willing to pay moving expense to fill talent gaps. “One of the key trends we saw coming out of the recession is the movement of labor in and out of markets across the U.S.,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder. “Workers have had to expand their job search geographically and employers in need of hard-to-find, skilled talent have had to recruit across state lines.” Many movers say new surroundings enhance their personal lives in addition to their careers. To help employees get a better sense of which markets are right for their skills and better evaluate cost-of-living and other considerations, CareerBuilder launched CareerRelocate.com. More than 3,000 employers and 7,000 workers took part in the research. Now, if people could just sell their homes.

Unrealistic expectations. Impossible deadlines. Fickle managers. No wonder big projects stress everyone out. A certain amount of tension is to be expected, given that only one-third of IT projects are considered successful and one-quarter get canceled before they’re completed. So why add to the excitement? In the book, No-Drama Project Management: Avoiding Predictable Problems for Project Success (Apress/available now), author Bart Gerardi focuses on the human side of projects, from top-level managers to the folks in the trenches. Relationships, it seems, are as important as technology. “People have likened being a project manager to being one part professional bull fighter, one part air-traffic controller, one part toddler daycare director, and one part therapist,” he writes. Gerardi is a veteran program manager in the e-commerce industry. For more about the book, click here.

Hard numbers can be hard to find, but data-driven arguments are the best way to support a business case for your project or strategic initiative. The book, Metrics: How to Improve Key Business Results (Apress/available now) seeks to clarify this murky topic. Author Martin Klubeck presents theories and practical advice on filtering out distractions and zeroing in on what you really need. In many cases, you can get a clearer sense of what to pursue before you start, thus avoiding a futile chase for data. Klubeck is a strategy and planning consultant at the University of Notre Dame and founder of the Consortium for the Establishment of Information Technology Performance Standards, a non-profit seeking to standardize industry measures. For more about the book, click here.

See also Workers More Honest When Someone is Watching, Business Ethics: Not an Oxymoron Pity the compliance and ethics officers in your company. They feel stressed by amped-up regulations and public scrutiny, and unloved by colleagues. Many say they don’t even sleep through the night, according to a survey from the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) and the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA). “The compliance profession's purpose is to prevent and detect the problems that have occurred in organizations such as Enron, Tyco and Penn State University,” says Roy Snell, CEO of the SCCE/HCCA. “If society wants to us deal with these issues — so difficult that others have chosen to look the other way — then society should make an effort to support this profession." More than 970 ethics and compliance professionals took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Job interviews are stressful enough without curveballs from the interviewers, but off-putting questions are not uncommon. Glassdoor.com collected inquiries made during actual interviews from its “Interview Reviews” section. More than 150,000 questions have been collected in all; we bring you some of the oddest examples. For instance, would you know how many people are using Facebook at a particular time in a specific West Coast city? If not, you may have blown your chance to work at Google. And if you haven’t spent time pondering ways to get a large animal from Africa inside of a common household appliance, perhaps you’re not cut out for a career ... in commercial real estate? For these and other unusual interview questions click here.

Technology is a two-edged sword for workers, says a global survey from Dell and Intel. Constant connectivity means they have less time for themselves and often feel the boss is watching them. But tech also empowers workers to push for more mobility, flexible schedules, and evaluation according to production instead of hours worked. Meanwhile, the consumerization of IT gives users more sophisticated tools and a more assertive attitude. Leaders should see opportunity, not threats. "There’s a growing correlation between quality and choice of technology access within the workplace and employee satisfaction, productivity and innovation,” says Paul Bell, president of public large enterprises for Dell. More than 8,300 workers took part in the research. For more, click here.

IT spending is expected to increase in 2012. After years of budgets crimped by a bum economy, there is significant pent-up demand at companies around the globe to drop some extra cash for the products and services they’ve been waiting for to drive business forward. But we’ve heard this song before. Gartner was bullish on IT spending last year, saying that it could rise somewhat significantly in 2012, yet in its latest report the research firm acknowledges that its estimates might have been too optimistic. Global spending on IT spending will still be up, the company says, but don’t expect it to rise too quickly.

Technology workers shouldn’t expect large raises in 2012 even if the employment picture brightens, according to the most recent annual salary survey from Janco Associates. “For information technology, the recession has bottomed out and the hiring of IT professionals will increase in 2012,” says Victor Janulaitis, CEO at Janco. “However there still are a number of companies that will continue to be cautious, concerned that the recovery will not be strong enough to support increased IT spending. Cost control is still the rule of the day.” One encouraging sign: A surge in part-timers and contractors hired for mission-critical projects, which points to an eventual increase in overall salaries. Also, personal performance bonuses and bonuses for work that benefits the enterprise are trending upwards. Tech pros representing more than 1,100 companies took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Collaboration is a key to managing successful projects; project teams, stakeholders and executives must pull in the same direction. Also essential: resource management, training, tailored strategies, and innovation, says ESI International, an Arlington, VA company specializing in project management, business analysis and contract management training. See also How Much Do Project Managers Get Paid?, How To Save a Failing Project "From the ascendancy of social media to the structured implementation of collaboration tools by the PMO and the rise of communities of practice, we are fast approaching a tipping point," says J. LeRoy Ward, PMP, PgMP, Executive Vice President, Product Strategy & Management, at ESI International. "Organizations that don’t exploit such collaborative channels and technology will risk missing the most promising combination of force multipliers of the decade." Top trends were chosen by a global panel of ESI International senior executives and subject matter experts. ESI International is partner of The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

NHL legend Wayne Gretzky said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” In the book, Outthink the Competition: How a New Generation of Strategists Sees Options Others Ignore (Wiley/available now), author Kaihan Krippendorff looks at companies that recognize opportunities that others ignore, challenge conventional wisdom, and create market disruptions. Looking to history, he writes, “In the military domain, we see breakthroughs come about when an outthinker appears on the scene. Rather than perfect prevailing tactics, the outthinker takes a fresh perspective on the battlefield.” The companies on our list have done just that. Krippendorff is a strategic creativity consultant for companies such as Microsoft, L'Oreal, and Johnson & Johnson. For more about the book, click here.

Hiring for Attitude (McGraw-Hill/Available now) is a book intended for recruiters, but in its pages author Mark Murphy reveals the game within the game that applicants need to understand to make the best possible impression in an interview. Managers often seek subtle but telling uses of language to detect trouble signs; certain answers to questions may be seen as demonstrating lack of ability to handle change, challenges, team chemistry or corporate culture. In other words, being talented isn’t enough when hirers are determined to distinguish candidates who know how to work well within the organization. Murphy is founder and CEO of Leadership IQ, a training and management consulting firm. For more about the book, click here.

Baseline's annual trend report is built on original research into midsize and large organizations, not interviews with consultants or vendors. Our goal is to predict what will matter most in enterprises over the year ahead. We start with questions to several hundred business and technology managers at North American organizations with 100 or more employees. They tell us what’s going on in their workplaces, and we share an objective, evidence-driven look at trends for the coming year. In October, we fielded our survey to 422 of these managers, across all sectors in the U. S. and Canada. We asked them about their technology investments, strategies and commitment levels; the degree to which those levels might rise or fall; and the support levels from various stakeholders (IT, users, executives and finance professionals). Here we take a look at their answers. For more about the report, click here.

The best thing about the end of the year for technology’s biggest (and even smallest) companies is that they can look to next year to fix their mistakes, improve upon their successes and deliver better products to enterprise users and consumers. The new year means a new beginning for companies around the globe. For some firms, such as Research In Motion and Hewlett-Packard, that’s undoubtedly a good thing. This year has been tough on those companies, and it’s clear that if they don’t try something major in 2012, they could be in deep trouble a year from now. On the other hand, companies such as Apple and Google seem poised to continue their success. And perhaps their 2012 strategies should center on maintaining status quo. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Here, eWEEK takes at look at some of the resolutions technology companies should make this year. There’s no telling if these companies will follow the upcoming advice, of course, but if they want to be successful in 2012, they should.

Do your team members have difficulty asserting themselves? Are you spending more time talking about the way things should be than actually making things happen? Lack of confidence holds teams back as often as lack of talent or desire, but it doesn’t have to be this way. In the book, Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything (Berrett-Koehler/Available in January), author John Izzo says workers must view themselves as agents of change. “People need to take initiative and not act like the victim,” Izzo writes. “People who are not viewed as complainers but as constructive irritants will not only advance, but will cause a ripple effect of more people who are willing to step up.” Izzo is an author and speaker who has advised more than 500 companies, including IBM, HP, McDonald’s and the Mayo Clinic. For more about the book, click here.

See also Seven Things Your Boss Hates About You Did you ever wonder about what your managers discuss amongst themselves? Team performance and chemistry often top the list, along with ways to motivate and reward employees. And they’re wondering if they have what it takes to be effective leaders themselves. So says the book, Going Corporate: A Geek’s Guide (Apress/Available now), which looks at ways rank-and-file employees can groom themselves for career advancement. In one section, author Shailendra Kadre looks at the questions managers are most interested in resolving. Kadre took many of these topics straight from online forums frequented by business leaders; issues run the gamut from the philosophical to more nuts and bolts exchanges about how to make businesses function. Kadre is a 17-year veteran of companies such as Oracle, Satyam Computers and TCS (TATA Consultancy Services), specializing in IT delivery and operations management. For more about the book, click here.

Young employees are known to shake things up. They expect to use the latest mobile devices, they want access to Facebook and Twitter, and they think email is for their parents. Oh, and they could post a major security threat to your enterprise, putting a serious strain on IT resources and potentially costing their employers much more than just salary and benefits. You need young talent, but some of the information about Millennials in Cisco’s Annual Security Report may keep you up at night.

New Year’s resolutions are made by more than 40% of Americans every year. Of course, less than half of them are still observed by June, but the tradition is still a positive one. In fact, those who make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain goals than those who don’t make them. That said, there are certain promises to oneself that should be avoided, including some pertaining to work. We all want to improve ourselves, but it’s a waste of time and energy to make vows that won’t really help you succeed. So consider the following a list of ten don’ts (and ten dos) to help guide you toward a prosperous 2012.

Underprepared candidates are making it difficult to fill job openings, according to a survey conducted by FTI Consulting on behalf of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). Employers want nimble thinkers who command broad knowledge, and care more about what you’ve actually done and what you’ve learned from it, than what degrees and job titles you’ve earned. But applicants, ranging from college graduates to experienced employees, are falling far short of these expectations -- and the situation is far worse within the technology industry than other segments. See also U.S. Students Ill-Prepared for Work, Talent Crisis for Global Companies The ACIS is the largest national accrediting organization of degree-granting institutions, overseeing professional, technical and occupational programs. More than 1,000 hiring professionals took part in the research. To access the report, click here.

In the wired world of business, one social-media authority suggests that professionals unplug, stop texting, and take a nap. Digital Leader: 5 Simple Keys to Success and Influence (McGraw-Hill/Available now), includes author Erik Qualman’s counterintuitive strategies for high achievers looking to distinguish themselves. Interestingly, many of his insights have little to do with technology; his view of meaningful connectivity has more to do with leadership by example and human interaction than Tweets and power apps. Those who can make positive impressions and engage, the author contends, will thrive in both real and virtual settings. Qualman is an author and founder/owner of socialnomics.com, a top social-media blog, as well as an MBA professor at the Hult International Business School. For more about the book, click here.

Business travel is not dead, but it can feel pretty deadening. With business travel expected to increase in 2012, some familiar inconveniences will persist, including flight delays and frustrating security procedures. But hotels can raise their game, according to a recent survey from Deloitte. To do so, hostelries need to accommodate two different kinds of travelers: Younger employees who seek a livelier, faster-paced experience, and older ones who expect a more traditional stay. "It's important for hotels to focus on the burgeoning number of young business travelers,” says Adam Weissenberg, the vice chairman of Deloitte who oversees the global travel, hospitality and leisure sectors. “But they must also find a middle ground to retain brand loyalty among Generation X and Y, and boost brand loyalty among the potentially more discerning baby boomers. This will likely be a challenge for hotels in 2012.” 1,000 business travelers took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

This is the Year of the Tablet. Amazon’s Kindle Fire (the Adam Sandler movie of electronic devices – panned by critics but a hit with actual consumers) made it to second place on Highbeam Research’s list of most-buzzed-about gadgets during the 2011 holiday season, just behind Apple’s latest attention-grabber, the iPhone 4S, but ahead of rival iPad 2. Highbeam, which indexes more than 80 million documents from over 6,500 publications, tracked mentions of popular devices as the shopping season began ramping up at the end of October. Many of the top names have business and productivity applications, and while media mentions doesn’t equate to sales, the correlation between the two – along with the ongoing consumerization of IT – pretty much guarantees that some of these goodies will make their way from Santa’s sleigh to a place inside your firewall in the new year.

You’ve heard them all so many times that they hardly register anymore. Whether in a conference room or a casual conversation, phrases that once sounded clever have been reduced to clichés. Some of them actually are rooted in real business concepts. Others are fluff that somehow became part of the corporate lexicon. Either way, like that annoying song that stays stuck in your head, they must be ignored, erased, or replaced. See also All-Time Great Ad Lines CareerBuilder surveyed some 5,300 workers to find out which expressions have worn out their welcome; below is the top (or bottom) ten. Oddly enough, the ubiquitous “paradigm shift” and its less stuffy cousin, “game changer,” didn’t make the cut. You can access the entire list here.

As the holiday season approaches, people are making wish lists and hoping that Santa (or his human agents) will get them what they’ve been waiting for all year. In the corporate world, executives and users are looking at around their businesses and thinking of things they’d like to get from the IT department. Some of the items on these wish lists are relatively easy for IT to deliver, while others have a higher degree of difficulty. In any case, business executives are looking for more out of technology than ever before -- and that prominent role for IT can be both a gift and a headache.

Narrowing the gender gap for technology workers is a slow process, according to a survey from Technisource. See also Diversity Extends to Paychecks On the positive side, most women in IT are satisfied with their careers and would recommend a tech-focused vocation to family members. But women and men are still divided by their perceptions of growth opportunities and compensation levels. While some of these gaps are improving, “there is still a battle for perception of equality around compensation and the greater societal issue of promoting IT as a career path for young women,” says Alisia Genzler, vice president of the Northeast Region of Technisource. “In the end, employers need to recognize that both men and women are not only looking to be fairly compensated, but also desire to be mentored and challenged in their career. Those that don't constantly strive to provide that challenge will end up losing top talent to the competition." More than 500 IT professionals took part in the research, which was conducted by Monster.com.

Corporate culture matters to workers – but different groups value different things about daily life in the workplace, with preferences varying by age, gender, level of education, and even geography. Culture is a key recruiting tool, so hirers need to know that one size does not fit all; given that 46% of new hires leave within 18 months, the stakes for employers are high. "When people take jobs with new organizations, they frequently analyze responsibilities and compensation closely while relying on gut feel developed during the interview process to decide if they'll actually like working there," said Art Papas, CEO of Bullhorn, Inc., which conducted a survey on cultural preferences. Nearly 5,000 professionals took part in the research. To access the survey, click here.

We expect IT people to support and enable business operations, but how well-run from a business perspective is the average IT shop? In the book, Running IT Like a Business (IT Governance Publishing/available now), author Robert E. Kress looks at ways technology workers and managers can better deliver value within their own organizations. Kress speaks from experience: He’s chief operating officer of the IT organization for Accenture, a $22 billion company with more than 215,000 employees in 52 countries. Among other accomplishments, Kress and his department were able to reduce the cost of tech-support delivery from $665 to $272 per worker in recent years; meanwhile, revenues have grown to $21.6 billion this year, compared to $11.4 billion ten years ago. For more about the book, click here.

See also Worst Holiday Gifts at Work There’s been a lot of “bah, humbug” in the workplace during recent holiday seasons, but those bad tidings may disappear this year. A survey from CareerBuilder shows that significantly more bosses plan to give holiday bonuses in 2011 -- and those bonuses will be relatively generous compared to those in recent years. Not only that, but the office party (remember that?) is on the upswing. "Employers have been working hard to build back their businesses over the last year," said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources for CareerBuilder. “This holiday season, they’re planning to reward their biggest asset – their people – with a few holiday perks, such as bonuses, parties and gifts.” The wealth of holiday cheer extends to employees, who aren’t cutting back on giving to co-workers. More than 4,000 workers and 2,600 employers took part in the research.

Oh, you shouldn’t have…no, really, you shouldn’t have. What could be nicer than a small gift from your employer to mark the holidays? That depends on the gift. The presents listed here were exchanged in real-life workplaces and cataloged by CareerBuilder; while some of them probably were given as gags, a simple gift card would be more appropriate and more appreciated. CareerBuilder surveyed more than 4,000 workers and 2,600 employers. If you find yourself struggling to find an appropriate office gift to give this year, consider these tips from EtiquetteSociety.com. Meanwhile, consider yourself lucky for not being on the receiving end of these presents.

This year will be remembered as the Tipping Point for mobile applications, the moment when downloadable apps running on portable devices for enterprise users went from interesting to essential. See also Best Business Uses for iPad and Android Tablets. As global sales of smartphones and tablets surged, services like Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market saw traffic figures explode. And developers were eager to keep the party going. But which apps were actually helpful to business users? Some of the following applications launched this year, while others were able to cement their positions as top performers in their respective categories. In either case, if you’re looking for some useful applications to put on your new smartphone this year and you don’t want to waste your time with the useless wannabes, the following programs are a great place to start.

Successful organizations should stress long-term planning and an intense focus on understanding their own businesses and markets, say authors Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen in the book, Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck: Why Some Thrive Despite Them All (HarperBusiness/Available now). While many firms charge ahead with gambles on what consumers will want next, Collins and Morten advise a more measured approach. The authors base their findings on nine years of researching top companies, during which they deployed a 20-member team. They dub the companies in focus as the “10Xers,” meaning they’ve built enterprises that constantly outperform their industry averages. A former Stanford Graduate School of Business instructor, Collins is a Boulder, Colo.-based management expert. Hansen is a management professor at the University of California, Berkley. For more about the book, click here.

As tablet computers grow more common in the office, applications available for them are evolving from simple personal productivity software and games like Angry Birds to sophisticated enterprise tools. See also Best Business Apps of 2011 “Major software vendors are taking the tablet seriously and embracing the market, following where users want to take the platform,” said Gartner analyst and vice president David Willis. Applications that tie in with enterprise systems like ERP, CRM and others are launching, yet vendors can't just throw them together, says Willis. “Success lies in how the vendor re-factors the apps in a meaningful way, rather than just duplicating the traditional desktop or browser experience." IT needs to be careful in choosing which apps they give users, and make sure they're secure. This list includes Gartner's top 10 applications in terms of usefulness to businesses.

Remember that scene in the great old Eddie Murphy movie, Trading Places – hey, remember funny Eddie Murphy movies? – where a filthy, booze-swilling Dan Aykroyd is at the lavish company Christmas party, stuffing a whole salmon from the buffet into his Santa Claus suit? Yeah, well, you don’t want to be that guy. See also Office Life Before Political Correctness Holiday get-togethers can be a nice way to mark the season and to share a little warmth and appreciation with co-workers, but they can also be danger zones, social minefields into which you step at your own peril, dark and confusing places where your inappropriate behavior could have unintended consequences. Everyone wants to have a little fun, but nobody wants to end up in the HR director’s office, cringing at camera-phone footage of their drunken misdeeds that somebody has posted on YouTube. So do try to behave yourself at the company outing, and spare yourself and your colleagues any unnecessary drama, litigation, and/or awkward moments. That’s what family gatherings are for, right?

When you’re on your eighth job in a career that dates to the mid-1980s, you figure you’ve seen and heard it all, especially when it comes to mind-boggling behavior on the part of bosses, colleagues and subordinates. And, writing from personal experience, I think I have. I started out in communications and journalism at a time when people could smoke at their desks, curse like sailors and chase co-workers of the opposite sex as they pleased – regardless of marital status and/or respective job positions. See also Life Before Political Correctness The workplace was not a place for the faint-hearted: One of my bosses had a domestic flare-up in his office during which his (soon-to-be ex) wife hurled paperweights at him. When they took the argument outside, she decked him in the company parking lot (he sported a shiner for more than a week afterward). Over time, of course, corporate culture cleaned up its act, or at least learned to hide the worst behavior, but there are still more-than-occasional lapses involving things like phone conversations, kitchen cleanliness, and overall professional deportment. In some cases, bad deeds go unpunished; in others, justice is served. Here are ten of my favorites over the years.

Employees who do their online holiday shopping at work may be putting their jobs at risk, says CareerBuilder. Many companies monitor the use of the Internet and email, and some have fired staffers for inappropriate use of websites. “Most companies assume their employees use some of their break time on the Internet for shopping, checking social networks and general browsing,” says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. “But when it starts adding up, workers need to be aware of company policies and any potential consequences. With more companies limiting or restricting online activity, e-shopping season is as good a time as any to be mindful of our Internet usage at work.” The survey, which also shows increasing concern about the use of social media, should give workers reason to err on the side of caution. More than 4,380 U.S. workers and 2,695 employers took part in the survey.

Android's profound impact on the mobile market has made it a prime target for criminals. And the operating system, which powers over half of the 60.5 million smartphones sold worldwide in the third quarter of 2011, is less safe than its rivals. Juniper Networks’ Malicious Mobile Threats Report shows that Android malware instances increased by 400% between 2009 and 2010, while other platforms remained relatively secure, due mainly to fewer cybercriminals trying to break through their defenses, and in some cases, to stronger security features. Things have only gotten worse this year. Juniper says Android remains a top destination for malware in the mobile space, and that Google likely won’t be able to stop the bad guys before things get totally out of hand.

U.S. companies spend more than $400 billion dollars a year on advertising and marketing, but very few examples cross into the broader culture to become iconic catch phrases or punch lines. Ranker.com has come up with ten all-time great company slogans and taglines. These are brainstorms that have stood the test of time – to the point where the words have been repeated so often that consumers may have forgotten the actual products that were being promoted in first place. These items include shoes, watches, hamburgers, insurance policies, tech gadgets, candy and, of course, beer (most of the essentials in life, right?) Here we look at stories behind famous slogans and stories about them. Ranker.com is a site dedicated to declaring superlatives within the worlds of film, TV, music, games, sports, automobiles, books and technology. It claims more than two million monthly unique users.

The promise of social media helped make “collaboration” a buzzword. Books have been written, processes have been preached, and the term took hold, trumpeting the value of working together in an automated fashion. See also Social Media Inside the Firewall. What’s not to love? Well, there must be something. Because while many companies offer collaboration tools on their intranets, not that many information workers are actually taking advantage of them. Forrester Research asked 2,869 U.S. information workers who are using a company portal what types of information they most commonly access through it; the findings, released this fall in a report titled “State of the Workforce Technology Adoption: U.S. Benchmark,” are what you would expect—if it were still 2002. High on the chart were basic HR and training info, while more advanced or modern tools for collaboration and knowledge fell far behind. This slideshow highlights the ways that both enterprises (1,000 employees or more) and SMBs (100-999 employees) actually utilize their intranets. Give the lack of mission-critical uses, we’ll quote Forrester’s report: “Start with those functions that choose not to adopt the services you provide and ask, ‘Why not?’”

It’s said, at least by clothing salesmen, that you should dress for the position you want and not the one you have. If you like the concept of emulating the boss, you’ll want to check out this research from CareerBuilder. The findings focus on personal preferences of senior managers, at work and in their private lives. Beyond wardrobe insights you will find out what senior managers prefer to drive, whether they order booze at a company function, and even how they part your hair. CareerBuilder calls its new report “Emulating the Big Cheese.” More than 550 senior leadership members with hiring authority took part in the research.

Sexual harassment allegations against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain have rekindled debate over inappropriate workplace behavior. Katie Roiphe argues in the New York Times that we've gone too far in protecting women from office banter. Then again, for every indictment of political-correctness-run-amok there’s a counter-claim on behalf of thoughtfulness and common sense (the multi-culti workplace adds complexity; my strategy is to err on the side of caution and good manners). At 49, I look back at things I’ve seen at work and wonder how once-routine behavior -- sexual and otherwise -- would fly today. Some of it was wrong, some creepy, some harmless; a lot of it still happens, if less openly. None of these incidents occurred at Ziff Davis Enterprise or its predecessor companies; all of the businesses involved turned out good work and generally-undamaged people. The ratings below of morality, ethics, wisdom and possible legal consequences are judged by me, by today’s standards.

Candid observations from employees of ten well-regarded organizations, gathered by Glassdoor, reveal the good and less good qualities of working at these hot companies. The focus is on corporations that are heavily invested in the deployment of Big Data; demand for talent in that area could soon outstrip current supply projections by up to 60%, according to a recent McKinsey report. The companies listed below all scored high for employee satisfaction, but no place is perfect (and of course, there are happy campers and perpetual whiners everywhere.) MITRE Corp. ranked highest overall on the satisfaction scale. The remaining companies are listed in order. The research was compiled from more than 41,000 company reviews from employees at over 100 companies that are actively hiring for Big Data needs. See also Best Global Employers

Corporate managers, take note: The Occupy Wall Street movement may appear to be something you can ignore, but sentiments expressed by protesters are likely to be widely shared by your own rank-and-file workers. Dismiss the hippies at your own risk. Research from Harris Interactive indicates that a broad majority of Americans agree that top company managers make too much money, and enrich themselves at the expense of average employees. Most are downright angry about it. And here’s a twist: With survey research broken down along political lines, the majority of Republicans also feel this way, if not quite to the extent of Democrats. Anecdotally, top company execs may also want to know that a number of high-profile business leaders – including Vikram Pandit of Citigroup and PIMCO’s Bill Gross and Mohamed El-Erian – have voiced considerable sympathy and support for the Occupy movement. More than 2,110 adults took part in the Harris Interactive research. For more about the survey, click here.

Workers are not so into work these days. After years of layoffs and being told to do more with less, and with few rewards for their efforts beyond hanging on to their jobs, their engagement level is the lowest in 15 years. See also Occupy Wall Street Resonates With Workers. A global survey from Aon Hewitt says one key driver of this apathy is a lack of confidence in corporate leadership. "A significant number of employees are not motivated enough to provide extra effort beyond the job requirements and many anticipate leaving their employers in the near future," says Pete Sanborn, talent and organization consulting global practice leader for Aon Hewitt. "Even at the height of the recession, employees felt a greater connection to their work and role in achieving organizational success than they do now. This is a harsh reality." One reason the C-Suite needs to turn this around: Return on investment is linked directly to high employee engagement. The research was compiled via ongoing surveys taken from an employee database representing five million workers worldwide; for more about the findings, click here.

Military veterans face big challenges as they attempt to find work after returning home. In fact, the unemployment rate for veterans was recently at 12.1% -- three full percentage points higher than the civilian rate. But a number of companies are making an effort to recruit and retain veteran employees, according to a recent survey from CareerBuilder and a report from Families and Work Institute/Society for Human Resource Management. More than 2,800 hiring managers took part in CareerBuilder’s research, which focuses on the level of interest among employers in bringing aboard veterans. Many survey participants note that former military personnel often bring unique and valuable qualities to the workplace. The Families and Work Institute/Society for Human Resource Management report highlights special efforts that individual companies are making to accommodate these men and women as they transition to their professional civilian lives.

Hoping to keep your online job search on the down low? Good luck. Privacy is a casualty of the modern age, and that includes job hunting, says a survey from TheLadders.com. People know that they’re taking risks by applying for positions via websites, but they chalk it up to the information culture, including the increasing role that social media and other outlets play in the recruitment process. But that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it. “Americans want their privacy, and we strongly believe that a job search should not require an individual to give it up,” says Marc Cenedella, CEO of TheLadders. “This can be one of the most stressful times in an individual's life. Those of us in the job industry have a special duty and responsibility to treat privacy with care, because privacy issues are critically important, particularly during economically challenging conditions." Wakefield Research conducted the survey, in which an estimated 1,000 participants took part. For more about the findings, click here.

Fortune 1000 companies are finding social media technologies to be increasingly valuable inside their organizations. External usage, for the purposes of marketing, communications and business intelligence, has grown along with major consumer services like Facebook and Twitter. But inside the firewall, enterprises also employ with growing sophistication tools such as blogs, wikis, discussion boards, microblogging and interlinked geolocation services. These tools are the sum of more than two decades of development, and capabilities have changed radically over the last few years. Today, thanks to Web 2.0 and mobility, social networking is allowing employees to link and share data, information and knowledge in ways that weren’t imaginable only a few years ago. Most importantly, it’s ratcheting up collaboration and unleashing the potential of the digital age.

What would you give up to retrieve lost computer files? Pretty much anything, according to a survey from Wakefield Research and Carbonite Inc. People say they’d shell out big bucks or abstain from beer, wine and coffee rather than lose critical data. Yet a significant percentage of survey respondents say they don’t back up these precious computer files, even though they’ve experienced computer crashes and realize that data goes missing. The average user keeps more than $400 worth of digital movies and music on their devices, not to mention important information folders. “People have priceless photographs, critical personal financial information and hundreds of dollars of digital media stored on their computer,” says David Friend, CEO/chairman of Carbonite. “Most have experienced at least one major data loss disaster, yet are still not taking simple steps to protect the contents of their computer.” More than 1,000 U.S. adults took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Virtualization and cloud computing increase efficiency and flexibility in providing data and applications to users, yet managing performance of applications and transactions in the cloud is neither simple nor easy. When you add another layer, particularly one that is highly dynamic in nature, assuring a high quality user experience gets trickier when applications misbehave. It’s harder to determine where an application or transaction was working when the failure or slowdown occurred, since virtual machines are provisioned and decommissioned continually according to business priority and demand. You can no longer monitor an application in the context of its server. This slideshow, written by Zohar Gilad, Executive VP of Precise, provides an overview of top issues to consider before, during and after migration.

Cost-cutting remains a major focus of IT strategy. One successful approach involves managed IT services, which can yield meaningful savings “even when implemented on small scale,” says Carolyn April, director of the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA). The not-for-profit group recently surveyed 400 IT and business professionals, as well as 364 IT channel firms. One key finding: companies using managed IT services aren’t cutting jobs. Quite the contrary, they view managed services as a way to free up IT staff to work on other projects that will more directly contribute to revenue-generating activities. So, at least at first glance, managed IT services seem to benefit just about everyone.

Everybody, no matter how famous and successful, has to start somewhere, and many actors, pundits, rock stars and CEOs landed their first paying jobs at the same kinds of places you probably did -- department stores, ice-cream parlors, restaurants…even psychiatric wards, according to websites such as CareerBuilder.com and Howstuffworks.com. These experiences often are remembered as positive ones, from which lessons were learned that sparked future success. CDW Computer Centers founder Michael Krasny, for example, recalls that clearing scrap wood from a house being built next door to his own provided early insights into the power of entrepreneurship and talent management. "I got a few kids on the block to help me," he tells CareerBuilder. "When we were done, I took them (out) ... for ice cream. I learned you can't do it all yourself. You need to have a team around you." So if you’re currently working in, say, retail to make ends meet while pursuing a meatier gig, take heart in these real-life examples.

What makes for a great workplace? Quality of life, access to senior managers, and clear career paths were among the attributes cited by workers in a “World’s Best Multinational Workplaces” survey from consultancy Great Place to Work. To be considered, companies must employ at least 5,000 people worldwide, with no less than 40% of them working outside of the home country. These are organizations that demonstrate a focus on improving the work and life experiences for the rank-and-file, and finding innovative ways to make good things happen. "This list recognizes global companies that have demonstrated a truly serious commitment to creating workplaces that foster trust, pride and camaraderie amongst their employees," said Jose Tolovi Jr., global CEO of Great Place to Work. The research is based on surveys in which more than 2.5 million workers took part. The top 25 can be found here; this slideshow includes the top ten companies, along with some perks from their global locations. See also Insider Views of Hot Companies.

The vast majority of Americans feel that employees should be evaluated based on performance and not their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to a survey from Out & Equal Workplace Advocates. While gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) adults are more open than in years past with co-workers and supervisors, their comfort level at work lags in comparison to that felt with family and friends. Bisexuals have considerably more difficulty with this issue in the workplace than gays and lesbians. "These numbers show us that there is still work to do before people are comfortable being open about their sexual orientation at work," says Selisse Berry, executive director of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates. "In particular, more needs to be done to ensure that bisexuals can disclose their identities safely. The discrimination that bisexual people face in the workplace is sometimes overlooked or dismissed." More than 2,600 U.S. adults (including 304 who identified themselves as LGBT) took part in the research, which was conducted by Harris Interactive. For more about the survey, click here.

Everyone feels like playing hooky sometimes. Most of us just tough it out, or maybe take a personal day. Then there are the folks found by CareerBuilder, who pursue more inventive ways to avoid work for the day. This sort of thing grows more common this time of the year, with one-third of employers reporting that workers call in sick more often during the winter holidays. Many managers are suspicious, however, and follow up by seeking authentication from a doctor’s office or even driving by the missing worker’s home. In a tough job market, it’s safest to avoid taking advantage of sick-leave policies. "While outrageous events are known to happen, frequent absences and over-the-top excuses can start to bring your credibility into question," said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. More than 4,300 workers and 2,600 employers took part in the survey research. To see our previous list of terrible sick-day excuses, click here.

When Apple opened up the iPhone to third-party applications in 2007, it didn’t take long for the bizarre ideas to start coming in. Apple has banned certain apps out of competitive interests, and others for reasons of value, relevance and taste. Remember the $999.99 app called “I Am Rich” that simply displayed a shiny red gem on the screen? It reportedly had eight buyers before getting shut down. But for the most part, an unbridled spirit of creativity is encouraged out there in the third-party development world, and that inevitably results in products that fall outside of the mainstream of business usage, although there are some funny ones with actual utility. Ultimately, the following apps speak to the unsinkable spirit of invention – not to mention our obsession with pop culture and love of fun. We found the following offbeat apps through websites including Geeksugar.com and Weirdworm.com. Fortunately, none of them will set you back $1,000.

Who knew that geeks can be wordsmiths, or that software can inspire examples of rhetorical excellence? A list of pithy quotations about software development shows that the coding crowd has its verbal moments, too. These quotes, compiled by Ranker.com, speak to the complicated relationship people have with software and technology in general. Keep in mind that some of these words appear to have been delivered with tongue firmly planted in cheek. You may recognize some of the credited author’s names; other quotes come from more obscure sources. Ranker.com is a site dedicated to teasing out superlatives within the worlds of film, TV, music, games, sports, automobiles, books and technology. It claims more than two million monthly unique users. To call up the list, click here.

2011 was a big year for mobility and social networking, with cloud computing also moving into the spotlight. So what can we expect for enterprise technology next year? Companies using IT to do more with less, an increasing embrace of cloud computing, and the continued dominance of big vendors like IBM and Oracle, says Nucleus Research. "More users, more devices, and more automation are driving big data, and most companies are just scratching the surface of what they can accomplish," says Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research for Nucleus. "Data appliances are continuing to evolve, and we’ll likely see more innovations from in-memory computing and cloud technologies that open the benefits of big data to all." Companies will continue to invest in technology to drive bottom-line growth. "Rather than invest in hiring, retaining, and potentially paying the costs of laying off staff, companies are choosing to invest in technology to improve customer service and support, analyze data for better decision making, and generate more productivity from the employees they still have."

Mixed messages about IT spending abound, including a surprising resistance to the mobile enterprise, says CDW’s October IT Monitor. The report finds that 40 percent of IT decision-makers expect their IT budgets to grow over the next six months. Not bad, but still the lowest level since October 2009. Meanwhile, about two-thirds of respondents said they would be replacing or upgrading existing hardware, software or services, versus the almost one-third who indicated they’d be buying new gear and software tools. Also, almost three-quarters of IT decision-makers say staffing levels in their IT organization will remain the same over the next six months; the good news is that less than 10 percent said they would made staff cuts. And with the spending uncertainty come some surprising results on the mobile front: Despite the massive shift to smartphones, tablets, etc., 75 percent of respondents said it was very unlikely their company would implement mobile devices for work-related activities.

Successful companies generate ideas and bring new products and services to market by having processes in place to make it all happen. A new book, Harvesting Intangible Assets: Uncover Hidden Revenue in Your Company’s Intellectual Property (Amacom/available in October), weighs in on the science of innovation. Author Andrew J. Sherman says many companies allocate little attention to the development and implementation of new ideas. Throughout the book, he dispenses nuggets of wisdom gleaned from proven innovators – both organizations and individuals. One problem he identifies is the tendency to mystify innovation and regard it as something only geniuses produce, via "Eureka!" moments. But not all breakthroughs are dramatic; often, innovation is simply a matter of making better use of assets and resources that already exist. Sherman is a Washington-based attorney specializing in the legal and strategic aspects of business growth, and founder of Grow Fast Grow Right, an education and training company. For more, click here.

U.S. workers tend to have positive relationships with their supervisors, but they also maintain boundaries when it comes to personal interactions, according to a survey from Adecco Staffing and Opinion Research Corporation. For many, the line between management and employee rules out shared occasions that otherwise would be considered normal social activity. The survey also conveys mixed impressions of professional relationships across the ranks. On the positive side, a high percentage of employees feel their bosses would have their backs in times of trouble. But a significant portion of those surveyed say their supervisors would have a difficult time doing their employees' jobs, and some have quit a job in the past because of rocky relationships with a boss. The survey also asks which presidential candidate would make the best boss – a topic upon which male and female professionals diverge. More than 830 workers took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Information security too often involves a fortress mentality, with not enough attention paid to the risks of an inside job. Yet nearly half of all data breaches can be linked to insiders, with half of those breaches involving privilege misuse. In the book, Preventing Good People from Doing Bad Things (Apress/Available now), authors John Mutch and Brian Anderson examine the clever ways that crooks gain access to corporate systems and valuable data. Many incidents are perpetrated with the cooperation of a willing inside party who may be seeking personal gain and/or revenge, but the stealthy manipulation of uninformed workers is another popular tool for hackers, who trick unsuspecting professionals into clicking malware-inviting links. The authors advocate a “least privilege” approach to ensure that enterprise users access only the information they need. Mutch and Anderson both work for BeyondTrust, a security company, where Mutch is CEO and Anderson is chief marketing officer. For more about the book, click here.

Does your paycheck show how hard you’ve been working? Probably not, as pay rates for IT and project managers remained flat between June 2010 and June 2011, according to the 2012 Mid-Year Salary Survey from IT management consulting firm Janco Associates. At large companies, a handful of IT manager positions and one IT project manager role actually saw small decreases in pay. On the positive side, application development managers got the biggest raises (2.16 percent), followed by computer operations managers (1.97 percent). Certain IT managers and project managers at medium-sized firms did not fare as well; some saw small cuts in pay, but a few saw their paychecks dwindle nearly two percent. Others are thriving, though: data warehouse managers saw an almost four percent pay bump, while raises for voice/data communications managers and project managers for network technical services both topped two percent. See how you stack up against your peers.

See also: Eight Ways to Make a Great First Impression. Proper office etiquette often comes down to common sense and common courtesy, but people still have questions. Is it OK to tend to your personal grooming if the cubicle walls are high enough to shield you from view? When food sits in a shared office refrigerator, is it appropriate to consider it a communal resource (meaning yours to swipe)? And what kind of impression does the multi-tattooed look really project upon co-workers, bosses and customers? Clearly, there are a number of sticky scenarios for which interpretations run the gamut. So to help you navigate the sensibilities of co-workers, we came up with Ten Commandments concerning commonly-observed behaviors. While it’s not likely that anyone would get fired for these kinds of lapses, it’s best to avoid them if you want to present yourself as a considerate, professional work colleague. We compiled our list through websites such as experience.com and A-to-Z-of-Manners-and-Etiquette.com, and we’re sure that many of them sound painfully familiar to anyone who works in an office. See also: Embarassing Office Moments.

Henry Ford is credited with saying, “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” He would have known, because he endured significant setbacks before finding a winning formula in the automobile industry. And Ford is far from the only incredibly successful person who earned fame and fortune only after making notable missteps. In fact, some of the most influential -- not to mention stinking rich -- people in history were at least briefly considered to be losers who would never amount to anything. They either got fired, rejected for jobs, launched an ill-conceived product, or otherwise fell well short of the standards they’d later set. The lessons learned: Never give up, and nothing of value comes easy even for those who make it look easy. Our lineup here includes highly accomplished entrepreneurs, scientists, performers and one of the greatest world leaders ever, as compiled from research taken from websites such as GetBusyLivingBlog.com, OnlineCollege.org, PresentOutlook.com.

There’s something about working for The Man that just makes us mad. That’s true even when we are The Man, or The Man is a woman -- tales of misapplied authority never get old. Some of this is just human nature – an atavistic longing for freedom, an impulse toward rubbernecking at disasters – and some of it comes from genuine frustration with the obstacles that keep us from doing our best work, and a desire to learn and do better in our own managerial roles. Some of it is just whining. Honestly, many of the stories we’ve collected aren’t going to recall a Dickens novel or Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, but some of these woeful tales – whether dealing with personal hygiene, rampant corruption, or outright abusive behavior – reach a level of outrageous behavior among supervisors that would be comical if it weren’t true. Our sampling here is taken from websites including ReallyBadBoss.com, EmployeeSurveys.com, OurStressfulLives.com, WorkingAmerica.org.

It may not have been the mythical, magical iPhone 5 that the media had been speculating about for so long that it seemed a sure thing – but Apple's iPhone 4S, announced on Oct. 4 and available on Oct. 14, is nothing to scoff at. With a faster processor, a superior camera and the ability to operate on any network around the globe – not to mention Siri, the voice-activated personal assistant application -- the iPhone 4S could be the iPhone that finally killed the (already-ailing) BlackBerry. So far consumers have shown that they like what Apple is doing. More than a million of the smartphones were ordered in the first 24 hours it was available. But will enterprises take the bait? Here we take a look at some of the iPhone 4S's new features and how businesses will benefit.

With Occupy Wall Street protests spreading from New York to cities across the country, Corporate America’s reputation is under scrutiny. The drum circles are banging out their complaints about bailouts and profiteering among banks, which they say is scandalous in the face of job losses and other hardships faced by average citizens. But scandal, of course, is no stranger to the business world. Whenever there’s a great deal of money to be made, people will find ways to show stunningly poor judgment and/or malicious intent. Not to pile it on, but we thought this would be an appropriate moment to list of some of the biggest corporate scandals in our history. They involve allegations of money laundering, spying and Ponzi-scheming. Those significantly tarred by these events include a President of the United States, a bevy of Hollywood celebs, and even early American settlers. As for lessons learned? We can always convince ourselves that these moments of infamy could never happen again. That is, until the next one does.

Did the late Steve Jobs inhibit technology innovation? It sounds crazy to ask that question about the brilliant designer and leader of the computer revolution, who made the most of his second chance at running Apple. Jobs sometimes seemed to have more in common with Tony Stark, the renegade industrialist played by Robert Downey Jr. in the Iron Man movies, than he did with his real-life peers; he earned a place in the pantheon of business titans who became icons of popular culture, as the outpouring of praise and sorrow in the wake of his death made clear, and his legacy grows with every device Apple sells. But no man so powerful leaves an unmixed record. We come not to speak ill of the dead, or to address his sometimes complicated personal life, but to address some questions that linger in his wake. The major concerns deal with the closed systems Jobs perfected, which some notable observers view as limiting creativity and freedom, along with some fairly routine critiques of his management style. External links here (Winer on Stallman) and here (Zittrain).

Every device your company issues to employees will die someday, but the data on it can live forever – unless you know what to do about it. Each year companies buy millions servers, laptops, smartphones, and so on, many of them to replace machines aging out of service. It’s as important to have an end-of-life process as it is to build a business case for buying hardware in the first place. "From a data security point of view I think that both corporations and consumers need to appreciate some of the risk that they could be exposing themselves to with all of the wonderful new devices that we carry around with us every day," says Steve Skurnac, president of Sims Recycling Solutions, Americas (an interested party, no doubt, but he’s got a point). "Companies spend a lot of time on security procedures when units are in use, but what they may not realize is that when units are taken out of circulation…they need to do as much diligence with what will happen to the units when they get recycled or returned as they do when employees are using them."

There are many conventional ways that people find to get themselves fired (e.g., dishonesty, harassment, and such; see our previous report here). And then there are more unique ways to get a pink slip. You could get sacked for showing support for the wrong sports team, failing to restock the office refrigerator, or even showing up for work looking too attractive. Those are among the strange but true termination stories we uncovered. In some cases, an outright job dismissal seems rather harsh, given that the offenses amount to - at worst - lapses in professional judgment. In other instances, the departed seems to have been courting trouble. Naturally, a number of these incidents ended up as lawsuit fodder, or otherwise prompted news coverage. We’ve compiled our list below via websites such as What's That Smell?, Fail Blog and Newstrick. One thing’s for sure: In a time of shaky job security, it’s best to err on the side of caution on the job.

Getting the most out of LinkedIn can help you find a job or advance your career. With more than 120 million registered users, LinkedIn is one of the top social media sites and, with its focus on the working world, serves as a hub for professionals seeking to make online connections. The service also functions as a clearinghouse for those hiring, who turn to it for a wide range of recruitment efforts. (LinkedIn membership includes executives from all of the 2011 Fortune 500 companies; 75% of Fortune 100 companies use LinkedIn in the hiring process.) With this in mind, Ranker.com has come up with the following ten steps to optimize your LinkedIn results – whether your goals involve making best use of the site’s tech tools or ensuring that your online interactions present your bona fides as well as possible. Ranker.com is a site dedicated to teasing out superlatives within the worlds of film, TV, music, games, sports, automobiles, books and technology. It claims more than two million monthly unique users. To call up the list, click here.

Workers feel disconnected within their own organizations. They are saddled with responsibilities but lack guidance or feedback on how to do their jobs. Project teams work in isolation, unclear on how to meet organizational goals. And professional training remains an afterthought, says a big survey from the Hay Group. Some disenfranchisement stems from rocky economic times, but that doesn’t explain everything. “I have not had a performance review in two years,” said one employee. “I’m never told expectations for my job, how I’m doing or how I can improve.” Turf-protection is another issue, as organizations promote “the development of little fiefdoms that undermine productivity,” as another person puts it. The research is presented in a book, The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace Frustration – and Get the Most from Your Employees (Amacom/available in October). Authors Mark Royal and Tom Agnew are leaders in the employee research division of Hay Group, a global management consulting firm. For more about the book, click here.

Meetings and email take up an inordinate amount of time in the average work day, meaning we essentially spend more time talking about doing things instead of actually doing them. A recent survey from GetControl.net, a time management training and research company, elicited anecdotal comments that may sound familiar: “Too many emails, too many reply-to-all emails, too many late add-on meeting agendas and topics, too many meetings that have no outcome,” one respondent says. Says another, “There are meetings about having meetings. This practice results in less actual work being completed.” In a period in which organizations face a troubled economy, rising global competition, and a rapid shift to information-related jobs, this kind of time misallocation is no longer acceptable, the research report concludes. More than 40,000 professionals took part in the survey. To access the report, click here.

Bosses often rely on intimidation to get what they want from employees, according to a recent survey from LRN. The research shows that CEOs and other top executives are clueless about how little the workforce is influenced by lofty corporate-speak, which in turn leads direct managers to resort to threats as a way of driving production. But this dynamic is not effective, and staff performance is suffering in the absence of trust-building, big-picture planning, and information-sharing. C-suiters should consider these results a wake-up call, says Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN. Fostering a values-driven culture “as a conscious, deliberate, long-term strategy can be key to differentiation, success and significance for companies in the 21st century,” he says. “Companies and leaders who pioneer and forge ahead on a genuine journey of governance and culture are the ones who will be around in the 22nd century.” LRN is a business-advisory firm. More than 5,100 professionals took part in the research. To access the full report, click here.

Never mind all those stories you’ve read over the years about costly data breaches -- senior executives around the world apparently think they're doing a bang-up job on the security front. This despite the fact that most of them admit they aren't making good use of encryption, don't have strategies for securing emerging areas of IT, aren't paying enough attention to safeguarding privacy, and aren't availing themselves of the latest security technologies. These are just a few of the findings of PricewaterhouseCoopers's 2012 Global State of Information Security Survey, which polled nearly 10,000 C-level and IT executives from 138 countries. PricewaterhouseCoopers has posted a handy tool for those who want to investigate the endless numbers in close detail; in the meantime, we've distilled it all down to a dozen IT security insights that may surprise you.

Looking to get a raise? Think you deserve a promotion? Hoping to land a new job? Knowing what to say and how to say it can be the difference between success and failure. But how do you know which cards to play? Stuart Diamond, author of Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, says there are ways you can interact with bosses and hiring managers to get what you want. See also 10 Things Not To Put On Your Resume. The key, says Diamond, is focusing on people and emotions, instead of power and logic. Effective negotiation is situational; there is no one-size-fits-all model. "It’s time for a new model of human interaction," says Diamond. "Negotiating is not about gaining power over people to force your will on them. It is about how to get more, not getting everything, but doing better every single day." Diamond shares situation-specific ways to evaluate your goals, figure out what stand in your way, and who can help you. See also 10 Ways to Sell an Idea For more on Diamond's book, click here.

The year 2020 is not that far away, but the average workplace may look decidedly different by then. Some changes will have to happen. The Collaboration 2020 research project conducted by Johnson Controls Global WorkPlace Solutions (GWS) reveals a gap between the volume of teamwork today’s workplace can support and the amount office workers anticipate doing in 2020. Office workers also expect to spend more time working in spaces that incorporate collaborative technologies. This shift to virtual teams using a range of technologies will be coupled with a decrease in the amount of time that office workers expect to spend at their desks, on the phone, or in traditional meeting rooms. Many of you are already experiencing this, as you work at home or some other place that’s not a traditional office, and use technologies that make that distance insignificant. What follows is a look what a happier life through technology might entail—as well as certain technologies on the downslope of their expected usage.

“Value” is one of the trickiest concepts to define in today’s business lexicon. Are your people driving value? What value is your company getting from investments tied to your department? And perhaps above all, what is your value to the organization? In an era where the bottom line rules, cost management is an essential, and high productivity is just table stakes, it’s critical for leaders and managers to understand what brings value to the business. Ten new books arriving this fall can help you get a clearer view of these all-important elements. They’ll teach you more about maximizing return on investment, making smarter decisions, pushing your people to their full capacity, and becoming a more well-rounded, influential leader. While they might not be laser-focused on IT management, each of the books holds crucial lessons for current and aspiring managers, directors and executives. Note: publication dates are subject to change.

Doing more with less is the new normal, as companies continue to look for cheaper ways to accomplish the same work. According to a survey from Chronos Consulting, a majority of bosses now believe that streamlining operations via familiar means such as layoffs, outsourced projects, and contract workers actually improves performance, and most say they can deploy smaller teams without hurting results. Some results are more cautionary, particularly those relating to the use of virtual teams and the inherent challenges of communications across time zones and different geographies. That means businesses should move forward carefully…but moves are coming nonetheless. “It is best for organizations to utilize virtual teams after a customized assessment to identify business benefits from that model, as part of an overall strategy for talent optimization,” says Imaad Mahfooz, managing principal of Chronos Consulting. More than 270 companies took part in the research. For more information about the survey, click here.

Getting applications to work with other programs adds value and power to your software, which makes Application Programming Interfaces (API) vital behind-the-scenes tools. Ranker.com put together a list of enterprise APIs to determine which ones work best for businesses, claiming it found “All major Web APIs and mobile API resources related to Enterprise, including those formatted in XML or JSON and those for use with iOS and the iPhone.” The roster includes APIs that cover basics such as travel-expense reporting and generating electronic business cards, and also ambitious APIs that elevate CRM performance and crunch Wall Street data. There are a whopping 135 products included on Ranker’s list, and we’ve included some of the top ones below. Ranker.com is a site dedicated to teasing out superlatives within the worlds of film, TV, music, games, sports, automobiles, books and technology. It claims to attract more than two million monthly unique users. To view the entire enterprise API list, click here.

Agility is a buzzword for business and IT, but how do you make it real? Being adaptive requires innovation, but creativity must be matched with the ability to forecast industry trends and changes in ways that actually pay off. In the book, Plan B: How to Hatch a Second Plan That’s Always Better than Your First (Free Press/Available Now), author David Kord Murray breaks down agile management and execution into critical action steps. One key lies in recognizing and resolving problems before they render your organization obsolete. It’s also critical to constantly evaluate the problems you’re tackling to make sure they’re still relevant to business strategies. Timing is everything – product life cycles once measured in terms of decades now will last just a few years, or even months. Murray is a former aerospace scientist who also once served as head of innovation for Intuit. For more about the book, click here.

Productivity does not hinge on the number of hours you spend on the job, but on how well you use the time. The book, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done (Business Plus/Available in September), looks at the challenges to productivity that many of us face every day – a lot of them, as author Peter Bregman points out, being burdens that we inflict upon ourselves. Bregman’s prescription is to set aside moments in the day to plan for maximum output, and then incorporate a number of “achiever habits” throughout your regular routine. In the end, he says, it’s all about focusing, blocking and tackling. If that sounds like a game-plan from an NFL coach, well, there are similarities. Emerging as a high performer requires the same kind of concentration and determination that a quarterback needs on a last-minute, winning drive. Bregman is CEO of Bregman Partners, a global leadership/workplace consultancy. For more about the book, click here.

Managers talk a better game than they practice when it comes to flexible hours, telecommuting and other alternatives to the 9-to-5 office day. Most companies offer some form of these programs, which are touted as productivity boosters. But research from WorldatWork shows that workers who take advantage of such arrangements see considerable career fallout, including negative performance reviews and limited career advancement. “Employees suffer a variety of job repercussions for participating in work-life programs, even when their leaders insist they support the business value," says Kathie Lingle, executive director of WorldatWork's Alliance for Work-Life Progress. "The good news is that most employers around the globe avow support for family-friendly workplaces. The bad news is they are simultaneously penalizing those who actively strive to integrate work with their lives.” More than 2,840 employers and workers took part in the research. For more information about survey results, click here.

No child left behind? Hardly. Executives in the United States say young people are inadequately schooled in the essentials needed for professional life, according to a survey commissioned by Global Partnership Schools and GEMS Education from Pricewaterhouse Coopers. It doesn’t help that government officials generally do not invite input from business leaders. In China, though, businesses say the local education system is superior in preparing students for a professional career. “This is something that governments must fix quickly as students are increasingly in competition with graduates from other countries for global jobs,” says Manny Rivera, CEO of U.S.-based Global Partnership Schools for GEMS. “The rise of countries such as China […] means that the global economy has a huge amount of growth to offer. The countries that are the most skilled are likely to reap the most rewards." More than 400 global executives took part in the research. To access the survey reports, click here.

See also Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, and A Brief History of Apple. Apple's track record of turning out industry-changing products is the stuff of legend. But how, exactly, has Apple managed to consistently attract early adopters who are willing to wait hours in line to drop hundreds of their hard-earned dollars on the newest version of a device they just bought a year earlier, even as the economy fizzles around them? With each new release of Apple's iconic iPod digital music player and its descendants, the iPhone and the iPad, consumers have rushed out in record numbers to snatch up the latest Apple gear. The company's products seem to be surrounded by a magical aura that has kept them flying off of shelves despite the seemingly endless string of hits to the U.S. economy. The answer goes beyond the devices themselves. Everything about Apple—from its legendary product design and peerless customer service to its charismatic founder’s keen market instincts and shrewd business innovations—contributes to the fact that its products appear to be recession-proof.

Do workers ever really get to relax? Apparently not, according to a survey from TripAdvisor. In theory, this is the time of year when we’re at our best. We’re back from summer vacations, refreshed and ready to go back to work. But many employees experience the very opposite reaction, and say that getting back to the daily grind is downright depressing. Some people cope by calling in sick to work, even when they’re not ill. Others contemplate leaving their jobs entirely. A more therapeutic (and safer) alternative: Many find comfort in – what else? – planning for their next break. Given that the big winter holidays are right around the corner, this may not be such a bad strategy. "While many Americans struggle to maintain the feel-good factor upon returning to work, the process of planning another getaway helps them remain upbeat," said Karen Drake, a senior director at TripAdvisor. More than 1,400 Americans took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

The consumerization of corporate Information Technology is an established fact, with enterprise tech usage now influenced heavily by consumer trends. See also: How Big Companies Are Adjusting to Consumerization. A March 2011 Unisys study found that 95 percent of workers use their own technology at work, with employees relying on an average of four consumer devices and multiple third-party applications during the course of a day. Smartphones, tablets and apps have forever changed the way business and IT operate—and there’s greater pressure to not only provide mobile tools but to accelerate software development cycles and provide richer and more “app-like” tools on the desktop. This challenge isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. In fact, as younger workers—who demand consumer devices and are more comfortable using them—play a more prominent role in the workplace, the pressure on IT to deliver consumer-friendly tools and services will grow. Here’s what you need to know to address consumerization and turn it into a strategic advantage.

The best practices followed by your company when attempting to develop new ideas probably are not such great practices after all. So says former Accenture innovation guru Stephen M. Shapiro in the book, Best Practices are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition (Portfolio Penguin/available in September). Shapiro, a consultant, speaker, and author, served as head of Accenture’s big process and innovation performance practice; in this book, he deconstructs a number of widely-accepted but sometimes ill-advised approaches to inspiration, while offering alternative strategies to better fuel constructive creativity. Shapiro advocates a blend of systemic changes along with a “let ‘em loose” mindset to cultivate a culture of collaboration. So if you spend too many hours in unproductive brainstorming sessions, or find that promising ideas often get so overloaded with input from the masses that they are no longer recognizable, this could be the book for you. For more about the book, click here.

Strong leadership matters. When Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, he turned the company around so completely that his products have become the de facto standards when customers think of MP3 players (you know, iPods) and tablets (those are like iPads, right?). But what happens when a corporate leader isn't a visionary, or an inspirational motivator, or a financial wizard? What if he or she is…kind of a dud? The results can be underwhelming. Other factors beyond the C-suite help doom companies, of course, but leaders usually share the blame. From dotcom wannabes to corporate kingpins remembered for their terrible timing, we take a look at some of technology's most uninspiring company creators and chief executives. On the list you'll find the founder of a failed social network now studied at Harvard Business School, the ex-CEO of what may be the shortest-lived public company of the dotcom era and others who showed potential and gained some traction before failing to live up to their early promise.

Managing younger workers takes some extra work. They’ve had a rough introduction to the job market, and it shows. Many Millennials (aka Gen Y employees) have saved too little and borrowed too much. They’re restless, too, working more different jobs by their mid-20s than prior generations did in their whole careers. It takes special care to recruit and manage this cohort, which by 2014 will outnumber Baby Boomers in the workforce, 63 million to 48 million. "They have different needs, expectations and preferences than previous generations," says Stephen Bygott, director of marketing programs and research at Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company, which conducted a research report on young workers. "Companies who don't consider changes could risk losing their competitive edge and may be left behind." The report combines industry research along with a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Colonial Life, in which more than 1,400 workers took part. For more, click here.

The long jobs recession grinds on, but staffing increases should substantially outnumber cutbacks for the remainder of the year, according to a survey from Robert Half International. Optimism is notably higher than it was in mid-year, lending hope that the momentum will carry into 2012. Another encouraging wrinkle: The chase for quality recruits is getting more competitive. Translation: If you’re good, you have more bargaining power for compensation, perks and/or a higher professional profile. “As opportunities expand for top talent, businesses are taking steps to ensure they are seen as an employer of choice,” says Brett Good, a senior district president for Robert Half. “For example, to provide relief from heavy workloads that have built up in recent years, more companies are bringing in temporary and project professionals, as well as making targeted full-time hires.” More than 4,000 C-level executives and industry leaders took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Application virtualization is a good way to lower computing and energy costs and become more nimble, but converting to virtual formats and preparing for deployment can be a time-consuming, manual task. Quality and consistency are hard to come by; even knowing which applications are suitable for virtualization can be guesswork, and deploying poorly prepared packages can crash mission-critical applications and overwhelm the help desk. The diversity of the underlying technologies and the complexity of final implementation, along with a high turnover rate for apps and pressure to virtualize while also moving to the Windows 7 platform, all add to the degree of difficulty. A methodical approach to making applications ready for popular virtualization platforms begins with assessing your requirements. That’s where automated packaging comes in, says Maureen Polte, senior director of product management at Flexera Software. Advances in automated packaging technology make it possible to prepare applications for virtualization with minimal expense and substantial time savings.

Mobile devices, hackers, and social networking are the biggest security challenges facing IT departments, according to Symantec's 2011 State of Security Survey. For the second year in a row, the survey found that the perceived risk from cyberattacks is higher than off-line crime, natural disasters and terrorist attacks— although in reality, some key risk metrics declined this year. On behalf of Symantec, Applied Research surveyed 3,300 IT professionals in April and May 2011 at companies ranging in size from five employees to more than 5,000. Most companies said that they had been affected by cybercrime in some way during the past 12 months. "Mobile computing, social media use, and the consumerization of IT are providing new challenges," said Sean Doherty, vice president and CTO of Enterprise Security at Symantec. "Attackers are using more insidious, sophisticated and silent methods to steal data and wreak havoc."

Good employees have ideas; influential employees transform ideas into action by getting buy-in from top decision-makers. A new book, Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others (Yale University Press/Available now), looks at ways of convincing the bosses through the use of data, presentations, and political savvy. In an uncertain economy, leadership is especially reluctant to take on significant risk, so you need to convince managers that failing to green-light your proposal presents them with negative consequences. “You do this by not only describing benefits, but also by telling people what they’ll miss out on if they fail to adopt the idea,” says author John A. Daly. “People fear regret.” Daly is a professor of communications/management at the University of Texas. He’s also consulted on communications, influence, and customer loyalty with companies such as IBM, Marriott, Merck and Merrill Lynch, as well as the White House and Department of the Army. For more about the book, click here.

Open-plan office layouts are popular these days, with fewer individual offices and more emphasis on environments that encourage collaboration. Experts tout benefits like employee retention and better use of space, but there also is evidence that people who work in open spaces act more ethically. A survey from the Ethisphere Institute and Jones Lang LaSalle makes the case, based in part on the impressions of executives. Says one respondent: “Having open office space clearly makes it more difficult for someone to commit unethical acts…We simply no longer get these kinds of complaints.” Says another: “Culturally, our company would die [...] if we had a closed office environment.” The survey also sheds light on telecommuting practices. More than 200 professionals from a wide range of industries took part in the research. The Ethisphere Institute is a think-tank specializing in corporate ethics, and Jones Lang LaSalle is a professional services firm specializing in real estate services. To access the survey, click here.

Social media influence consumer decisions, but not as much you might think—at least not yet. As customers flock to the Internet for research, the most popular sites remain those with advice from established reviewers and experts, according to a survey from the Cone Online Influence Trend Tracker. In other words, we’re more inclined to trust the mainstream media than advice from Aunt Sarah or our BFFs on Facebook. Even so, many companies are all a-twitter (sorry) about investing in social-media consumer analytics. The research suggests that efforts should focus on convincing the real convincers out there, whoever they might be. "The increasing impact of online content on buying decisions cannot be ignored," says Bill Fleishman, president of Cone. "Today's marketers, no matter the product or service, must learn how to sway the conversation by connecting with those who have significant influence over their peers and will champion the brand message." Nearly 1,055 adults took part in the research. To access the survey, click here.

Do you Sisu? Sisu is a Finnish term for doing what it takes to get things done. It embodies qualities of will, perseverance, and endurance, and places high value on building an organization that leverages the collective strength of its people. In the book, Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders Create Economic and Social Value (Harvard Business Review Press/Available in September), lead authors Michael Beer and Flemming Norrgren explore this concept in depth. They compare and contrast the business as usual approach to corporate life with the more strategically focused Sisu approach. Whether you’re already a manager or are seeking to advance professionally, Sisu can help enhance your sense of presence, fairness, clarity and persistence. Beer is a professor of business administration (Emeritus) at Harvard Business School and chairman of TruePoint Partners, a consultancy. Norrgren is a professor at Chalmers University in Sweden and a director of the TruePoint Center in Europe. For more about the book, click here.

It’s hard enough to get a job these days without making a hash of your resume and your references (not to mention your interview wardrobe and behavior), but some candidates just can’t seem to get out of their own way. Research from CareerBuilder led us to these lapses in judgment, which come from actual resumes and applications submitted for legit job openings. It is important for a candidate to stand out from the crowd - 45% of HR managers spend less than one minute reviewing the average person’s materials -- but straining too hard to distinguish yourself will often backfire. "Hiring managers will notice and spend more time with resumes that are easy to read and include relevant experience customized to the position," says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. "Creativity and personal touches may seem tempting to some job seekers. But many times, it's a disqualifying distraction for a human resource professional." More than 2,600 employers took part in the research.

Sounds like high school all over again: Career success depends more on popularity than intelligence. But bosses value workers who interact well with colleagues, customers, and partners, according to a recent survey from CareerBuilder and to a new book, The 11 Laws of Likability (Amacom/Available in September). The CareerBuilder research -- for which 2,600 hiring managers and HR pros took part -- focuses upon employer preference for workers with high emotional intelligence -- the ability to control emotions and effectively manage relationships -- as opposed to plain old IQ. “When it's down to you and another candidate for a promotion or new job,” says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder, “dynamic interpersonal skills will set you apart.” In the Laws of Likability book, author Michelle Tillis Lederman highlights 11 key personal qualities that distinguish successful, likable professionals from the rest of the pack. We discuss several of them below here; click here to learn more.

See also iPad is Just the Beginning. Experts argue over the likelihood of tablet computers replacing desktops and laptops, but many tablet owners have no such doubts. A recent survey from Staples Advantage, the B2B division of the big office-supply retailer, shows that a clear majority of tablet users believe that tablets will end up replacing their more traditional machines. Sales of the slim computers are expected to soar from 55 million this year to more than 208 million in 2014, with users citing portability as a key benefit (many say they even take their machines into the bathroom). “Tablets make it easy for employees to keep information with them and utilize business apps, no matter where they go,” says Ed Ludwigson, vice president and general manager for Staples Technology Solutions. “For employers, the benefit is having a more productive workforce that’s always connected to what’s happening at the office.” More than 200 business users of tablet computers took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Social media content created by and for your business could expose you to litigation, trash your reputation, and hurt the bottom line. Symantec's 2011 Social Media Protection Flash Poll shows that in the past year, the typical enterprise had nine social-media related incidents, such as employees posting confidential information to Facebook profiles; nearly all of these companies suffered some consequences. "Businesses know how important it is to protect and preserve email, IM, spreadsheets and other unstructured information. Now they need to recognize that information flowing through social networks is equally important," says Greg Muscarella, senior director of product management for Symantec's Information Management Group. "Employee education and training on the proper use of social media for business purposes is just as important as having the technology pieces in place." On behalf of Symantec, Applied Research surveyed 1,225 IT professionals in 33 countries during April 2011; for more about the survey, click here.

See also Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Fear of public speaking is routinely ranked up there with death, heights, and spiders among the things that really freak people out. We hate to add to the pressure, but speaking well to a group also can mean a lot to your career – and speaking poorly from the podium can hold you back. Preparation helps, says author Christine K. Jahnke, who discusses a wide range of strategies for better public speaking in her new book, The Well-Spoken Woman: Your Guide to Looking and Sounding Your Best (Prometheus Books/Available in September). Yes, men can learn from it, too. Subjects covered in the book include proper inflection, focus, and pace – even the food and beverages to avoid before a speaking engagement. The founder of a Washington-based speech-training firm called Positive Communications, Jahnke has advised or trained the likes of First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, along with numerous CEOs and other corporate senior execs. For more about the book, click here.

Who commits fraud in your company? He may be one of your hardest-working and most trusted colleagues, someone who is often stressed, rarely takes vacations, and protects his business unit from scrutiny while personally attending to the top vendors. That’s the profile of a typical fraudster produced by KPMG International, revealed in its study of global fraud. The research draws on nearly 350 actual investigations conducted by KPMG member firms in 69 countries, and it shows that the majority of cases exhibited at least one red flag that should have triggered intervention. Yet only 10% of these cases resulted in action before requiring a full-blown investigation. Patterns of fraud often remain undetected for years, costing millions. Senior management must be proactive, supporting a robust ethics and compliance policy while providing an easy way for employees to report an issue without fear of retaliation, all while maintaining appropriate due diligence. For more about the report, click here.

Housing woes continue to plague millions of Americans, and to threaten the larger economy – including the business sector. A new survey from Fannie Mae shows that many homeowners worry about losing their jobs, often admitting they haven’t saved enough to cushion such a financial blow. Meanwhile, renters feel stuck, unable to get loans due to ongoing economic uncertainty, and, often, to their own histories of credit problems. All of which is bad news for the economy at large, given the drag of a moribund housing sector, and a lack of confidence that could cripple hopes for an economic rebound in the near future. "Consumers are more hesitant to take on additional financial commitments," says Doug Duncan, vice president and chief economist of Fannie Mae, "and a setback to confidence means a setback to the recovery of the housing market." The research – compiled from interviews with more than 3,000 Americans also tracks sentiments within both generational and ethnic categories. For more about the survey, click here.

Younger workers who grew up with computers and mobile phones enter the workforce with more technology experience than any prior generation. This makes life both easier and harder for IT support staffs, according to a survey from Bomgar. On one hand, Millennials are more inclined than older workers to seek solutions to tech issues. On the other hand, IT pros are concerned about the effectiveness of this DIY approach, worrying that it leads to security breaches. But the digital natives are who they are. “Some media commentators perceive this generation as a coddled one with high expectations,” according to David Card, author of the survey report. “But when it comes to problem solving, Millennials are self-sufficient when they can be and collaborative with one another when they can’t. They’re also highly engaged with technology, and many are interested in learning more.” More than 400 U.S. Millennials and 200 IT departments took part in the research, which was supported by Isurus Market Research and GigaOM Pro.

With the boom in social-networking company valuations, you might think experienced technology pros would be longing for positions at startups. After all, consumer-facing enterprises, notable among them those social-media hotties, have rung up twice as much in venture capital investment already this year as they did in all of 2010, creating eye-popping IPO estimates for companies like Twitter and Facebook – and jobs generally follow the money. But Dice.com research says the majority of IT employees still prefer to work for established companies. Chalk it up to the long-suffering economy and the flood of layoffs in the last several years – and to memories of the DotCom explosion and implosion at the turn of the century. But that history may be too distant to influence younger workers, who are far more likely to embrace the idea of working for a startup than their older counterparts. Almost 800 tech professionals took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Most organizations lack a comprehensive view of their own project portfolios, and inadequate technology often is to blame. Portfolio management helps companies decide which projects and products to invest in by providing actionable data on customers, competitors and other market-influencing factors. Without this perspective, it's hard to make effective decisions about new products. What's behind the problem? A lack of decent software tools, according to a survey of IT managers and other executives from the Association of International Product Marketing and Management, and Accept Corporation. What's needed is a better IT toolkit, along with practices to ensure that top-down business objectives are linked to project-portfolio resources and oversight. Instead, companies depend upon manual methods such as documents, spreadsheets, and single-focus presentations. Yet these manual tools will fail to scale as needed. More than 150 executives took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Even people fortunate enough to remain employed are struggling with debt concerns and the resulting stress on their savings and retirement portfolios. In that vein, here's some bad news and some not-quite-that-bad news. The bad news: A significant percentage of employees are living paycheck-to-paycheck, with a notable share of them missing routine bill payments, according to a recent survey from CareerBuilder. Even a six-figure income may not be enough to stave off bad times – a surprising number of those making more than $100,000 per year are having trouble in meeting expenses. The not entirely rotten news is that things are not quite as bad as they were last year, with minor-to-decent statistical improvement compared to 2010. Keep in mind that this research was completed shortly before the market meltdown in August and the resulting increase in fear of a double-dip recession, and that it conveys a broad, year-to-year perspective. More than 2,500 U.S. hiring managers and nearly 5,300 U.S. workers took part in the research.

Food, water, shelter…software? On an existential level, you really can live without the applications you love. But, as the rabbi in the old joke says, “You call that living?” To settle the argument (or actually start it) over which software is truly necessary to our day-to-day function, Ranker.com is inviting users to weigh in on its list of essential software. You probably could have predicted that a couple of Google innovations would be riding high, but it may surprise you to find out which ones dominate. And while you might have guessed that Microsoft Office made the cut, don’t assume that popular sentiment sides with the most recent version. Ranker.com is a site dedicated to teasing out superlatives within the worlds of film, TV, music, games, sports, automobiles, books and, of course, technology; it claims more than two million monthly unique users. The list is a moving target, given that new votes may be cast every day; to view the most recent version, or cast your own vote,click here.

How can you create a culture of positive thinking at your workplace? According to business advisor and consultant Paul David Walker, author of Unleashing Genius: Leading Yourself, Teams and Corporations, there are seven steps you can take to help your employees come to work with a can-do attitude and stay in the zone while on the job. "Studies have discovered that happiness and well-being are natural states of mind," says Walker. "All types of suffering are simply conditioned responses to our thoughts. Thoughts that we repeat to ourselves detract us from insight and our natural feelings of joy, love and gratitude." Negativity begets negativity, and keeping a positive attitude can help employees be more engaged in their jobs and more productive at work. Practicing these seven steps, Walker says, can cultivate happiness in your teams. Leaders can have a better effect on their staff and employees can approach work with a better attitude and contribute to a happier, healthier bottom line.

After 12 years, my position as a senior writer for USA Weekend Magazine was eliminated. I loved the place, but I understood that my industry was changing. It felt uncomfortable to join a statistical club that I had reported on so many times before from the detached perspective of a journalist. Now I had to find a way to support myself and my family, while finding a full-time job that suited my abilities and experience. Fortunately – unlike many of my former co-workers downsized at the same time, I already had clients such as Ziff Davis Enterprise, the publisher of this site, who kept me busy and kept some money coming in. The search for lasting employment, though, is like a full-time job in itself. Some view a layoff as a chance to recharge. I thought of it more like the lyrics from the song, a time to get busy living or get busy dying, at least from a career-relevance perspective. Along the way, I learned a lot about what it takes to stay sane and persevere until the right opportunity comes through. Here are some of the lessons I found helpful.

iPad is dominating the enterprise market, accounting for an overwhelming proportion of business tablet activations, with Android tablets yet to make a dent in the corporate sector. As a result, iPad is transforming the way organizations work. Numerous iPad applications allow workers to do a lot on the lightweight computers – and workers want more. A book, iPad in the Enterprise: Developing and Deploying Business Applications (Wiley/available now), looks at the wonder-tablet from a business user's perspective. Author Nathan Clevenger talks about tapping the consumer-friendly qualities of the iPad to fuel strategic success. “iPads are now in the hands of workers on virtually every level of company in almost every industry,” Clevenger writes, “and users are beginning to demand line-of-business applications to help them be more productive and efficient from wherever they are.” Below are ten applications highlighted in the book that address some critical functions. For more about the book, click here.

iPads are not just tablet computers, they're fashion accessories, and how you wield yours says something about your own personal sense of style. On a recent airplane trip from Oakland, Calif., to Albuquerque, N.M., I saw iPads being used by just about every demographic imaginable, to do a dizzying assortment of things, from reading books and documents to checking email and posting Facebook updates to playing games and watching movies. And there are as many ways for a user to hold his or her iPad as there are uses for the devices – and how you relate to the tablet probably says something about the person you are -- or wish you were. A big part of the appeal of all Apple machines is their coolness factor, and since people like the way they look with an iPad in their hands, it's only logical that they'd want to complete that look with a distinctive method for clutching the slender status symbols. Here are ten iPad handling techniques we've identified. Perhaps one of them sounds familiar to you.

Business travel is alive and well in the era of austerity. A good-sized chunk of the workforce hits the road at least seven times a year, and they’re pretty happy about it. While budgets are tight and technology makes it easier than ever to connect virtually, there’s still no substitute for face-to-face contact with customers and partners. Companies are willing to send staffers out for several days at a time, spending well over $400 a day to do so. Almost 4,000 business-traveling respondents took part in the research, which was the product of two surveys; one report was released by makers of TripIt, a mobile trip organizer device, and the other is from the Global Business Travel Association and Concur, a provider of integrated travel and expense-management solutions and the parent company of TripIt. The findings also highlight the tech preferences of these road warriors, especially when it comes to the use of smartphones. for more information about the individual surveys. Click here and and here.

Most companies come up short in terms of equipping workers with the mobile tools they need to succeed. Mobile devices and applications are commonly perceived as productivity boosters, if not outright necessities, but a Sybase survey shows that few professionals think their employers do a good job of creating a mobile-friendly environment. Survey participants also give low grades to their IT departments with respect to the management of these devices and apps. "Enterprises need to broaden and accelerate their enterprise mobility strategies," says Dan Ortega, senior director of product marketing at Sybase. "Employees are beginning to have a much greater understanding of mobility, resulting in increased expectations from IT.” One possible solution: company-managed app stores, which seem to be gaining greater acceptance within many enterprises. More than 500 employees in the U.S. and the U.K. took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here. Additional research was taken from this report.

See also Fast Facts on Linux and Apple Twitter happened fast, fittingly enough. In early 2007, microblogging was hardly even an annoying neologism and the startup company built around the idea was just another social media wannabe. Then, overnight, Twitter was the darling of SXSW scenesters, and then after a brief run as an outage-prone curiosity it vaulted to its present status as one of the ten most popular sites on the internet, not to mention a meme-spewing cultural stethoscope. Everyone from Lady Gaga to flacks at General Motors and the kid next door uses the service, which boasts over 200 million registered users and a gaudy valuation that by one estimate is around $8 billion, or $57 million per space in its 140-character messages. Companies that lack a well-planned Twitter strategy are missing out on prime customer intelligence, and forsaking a powerful megaphone of their own. But how did the hashtag and the Fail Whale go from #obscure to #ubiquitous so quickly? Our thumbnail history of Twitter’s vertiginous rise tells the story in Tweet-sized bursts.

Nearly one-third of private companies are investing more in IT to spur growth and efficiency, according to PwC's Private Company Trendsetter Barometer. These companies plan to increase IT spending from 5.6% of their total budgets in 2010 to 6.6% over the next 12 months, a year-to-year increase of nearly 19%. "Technology plays a critical role in driving global growth and competitiveness for private companies, particularly in markets like China, India, and Brazil," says Ken Esch, a partner in PwC’s Private Company Services practice. "As private companies increasingly view these markets as places to sell rather than just as sites for low-cost sourcing and manufacturing, they'll need to have digital channels in place to deliver products and services." Innovation and maintenance are key investment areas, with the top area of concern data security. "Information security is increasingly critical for private companies," says Esch. "Risks can be managed and reduced with strategic investment in IT security."

You’re bound to run into them at some point: the slacker, the grumbler, the excuse-maker, and other problem co-workers. While you may wonder how they keep their jobs, as long as they do, you must work with them. A new book, Managing the Unmanageable: How to Motivate Even the Most Unruly Employee (Career Press/available now), focuses on ways of getting dysfunctional workers to recognize and overcome their flaws. Authors Anne Loehr and Jezra Kaye, who claim that problem employees can cost companies 30% in productivity, present strategies in a systemic manner that real-world managers will find useful. But even non-supervisory workers will find value in the problem/solution scenarios meant to help people help themselves. Loehr is an executive coach/leadership development consultant for clients such as Facebook, the U.S. Air Force and Booz Allen Hamilton. Kaye is a speechwriter/public speaking coach who also provides corporate consultation on communications. For more about the book, click here.

Men and women still look at things differently when it comes to technology, relationships, and status symbols, at least if you believe a survey jointly released by the respected sociologists at AskMen and Cosmopolitan.com. More than 80,000 respondents took part in the online poll, sharing their candid views on a wide variety of topics; our feature is G-rated, but some of the material included at the links below is at least PG-13 , so use your own discretion in clicking through. Not much is shocking in this day and age, but there were a few things in the surveys that made us scratch our heads and say “hmmm”: 50% of male respondents say they do nothing about cell-phone security, but only 8% do nothing about security on Facebook. Also, 62% of men say they couldn’t live without a computer, 24% couldn’t give up their smart phones, but only 12% need a television. for the AskMen version Click here and here for Cosmo’s take.

Employment for the technology-adept is a rare bright spot in a grim job market. And companies—from startups to heavy-hitters like Starbucks -- are paying attention to social networks when looking for potential new hires. Why? That’s where the people are; comScore says social nets soak up one of every six minutes spent online, twice the rate previously reported. In its fourth annual look at how companies are using social recruiting, CRM software-as-a-service vendor Jobvite finds that 67% of the companies are planning to hire this year, and 89% of those companies will use social media as a way to find top talent. For job-hunters, the challenge lies in joining the right networks for given gigs. Some specialties gravitate to Twitter, for example, but for others you might be best served on LinkedIn. Not surprisingly, engineering and tech jobs rank high on the list of those most often shared on social networks. So which networks are most likely to land you your next job? For more on the survey, click here.

Few tech companies have returned to staffing levels seen before the economic downturn, says KPMG, and many organizations may never match their headcounts from the mid '00s. More encouraging: Executives anticipate increased spending on R&D, a strong M&A market, and greater revenues. Among nations expected to enjoy robust growth, the U.S. is at the head of the pack – up from third place a year ago. "Technology executives clearly see a sustained recovery and a strong appetite for technology related purchases by U.S. companies and consumers, which has helped raise the position of the U.S. market," says Gary Matuszak, partner, global chair and U.S. leader for KPMG's technology, communications and entertainment practice. "They also intend to take advantage of their strong liquidity and cash positions by investing in emerging technologies and new business models, like cloud computing." More than 100 senior/C-level executives in the tech industry took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

You may be good at your job, but can you really make things happen? Are you able to steer the course of events, or are you just swept along by the tide? The upward trajectory of your career may depend upon the perception of you as someone with influence within the organization. And you don’t have to be a senior executive to make an impact, says Terry Bacon, author of the book, Elements of Influence: The Art of Getting Others to Follow Your Lead (Amacom/available now), who contends that anyone can emerge as an influential player by adopting a few basic strategies. Every interaction you have on the job presents an opportunity, and those who recognize and take advantage of such opportunities are most likely to convince others to support them and their ideas. Bacon is founder of Lore International Institute, an executive-development firm recently acquired by Korn/Ferry International. He is also author of Powerful Proposals and The Elements of Power. For more about the book, click here.

Ever wonder how your telecommuting colleagues really live? Turns out, many of them actually do work in their pajamas. They also tend to love their work-life balance – to the point where they’d take a pay cut to maintain the status quo. There are downsides: Many complain of constant soreness because of inadequate office furniture. The inside scoop on these out-of-sight workers is reported in a survey from Staples Advantage, the business-to-business division of Staples Inc. There are a reported 2.8 million telecommuters in the U.S., and the survey presents a complex portrait of their lives and preferences. While many convey a certain leading-edge tech savvy, most prefer to communicate via old-fashioned email as opposed to IM or other more in-vogue options. And even though the vast majority of these professionals are proactive about securing their computing devices, a surprising number confess that they fail to take the simple step of backing up their data. To find out more about the survey, click here.

Once feared by corporations, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter now are integral to branding and public relations. The paranoid approach was unsustainable; as the saying goes, you need to fish where the fish are, and customers cluster on these popular platforms. But doing something and doing it right are different things. In a recent book, Reputation Rules: Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset (McGraw-Hill/available now), author Daniel Diermeier considers reputation maintenance in the digital age. Much of the focus is on crisis management and the reality that CEOs can no longer hide behind press releases when things go wrong. Instead, Diermeier urges leaders to cultivate a “whole company” culture that gets out in front of bad news. Diermeier is the IBM professor of regulation and competitive practice and director of the Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. For more on the book, click here.

IT jobs can be challenging and stressful, but they are among the best gigs available in the modern workplace. So says a recent report from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA). Technology-related positions pay more than typical jobs, and they are less likely to see layoffs when times get tough. The ESA report profiled professionals who work in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics – so-called STEM workers. Among the findings: the good times should continue, as STEM jobs will continue to grow at a faster rate than non-STEM positions over the next decade. "Our country's current and future economic prosperity and ability to innovate absolutely depend on a robust, high-quality STEM workforce," said James Brown, executive director of the STEM Education Coalition. "If we are to keep up with our global competitors, we must step up our nation's efforts to improve and encourage STEM education." For more about the report, click here.

More than one-third of workers hate their jobs, researchers say, and a fourth of the haters cite their employers as the primary problem. Of course, there will always be malcontents. But many companies really are difficult places to work. If you’re harboring intensely negative feelings about work, take an objective assessment of your conditions and decide whether the problems start with you or the entity for which you toil. In the book, Your Company Sucks: It’s Time to Declare War on Yourself (BenBella/Available in August), author Mark Stevens reveals some of the trouble signs that indicate whether you belong to a really, well, sucky organization. The subtitle reference to “declare war” on yourself refers to the need to snap out of your dysfunctional employer-caused funk and take charge of your environment and, in the process, your career. Stevens is CEO of MSCO, a management/marketing consultation firm, and author of the popular business blog, Unconventional Thinking. For more about the book, click here click here.

Employee benefits continue to take a hit as the economy languishes. A survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), sponsored by Colonial Life, says the vast majority of HR professionals report that employees are seeing notable cuts in programs related to health, retirement and quality of life. And you can say goodbye to some of the compensation bonuses that grew popular in better times, along with perks like tuition reimbursement. Even benefits that essentially cost nothing are on the decline—some employers are giving those popular Friday casual-dress days the heave-ho. On a positive note, some benefits are on the rise, such as on-site company fitness centers (they’re a way for employers to maintain a healthier, more productive workforce that is less of a drain on health-care coverage budgets.) The survey covers a range of years, but we focused on the differences in benefits provided between 2008 and today. About 600 HR executives took part in the research. To read the survey, click here.

Not so long ago and not very far away, it was common for workers with average jobs to buy lunch out every day, send laundry to be done outside the home, and load up on things like premium cable-television packages. But that was before the Great Recession and the painfully slow recovery remade attitudes on non-essential expenses — not to mention non-essential debt. Now, Americans have changed their spending habits, according to a recent survey from Harris Interactive. People are altering their lifestyles in every conceivable way to save money, whether it's shopping for clothes, planning meals, making purchase decisions on entertainment options, or even getting a haircut. Perhaps surprisingly, Gen Xers are more likely than Boomers to make sacrifices when it comes to a number of these hard choices. And don’t expect this belt-tightening to end anytime soon, as Harris reports that Americans say they expect the economy to only get worse in the next year. More than 2,160 adults took part in the research.

Good jobs are scarce these days, so you might think people would be careful to hang on to work when they've got it. Yet many employees sabotage their own careers through excruciatingly ill-conceived -- and easy to avoid -- work habits. A recent book, The Professional: Defining the New Standard of Excellence at Work (Portfolio/Penguin; Available now), lays out nine potential career-killing behaviors observed in real life. The bottom line: succeeding within an organization and building a career are about more than talent and producing good work on occasion, according to author Subroto Bagchi. You have to maintain your personal integrity, take responsibility for your actions, and nurture habits and practices that define true professionalism over time. If you do lapse into even one of these behaviors on a regular basis, you ultimately will do the most harm to yourself. For more about the book, click here.

See also You Can't Afford To Retire Expectations for retirement have changed in the wake of the Great Recession. Forget moving someplace warm and sipping margaritas between golf and shuffleboard games; the "New Normal" for Americans involves less wealth and more work, says a survey from SunAmerica Financial Group, which focused on people aged 55 and older (younger workers should pay attention, too). Still, the research shows people as more upbeat and philosophical than pessimistic, with a sense that the new experience of retirement can be fulfilling. "Americans are emerging from the experience with new knowledge, new discipline and have re-set their vision of an ideal retirement," says Jay S. Wintrob, president/CEO of SunAmerica Financial Group. "Americans have also proven themselves to be both resilient and resourceful. They are course-correcting: intending to work longer, save more, spend less, be more disciplined and adjust their lifestyle expectations." More than 1,000 Americans took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

See also Five Interview Blunders Job interviews can be tough under any circumstance, but some people seem intent on raising the degree of difficulty. HR managers and senior executives surveyed by Robert Half recall behavior by applicants ranging from the inappropriate to the downright bizarre. These are extreme examples, but the report makes a serious point for saner candidates: Don't set yourself back with common misbehavior, such as appearing unenthusiastic or overly nervous. The best candidates keep in mind that the whole point of an interview is to sell yourself as a desirable professional in a face-to-face setting. "Job seekers should remember hiring managers aren't just assessing their qualifications, but they're also looking for signs of outstanding people skills and good judgment," says Brett Good, a senior district president for Robert Half. Meanwhile, you can see best (and not so best) practices is a series of videos depicting interviews that have gone awry at by clicking on this link to the Robert Half site.

Collaborative work and coordinated team effort are essential elements of business success, but how do you make it all happen? A book in HBR’s management series, Harvard Business Review on Collaborating Effectively (Harvard Business Review Press/available now), offers some pragmatic, highly adaptable collaboration tricks that can help jumpstart your efforts to play well with others — and to get them to play well with each other. In the book, contributors Lynda Gratton and Tamara J. Erickson go beyond the usual ponderous theory and consultant-speak to reveal relatively simple best practices that managers, team leaders and line workers can initiate in order to establish an atmosphere of exchange. Gratton is a professor of management practice at the London Business School. Erickson is an author, speaker, and trainer specializing in organizations and the changing workforce. They combined to conduct research with 15 multinational companies to come up with these suggestions. For more about the book, click here.

Nervous about your next job review? A book from Harvard Business Review could help you make a good impression on the powers that be. How to be Good at Performance Appraisals: Simple, Effective, Done Right (Harvard Business Review Press/available now), by Dick Grote, is written for the folks doing the evaluations, which makes it an effective blueprint that you, as an employee, can use to find out how your supervisor plans to size you up. If you understand where management is coming from, and respond accordingly, the evaluation should become more of a positive, collaborative experience and less of an uncomfortable or even contentious one. Ultimately, those who present themselves as well-rounded professionals, focused on helping their organization achieve high-level strategic goals—as opposed to just doing their jobs—will emerge as winners. Grote is president of Grote Consulting Corp., which helps organizations improve performance-management processes. For more about the book, click here.

Keeping up with technology makes people optimistic about the future and happier about their kids— or maybe they just feel better because they tend to be pretty well off financially. A survey from Ogilvy Chicago and Communispace Corp. divides tech users into several categories, from the luddites to the well-wired. The latter group, with its command of IT knowledge and early adoption of cutting-edge technology, is described as being “tech fast forward,” but we’ll just call them technophiles. The researchers were less interested in the technology usage and purchase patterns of this crowd and more intrigued by their general attitudes about life— especially with regard to their perspectives as parents (single people were not a focus of the survey). What emerges is an encouraging picture (or pleasant fantasy) of how technology not only connects people, but provides a greater sense of hope for the present and future. More than 1,200 took part in the research. For more information about the survey, click here .

See also Seven Things Your Boss Hates About Your Got a bad boss? Join the club. Tyrants, manipulators and shameless credit-takers abound, according to a recent survey from OfficeTeam. Nearly half of employees say they have worked for insufferable managers, even as the majority of workers stay in their positions instead of finding another job. Sure, the current economy limits one’s mobility, but going to work every day with a terrible supervisor is still a major drag. "Bad bosses aren't necessarily bad people, but they certainly can make work challenging for those who report to them," says Robert Hosking, executive director of OfficeTeam. "Often, individuals are promoted because they excel in a given job, but that doesn't mean they have the skills to be effective leaders." You can control the way you respond to bullying and other destructive behaviors, and the report provides some guidance there, too; you could transform a bad boss into your biggest advocate. More than 440 workers took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

We all know (or should know) that certain mobile phone behaviors are considered obnoxious. But did you realize these faux pas can crush your love life? While certain instances of phone usage may be inevitable—or even desirable—during a date, many lapses of etiquette are major turn-offs, according to a recent survey from Zoosk, a social-dating site. Hint: If you spend more time staring at your phone screen than gazing into your date’s eyes, you could be in trouble. In many cases, survey respondents say they’ll walk out on a date if the phone behavior is too intrusive. Unfortunately, too many single folks are clueless about how offensive such displays can be. “The unwritten rules of mobile-phone use are clearly being abused," says Alex Mehr, co-founder and co-CEO of Zoosk. "It's our hope that singles follow proper cell phone etiquette.” Oh, another thing guys: Ditch the headset and phone-belt clip before the date, OK? It is so not sexy. More than 3,240 single people took part in the research.

One-fourth of IT projects are outright failures, and another 44% encounter significant difficulties, such as (sing along, you know the words) blown deadlines, overspent budgets, and failure to deliver on key goals. A book called Improving Your Project Management Skills (Amacom/Available now) aims to help you do what the title says. Author Larry Richman is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with more than three decades’ of experience. His practical guide is packed with tools, tips, charts, lists and other resources to help with planning, budgeting, scheduling, measuring performance, assessing risks and other key project management issues. The underlying lesson of the book is contained in this simple sentence: “The level at which you plan is the level at which you thereafter control” (or as the old adage has it, “Those who fail to plan are planning to fail”). Richman contends that careful thinking up front will reduce pain down the road. For more about the book, click here.

Overwhelmed by the routine work of managing technology? You and your coworkers are far from alone – in fact, three out of four enterprises say they struggle with IT management issues. And the hits keep on coming. You know the drill: Systems grow increasingly complex, while the business demands continuity and users clamor for the latest and greatest tools – and expect them to work with existing technology, right out of the box. Storage demands metastasize as the amount of information grows and grows and grows. And regulatory changes seem to constantly up the ante on compliance challenges. A report from IT Productivity Center addresses these and other common situations, offering simple solutions to routine problems. The report is the result of in-depth interviews with top IT managers; IT Productivity Center provides resources to help tech departments resolve business problems in the areas of metrics, measurement, best practices, process improvement, benchmarking, and knowledge management.

Search engine poisoning attacks use ranking algorithms to link and direct users to websites that host malware. The attacks can be hard to trace because hackers don’t require control of the servers involved in the scheme, instead relying on knowledge of vulnerable URLs. Combining HTML code injection with cross site scripting (XSS) lets hackers insert a malicious script into browsers, tricking search engines into indexing dangerous links. When users follow these links, their computers are infected with malware. This has a negative impact on a site’s accessibility via search engines. Companies can prevent sites from being abused by protecting web applications against XSS.; protection from malicious references returned as search results is also a responsibility of search engines. Current solutions that warn the user of malicious sites may be enhanced by studying the footprints of a SEP via XSS, allowing more accurate and timely notifications, as well as prudent indexing. Noa Bar-Yosef is a Senior Security Strategist at Imperva.

Knowledge workers, also known as “the creative class” in the parlance of economist and social scientist Richard Florida, make their living by fostering innovation, resolving problems, and thinking strategically. Sounds interesting, right? And familiar, too, as it may describe your job. But a survey from GfK Custom Research North America conveys a different part of the story: Despite high engagement with their jobs, these highly-educated types have greater levels of stress than other workers. They struggle for work-life balance, and worry about getting job security – although Baseline has to wonder, really, who doesn’t deal with this kind of stuff? "Greater education opens the door to more opportunities in the job market,” says Thomas Hartley, vice president of GfK Customer Loyalty and Employee Engagement. “But with that comes higher levels of responsibility and pressure to deliver results.” More than 30,000 employees worldwide took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Is your company ready to do business around the world? First, you have to understand the countries where you’ll operate. Readiness to compete in different climates is addressed in the book, Harvard Business Review on Thriving in Emerging Markets (Harvard Business Review Press/Available now). In a section called “Strategies That Fit Emerging Markets,” contributors Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Jayant Sinha examine the factors that come into play when business is conducted in a foreign nation. These include the structure of local government, availability of customer data, transportation infrastructure, and other important variables. Many problems are encountered, the authors write, when businesses stick to their traditional strategies without considering the unique, local dynamics of each particular country in which they are active. Keep this list in mind when considering your own company’s potential, and your own involvement in its global initiatives. For more about the book, click here.

As companies struggle to find workers with the right mix of talents to fill their needs -- 34% of employers are having difficulty filling vacancies, according to ManpowerGroup – more workers say they are willing to relocate to get a job. That includes moving to another country, and, in many cases, doing so on a permanent basis. “Talent mobility is one proven way to address to the talent supply and demand imbalance that currently exists in the labor market," says Jeffrey A. Joerres, chairman and CEO of ManpowerGroup. "It is by no means the only answer and must form part of a multi-stakeholder response. But there is a critical need to expand the view of talent sources." You may be surprised to find out which nation is the most likely where you’ll find employees who are willing to move. (Hint: It’s not India or China.) Nearly 14,400 people in nine nations took part in the research. For more about this survey and others from ManpowerGroup regarding the state of employment today, click here.

Experts say you should have six months’ worth of living expenses saved up in case you lose your job. Most Americans say, “Who, me?” A Bankrate.com survey shows that the vast majority of U.S. workers fall short of the six-month standard. Given the anemic-at-best recovery, and the fact that it will take years for employment to reach pre-Great Recession levels, this is a huge problem. "With over 6 million people out of work for longer than six months, Americans still have much work to do in building an adequate emergency savings cushion," says Greg McBride, CFA, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com. "Those most likely to have an adequate savings cushion are individuals in their 50s and 60s and higher-income households. But even among these groups, at least half do not have six months of expenses in an emergency fund." The report also sheds light on concerns about debt, job security and a decline in our perceptions of net worth. More than 1,000 people took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Strong passwords are an important way to protect your corporate and private data from theft – and to avoid joining the more than nine million Americans victimized by identity theft each year. Eugene Buyakin, COO of Kaspersky Lab, says he used to have a "throwaway" password that he would use for online services that weren’t important, or one-time only events. However, one day he “realized that the same throwaway password was being used on junk pages as well as sites like Twitter and Facebook,” he says. "A throwaway password never stays unimportant.” Darya Gudkova, head of content analysis and research for Kaspersky, also emphasizes the need for strong passwords. She recommends long passwords with a mix of different characters and letters. She also throws in several different languages to make her own passwords even tougher to crack. How do you create a bulletproof password that hackers can't crack? These tips from myID.com can help you and your employees set passwords that will keep your data stays secure.

Large companies, the federal government, and institutions of higher education are moving to the cloud faster than small-to-midsized businesses and state and local governments, according to a survey from CDW. 30% or more of these larger organizations are actively using cloud computing, compared to about 20% for smaller concerns. But worries persist, including questions about security and cost savings. “Many organizations are carefully – and selectively – moving into cloud computing, as well they should, because it represents a significant shift in how computing resources are provided and managed,” said David Cottingham, senior director of managed services at CDW. “With thoughtful planning, organizations can realize benefits that align directly with their organizational goals: consolidated IT infrastructure, reduced IT energy and capital costs, and anywhere-access to documents and applications.” An estimated 1,200 IT professionals took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Some people are born leaders, but most of us learn the art of leadership along the way. The better you are at nurturing leadership potential in others, the more valuable you will be to your organization. To cultivate these skills, you must push people toward peak performance while convincing them of your commitment to their personal growth. In the book, The Little Book of Leadership Development: 50 Ways to Bring Out the Leader in Every Employee (Amacom/available now), authors Scott J. Allen and Mitchell Kusy enumerate strategies for creating a greater sense of ownership and direction within the ranks. Do so and you will distinguish yourself as an essential leader in your own right. Allen is an assistant professor of management at John Carroll University and author of the book, Emotionally Intelligent Leadership. Kusy is an international organization development consultant and a full professor in the PhD program in leadership and change at Antioch University. For more about the book, click here.

See also Awful Applications and Ridiculous Resumes Much conventional wisdom about resumes and cover letters is wrong. Consider the basic, "Just the facts, ma’am," approach. In reality, facts must be backed up with good stories if you want a resume that really sells you to a potential employer. That’s just one of the suggestions presented in the new book, Unbeatable Resumes: America’s Top Recruiter Reveals What REALLY Gets You Hired (Amacom/available now). Author Tony Beshara demystifies an often-agonizing process: Marketing yourself effectively in a concise document. Given that resumes and cover letters typically are e-mailed these days, Beshara says job candidates risk getting lost in a sea of unopened files if they aren’t up to speed on the latest techniques for calling positive attention to themselves. One hint: Writing a strong subject line is an essential first step. Beshara is owner and president of Babich & Associates, the oldest placement firm in Texas. He’s also a regular on the Dr. Phil Show. For more about the book, click here .

Is your work life out of control? Do you find that keeping up with meetings, e-mail, and routine distractions prevents you from focusing on the actual work you need to get done? Maybe it’s time to rethink some of your workday routines. Taken from the book, Eliminate the Chaos at Work: 25 Techniques to Increase Productivity (Wiley/available now), the eight steps outlined below should increase your level of organization and help you manage the daily dose of office insanity. Author Laura Leist says workers often are overwhelmed by chaos because they fail to confront it and address its root causes. "It doesn’t matter what industry you work in," she writes, "or what your job title is; all offices can be broken down into areas that usually require streamlined systems and processes to be created and maintained." Leist is an organizational and productivity consultant for clients such as Microsoft, American Express, State Farm, IKEA and Morgan Stanley. For more information about the book, click here.

Are you ready for your company to monitor your lifestyle? Soaring healthcare costs have employers making workers pay for their unhealthy practices. Smoking is one habit under scrutiny, as is non-participation in wellness programs and screenings. On the positive side, a many companies reward the rank-and-file for clean living. A healthier workforce is more productive and less likely to have problems with absenteeism. While many firms care about employees, the driving factor here is the bottom line. "Despite reform, organizations still face rising costs and worsening population health," says John Zern, a health and benefits practice leader with Aon Hewitt. "It's clear that traditional annual trend mitigation tactics alone won't work. As a result, leading employers are implementing a 'house money, house rules' environment, using a mix of incentives, penalties and targeted messaging to reward healthy behaviors." More than 1,025 employers nationwide took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

A lot of things can go wrong on the long journey between the birth of an idea and its actual implementation. Potential breakthroughs fail for many reasons, with even worthy concepts falling victim to the hazards of the development process, a situation that is all the more perilous in this era of stripped-to-the-bone budgets and thin staffs. Thus the value of knowing about these eight classic innovation traps, as discussed in a new book, Harvard Business Review on Inspiring and Executing Innovation (Harvard Business Review Press/Available now). Contributor Rosabeth Moss Kanter says that the pitfalls for innovation are more likely the result of bad planning than a lack of creativity. There can be a failure to appreciate communications skills, or confusion about what exactly innovation is. In the end, a successful outcome is as much about people as it is intellectual brilliance. Kanter is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. For more about the book, click here.

Different groups get paid differently and have different experiences at work. A survey from CareerBuilder shows wide disparities in pay, although it does not fully address the reasons for such disparities. Workers with disabilities, for example, make considerably less than their colleagues, while lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) professionals are earning more than any other group. The survey reveals other disparities with respect to career advancement and perceived discrimination, among other topics. "The U.S. workplace has experienced fundamental shifts over the last two decades," said Sanja Licina, senior director of talent intelligence and consulting at CareerBuilder. "While companies have made strides in creating an inclusive workplace for all workers, there is still work to be done." Six diverse segments served as the prime focus of the research: African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, women, workers with disabilities and LGBT. More than 1,300 employees representing these groups took part.

Failure to manage data effectively is keeping organizations from reaching strategic business objectives, reports Syncsort. Part of the problem lies with data-integration tools; execs are frustrated by the cost of ownership and by the constant need for IT staff to fine-tune them. “Organizations are struggling with how to strike a balance between expensive and time-consuming workarounds for dealing with exploding data volumes, and a desire to drive ever-increasing value and insights from this data,” says W. Sean Ford, chief marketing officer at Syncsort. And things are only going to get more challenging as data volume expands; the digital universe is expected to increase to 35 trillion gigabytes by 2020, or well over 40 times the current level (a single gigabyte has more than enough capacity to store the entire human genome.) The survey was conducted by BeyeNetwork, with more than 350 IT and business professionals in the U.S. and Canada taking part. For more information about the survey, click here.

Unemployment remains high, yet senior execs doubt they can find enough talent to drive growth and successfully pursue global business strategies, according to PwC’s annual survey of global CEOs. Talent management is the #1 priority for corporate leaders, up from third on the list last year. Mobile employees are part of the equation, as CEOs seek to accommodate talent that yearns to travel far from the home office to exotic locales. This will increase the need for corporate focus on international tax codes, compliance mandates and tech support. "The 'war for talent' is not just a numbers game – it means finding, retaining and motivating employees whose skills fit the company's strategy," said Ed Boswell, U.S. Advisory People and Change practice leader at PwC. "As the economy is gradually showing signs of improvement, companies are putting their emphasis on their people." More than 1,200 chief executives in 69 nations took part in the research. For more information about the survey, click here.

Having the right skills gives you a chance to make more money than ever these days. You may even crack the six-figure club, according to research from Dice.com, which addresses what the online tech-jobs hub describes as an emerging tech-talent crunch. A lack of valuable experience in key areas—especially rapid-growth niches such as mobile tech and cloud computing—is boosting salaries even as prospects of a sustained, overall economic recovery appear shaky. The upshot: If you’ve got the IT chops, don’t undersell yourself on salary. "Technology professionals are the basis for innovation, efficiency and creating an agile workplace," says Tom Silver, senior vice president over North American operations for Dice. "Now is the time to ask for more money. Negotiate hard at the outset of a new job because that initial salary may set the base for the next three years." The research also explores which particular geographic regions are most hurting for talent. For more about the research from Dice, click here.

What gives big technology companies the jitters? Competition and consolidation, a fragile economy, and government regulation, for starters, according to a study of 100 large, publicly-traded tech firms by BDO USA. BDO examines risk factors listed in the most recent SEC 10-K filings by these businesses; the focus is on technology companies, but the concerns cited are common among most organization, especially with respect to bouncing back from the Great Recession. “Concerns over the ability to execute corporate strategy have more than tripled in the past two years as companies are under pressure to get back into the game and stay ahead of the competition,” said Aftab Jamil, partner and national director of the technology and life sciences practice at BDO. “Still, executives are approaching growth initiatives with a ‘lessons learned’ attitude and honing in on the supply chain to safeguard against operational pitfalls that could lead to business interruptions or delays.” For more about the study, click here.

Noted consultant Mick Jagger posited that you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need. Knowing how to get what you need, though, is not always easy, and the difference between positive and negative outcomes often comes down to the way you frame your request. In the book, Questions That Get Results: Innovative Ideas Managers Can Use to Improve Their Teams’ Performance (Wiley/Available now), co-authors Paul Cherry and Patrick Connor present a wealth of diplomatically stated, open-ended questions that can help you enhance prospects for positive outcomes in various situations. While the book is mainly focused on team performance, it also covers situations such as personal advancement and customer relations. We imagined some less-good ways of addressing certain common workplace situations, and turned to the book for examples of ways to ask the right questions instead. The result, as Jagger might say, should be Satisfaction. For more information about the book, click here .

Some smartphone users say they would give up coffee before missing out on the latest mobile apps, says a survey from MTV Networks. As one user puts it, "Apps are like Xanax in a phone." But how do these small downloads gain popularity, and what’s the attention span of the app-buying public? Word-of-mouth and good reviews help distinguish in-demand apps from the crowd, yet even passionate users can be fickle about their purchases; entertainment apps often enjoy brief bursts of popularity before users move on to the next hot thing. "App discovery and adoption is just as driven by buzz as any other content that we create," says Colleen Fahey Rush, executive vice president and chief research officer at MTV Networks. Apps can seem almost addictive; games, tools, and even movies and television shows hit the small screen several times a day for many users, often for extended periods at a time. More than 1,300 self-described mobile app users took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

A working mother who is the sole breadwinner for her family earns much less money than a father in a comparable role, according to a CareerBuilder survey of full-time workers with kids living at home. Women were three times likelier than men to earn under $35,000, while men were more than twice as likely to make $50,000. The survey did not address the causes of this disparity, but did touch on some of the social complexities behind the issue—for example, while many families are struggling to pay their bills, almost one-third of all working women say they would work for less if it meant spending more time with their kids. "While all indications point to economic recovery, working moms are still waiting to feel the effects," said Hope Gurion, CareerBuilder’s Chief Development Officer. People do find ways to adjust in tough time, she says. "While moms say they would give up things, including pay, to spend more time with their children, they are making the most of the time they do have and getting creative in work arrangements."

The globalized workplace brings great potential for cultural misunderstandings and embarrassing gaffes. That’s true not just for overseas assignments, but at home, where the U.S. population is projected to become "majority-minority" by 2042. Thus it’s important to know what is generally accepted by coworkers and professional contacts from a variety of backgrounds. A new book, The Cultural Intelligence Difference: Master the One Skill You Can’t Do Without in Today’s Global Economy (Amacom/available now), presents a list of best practices to pursue and taboos to avoid. Author David Livermore contends that an awareness of these do’s and don’ts is an essential component in building a strong CQ (cultural intelligence quotient). Most Americans say the country has gotten better at creating equal opportunities, but rough edges remain. Livermore is president at the Cultural Intelligence Center and has trained organizational leaders from more than 100 nations on this topic. For more about the book, click here.

There is life after the pink slip, as more people who have been laid off find their way back into the workforce. CareerBuilder says a large majority of the formerly unemployed are finding full-time jobs, as opposed to part-time gigs. That said, job seekers need to be realistic about expectations and prepare to make vocational and lifestyle adjustments. Many have redefined their careers entirely to land a position, or have moved to a new city. And the prospect of taking a pay cut to get back into circulation is still very real. Ultimately, the news is upbeat as the overall economy grows more positive. "While the job market remains highly competitive, opportunities are opening up across all industries and job levels," says Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America. "Over the last few years, we've seen workers out of necessity cast a wider net and discover new career paths they may never have considered pre-recession.” More than 900 employees who were laid off within the last year took part in the survey.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have published a list of job-market hotspots, with an eye to career-building opportunities. Included are diverse fields such as healthcare systems support staff, financial investigations, and corporate data-mining. Many of the jobs cited are directly related to technology, all of them are supported by IT in some way. The report’s title indicates its focus on long-term opportunities for workers of widely-varying ages: “Hot Careers For College Graduates 2011: A Special Report For Recent and Mid-Career College Graduates.” Henry J. DeVries, Assistant Dean, External Affairs, for UC San Diego Extension writes, “The study is based on enrollment figures, national employment statistics and interviews with San Diego business executives. Niche areas still provide some of the best career opportunities. Knowing where to look and honing your skills just might be the right strategy for finding the career that is best for you.” For more about the study, click here.

Mobile devices face a record number of security threats, according to Juniper Networks. The Malicious Mobile Threats Report 2010/2011 finds a 400% increase in Android malware and a spike in highly-targeted Wi-Fi attacks, meaning enterprises and SMBs alike need to take mobile threats seriously. “The last 18 months have produced a barrage of threat events, and while most had been aimed at desktop computers, hackers are setting their sights on mobile devices,” says Jeff Wilson, principle analyst, Security, at Infonetics Research. “Operating system consolidation and the massive and growing installed base of powerful mobile devices is tempting profit-motivated hackers to target these devices,” A recent survey of large businesses found that 40% consider smartphones their most dangerous security risk. Adds Dan Hoffman, Juniper’s chief mobile security evangelist, “Both enterprises and consumers alike need to be aware of the growing risks associated with the convenience of having the Internet in the palm of your hand.”

No level of experience or know-how can cover up a lack of professionalism. To get ahead, you must be mission-focused, accountable and committed to innovation. In the book, The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers (Prentice Hall/available now), author Robert C. Martin stresses that being a total pro is more about attitude than it is about talent. A positive outlook is cultivated over years, with contributing factors being the amount of training, networking, collaboration, and mentoring you’re willing to incorporate into your routine. And don’t forget about the need to take care of yourself physically and mentally, Martin stresses. While the book is primarily written for programmers, it provides insights for any worker. Ultimately, Martin reveals that qualities such as honor, self-respect, pride, clarity and a strong work ethic can make you an indispensable part of any company. Martin is a veteran programmer and prolific technology writer/author. For more about the book, click here.

As you ponder your cloud computing strategy – and more than half of Fortune 1000 companies are doing just that, with 10% currently selecting cloud providers – it pays to ask some key questions about how the move will contribute to business objectives and how to pursue a seamless transition. In the recent book, Cloud Sourcing the Corporation: Strategies You Can Use/100 Vendors You Should Know (Alsbridge/available now), author Ben Trowbridge explores these questions, providing guidelines for decision-makers to help direct their due diligence. “The existing technology market is being destroyed to make way for the new, faster-moving cloud services world,” he writes. “But an immature market provides both opportunities and pitfalls.” The book also includes thorough breakdowns on those 100 cloud vendors. Trowbridge is founder and CEO of Alsbridge, a global consultant firm specializing in cloud sourcing, outsourcing, networking and benchmarking. For more information about the book, click here.

IT certifications have lost their pricing power. Foote Partners reports that pay premiums for certifications are at their lowest point in 12 years, while non-certified skills are commanding more money. The IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index for the first quarter of 2011 shows 252 noncertified IT skills garnering a fifth consecutive pay gain, while 231 certifications saw declines again. “Being able to execute, work well as a member of a team, and prove that you have what it takes to get stuff done is what organizations covet most in their workers,” says David Foote, Foote Partners’ CEO and Chief Research Officer. “There are hundreds of skills that may not have certifications that are valued more highly by employers. If there is a choice between a worker with demonstrated experience or a person who is less experienced but holds a certification in the same skill, employers are choosing the experienced person and paying a premium for that experience. Ideally they’d probably like to have both.”

The World Health Organization has announced that experts have deemed the use of cell phones to be “possibly carcinogenic.” According to the news release, “The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans… based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, associated with wireless phone use.” Or, in less scientific terms, yikes. Long dismissed as the stuff of urban legend, the alleged connection between mobile devices and horrifying illness suddenly takes on a seriousness that is hard to ignore, and seems certain to fuel extensive research and debate for years to come. Already, we’d guess, it’s causing a lot of people to feel a little funny about their beloved cell phones — and the phones they give their kids. However things play out, there’s no doubt that workplace tools – and the modern workplace itself — can be hazardous to your health in a surprisingly wide variety of ways.

William Shakespeare is credited with writing nearly 40 plays. Had he worked in a modern office, he might have written twice as many. You want drama? The average workplace has plenty of it. Corporate life doesn’t need witches or ghosts to make it exciting, given the daily routine of high stakes and low intrigue, with a superfluity of office politics, impossible deadlines, and plain old personality clashes. In the recent book, "Stop Workplace Drama: Train Your Team to Have No Complaints, No Excuses, and No Regrets" (Wiley/available now), author Marlene Chism contends that the constant theatrics presented by cubicle players can be as counterproductive to an organization as bad strategic planning and management. She designates classic types of drama queens and kings, and provides some methodologies to defuse their over-the-top tendencies. Which means everyone can stop focusing on the sideshows and get back to work. Chism is a business consultant/trainer/speaker. For more about the book, click here.

Demanding work schedules and mounting financial challenges are leading many workers to cancel vacations this year, according to CareerBuilder. Even those who plan to take time off intend to stay connected with the office while trying to recharge. It’s a classic reaction to the dramatic economic downturn we’ve experienced: Because of layoffs, employees feel they have to keep showing up to remain valued, and declines in compensation have prompted households to save rather than spend. Under these circumstances, a vacation can seem frivolous. In the end, however, workers who don’t give themselves a break may hurt themselves professionally. "Taking advantage of vacation or paid time-off benefits is critical not only to your well-being, but to your overall job performance," said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder. "Workers who set aside time for R&R tend to have less burnout, more creative energy and higher quality output." More than 5,600 U.S. employees took part in the survey.

See also Geeks in Pop Culture In a bizarre inversion of the high school pecking order, geeks are popular. A clear majority of Americans say that being called a geek is a compliment, according to a new survey from Modis, an IT-industry staffing company. Actually, more Americans would prefer to be called a geek than a jock. Why? Among other reasons, geeks are considered extremely intelligent people and are seen as reliable sources for tech advice -- and who doesn’t need tech advice? "Being a geek has gone mainstream," says Jack Cullen, president of Modis. "It might be Americans' increasing dependence on and comfort with technology. Or the prevalent images of former geeks who now successfully lead multi-billion dollar technology companies." That said, IT geeks are especially appreciated in the workplace if they can discuss tech-related topics in a clear, jargon-free manner, and understand how tech fits in with the broader business strategies of their organizations. An estimated 1,000 Americans took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Facebook and other social media resources have emerged as critical elements in the modern job search. Younger workers seeking internships and entry-level jobs are making full use of social media to get leads and contact employers, according to a recent survey from Internships.com. While IPO hottie LinkedIn has long served a similar career-focused, networking function, other sites built on more personal connections are now widedly perceived as acceptable tools for professionals. And these sites are making it easier to use for work-related networking. Facebook provides CareerAmp to help users manage professional connections made through friends and friends-of-friends. Twitter offers services such as TweetMyJOBS to connect candidates with bosses and recruiters from a wide variety of geographic and vocational backgrounds. The research also shows an overall sense of optimism on the part of 20-something workers with respect to their long-term financial futures. More than 520 people took part in the survey:

Doing more with less remains the mantra at corporations, according to a new survey from Deloitte Consulting LLP. Most senior executives expect revenues to grow over the next two years, but nearly as many say they remain focused on cost-cutting initiatives. These efforts can be ambitious, with over half of companies surveyed expecting to trim 10% or more from their budgets. Despite intense pressure to save, most executives are not meeting budget-reduction objectives; that means the pressure is on to find new ways to cut. "While we are emerging from the Great Recession, companies are struggling to adapt to this new economic paradox to constantly spend less, but grow more," said Omar I. Aguilar, leader of Deloitte's enterprise cost management practice. "At this point, much of the 'low hanging fruit' has been picked and companies need to move beyond the approaches they've already leveraged to improve efficiency that will bolster growth efforts." Nearly 140 U.S. executives took part in the survey. To access the report, click here.

More organizations are using shared-services centers to streamline operations and cut costs, says Deloitte Consulting. Shared-services centers allow organizations to consolidate functions used across the company. Most often, these are related to finance, human resources and IT (meaning fewer IT jobs), with IT services a priority. Demand for these centers will continue to grow; to make them work, companies must integrate services within their overall mission. "To fully leverage the value of shared services initiatives, companies need to align their approach with the broader business strategy," says Susan Hogan, principal at Deloitte and a leader of its service delivery transformation practice. "The power of the organization's culture cannot be underestimated or ignored. Heavy focus on change management elements such as communication, training, and executive alignment are critical." About 270 executives representing nearly 720 shared-services centers worldwide took part in the research. To see more, click here.

See also Stupid Meeting Tricks Meetings can be torture. The average worker spends 5.6 hours every week in meetings, yet 71% of participants say it’s pretty much a waste of time, according to a Microsoft survey. Meetings themselves are not the problem, however; it’s the folks running the meetings. That’s the theme of "Boring Meetings Suck: Get More Out of Your Meetings, or Get Out of More Meetings" (Wiley/available now), a book by Jon Petz. This breezy examination of the root causes of truly awful meetings offers easy-to-follow best practices for running get-togethers in which things actually get accomplished – and that don’t drag on forever. Too many poorly planned meetings “suck the life out of business, government and non-profit organizations,” Petz writers. “A great meeting can provide great value, especially when great value has been designed into it.” Petz is something of a meeting professional – he’s made presentations on the topic for clients including Accenture, AT&T, the U.S. Air Force, and Nationwide. For more about the book, click here.

In the age of hovering, overly-involved parents – the ones who pressure teachers and principals to change test grades and insist on more playing time for their brats during kiddie soccer games -- it’s unsurprising to find moms and dads who interfere in their kids’ job searches, sometimes blowing the opportunity for young applicants in the process. OfficeTeam asked hiring executives to recount the most unusual behavior by parents of applicants, and the tales of helicopter parenting did not disappoint. "Although most parents mean well, those who become overly involved in a child's job search can derail their son or daughter's prospects of being hired,” said Robert Hosking, executive director of OfficeTeam. "Companies may question the applicant's level of independence and maturity. New graduates should steer their parents away from direct contact with potential employers and toward behind-the-scenes guidance and networking assistance." More than 1,300 senior managers took part in the research.

Projects fail more than half the time, according to industry research, and too often it’s easy to blame the tech stuff instead of the people who really screwed up. Technology, after all, doesn’t have feelings or a family to feed. But IT project managers and team members have figured out that human behavior is often the root cause of these failures. In the book, "Succeeding in the Project Management Jungle: How to Manage the People Side of Projects" (Amacom/Available now), author Doug Russell outlines a number of classic project pitfalls that stem from shortcomings such as bad planning, a lack of focus or a dysfunctional work culture. By cultivating traits such as transparency, accountability, trust, leadership and results-based execution within your teams, these obstacles can be overcome, says Russell, a high-tech/knowledge-worker manager with more than 25 years of experience at companies such as Motorola and Intel, and the U.S. Department of Defense. For more about the book, click here.

U.S. companies may face a serious case of brain drain as the majority of technology professionals from India plan to return home, according to a recent survey from Corp-Corp.com, a tech-job portal. Even some workers who have earned U.S. citizenship are ready to leave, taking their skills and reputation for work ethic with them. Why? Some reasons are predictable, such as longing to reunite with family members and loved ones. But other motivating factors may surprise – including the impression that career opportunities are brighter in the homeland. Employers here may need to accommodate these valued professionals as much as possible, or face negative consequences on the IT talent front. "The results are very important for American businesses because they may face challenges in filling the gap of these resources," says Prabakaran Murugaiah, CEO of Corp-Corp.com. "Businesses cannot replace an experienced workforce overnight." More than 1,000 IT workers originally from India took part in the survey. To access complete results, click here.

What are the best places to find work now? IT staffing firm Modis gathered information from its network across the U.S. to find the cities with the hottest job markets over the past quarter. The company looked at factors such as IT job openings, growing industries in the region, and opportunities for top talent. “As confidence in the economic recovery grows, companies are investing in new projects to stay competitive and are updating their technology ecosystems to help drive business growth. In particular, business application developers using Java or .NET technologies, business analysts and mobile app developers for handheld and tablet platforms are in most demand right now,” says Jack Cullen, president of Modis. “Many companies are facing challenges in filling positions quickly with candidates who possess the right skills and experience.” Job seekers can make themselves more marketable, he says, by seeking additional training and using contract assignments to grow their skill sets.

Conflict is not something to avoid in the workplace – as long as you manage it effectively. No decisions are made with complete certainty, so some honest disagreement about the best course to follow is inevitable. In the new book, Harvard Business Review on Building Better Teams (Harvard Business Review Press/Available in May), contributors Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Jean L. Kahwajy and L.J. Bourgeois III offer insight on pursuing the “good fight” – disagreement that encourages teams to come up with beyond-the-obvious solutions that deliver on business objectives. “The challenge – familiar to anyone who has ever been part of a management team – is to keep constructive conflict over issues from degenerating into dysfunctional interpersonal conflict,” they write, “to encourage managers to argue without destroying their ability to work as a team.” Eisenhardt, Kahwajy and Bourgeois base their observations upon close research of a dozen top management teams in tech-based companies. For more about the book, click here.

So much happens in the world of technology and business, and in the world at large, and it all happens so quickly. The torrent of information makes it hard to keep up, and harder still to sort the important events from the ephemera, the signal from the noise. But falling behind is not an option in a competitive environment where knowledge is power, and the latest tweet can move markets or set a political revolution in motion. Deals go down, reputations are made, paradigms shift – and that’s just while you’re out for lunch. Are you mastering the data flow, or getting lost in the bistream? That’s where our handy news quiz comes in. Four out of five is a passing grade; anything lower than that score, and you may need to cut back on the Scrabulous and start paying more attention to headlines.

Many office workers say the cubicle lifestyle is making them gain weight, according to a survey from CareerBuilder. Logical enough, as too many of us sit at our desks all day, feeling trapped and stressed by the demands of the job. We’re also tempted to go out for that cheeseburger and fries for lunch instead of packing healthier meals from home. And more temptation lurks as co-workers bring in treats for birthdays and other events. Workers -- and their managers and HR people -- are aware of the issues, and are taking steps to address it via exercise and wellness programs. "Most organizations are mindful of the higher costs -- both to their bottom line and to their workers' overall quality of life -- that are associated with unhealthy behaviors,” says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. “As a result, many workplaces are taking a more proactive role in their staff's well-being by implementing programs and benefits that promote wellness." More than 5,600 workers took part in the survey.

Are you always looking for your Next Big Career Move? You’re far from alone. One of the great cultural changes in the business world over the second half of the last century was the demise of the career employee, who stuck around long enough to earn a gold watch and retirement dinner. Now, employers don’t expect staff to stay with the organization forever—but that doesn’t mean that job changes should be taken lightly. In the new book, Harvard Business Review on Advancing Your Career (Harvard Business Review Press/Available in May), contributors Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams present some classic mistakes that professionals make when they pursue new positions outside of their companies. Too many leap at the first opportunity without considering the long-term impact upon their career. “The occasional misstep can be forgiven,” Groysberg and Abrahams write, “but a careful and conscious assessment of the risks and realities will help you avoid making too many mistakes or ones that amount to a major setback.” For more about the book, click here.

Recovery from the Great Recession has hit a soft patch and worker confidence has taken a hit, according to a survey from Technisource. Optimism about the economy has waned of late, and more people now think their jobs are in danger. On the positive side, tech workers say jobs available have increased during recent months. Whether we’re seeing a bump in the road or a sign of real trouble, managers need to consider improving retention efforts now. "Employers really need to evaluate how committed their top talent is to their organization, and if they are equipping them with some of the things they value to keep them around,” says Michael Winwood, president of Technisource. “Talent will be a key differentiator as the economy recovers, as companies continue with plans for new technology implementations, software migrations and other long-overdue projects throughout the year." The report also sheds light on differing attitudes among generations and genders. To review the entire survey, click here

See also Why You Can't Get Promoted Most of us like to have our hard work recognized, but an alarming number of U.S. workers say that simply isn’t happening. The unhappy news comes from the first Workforce Mood Tracker study by Globoforce, a Southborough, Mass.-based firm that offers workforce consulting and software. One-third of workers polled said their supervisor fails to adequately recognize their efforts, and more than four in 10 said they were dissatisfied with the level of recognition they receive. And plenty of them are ready to give up: according to the study, 36% said they’re looking for another job. That type of turnover poses a significant threat to companies, as Globoforce points out in their own analysis. On the flipside, though, the vast majority of respondents said sufficient recognition of a job well done led to greater job satisfaction and motivation. Globoforce’s study, conducted by independent market research firm MarketTools, included responses from 631 fully-employed workers age 18 years or older.

Ever watch a NASCAR race and marvel at the way the pit crew operates as a synchronized, agile team? Several times during a race, they need to change four tires and fill the tank – all in less than 15 seconds. What you don’t see on the TV screen is the high level of communications - verbal and non-spoken – that facilitates this peak performance. Communication also is key in your workplace, helping teams make quicker and better decisions to meet business objectives. In the book, Individuals and Interactions: An Agile Guide (Addison-Wesley/available now), authors Ken Howard and Barry Rogers examine body posture and conversational techniques that make for effective communications among team members. Howard is a leader at Improving Enterprises, where he provides consulting, training, and mentoring services that help companies increase productivity, improve organization dynamics and adopt software development best practices. Rogers is president of Improving Enterprises. For more about the book, click here.

Just because you’re in charge doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing -- and your employees can tell when you’re faking it. “Real leadership equity is only earned, not bestowed,” says John Hamm, author of the book Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership. “Just because you have been granted authority doesn’t mean you’re getting the full, collaborative engagement of your employees. You may have their bodies and time forty or fifty hours a week, but until you earn the privilege, from their point of view, you’ll never have their hearts and minds.” Weak leaders have unenthusiastic, lackluster teams. Strong leaders can shine even in tough times. How can you win over your employees and instill faith in them in you and your organization? The fundamentals of leadership can be learned, Hamm says, and a leader’s excellence can have a big impact on a project’s outcome. One way to grow as a leader is to recognize your mistakes and try to make changes. All quotes are from Hamm.

Organizations are more inclined to hire college graduates this year than in the recent past – but the grads have to be careful not to blow the opportunity. Like the rest of the workforce, college graduates have struggled to land jobs that match their interests and educational background. Now CareerBuilder says employers are ready to hire, and nearly half are willing to pay salaries of $40,000 or more. Among the skills and specialties most needed: IT, customer service, sales, finance, accounting and marketing. "Employers are more optimistic overall, and as a result, are looking to bring in entry-level workers to build their workforce for the future," said Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America. "Companies are adding jobs in a variety of areas and need fresh, educated talent to fill those roles.” That said, managers shouldn’t look past red flags presented during the job interview and application process, such as demonstrating a sense of entitlement or a lack of any understanding of what the company does.

Sustainability policies are meant to save on costs, but they might also make a positive impact upon innovation and brand reputation. A majority of companies have come up with formal gameplans for going green, according to a new survey from KPMG International, although managers say it’s difficult to quantitatively prove the results are worth the effort. "Highly focused companies continue to make progress in developing and implementing sustainability strategies that result in greater profitability and efficiency," said John R. Hickox, who leads KPMG's climate change and sustainability practice in the U.S. "Many others remain challenged, however, as to what issues or measures they should use for reporting their environmental health, safety and corporate social responsibility program results to stakeholders – and how to utilize those metrics to transform their business operations.” Nearly 380 senior executives worldwide took part in the research. For more information about the report, click here.

See also: 40 Fast Facts on Linux Viva Software Libre! Oracle’s announcement that it would give up control of OpenOffice.org was a big win for open-source software – or, really, recognition of a victory the open-source community had already won. Oracle acquired the office suite with its purchase of Sun Microsystems in 2010; in September of that year, a faction of its developers, fearing Oracle wouldn’t support the project, broke off and created the LibreOffice suite. The day of Oracle’s announcement, LibreOffice 3.4 was announced. Proprietary applications still rule much of the world, but open-source is no longer considered fringe. Many of the biggest names in technology are contributing to and utilizing open-source projects for both their customer-facing applications and back-end operations. Think Facebook, Yahoo, IBM and Amazon, not to mention Google’s Android platform for tablets and smartphones. Here we take a look at some recent victories for open source that show how far the movement, and its enterprise-ready products, have come.

Springtime brings a bevy of new of books for current and aspiring IT and business leaders. But this time around there’s more than your usual run of academic works by wonky types—the season’s new releases include a striking number of experienced-based books. Fran Dramis, the former BellSouth CIO, has a new take on career fulfillment. Doug Moran, a former Capital One CIO and Virginia state commissioner, offers perspectives on principled leadership. And USTA CIO, executive coach and CIO Insight contributor Larry Bonfante draws on years of experience in his new book on IT transformation. Also, a number of experts from the consulting arena look at the roles pressure and failure play in building successful leaders. Other new works focus heavily on the interplay of business and IT in our ever-changing economic landscape. All in all, this spring’s reading list offers a little something—or a few things—for everyone, no matter what your professional goals may be. Our editors’ picks should help build your reading list.

Companies overspent by more than $207 billion on technology and telecom purchases last year, according to NPI, a consulting firm specializing in the management of IT spending. Many enterprises were dealing with budgets that had been slashed during the Great Recession, even as new projects were expected to drive the innovation necessary for growth. “It was essential to align IT with business demands, but it was like walking a tightrope,” says Gregg Spivack, director of client services at NPI, who developed this list for Baseline. “While some companies kept their balance, others took quite a fall.” Some common mistakes contributed to the huge overages, he says, while companies also were forced to deal with big trends shaping enterprise technology spending. Just sticking with the status quo won’t work any longer; business must be aggressive about finding savings, while resisting the temptation to follow the pack on trendy technologies if a specific investment can’t be justified on cost and ROI.

The geography of IT outsourcing is shifting rapidly. Yes, the usual suspects – India, China and Malaysia -- remain at the top of the list for job exports. But upstarts like Egypt, Mexico and even Estonia are emerging as serious players, according to research report from A.T. Kearney, the big consulting firm. One driver of change was the worldwide economic downturn, with falling currencies and wages making outsourcing more affordable. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index ranks the top 50 countries, each scored on 39 measurements, including local wages, utility rates, tax burden, education/IT certification levels, and security-risk factors. “We believe the era of globalization of services production has only just begun,” said Erik Peterson, managing director of Kearney’s Global Business Policy Council. “IT and business-process outsourcing are early manifestations of a larger trend that, in the long run, means that more functions can and will be considered.” For more about the report, click here.

If you think bullying ends on the playground, think again. Many workers say bullying is a part of office culture, according to a survey from CareerBuilder. We’re not talking about wedgies in the breakroom, but non-physical behavior. Think of the quick-tempered boss who screams at staffers in front of colleagues, or the credit-swiping co-worker, or the nasty looks and dismissive remarks intended to make one feel uncomfortable. Nearly half of those targeted say fighting back (with words, that is) proves more effective than going to HR. Either way, it’s a topic that needs to be taken seriously. "Bullying is a serious offense that can disrupt the work environment, impact morale and lower productivity," said Rosemary Haefner, CareerBuilder’s VP of HR. "If you are feeling bullied, keep track of what was said or done and who was present. The more specifics you can provide, the stronger the case you can make for yourself when confronting the bully head-on or reporting the bully to a company authority.”

Making decisions is hard. Making decisions as a group is really hard. So it helps to have a viable decision-making process, especially when the results of your deliberations have an impact on the bottom line – and maybe on your job security. Yet many decisions are reached in ways that lead to bad outcomes, say David A. Garvin and Michael A. Roberto of Harvard Business School. The two are contributors to a new book, Harvard Business Review on Making Smart Decisions (Harvard Business Review Press/available now). They identify two methods of decision-making, advocacy and inquiry, and favor the latter as the more productive course. Advocacy-based decisions are built on personal prejudices, while decisions based upon inquiry are supported by objective fact-finding and creative collaboration. Advocacy involves ego and sets up win-lose outcomes; inquiry allows arguments to be hashed out in ways that, if properly managed, often lead to sounder strategies and better results. For more about the book, click .

Failed projects are costly, so a sound project recovery strategy can pay off handsomely. A new study from project management firm PM Solutions, “Strategies for Project Recovery,” says the average American company manages $200 million in projects each year, with perhaps one-third of those, or $74 million worth, at risk of failing. But action strategies can salvage faltering projects about 75% of the time. PM surveyed 163 high-level project management employees about successful project recovery, addressing also the causes of trouble in the first place and the cost of failures. Good managers help. “Project managers not only play a significant role in addressing the root causes of troubled projects, they are the key resource in effectively managing the process to recover them,” said J. Kent Crawford, CEO of PM Solutions. “We advise our clients to make sure they have a core set of experienced, highly skilled, well-trained professional project managers, especially for managing critical projects.”

See also Job Interview Blunders You thought your job interview went well, but you didn’t get the position. What happened? It could be your manners, or lack of them, says a survey from CareerBuilder. Maybe you forgot a simple gesture, like sending a thank-you note; turns out that many hiring managers see such a lapse as more than a minor faux pas, perceiving it instead as a sign of potentially serious professional shortcomings. The survey also uncovers what hiring managers seek most from resumes, and reveals how highly they value cover letters. The ultimate message: Some time-tested standards of the application process never go out of style. "While the job market has begun to move in the right direction, competition continues to remain high for open positions and job seekers need to stay on their toes," said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. "Employers not only expect thank-you notes, but cover letters as well.” Managers representing more than 2,800 employers took part in the research. Related: Ace That Job Interview

Attacks targeting mobile devices are on the rise, and the overall threat environment grew yet more hostile in 2010, says Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report, Volume 16. “Cell phones are coming into your work environment, and the user may own them, but they’re going to wind up with work data on them,” says Kevin Haley, director at Symantec Security Response. “Businesses really need to think about that because not only will these phone be lost, not only will these folks that work for you leave and go to other companies… the bad guys are going to be attacking these phones and trying to steal from them as well.” What steps can businesses take to mitigate these risks? “Overall you need to have good security software in place, on your desktops but as well as at the gateway. You need to have policies in place. When you talk about USB keys, you should have a policy about it,” Haley says. “Start thinking about it in terms of not just security but data loss and what the consequences are and how you can prepare yourself.”

A Deloitte Consulting report, “Tech Trends 2011: The Natural Convergence of Business and IT,” includes a list of “disruptive and emerging technologies” that are expected to play important roles in business through the third quarter of 2012. Some entrants are relative newcomers, now ready for prime time – Deloitte tags these as “Disruptive Deployments” – while others are familiar technologies that deserve a fresh look, called in the report “Re-emerging Enablers.” Said Mark White, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and a co-author of the report, “We have evaluated what is working and what is not when it comes to IT and have identified 10 technologies that are likely to transform the enterprise over the next 18 months.” Added Bill Briggs, director, Deloitte Consulting LLP and co-author of the report, “CIOs should keep ahead of these trends to help generate top returns not just of IT, but the business of the business.” This article and slideshow are adapted from the report and use some of its original language.

Employers beware—your workers are confident that they can find jobs elsewhere, and turnover rates may be about to increase. A survey from Glassdoor.com shows growing confidence about the job market, even as companies continue to squeeze their people on compensation. "This report should put employers on alert,” says Rusty Rueff, Glassdoor.com’s career and workplace expert, and also co-author of Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business (FT Press/Available now). “We're seeing early warning signs that employment churn will rise, which will be another disruptive and costly outcome of the recession for those who don't prepare. Now is the time for employers to reassess their perspective on the pay and development needs of their employees." The numbers show differing levels of confidence among various gender, age and even marital-status categories. More than 2,040 workers took part in the research, which was conducted by Harris Interactive. For more information, click here .

See also: iPad Goes Corporate Is your company ready to manage tablet computers? The promise of these devices is huge, but so too is their potential to cause headaches. Maintaining security and making sure sensitive corporate data doesn’t go walking out the door will be a priority, as will making sure the tablets, and the apps that they run, sync with business practices. “Individuals are willing to buy these devices themselves, so enterprises must be ready to support them,” said Stephen Prentice, Gartner Fellow and vice president. That almost certainly means adjustments to infrastructure, policy, and culture. Just choosing from the growing array of options can be daunting (see slideshow: Choosing the Right Tablet for Your Business). Whether they come into a company as an employee’s personal property, or if management decides to roll out tablets across the business, these sleek machines will change enterprise computing. Making sure those changes are for the better is the challenge at hand.

No team succeeds on star-power alone. The B Player – that dependable, competent pro who does the dirty work and never complains about it – is an essential element, too, says a new book, Harvard Business Review on Finding and Keeping the Best People (Harvard Business Review Press/Available now). Contributors Thomas J. DeLong and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan caution against undervaluing solid, supportive talent. These employees often fade from visibility because they don’t call attention to themselves, making consistent nurturing and appreciation necessary to optimize their contributions. In their section of the book, entitled “Let’s Hear It for B Players,” DeLong and Vijayaraghavan pinpoint the positive attributes of these performers, as well as best practices for working with them. Delong is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. Vijayaraghavan is a consultant in the New York office of Katzenbach Partners, an organizational strategy firm. For more about the book, click here

Technology is holding businesses back by limiting visibility into key operations, say the suits in the CFO’s office. Friction between finance and IT is nothing new, but tensions are rising as bean-counting plays a greater role in business strategy, according to a survey from KPMG International. Too many of the tech tools used by finance are outdated or irrelevant, and collaboration between disciplines is lacking. “CFOs and finance directors continue to be hampered by inadequate IT systems that do not provide predictive metrics aligned with corporate strategy," says Steve Lis, national leader for KPMG Advisory's U.S. performance & technology services group. “With increasing organizational complexity, finance is well positioned to play a broader role. But ultimately their level of influence will depend on how well they connect with the business and IT to solve problems strategically and holistically.” More than 440 CFOs and other top financial execs took part in the survey. To access the report, click here.

Controlling data center costs can make a big difference in your expense structure, and it gives you that nice green feeling, too. Moving from physical to virtual machines and upgrading to energy-efficient servers are two basic strategies. Each involves some expenditure, but your return on investment may be significant. “There was a bit of a cost when we upgraded our older physical servers and their OEM licenses,” says Rod Gabriel, IT infrastructure engineer at United Financial. “It was tough to swallow the cost initially, but it’s been well worth it.” Other strategies involve managing resources. Better separation of hot and cold airflows within the building can save real money, and just fiddling with the thermostat can lower your power bills. “We noticed after we built our new data center that we could raise the temperature four degrees without adversely affecting our machines,” says Eric Gorham, the director of IT for REJIS. “It saved us about $8,500 a year in cooling bills, and we don’t have to keep the place like a refrigerator.”

Do you ever feel invisible – as if your good work is not being distinguished from that of your peers? You are not alone. Senior execs admit they’re failing to pinpoint top performers and compensate them appropriately, according to a new survey report from SuccessFactors Inc. and Accenture. Managers also cop to falling short in communicating mission-critical goals. Part of the blame falls on the leaders themselves; the lack of sound ways of measuring performance also is implicated. But modern to organizational structure plays a role, too. Most companies today have fewer than six levels of management, compared to 15 levels a generation ago – a change driven in some part by technology. These layers are disconnected from one another, leading to less mentoring and nurturing of talent. Fortunately, social-media tools may shift this dynamic, as a bottom-up flow of opinion and innovation helps top performers stand out. About 450 senior execs took part in the research. For more about the report, click here.

Conventional wisdom on business management changes over time, and many of the rules that once defined the workplace have been rewritten over the last decade. In the Harvard Business Review book, Communicating Effectively (Harvard Business Review Press/Available in April), contributor John Hamm examines five workplace conventions that held strong for decades, and explains how these conventions have been overhauled—if not turned entirely upside-down—in today’s corporate environment. For example, the boss is no longer seen as the sole repository of all relevant information about a project or a process, and some budget issues are seen as learning opportunities instead of occasions to assign blame. It’s all part of an ongoing conversation that’s redefining what an organization must be to remain relevant in the 21st Century. Hamm is a general partner at VSP Capital in San FranciscoThe book is part of the “Harvard Business Review on ...” series. For more information about the book, click here.

Are you ready to talk to the boss? We all daydream about speaking truth to power, but when the moment comes you have to be ready. Mustering a cool-headed, precise reaction when called upon during a meeting, or coming across well in a quick elevator conversation or at an office party, can make a lasting impression. Blow your shot, and another one might not come along anytime soon. In the new book, Influencing Powerful People: Engage and Command the Attention of the Decision Makers to Get What You Need to Succeed (McGraw-Hill Professional/available in April), author Dirk Schlimm presents a number of “what if?” scenarios and offers suggestions on handling them. Be prepared to ask good questions, check your emotions, and to say more with fewer words. Ultimately, the message you need to convey to leaders is that you understand their objectives – and that you can help them get there. Schlimm is an executive leadership coach and principal of Jenoir Management Consultants. For more about the book, click here .

See Also: iPad Goes Corporate Tablets are in the building and your IT department has to adapt. But will you be supporting iPads, with their iTunes and iOS quirks, or installing software and running security tests on products from vendors like Motorola and Samsung? Or will your company duck the consumerization trend and opt for business-focused devices from HP or Cisco? These are decisions debated at the highest levels. “It is not usually the role of the CEO to get directly involved in specific technology device decisions, but Apple's iPad is an exception,” said Stephen Prentice, Gartner Fellow and vice president, in a statement last November. “Individuals are willing to buy these devices themselves, so enterprises must be ready to support them. While some IT departments will say they are a ‘Windows shop’, and Apple does not support the enterprise, organizations need to recognize that there are soft benefits in a device of this type in the quest to improve recruitment and retention. Technology is not always about productivity.”

Want to make more money? Get a security clearance. Even better, get a hot IT certification, too, and watch the money roll in. Official government security clearances are a distinction that allow you to work on the most sensitive (and lucrative) of projects. Earning them essentially gives you a fat raise, especially as the Department of Defense depends more than ever on vendor innovation. Research from Dice.com and its ClearanceJobs.com service reveal the higher earning power of clearance-carrying employees, and also the specific certifications worth pursuing. Network operations, project management, and systems administration are top areas of interest on this Top Ten certifications list. And the combination of security clearance and tech certification isn’t just a way to make more money within your current organization -- it can also better position you for a new job. More than 8,460 IT workers with active, federal security clearances took part in the survey. The report can be found here.

You need young talent to keep your business competitive, but many hiring managers don’t really understand the generation now entering the workforce. Researchers Sanja Licina and Alexandra Levit say the Great Recession reshaped expectations and goals for workers aged 21 to 31, and that this younger cohort may have different priorities than their older colleagues when it comes to key variables such as income and job satisfaction. A study by Licina and Levit for the Career Advisory Board looks at these new definitions of success, and addresses the gaps in understanding between the people doing the hiring and the ones looking for work; it finds several points of agreement as well. The report also discusses strategies for young workers to help them get ahead in the new business environment. The survey of 500 young people and 523 hiring managers who work with Millennials was conducted by Harris Interactive for the Career Advisory Board and DeVry University; to see a white paper on The Future of Millennial Careers, click here.

The flow of consumer technologies into the enterprise has become a flood, but management is not up to speed on the scale or implications of this trend, according to a report from Unisys and IDC. Even as smartphones and social networks have become commonplace and sometimes integral to the way people work, “Employers don’t seem to have an accurate understanding of what and how many consumer technologies their employees are using in the workplace,” says the Unisys Consumerization of IT Benchmark Study. Networked “iworkers,” it says, are the key to the next wave of productivity, but there exists “a troubling gap between the activities and expectations of new generations of ‘iWorkers and their employers’ readiness to manage, secure, and support this movement – and capitalize on it.” Key areas of concern include “boosting productivity with news ways of connecting and sharing, staying competitive as an innovative company and workplace, and delivering IT flexibly while managing security.”

The first rule of being an effective boss may be acknowledging that leadership qualities do not arrive with a fancy job title or promotion. Even if you’re highly skilled at your job, you could fail when asked to inspire a team to perform at a high level. Think of the way superstar athletes often turn out to be unsuccessful as coaches and general managers, as with the long, futile reign of NFL great Matt Millen as a GM with the Detroit Lions. But leadership skills can be learned. There are seven essential qualities of leadership that help people succeed, according to Robert S. Kaplan, a professor of management at Harvard Business School. In his essay, “What to Ask the Person in the Mirror,” he examines these seven qualities and conveys why they’re so critical in establishing a total package of leadership attributes. His essay is part of the book, HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Managing Yourself, part of a new “Must Reads” series, from Harvard Business Review Press. For more about the book, click here.

You know an IT project is in trouble when the customers – either internal or external – start checking in frequently for status updates, and you find that you have little in the way of fresh news to offer them. Or maybe you’re not halfway finished, but you’ve blown through most of the budget. Or your team has concluded that you’ll never approach the level of quality or realize the scope needed to be successful. 25% of endangered projects are canceled outright, according to Todd Williams, a senior project audit and recovery specialist. Williams has worked with dozens of companies in multiple industries to successfully revive failing projects. In his book, Rescue the Problem Project: A Complete Guide to Identifying, Preventing, and Recovering from Project Failure (Amacom/Available now), Williams looks at the reasons projects to fail, including inadequate tools and problematic people. An effective project doctor needs to be prepared to address both types of problem. For more about the book, click here.

Flexible work arrangements are emerging as the norm for many organizations, with the vast majority of U.S. companies now offering some flexible options with respect to where and when employees work, according to a survey from Regus. Businesses say flex-work improves employee productivity and motivation, while saving on office costs. Still, many bosses reserve these benefits for senior execs who have earned their trust. “Everyone benefits from this, not just the employers and employees, but families, wider society and even the environment," says Sande Golgart, a regional vice president for Regus. “It is disappointing to see some companies still allow trust issues to be a hindrance in offering flexible working for all employees.” With many of these same employers acknowledging the advantages of flex-work policies, this decade should see continued growth in support of these arrangements. More than 17,000 professionals worldwide took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here.

Ever wondered if your boss is fit to lead? So has your boss. A CareerBuilder survey of more than 2,480 managers and 3,910 workers shows that people in supervisory roles often doubt their capabilities, especially at the beginning of their tenure. And if they’re looking to their employees for reassurence, they should look elsewhere. Many workers say their bosses are ineffective, and that they play favorites and fail to communicate well. Training could help, but the vast majority of managers never receiv formal guidance on effective team leadership. Fortunately, leadership training may be becoming more prevalent. “Good management skills can positively impact productivity, performance and overall employee morale,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice-president of human resources at CareerBuilder. “We see more companies investing in management training programs to develop today’s and tomorrow’s leaders.” Another key focus of the survey: the shortcomings of the very top leaders of today’s organizations.

The retirement-savings forecast remains bleak, even as the economy recovers. Many workers say they aren’t at all confident about their retirement prospects, according to a survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Worse, many are dipping into their retirement savings to pay for day-to-day needs. And the amount of savings socked away by workers remains extremely low. One positive sign: participants in the research recognize the need to do better, often the first step to building a reasonable nest-egg. “People are recognizing the level of savings realistically needed for a comfortable retirement,” says Jack VanDerhei, research director for the institute and co-author of the report. “We know that far too many people had false confidence in the past. People's expectations still need to come closer to reality, so they will save more and delay retirement until it is financially feasible." More than 1,000 workers and 250 retirees took part in the research. For more about the report, click here.

You never get a second chance at a first impression, as the old saying goes, so you really can’t afford to screw it up. That rule holds true for business relationships, from the initial job interview to interactions with colleagues to exploratory meetings with prospective customers or partners (not to mention your personal life). The basics of making a good first impression should be clear to most adults – be on time, be up to speed on the material at hand, and look halfway decent (also known as the 3 Ps: punctual, prepared, and presentable). But what else can you do to make sure to get off on the right foot in almost any business situation? Consultant Carol Roth’s list of first-impression tips is built on common sense and good manners, with a dash of conference-room gamesmanship thrown in to seal the deal. Roth’s new book, The Entrepreneur Equation: Evaluating the Realities, Risks, and Rewards of Having Your Own Business (BenBella Books) is available now. To read her plain-spoken blog, click here.

Sun Tzu was the Chuck Norris of deep thinkers. His biography is sketchy, but it’s believed that he was a general in China around 400 B.C. What’s certain is his influence, which stems from The Art of War, a slim book that includes famous quotes such as, "All war is based on deception." Sun Tzu’s observations are applied incessantly to business strategy. What’s left to say? Becky Sheetz-Runkle’s take is that the ancient sage was in touch with his feminine side—or at least that his work is highly relevant to professional women, and in fact speaks to several traits traditionally seen as female strengths. Her book, Sun Tzu for Women: The Art of War for Winning in Business (Adams Media/available now), should offer insights to men as well. (According to one legend, Sun Tzu transformed a harem of hundreds of concubines into soldiers.) Becky Sheetz-Runkle is co-founder and vice president of client services at Q2 Marketing, and holds black-belt ranks in four different schools of martial arts. For more about the book, click here.

How much will a data breach cost your company? A lot, according to the Ponemon Institute and Symantec Corp., which surveyed 51 companies from 15 industry sectors around the country. The 2010 Annual Study: U.S. Cost of a Data Breach puts the price of security leakage at $7.2 million, or $214 per compromised record, a jump of $10 per record over 2009. And the more records a company loses, the more it costs. Negligence, lost devices and human error are still the most common causes of data breaches, but criminal breaches cause bigger financial hits. “Some of our most serious data breach events occur with smaller data sets but the information is really sensitive and confidential,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, of the Ponemon Institute. And the industry you’re in can determine whether a breach will hurt your reputation and your bottom line. “There’s an expectation of greater security and greater information stewardship when the organization is heavily regulated, and financial services and healthcare are at the top of that,” he said.

Good strategy is no guarantee of good results, especially if common errors in execution are not anticipated and avoided. Worse: “The causes of this strategy-to-performance gap are all but invisible to top management,” write Michael Mankins and Richard Steele, the authors of “Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance,” part of the HBR series, 10 Must Reads on Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press/Available now). “Leaders then pull the wrong levers in their attempts to turn around performance—pressing for better execution when they actually need a better strategy, or opting to change direction when they really should focus the organization on execution. The result: wasted energy, lost time, and continued underperformance.” Common mistakes include poor communication, inadequate direction, and undefined outcomes. The HBR series contains close views of topics by experts such as Michael Porter, James Collins, Renee Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim. For more information from HBR, click here .

People love to gamble, as the spread of casinos and state lotteries makes clear. At work, the addiction to office pools isn’t limited to those ubiquitous March Madness bracket challenges. And employees can get pretty creative when it comes to the things they bet on, according to a new survey from CareerBuilder. The research reveals that even the most mundane office routines and behaviors are fodder for wagers, including meetings and sick days. Such diversions make the workday more fun and often help create a sense of community among co-workers, but the pools (and the payouts) also speak to a cross-cultural fondness for betting games. In fact, there are about 1.6 billion people who gamble during any given year, and more than 4.2 billion who have gambled at some point in their lives, according to published research. In the United States, about 30% of men say they take part in office pools tied to the NCAA basketball tournament, with 11% of women joining the action. More than 3,900 workers took part in the survey.

Employees are cracking under the pressure of increased workloads that come without reasonable additional compensation. Simple gratitude for remaining employed went a long way during the Great Recession, but recovery means more employees are no longer willing to settle for the status quo. Nearly half of workers surveyed are considering a job change, and more than one-third say they are over-stressed, according to two separate reports—one from MarketTools Inc., and the other by American Psychological Association (APA). It’s clear that bosses won’t be able to play the recession card if the economy continues to bounce back. “The recession—combined with the changing nature of work—may have forever altered the employee-employer relationship, but as a nation we can do better,” says David W. Ballard, the APA’s assistant executive director for marketing and business development. More than 450 Americans took part in the MarketTools survey, and nearly 1,550 adults took part in the APA research.

You can’t always pick your boss, but you will have to work with all kinds of managers if you want to thrive professionally. Unfortunately, all the business or technical know-how in the world can’t prepare you for the full assortment of dysfunctional supervisors. A new book, Managing Your Manager: How to Get Ahead with Any Type of Boss (McGraw Hill/Available now), presents guidelines for dealing with a broad range of leadership, or, more accurately, “leadership.” Author Gonzague Dufour says many workers wind up at some point under the wing of a bully, a con artist, a socially challenged geek, or a full-throttle egotist. But your career doesn’t have to stagnate, as long as you make these difficult bosses work for your interests, Dufour contends. The first step is recognizing some common traits of various bad-boss types. The next is strategically plotting your countermoves. Dufour is a senior HR exec who has worked for top companies such as Kraft and, currently, Bacardi. For more about the book, click here.

People are losing patience with mobile-gadget users talking and pecking away, oblivious to those around them, whether they’re driving a car, watching a movie or even using a public restroom. A survey from Intel Corporation says a majority Americans feel anger, and even violent emotions resembling Road Rage, at their device-obsessed peers. Yet the Pew Internet and American Life project reveals that only 9% of American adults do not own a device covered by the Intel survey. These small machines are both ubiquitous and addictive – no wonder a backlash is building. Genevieve Bell, Intel Fellow and head of interaction and experience research at Intel Labs, says that as mobile units pervade daily life, “Our appropriate digital technology behaviors are still embryonic." In other words folks, mobile courtesy will take hold as an evolution, not a revolution. Ipsos, a market-research company, conducted the survey, for which an estimated 2,000 U.S. adults took part in the research. For more about the findings, click here.

We’re suspicious of those studies that come out around every major sporting event, purporting to quantify the economic cost of distracted workers. Sure, people are obsessing about the NCAA tournament (we are), but they’re probably swapping hoops for their usual non-work office activities, rather than failing to get anything done at all. That said, we suspect the copier is getting more than its usual workout, thanks to March Madness, as employees scour stats and forecasts to come up with the perfect picks. Then, they huddle around TV and computer screens to get the latest scores and highlights, all while talk smack about the results. Many bosses do worry about productivity, and many feel that this sort of activity is entirely inappropriate for the workplace, according to a survey from OfficeTeam. The majority are willing to just let it go, within reason. Employees, on the other hand, don’t feel these events present any work distractions. More than 1,010 senior executives and 435 workers took part in the survey, which can be accessed here.

What changes are coming to your workplace? More accountability for major goals. Greater productivity demands. And better pay increases and job opportunities. That’s the forecast derived from a new survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), which examines key demographic and workplace shifts expected for the upcoming year, as well as responses by organizations with respect to work demands, benefits and overall policies. Two major developments are expected to have a huge impact: the exodus of Baby Boomers from organizations, and the rising cost of health-care coverage. These issues, along with the continued comeback from the Great Recession, “appear likely to have an important impact on the workplace and HR profession in the years ahead,” according to the report. With Boomers departing, the Millennial generation grows in importance, requiring companies to focus on training managers to resolve differences related to generational divides. More than 1,240 HR professionals took part in the survey, which can be found here.

Change is a catalyst for success. But resistance often dooms change strategy, whether displayed openly by classic office rebels or covertly by the cloak-and-dagger types. HBR's 10 Must Reads on Change (Harvard Business Review Press/Available now) includes ten examinations of the topic by noted contributors such as John Kotter, Debra Meyerson, W. Chan Kim and Ronald Heifetz. In the article, “The Real Reason People Won't Change,” authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey provide profiles of typical “change challengers” and come up with action steps that team leaders and managers can take to overcome their resistance. For such a transformation to occur, both sides must reach a sincere, empathetic recognition of the challenger's shortcomings and external frustrations. Then, both sides must identify how change will address these negatives. Other subjects covered in the book include “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” “Radical Change, the Quiet Way” and “Why Change Programs Don't Produce Change.” For more on the book, click here.

If a fire, an ice storm, or even a terrorist attack struck your organization, would you immediately go online and Tweet about it? No? Well, maybe you should. So says a report from Janco. Yet most companies haven't considered how to deploy social-media tools as part of their disaster recovery and business continuity planning. While many of them have incorporated Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and YouTube as part of their branding, marketing and customer outreach efforts, they haven't learned how to exploit the same tools to communicate during an emergency. “Social networks are powerful,” says M. Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco. “They allow anyone to share – and hear – information transmitted from others in real time from anywhere. We've found that both true and false information is spread via social networks, in fact.” To get the right information into the right hands, organizations must come up with proactive social-media disaster-response plans. For more about the report, click here.

See also Groundbreaking Video Games Do you think of hours spent playing Call of Duty as professional development time? It's not such a stretch. Gaming culture helps people thrive in a corporate environment, according to Aaron Dignan, founder of Undercurrent, a digital strategy firm. Games stress peak learning conditions and focused achievement, allowing participants to sharpen professional skills and discover untapped strengths. In the new book, Game Frame: Using Games as a Strategy for Success (Free Press/available in March), Dignan shows how to use gaming to gain competitive advantage in the workplace. This kind of activity, after all, forces us to collaborate, allocate resources, and focus on goals, among other mission requirements. Game Frame links these and other specific skills to an assortment of traditional and modern games – both of the online and off-line variety. For more about the book, click here. Here are eight skills discussed in the book, along with suggested games that can help develop them:

Are your skills in demand? A new report from Foote Partners rates the relative value of skills for technology jobs. The report, IT Skills and Certifications Hot Lists Forecast, covers the first half of 2011. It says employers will spend more for some IT professionals and certifications than others. Using data from a variety of surveys on pay benchmarks and IT spending intention studies, as well as interviews with more than 2,100 employers, it considers 466 skills and certifications; 27 certifications and 37 non-certified IT skills made the list. “This forecast information is critical intelligence for three constituencies,” said David Foote, Foote Partners co-founder and CEO. Employers will know if market value is increasing for skills they plan to acquire, allowing for budget adjustments; vendors selling services can adjust their billing rates; and IT professionals can seek fair compensation. “If you are negotiating salaries or consulting rates, don't undervalue your skills in the marketplace,” Foote said.

Knowledge workers at SMBs spend 50% of their workdays on unproductive but necessary tasks like dealing with spam or scheduling meetings, says a study conducted for cloud-based VoIP and unified communications company Fonality. The impact of inefficient communications shows a need for immediate change, said Steve Taylor, editor-in-chief and publisher for Webtorials, which conducted the 2011 Report on UC and Cloud-based Services for SMBs. The report says reducing a worker’s unproductive time by 25% adds the equivalent of six productive weeks each year; a business with 50 employees making between $40,000 and $110,000 per year could save $950,000 annually. Fonality, a unified communications vendor, unsurprisingly touts unified communications as a way of realizing such efficiencies. “You’re going to see the change toward cloud service – it’s going to start with small business,” said Wes Durow, chief marketing officer of Fonality. “All that time that’s wasted seeking information and trying to connect others can be greatly reduced.”

CareerBuilder has a fresh assortment of oddball rationalizations from workers who simply can't get to the office on time (see our previous list here.) Perhaps influenced by a tight job market, fewer people are showing up late these days --15% say they arrive late once a week or more, down from 20% in 2008. The top excuse is traffic, cited by 30% of survey participants, with lack of sleep the next most popular answer. But professionals need to be aware of potential consequences: One-third of employers say they've fired a worker for being late. "While workers will sometimes be late due to circumstances out of their control, they need to be aware of their companies' tardiness policies,” says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. “Regardless of the reason, workers who are running late should always be honest with their managers." Here are some of the best (or worst) answers, taken from the U.S. survey of nearly 2,500 bosses and some 3,900 employees, as well as a separate survey of Canadians.

Successful cybercrime often depends on the kindness of others – trusting souls who believe that Facebook message , LinkedIn request or Tweet they received is on the up-and-up. Understanding this vulnerability to social networking platforms is an IT imperative; nice people like your colleagues are easy pickings for cybercriminals operating in venues associated with friends and acquaintances -- especially if the bad guys are asking for help. “Compassion and urgency are common social engineering hooks for criminals,” said Christopher Burgess, senior security advisor to Cisco. “The individual seeking information will attempt to trigger the target’s basic human need to be helpful. The individual will also infuse a sense of urgency in their quest for information or specific action, with the expectation that you won’t have sufficient time to verify their credentials,” In the Cisco 2010 Annual Security Report, the company reveals the seven very human weaknesses that make employees vulnerable to malicious attacks.

IT professionals can learn a lot from jazz, says Josh Linkner, founder of ePrize. Great musicians such as John Coltrane and Miles Davis understood that their creative success depended upon disciplined command of their skills, matched with an eagerness to improvise and innovate. They learned to excel both as individuals and members of a unit, with collaboration an essential aspect of their work. Linkner explores the connection between best practices in jazz and business success in his new book, "Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity" (Jossey-Bass/available now). Linkner has launched four tech companies in 20 years, including GlobalLink New Media, an award-winning Web development firm; and ePrize, which produces digital, interactive promotions for more than 70 top corporate brands, including Coca-Cola, AT&T, Disney, Dell, Microsoft and Citibank. But he has also performed jazz guitar since he was 13 and still performs in clubs. To find out more about "Disciplined Dreaming", click here.

OK, we get it: you really, really love your smartphone. But is your affection for the device out of control? Smartphones are increasingly ubiquitous; during the fourth quarter of 2010, a staggering 100.9 million of the mobile wonders shipped—far more than the 92.1 million PC units that shipped over the same time period, according to one industry estimate. But the numbers don't tell the entire story—the one that describes how these phones are beginning to dominate our lives. A notable portion of smart-phone users cop to some form of addiction to these tech toys, according to a recent survey from Crowd Science's JustAsk! program. Whether texting, mapping or even using the phone for talking, many consumers are finding it difficult to consider existence without one. How deep is their love? Deep enough that they’d to great lengths to retrieve a misplaced device—even if they drop it in a public toilet. More than 800 people took part in the survey. For more information about the report, click here.

Are resumes going the way of the Commodore computer? Could be. More than one-third of hiring and employment managers say resumes could be replaced by profiles on social media/business networking sites, according to a recent survey of 500 HR execs from OfficeTeam. And three-quarters of these managers say poor online etiquette can hurt a person's career prospects. All of which lends some relevance to a new guide to proper use of these networks for professional purposes, released by Robert Half International, OfficeTeam's parent company. “Etiquette breaches – such as impulsively posting an offensive comment on Facebook or Twitter – can have serious, career-impacting consequences,” says Brett Good, senior district president of Robert Half International. Among the “tech violator” types to avoid are The Venter, who clutters up his or her profile by ranting about pretty much everything, and the Cryptic Communicator, whose profile appears to be assembled out of nothing but coded phrases and obscure acronyms. For more about the guide, click here.

A new study from Accenture, billed as “Accenture Technology Vision 2011,” identifies eight trends that are remaking IT and helping it reshape the business landscape, with a focus on driving business performance and growth. “We took a look around the corner and saw a world of IT that barely resembles what enterprise computing looks like today,” said Gavin Michael, managing director of R&D and alliances at Accenture. “The role of technology is changing; it is no longer in a support role. Instead, it is front and center driving business performance and enriching people’s lives like never before.” Many of the trends and technologies Accenture identifies are familiar at this point, including social media and cloud computing; others, like the waning era of the application, are less well-known. The real value of the report lies with insights on taking advantage of these technology shifts to gain business intelligence and business value — and doing so before your competitors figure out what comes next.

See also Embarrassing Workplace Moments. Business travel generates more than its share of war stories and funny tales. A certain spirit of abandonment – not to mention an abundance of certain spirits – often leads to oddball behavior. Careerbuilder surveyed workers to uncover some of their best weird travel tales. The report arrives as business travel seems to be making a comeback; after 37% of companies reported that travel cutbacks hurt business last year, 88% say they either will maintain or increase the current level of trips this year. That said, one-third of these organizations still say they're restricting associated expenses, such as entertainment budgets. "Business travel lets companies stay connected with clients and employees across the globe," said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. "Some companies are revisiting their policies, though, to ensure they're maximizing the effectiveness of their business travel initiatives." Nearly 2,500 U.S. employers and more than 3,900 workers took part in the survey.

Jeopardy! Man vs. Machine. Machine won. Now that IBM supercomputer Watson has bested the quiz show’s two most famous human champions, we wondered, what else could the fancy circuitry do? To achieve its victory, Watson was fed by researchers some 200 million pages of text – about 1 million books worth – ranging from encyclopedias to movie scripts to newspapers to children’s book abstracts. Beyond its ability to store all that data, Watson is able to mine it in order to formulate contextual relationships. Puns and wordplay? No problem. Obscure trivia? Combining random facts? Elementary, my dear….er, well, you know who (or what). IBM says Watson’s Deep Q&A technology could be applied in diverse fields such as health care, legal, education and government. So, assuming you could afford the hardware and information resources, imagine if you had your own personal Watson to help make you healthy, fabulously wealthy, well-dressed, well-adjusted, a great conversationalist at parties and perhaps even happy.

The pressurized, fast-paced environment around many IT projects can lead to burnout and disengagement among team-members and even managers. But this doesn't have to be the case. In the book, Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People (Harvard Business Review Press/Available now), author Edward M. Hallowell contends that workers tend to excel for the long-haul when they feel a sense of liberating, creative energy within their own teams. Cultivating this enlightened environment primarily falls within the oversight of the project manager, but team members can also help create the healthy vibe. Key components of a high-performing team include roles that are thoughtfully assigned to members, strong interpersonal bonds, and inventive, task-related activities that light up personal brain power. Dr. Hallowell is a psychiatrist, an instructor at Harvard Medical School, and the director of the Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health. For more about the book,click here.

As IT continues to import consumer technologies, one has to wonder how vulnerable enterprise operations will become to the whims of the mass market. Looking at the current dominance of products like iPad and services like Facebook, it’s easy to forget how quickly consumer tastes can change, and how often today’s must-have becomes tomorrow’s “Are you really still using that?” The history of consumer tech is littered with market-share winners that enjoyed moments of glory and then got lapped by newcomers. That means businesses in the age of consumerization need to be careful about getting locked in with vendors and brands that might not be around in the near future. Here we take a walk down tech-memory lane and consider six technologies that once reigned as consumer favorites – even icons of their eras --to remind us that tech fads come and go, but putting all of your business’ eggs in one basket could leave you waiting for your dial-up to connect while everyone else is moving along in a broadband world.

“You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.” Turns out Kenny Rogers didn’t just sing a catchy song, he voiced some sound management principles. Sometimes, you have to pull the plug—on projects, on employees, on jobs. That doesn’t mean you should be a quitter, just someone who can tell when things are not working out, and knows how to end them. In Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward (HarperBusiness/Available now), author Henry Cloud contends that employees aren't failing when they seek to bring a stop to something. To the contrary, workers do themselves a disservice by remaining with visionless leaders, hostile or non-productive work environments, and career dead-ends. The key, says Cloud, is knowing how to part ways without conveying negativity to those you're leaving behind. Cloud is a clinical psychologist and corporate leadership consultant. For more about the book, click here.

The impact of the Great Recession will be long-lasting, with many Americans facing a “new normal” in terms of finances and long-term prospects. A survey from Public Agenda, a non-partisan, non-profit research organization, examines the state of the American Dream and reveals that a significant chunk of the workforce is still struggling to pay bills, reduce debt and rationalize housing costs. Many people have lost their jobs over the last several years, and those who haven’t remain anxious about employment stability. These findings support various other tea-leaf readings, and reflect a sense of foreboding among U.S. families and individuals. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, for example, remains just over 60, with reading of 90, which signals a healthy economy, unseen since December 2007. Overall, household net wealth is down 17% since 2007, according to the Federal Reserve. More than 1,000 adults took part in the Public Agenda survey. For more about the report, click here.

Did you ever think about how much show biz and tech biz have much in common? No? Well, stick with us anyway. The connections between glamour and geekery go beyond a shared interest in computer-generated imagery and the use of social media to build anticipation for upcoming releases. In essence, hit-mongers within both star-making and digital circles are creative souls, often motivated more by passion than money. But ultimately, both camps serve a business-focused purpose, if only because being an innovative genius is no guarantee of either profit or long-term sustainability. Which is why we got to thinking about some of the biggest tech companies and breakthroughs of the past generation, and wondering which celebrity best personifies each one. With this burning question in mind, we put together the following list of the celebrity doppelgangers for some high-profile tech newsmakers. Check it out, and feel free to agree, disagree and even offer your own suggestion via Twitter or email.

“Some men see things as they are and say why,” said George Bernard Shaw. “I dream things that never were and say why not.” Shaw was a creative force– he wrote more than 60 plays, won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar, and co-founded the London School of Economics. In the book, Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business (FT Press/Available now), author Luke Williams examines how IT teams can come up with original ideas, and then execute to get these concepts successfully launched. In a study of emerging disruptive tech, IBM reported that 55% of IT pros expect mobile software application development to surpass traditional computing platforms by 2015, and 91% anticipate that cloud computing will overtake on-premises computing as the main way organizations acquire IT over the next five years. Gartner cites multicore/hybrid processors, augmented reality, new user interfaces, contextual computing and Web mashups as emerging game-changers. For more about the book, click here.

With job growth still sluggish, temporary positions have taken on a new luster. Temp jobs for professional/business service positions increased by 25,000 per month over the last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Instead of seeing temp jobs as beneath the dignity of established professionals, Americans now view them as a viable option for those who have been laid off -- and as a way of enhancing one’s potential for permanent employment. So says a survey from EmploymentGroup, a staffing/services firm. Mark Lancaster, CEO of EmploymentGroup, says the results show that temp work is no longer perceived as a dead-end move. “Despite significant, persistent challenges in the job market, public opinion regarding the value and long-term career potential of temporary employment remains strong.” The report shows that gender and age influence perspectives on this topic. More than 2,025 adults in the U.S. took part in the research, which was conducted by Harris Interactive. See the survey here.

See also Realities of Workplace Romance, No Recession for Office Romance Cupid has a whole new realm to conquer, but you should think twice before taking a shot from the little guy. According to Ask April — the self-proclaimed #1 free Internet relationship-advice site — office romances are no longer taboo. In fact, says the online love guru, “They are expected.” Why the change from times past, when workplace pairings were off-limits? “Most people work, and since that is where they spend most of their time and energy, it makes sense that that is where they will meet other attractive singles.” Perhaps, but, as the tales of humiliation and woe that follow show, office romances are often disastrous. There are exceptions to every rule, but love business-style, no matter how accepted it may be these days, can still lead to a richness of embarrassment. So sit back, call your significant other (and let’s hope he/she is not sidling over from the office down the hall or cubicle across the room) and take a gander at what can happen in the business of romance. Happy Valentine’s Day, anyway.

Wardrobe malfunctions. Pratfalls. Momentarily confusion between your boss and your spouse. Even the most serious and polished among us probably has a story to share about an embarrassing moment at work — and anyone reluctant to tell his or her story can count on co-workers to tell it anyway. A new survey from OfficeTeam collects such tales of woe, revealing some of the most embarrassing workplace moments suffered by executives. Frankly, these stories are pretty tame; the R-rated version is probably better. Anyway, the message to the suits remains: Relax, everybody's human. It’s better to laugh about your lapses than crawl under your desk. Hey, your colleagues are laughing anyway, so you might as well join them. Says Robert Hosking, executive director of OfficeTeam, “Using humor can help you recover from uncomfortable situations. Occasionally showing a little vulnerability on the job also can make you appear more accessible and approachable to colleagues." For more on the survey, click here.

IBM is using an internal service akin to the Apple App Store guarantee the quality and safety of the apps distributed to its employees. The service, known as Whirlwind, also creates a framework for managing roles and responsibilities and keeping data in the right hands. This model seems likely to take hold across the corporate world, as IT struggles to secure mobile devices and maximize their value to the enterprise. Whirlwind is a way of addressing behaviors such as employees loading their own apps onto smartphones; in some cases, this software can create the potential for data leaks or loss — or outright theft. And for organizations looking to develop internal apps that access sensitive data, the combination of approved and unapproved software can ratchet up risk. The need for mobile security and management is increasing rapidly across the economy, as the number of mobile knowledge workers and the penetration of smart mobile devices continues to grow. Here’s a brief look at IBM's Whirlind app store.

Take personal initiative in your career, instead of waiting for someone to hand opportunity to you. Be proactive in resolving problems, rather than muddling along until a crisis hits. You have the tools to overcome the obstacles you face every day, says Jack Nadel, author of a new book called Use What You Have to Get What You Want: 100 Basic Ideas That Mean Business (JNJ Publishing/Available February). Nadel says workers can tap their own inherent strengths to master the business world. A lifetime entrepreneur, his perspective stems mostly from experience on the sales and marketing front, but many of his ideas are directly transferable to the enterprise IT culture as well. “I believe our problems can best be solved by our own efforts,” Nadel says. “You need to own basic ideas and fit them into your individual needs.” A decorated World War II veteran, Nadel is founder of Jack Nadel International, and his clients include Cisco, Apple, IBM, Bank of America and NASDAQ. For more about the book, click here.

Business Analysts must balance their soft skills, such as communication, with their technical capabilities related to IT infrastructure and data analysis if they want to best serve their organizations. So says a report, “2011 Top 10 Trends for RMD,” from consulting firm ESI International. A global panel of ESI senior executives and consultants contributed to the research project, which considered the most important priorities of the job for requirements management and development professionals. “Over the next year, market opportunities and rapid technological developments will result in greater demand from organizations for the specialized skill sets of requirements management and development professionals,” said Glenn R. Brûlé, CBAP, Executive Director of Global Client Solutions, ESI. “For business analysts, slow and steady will win the race as they bring their output into a better balance between soft and technical business analysis skills to demonstrate their true value to the organization.”

As tablets and smartphones make their way from the consumer world into the IT ecosystem, keeping those devices – and the corporate networks and data they access – secure is a growing challenge. Employees want to access work e-mail or other sensitive corporate data with personal mobile devices like iPads or Android phones, so companies need to make sure their data remains secure. But mobile security doesn’t require reinventing the wheel. “The key thing is that the platforms themselves are pretty secure, “said Nick Arvanitis, principal security consultant at Dimension Data. “They’re a different point of end-point computing like a laptop or a workstation would be. But one of the big questions that a lot of people have at the moment is how to integrate these devices into existing support and management systems – there aren’t necessarily the tools in the enterprise today to address mobile devices.” Arvanitis recommends IT departments consider the following areas when creating a mobile security plan.

The cloud is a cultural force within the enterprise, not just a new way to run the tech stuff, says Mike Lingo, CTO of Astadia, a cloud-oriented consulting firm. The cloud environment empowers workers to take control of the apps they use, rather than advancing IT’s traditional empire-building mentality. Where IT once looked inward, the cloud demands an outward-facing approach. “It’s about becoming a center of innovation, instead of a defender of the castle,” says Hey! You! Get Onto My Cloud (Astadia Press/Available now), by Lingo and consultant/writer Jon Obermeyer. Traveling worldwide to help companies exploit the cloud, Lingo saw organizations stumble due to defensive stakeholders and labyrinthine development models. Lowering resistance to cloud computing helps provide a “clean roadmap” to IT support that arrives ahead of schedule and under budget. As Lingo phrases it, the cloud is about having all the horsepower you've ever wanted, with fewer trips to the gas pump. For more about the book click here.

Work is hard enough without the energy-sapping, morale-killing behavior of the people around you. And the long recession has made the problem even worse. “Most people wrongly assume that their tasks and responsibilities are what’s grinding them down,” says Jon Gordon, author of the book Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture (Wiley). “However, while ‘work’ is a convenient scapegoat, the real culprit is often the negativity of the people you work with and for, their constant complaining, and the pessimistic culture that is now the norm in a lot of workplaces.” He uses the term “drainer” for colleagues who suck the life out of a team. If you see these any of these draining behaviors in your co-workers – or recognize them in yourself – it is time for an attitude adjustment. Gordon, a consultant who also authored The No Complaining Rule, says the right environment can make the job easier and workers more productive, and he provides quick suggestions on turning around some familiar bad habits, too.

Writing good, reliable software is hard work. That was true when Frederick Brooks published his seminal book, The Mythical Man-Month, in 1975, and it was still the case by the time Scott Rosenberg’s Dreaming In Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software, was released in 2007. In fact, many aspects of the coding and design process had stayed the same from one generation to the next (my conversation with Rosenberg can be found here. But progress is being made, says Mukesh Sharma, CEO of QA InfoTech Worldwide, a quality assurance firm. “Companies have had to dramatically change their approach to quality to create the more usable and higher quality products that consumers are now demanding,” says Sharma. He’s got an obvious interest in talking up the value of quality assurance, but we think his point is unassailable, as we’ve mentioned a few times before (see also: Glitch-Free Software, Better Software Development). As the old saying goes, Measure twice and cut once. Here is QA’s list of trends in software quality.

Midmarket investment in IT is rebounding, with a focus on infrastructure, collaboration, business analytics and business performance management. A survey by IBM, “Inside the Midmarket: A 2011 Perspective," asked 2,112 business and IT decision makers at companies with 100-1,000 employees in 20 countries what their IT priorities are in the next 18 months. Midmarket companies have since 2009 shifted from cost control to a greater emphasis on growth and higher-end solutions like analytics. Half the companies surveyed plan to increase IT budgets in the next 18 months. IT investments, however, must align with business goals and drive growth, innovation and customer value. “The big finding here is that companies are now focused on growth and growth of the business,” said Andy Monshaw, general manager of IBM Midmarket. “The last survey was all about cost containment and cost cutting. What we’re finding here is not only are they shifting to growth, they’re shifting to growth in the leading-edge areas.”

The vast majority of workers lack passion for their jobs, according to a new survey from Deloitte. Passionate workers are more likely to seek challenges and foster innovation, but most organizations fail to cultivate productive environments for their employees. The recent recession is part of the problem. "By squeezing resources tighter, companies risk losing passionate employees," says John Hagel, co-chairman of Deloitte's Center for the Edge, which produced the survey. "These individuals will play a critical role in sustaining the extreme performance improvement required for firms to survive and succeed beyond the recovery. Unfortunately, as the recovery picks up steam, these very employees are likely to be the most at risk for fleeing for better employment platforms." Another key survey finding: A significant number of employees would like to set out on their own as independent contractors or consultants, a move that often sparks professional passion. More than 3,100 took part in the survey. For more information about the report, click here.

“Everything is amazing right now and nobody’s happy,” riffs comic Louis C.K. on the ways we respond to technology that would have seemed like science fiction not so long ago. He mocks people who get angry when their cell phone doesn’t respond immediately—“Can you give it a second! It’s going to space and back, for God’s sake”—or the high-speed wireless Internet fails on the plane—“How quickly the world owes you something that you found out existed about 10 seconds ago! And while you’re sitting in a chair in the sky, no less.” Though not quite as funny as Louis, Judith Orloff, MD, a UCLA psychiatrist, sort of agrees with him, which is why she’s offering up “7 Ways to Fight Techno-Despair at Work,” adapted from her book, Emotional Freedom. “We're in the ‘Age of Impatience’. We're addicted to technology and instant gratification. We want more information quicker and in fewer words.” Orloff’s point—much like Louis’s—is that we need to deal with our impatience and frustration at modern life’s little annoyances.

One of the few things you can count on in business is change. Another thing you can count on is experts who tell you how to deal with change. Penelope Wong and Suzanne Peck, authors of Ruff: A Lost Dog Tale, think they’ve found a best-of-breed approach to dealing with it. (Yes, that was a dog-related pun. There will be more. Sorry.) Wong and Peck believe that we can look to our canine cohorts to learn how to cope with the chaos we encounter in our work and personal lives. Now, there are many things about my dog I would love to emulate, sleeping all day anywhere she wants being prime among them. Loyalty and the ability to keep a secret also number among her virtues. I have not, however, noticed that she deals all that well with change. Move her bed or lose her chew toy and she is not a happy puppy, so I’m not sure how she’d respond to the stresses of a corporate environment. Wong and Peck have more well-adjusted animals, I guess. Check out their “Five Great Strategies for Dealing With Change.”

When I first read about Dr. Kevin Gyoerkoe, clinical psychologist and coauthor of The Worrier’s Guide to Overcoming Procrastination, I said to myself, “Self, his five rules for overcoming procrastination might make a great slideshow for Baseline.com.” Funny, though, I never got around to actually reading the rules, because I spent too much time watching videos like this. When I finally did read them, I was convinced that the rules would make a great slideshow, but then I got sidetracked by more videos like this. OK, you get the joke—and an old one it is. What follows -- yes, I did get around to it -- is Dr. Gyoerkoe’s list of old rules and new rules that he so alliteratively suggests will help us all “plow past procrastination.” So don’t wait, click now! Don’t say you’ll come back and read them later -- you won’t, because you’ll already be not doing something else. Today’s the day to get things done and make space for new projects and goals. . .after you watch those videos I linked to above, of course. Really, they’re short.

Workers are balancing what they see against what they expect when it comes to job stability, raises and benefits in 2011, according to a recent survey from Glassdoor.com. Layoffs, compensation reductions (whether pay cuts or furloughs) and benefit reductions are still happening, but these measures appear to be on the decline. Meanwhile, there are fewer concerns about future layoffs, and confidence is rising. "It's no surprise employee confidence in the fourth quarter reflects a mixed bag of optimism and caution," said Rusty Rueff, a Glassdoor.com career and workplace expert and co-author of the book, Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. "Employee sentiment about their job, company and market will likely remain tempered until they see consistent and sustained periods of growth, fewer cutbacks at work and more people getting hired into positions that were either eliminated or put on hold during the recession." More than 2,100 U.S. workers took part in the survey, which was conducted by Harris Interactive.

See also: You Can't Wear That, Watch Your Body Language Job candidates make a lot of boneheaded mistakes during interviews, and a new survey from CareerBuilder catalogs some real doozies. At the very moment that prospective employees should be presenting themselves in the best light, many resort to inappropriate antics involving TMI (Too Much Information), personal hygiene shortcomings, or underdeveloped social skills. Some lapse into wrong-for-the-moment behaviors such as taking ill-timed texting breaks, chewing gum and generally presenting a bad attitude. While the number of available jobs continues to improve month after month, candidates can't walk into interviews overconfident and under prepared, CareerBuilder cautions. “Competition will remain high for some time to come," said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. "The goal of any interview is to stand out from the other candidates and ultimately land the job. But make sure you stand out for the right reasons.” More than 2,400 hiring mangers took part in the survey.

The Great Recession has made a lot of folks reluctant to invest in retirement plans as aggressively as they should. They're also under-utilizing tools such as financial-consulting services. The result: more workers face a significant risk of being unprepared for retirement, according to a recent survey of executives at retirement-plan sponsors. Not all the news is bad, however. Balances are recovering. And, after employer matches took a dive during the downturn, companies have either restored these benefits or plan to in the immediate future. "We believe retirement readiness will continue to be in the spotlight for years to come, as 401(k) account balances slowly rebound and participants become more educated regarding what they will need to retire,” says Stacy Sandler, principal at Deloitte Consulting, which conducted the survey along with the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP) and the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists (ISCEBS). To access the complete report, click here.

Technology: You can’t live with it, and you can’t live without it. The same devices that bring us convenience and entertainment drive us nuts when they malfunction, which they do with alarming frequency. To depend on technology is to ride an emotional roller coaster, and even minor glitches can cause major headaches. To choose just one recent example, Apple’s faulty iOS alarm clocks couldn’t handle the switch to 1/1/11, leaving a trail of angry or embarrassed over-sleepers across the globe. To choose another recent example, think of the Hotmail meltdown that left users with empty in-boxes (which Microsoft later restored, but still). And another, well, you get the point, and you live with it yourself every day. Jessica Foust of TopTenReviews has identified five key technology pitfalls that users often overlook and how you can avoid them and save yourself from missing a key appointment by sleeping late or being thwarted while trying to watch your favorite movie at home on the couch.

With the Great Recession slowly easing – knock wood -- organizations are preparing to move aggressively on some of the significant communications advancements of the last several years. This should include more business-focused deployment of social media, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) tools, and cloud-computing technology, among others, according to a recent report from Avaya. The report scouts what are expected to be the top communications trends for 2011. It's been said that useful technologies often emerges during the darkest of times, when crisis fires the need for innovation. The recent economic downturn was proof of that, according to Avaya, as the cost-cutting spurred by the housing collapse and the crippling of the financial-services industry helped fuel development of enhanced communications tools for collaboration and compliance. Also, organizations will more than ever before empower users to have a direct impact on technology deployment decisions. To access the complete report, click here. Here are the 'top 10' trend highlights:

“I don’t get no respect, no respect at all, I tell ya,” said Rodney Dangerfield. You probably know the feeling. We all want respect, at home and at work. If only Dangerfield had been privy to the wisdom of Meryl Runion, author of Speak Strong and Power Phrases, he might have received the respect he so ardently sought, and wound up as a butcher or barber instead of an iconic comedian. Which raises the question of whether getting what you want is always a good thing. Anyway, Runion says our biggest obstacles are the naysayers we encounter every day. “Be prepared for the wet blankets, gloom and doomers, and buzz killers.” They stand to undermine you and talk you right out of achieving your dreams even before you begin. Dangerfield’s life—or at least his comedy routine—was filled with such folk, from his psychiatrist and doctor to his wife and parents. Runion has come up with six things you can do that will help you get respect and recognition for your personal and professional action plans. Here’s the list, coupled with some of Dangerfield’s best lines.

Most of us get overwhelmed by workplace bottlenecks because we allow them to persist, according to the new book, Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work (McGraw-Hill/Available in January). Author Russell Bishop presents time-saving ways to deal with the daily frustrations that all professionals face – obstacles to productivity such as endless meetings, relentless e-mails and pointless processes that get in the way of getting the job done. What's puzzling, Bishop contends, is that the majority of employees are likely to complain to co-workers about these distractions, but few are willing to challenge the system head on. Many fear the consequences of confrontation, which is why he presents a workaround approach rather than a confrontational one. Bishop is a speaker and consultant with Fortune 500 clients in aerospace, IT, telecommunications and other industry segments. He is also a frequent columnist for The Huffington Post. For more about the book, click here.

Ever wish you were the genius who first thought of Amazon, Facebook or eBay? Or that you grokked concepts like cloud computing or social media before everyone else knew about them? Trend-setters are not clairvoyant or possessed of super-human intelligence. In most cases, they think of better ways to solve existing problems, or provide an improved product or service. So says the new book, Flash Foresight: How to See the Invisible and Do the Impossible (HarperBusiness/Available January 2011). IT professionals are often at the forefront of innovation, yet author Daniel Burrus says they don't always take advantage of the strategic foresight offered by their work to affect revolutionary change. He argues that what he calls the science of certainty allows a person to spot trends before they happen, and tap into “flash foresight” skills to best exploit this knowledge and emerge as an innovator. He also provides insight and predictions on critical trends now on the horizon. For more about the book, click here .

When it comes to project management, the management part is just as important as the project part. Of course the details matter, a lot, but too often managers find themselves lost in the weeds after chasing down day-to-day particulars and losing sight of big picture stuff like schedules and deliverables. Micromanagement is not good management, and it’s one of the things that limit a project's chances for success. In his book, 101 Project Management Problems And How to Solve Them (Amacom/Available Now), author Tom Kendrick provides clear illustrations of the challenges managers face, and then explains in simple, step-by-step fashion how these managers can effectively resolve them or avoid them entirely. Whether the situation is a wide-focus problem or a smaller one – like supervising that one employee who incessantly seeks guidance – 101 Project Management Problems offers best practices to address it. Kendrick is a consultant and former project management executive for HP and Visa Inc. For more about the book, click here.

Unemployment remains stubbornly high, and the job market is flush with IT talent. But even with candidates to choose from, employers find it difficult to make the right hiring decisions. Blame time pressures, strained resources and a lack of insight into the real value of individual prospects. Two-thirds of companies surveyed by CareerBuilder said bad hiring decisions had a negative effect on business last year, and nearly half said that one bad hire cost them real money. "With qualified IT talent in high demand, employers often struggle to find bring in the right people for their open positions," said Eric Presley, chief technology officer at CareerBuilder, in a statement. "Hiring the wrong IT talent for a position can have a significant effect on an employer's bottom line, so IT employers are making an effort to improve their recruitment strategy, especially as they look ahead to 2011." As hiring costs increase, understanding who will best meet your needs and how they will fit into your company becomes more important.

See also: Job-Hopping is So 2006 With unemployment rates still painfully high, Americans value job stability more than any other career-related asset, according to a new survey released by Heald College and conducted by Harris Interactive. Other valued attributes include job satisfaction, personal fulfillment, work-schedule flexibility and career advancement. The attachment to stability is a sign of the times, and with no guarantees that an improving economy will cause employment levels to normalize, those who are relatively secure in their positions aren't taking their fortune for granted. “It's no surprise that Americans not only value the fact that they have jobs, but truly value the fact that they expect to keep their jobs long term," said Jennifer Lozada, corporate director of career services for Heald College. "Americans want to feel that they are appreciated for what they do and that they will continue to play a long-term vital role in the workforce." Nearly 920 employed residents of the U.S. took part in the survey.

See also: Grateful to Have a Job Workers are holding on to jobs longer these days, according to a new study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). The days when professionals spent a career at the same company and ended up with a gold watch and pension are long gone – five years is the norm now – but the study indicates that the overall trend is inching toward longer stints at the same jobs. Much of this can be attributed to the long-dismal state of the employment picture, as those who have a relatively secure position don't want to risk the uncertainty of switching employers. "For the great majority of American workers, so-called 'career jobs' never existed, and they certainly do not exist today," said Craig Copeland, the study's author and a senior research associate with EBRI. "A distinct minority of workers have spent their entire working career with just one employer. But it appears that workers who have jobs are mostly staying in them." EBRI compiled the research from the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. To read the entire report, click here http://www.ebri.org/pdf/notespdf/EBRI_Notes_12-Dec10.Tenure-CEHCS.pdf:

See also: Sick Days Are a LuxuryAre you a workaholic? Some people scoff at the whole concept, or don’t realize that they exhibit behaviors associated with an obsessive focus on work. Yet being a workaholic can lead to stress, damaged personal relationships, and even physical illness. A survey from CareerBuilder shows that many professionals are experiencing the danger signs of workaholism. For starters, the 40-hour work week is a myth for the majority of employees. Other indicators include constantly taking the job home, talking or thinking all the time about business, and literally dreaming about work at night. All of this is compounded by 24/7 access to business-related information. “With increased demands at the office and greater accessibility through mobile devices, the workday literally never ends for some workers,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. “While a strong work ethic is valued, a lack of balance with your personal life can ultimately work against you in the long run. Take inventory of your personal time and see where you need to make adjustments in 2011.” More than 3,065 took part in the survey.

It’s tough to find a job these days, much less the job of one’s dreams, in the slowly-healing economy. Long gone is the era when a good resume and a few interviews did the trick. Yet too many of us still chase our dreams in the same old ways. Says contrarian headhunter Nick Corcodilos, “If you don’t believe America’s employment system is broken, ask yourself why your resumes don’t lead to interviews, and why interviews don’t lead to job offers. “ Corcodilos, publisher of Ask The Headhunter, says the problem is automation. “Job offers don’t come from job postings; they come from people. Your gut tells you that, but your behavior suggests you’re wasting too much time waiting for a job to come along.” Here, he offers some actionable tips to landing a position, even in these trying times. Corcodilos’s “Ask The Headhunter” books—including “Answer Kit: How Can I Change Careers?” and “How to Work with Headhunters. . . and How To Make Headhunters Work For You offer more in-depth ideas for getting or changing jobs.

See also IT Sneezes, Business Catches a Cold The words “disaster recovery” brings to mind events such as Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, and the BP oil spill. But even if nothing of national consequence goes wrong on your watch, localized problems — fires, floods, ice storms, power outages, tornadoes, even workplace violence — can be real disasters for any given enterprise. In The Disaster Recovery Handbook: A Step-by-Step Plan to Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities and Assets (Amacom/Available now), authors Michael Wallace and Lawrence Webber show why companies need to be proactive in coming up with disaster plans. IT plays a critical role in such efforts. Employees may scoff or chafe at the effort, but an effective process allows organizations to essentially plan for anything, enabling their departments to continue operations as seamlessly as possible. Wallace is vice president of consulting services at Result Data, an IT strategy, business intelligence and disaster-recovery consulting firm. Webber is a certified project manager (CPM) and Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP). For more about the book, click here.

Can you write a concise, informative report? Create a bulletproof budget? Use statistics to make the case for your pet project? Rising through the corporate ranks takes more than just IT domain expertise, it requires mastery of a range of business and communication skills. The need for this broader toolkit has become a truism, but actually learning the chops can be hard. A new book, The Manager's Pocket Calculator: A Quick Guide to Essential Business Formulas and Ratios (Amacom/Available now), promises to help you master these tasks without sending you back to school. Author Michael Thomsett provides a simple, step-by-step illustration of these and other must-know essentials of daily office life, complete with easy-to-understand illustrations and breakouts. There are also more than 100 useful ratios and formulas explained in the book. Thomsett is an accounting/financial services professional and accountant, and author of The Little Black Book of Project Management. For more about his Manager's Pocket Calculator, click here.

Your data is under attack, and the dangers are proliferating. How many different systems are running in your company? Between desktop OSes, server platforms and mobile devices, IT managers have a growing variety of devices to manage and keep safe from cyber-threats. And the cyber-criminals are growing ever more sophisticated and looking for every window in to your network. From legacy operating systems that no longer get security updates to cyber-criminals who are targeting the cloud, the landscape of threats is expanding. One growing threat is malware targeting users of social networks; more than 80 percent of malware on users’ systems comes through the Web, Trend Micro researchers found. Companies are responding. According to Baseline research (click here for article), about half of organizations surveyed on tech trends for 2011 said they planned to make “significant investments” in security next year, with many spending more money in 2011 than they did in 2010. Here’s our list of threats you and your network will be facing in 2011 and beyond.

Companies are losing billions of dollars a year due to IT downtime and the costs of data recovery, according to a recent survey from CA Technologies. During moments when the machines aren’t running, opportunities to generate revenue are reduced dramatically, and the data-recovery process also makes a significantly negative impact on revenue generation. These problems could intensify as organizations become increasingly dependent upon both traditional and cloud IT services for revenue. “IT outages have real, quantifiable impacts on businesses of every size,” says Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT Inc. “This is particularly true for those businesses in the retail sector, which need to leverage IT across numerous core-business processes. As IT becomes increasingly complex, we expect IT outages to continue impacting organizations’ ability to do business effectively and their bottom-line results.” More than 200 North American companies took part in the survey, which can be accessed here

What kinds of software are enterprises running in the cloud today, and what do they plan to run there in the near future? This is just one area addressed in Cloudrise: Rewards and Risks at the Dawn of Cloud Computing, an essential new research report by Jeanne G. Harris and Allen E. Alter of Accenture’s Institute for High Performance (you may recognize Alter’s name from this site – he’s an alumnus of Baseline, who presided over our research for several years). “Cloud computing has entered a new phase in its brief history,” says the report. “Right now, most attention is focused on how cloud computing can reduce IT costs and help companies meet pressing but often short-term computing needs. But wise executives will look beyond these short-term opportunities to determine how clouds can help their organizations become more competitive. Operational excellence will be a critical factor for success in coming years.” The Cloudrise report draws on a survey of 669 executives in nine countries and over 20 industries.

Performance issues and poor planning are keeping database workers up at night—literally—according to a new survey from Embarcadero. Scope creep and slow, inefficient tools have caused more than half of these employees to stay overnight at the office to handle database problems. And a large number of them are working with five or more database-management systems at once. All of this means that pressure is increasing for database pros, even as cloud computing is transforming their jobs. “With cloud database offerings from Amazon and Microsoft and a slew of open source providers taking off, most database professionals will be involved with the technology in some form in 2011,” says Scott Walz, senior director of product management for Embarcadero. “They will have to learn an entirely new playbook for managing distributed data in a less than predictable and controlled environment.” More than 1,200 database administrators, developers, architects and analysts took part in the survey, which can be accessed here