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Five Ways to Put Mobile Technology to Work A practical guide to making the most of the mobile revolution. Ten iPhone Apps that Will Save You Money We recently revealed how, the cost of going out to lunch and getting coffee from the coffee shop can add up over the course of your career, as much as $120,000 worth. That’s a lot of lattes. But thanks to the folks at Ranker.com, you can save a bundle on groceries, automobile repairs, gasoline, retail stores and other budget items with their “top ten” list of cost-cutting iPhone apps in order to compensate for your Starbucks habit and on-the-go lunches. Your smartphone didn’t come cheap,& the site proclaims, & so put it to work.& And best of all: Many of these apps are free. (Check product links for specifics on various pricing points.) 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. For more about the list, click here. Mobility Transforms the Customer Relationship Businesses must develop a focused strategy, provide highly usable apps and build a robust IT infrastructure in order to take full advantage of mobile technology. BPM Keeps Pace With Business Changes Business Process Management is increasingly critical as companies struggle to keep up with fast-evolving markets. Speech Recognition Speaks To Businesses Can you hear me now? Speech recognition software is getting very good, and very popular. Eight Ways Top Companies Beat the Competition With IT Top-performing companies are top performers in IT, too. Enterprises ranking in the highest quartile for annual revenue, growth, profitability and innovation, and with revenue growth of more than 5% in the past year, says PwC, are better at measuring data, interacting with customers via mobile tools, and mobilizing applications to the cloud, among other things. & Raising a firm's digital IQ means improving the way it leverages technologies and channels to meet customer needs,& says John Sviokla, principal at PwC. & The core of the ecosystem for innovation has moved from inside the firm to out in the marketplace. Customer and employee expectations are being shaped by this environment -- if you miss this trend you will be increasingly irrelevant to the market.& Some 500 U.S. companies with revenues over $500 million took part in the research, with half of respondents being business executives and the other half from IT. For more about the survey, click here. Your Online History Jeopardizes Your Career Your reputation precedes you, and it may not be pretty. What we post online -- or what our friends post on our social-media pages -- can tarnish our professional and personal images. A survey from Microsoft says we’re not dealing very well with this reality (most people won’t even conduct a simple search for their own names). Ultimately, though, your chances for success depend on getting proactive. & Your online reputation is shaped by your interactions in the online world and spans the disparate and varied data about you, whether created and posted by you or others,& says Brendon Lynch, chief privacy officer at Microsoft. & This information can have a lasting presence online, and can affect your life in many ways -- from maintaining friendships to helping you keep or land a new job.& More than 5,000 people in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Ireland and Spain took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here. Things that Make Your CEO Nervous 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. 10 Ways to Work With People You Hate 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. How You Spend $120,000 on Coffee and Lunch 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. Five Terrible Excuses for Being Late to Work 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. DRM Moves Beyond Hollywood Digital Rights Management technology is not uncontroversial, but it may be coming soon to your company. Security Best Practices Pay Off Well-prepared companies fare significantly better than their competitors when faced with IT security threats. 10 Outrageous Expense Report Items 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. 10 Business Lessons from the Super Bowl 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. Businesses Learn to Love Consumer IT 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. Corporate Do-Gooders Out to Save the World 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. Mobile Revolution Threatens IT Security 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. Coveting Thy Neighbor's iPhone 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. Will Move For Food, Workers Say 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.