1189320120Content WireDeskaccountability,addressed,automation,checks,conflict,Democracy,direct access,disaster recovery,document management,document management systems,Emergency Response,government agencies,human rights,Human Rights,mobile services,new research,news service,news site,one of the few,priority,project management,public access,research director,specifically,stakeAccountability Project for Public Emergency Response[img_assist|nid=19731|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=72|height=75] The United States Government Accountability Office has released <a href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07454.pdf">a 320 page report</a> (PDF) admitting that "DHS has made limited progress in the areas of emergency preparedness and response."  On the same issue, the US Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs <a href="http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm" target="_blank">has heard </a>The Honorable David M. Walker, Comptroller General, United States Government Accountability Office and The Honorable Paul A. Schneider, Under Secretary for Management, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.<div>Also, since Katrina, members of Congress urged the Red Cross <a href="http://www.redcross.org/report/bogoct2006/" target="_blank">(PDF)</a> to develop a new governance structure. </div><div> </div><div>“The latest findings confirm that Homeland Security and FEMA are dysfunctional. There have been countless reports since Katrina and many make the same recommendations, over and over" </div>says Ben Smilowitz, Director, Disaster Accountability Project. "Instead of hearing from Homeland Security’s top brass, Congress ought to hear from whistleblowers within the department. We are in the middle of a hurricane season that produced two category five storms in as many weeks. Homeland Security’s leadership should be investigated.” "One thing in particular that's of specific interest to me", Ben says,"are the new whistle-blowing procedures discussed in the report. My understanding is that whistle blowing reviews are still internal. While the American Red Cross contracted out the collection of whistle- blower reports, the public still does not have access to information about what is reported..... this underscores my concern regarding a lack of public accountability in the nation's lead agency for Emergency Support Function Six (Mass Care)" Any function so important to the well-being of all Americans (and our visitors) should be completely transparent, Ben thinks  Ben's story After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Ben Smilowitz, who later founded the Disaster Accountability Project, contacted the Red Cross to volunteer and was sent to Gulfport, Mississippi There, he tells, he managed a Client Service Center from mid-September until early October. "While the site provided as much as $20 million in 20 days to nearly 20,000 households, the actual support each household received was minimal" [img_assist|nid=19732|title=Ben with Rev Harris|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=100|height=99] Could you give more details? The center was unable to meet the needs of the community despite significant public relations and fundraising efforts by the American Red Cross misrepresenting the opposite. We wrote checks for $360 per person. $660 for two in a household, $960 for three, $1265 for four, $1565 for five or more in a household. After Katrina, $360 was petty cash for someone that lost everything. Many people walked in without anything--- everything had been destroyed in the storm. You say that the center was unable to meet the needs of the community, explain more what you mean here please - what do you think was the problem, and what the cause Specifically, I think that an organization fundraising this heavily is not likely to disclose its shortcomings. I see this as a great conflict of interest. Disaster survivors need disaster relief groups that will serve as advocates and be honest about the extent of their abilities and limitations in providing disaster relief services. This is why I believe that the public affairs work by the American Red Cross after Katrina was deceptive.... the public was not told about the problems, only the successes. Because the problems were shielded from public scrutiny, they were not addressed and suffering was exacerbated. If my experience means anything, as a manager of a Red Cross "Client Service Center after Katrina, I was told that I'd be fired if I talked to the media without calling public affairs first...I continued to talk about service gaps (facts only) and was relieved of my service in the middle of the day by Red Cross security and was driven to the airport in Mobile, AL..... To which media did you talk, and what issues/facts, did you report?I spoke with a few reporters. One from a radio station in Syracuse, CNN showed up one day, and one more reporter, I think from an AL or L television station. I shared this information: We had and unresponsive infant at our site because of the heat and long lines, mothers bringing babies that weren't their own to move up in the line, an inability to provide tetanus shots and IVs, a complete cut in National Guard medics and 1/4 the National Guard members you had the day before, only one or two tents (provided by the damaged church next door) that were only enough to cover a small percentage of those waiting for services, no automation and less efficiency because of it, critical supply shortages on some days (i.e. no salts, meals).... I don't think I was directly quoted on much... and I wasn't negative, just eager to make sure gaps in services were made public and addressed. Also, Hurricane Rita struck Louisiana around the same time and a lot of the news shifted to Rita for a few days. Another interesting twist, is that a few days after I left, one of the security guards that drove me to the airport called me to let me know about another problem he was experiencing, related to Red Cross services being provided, with a request that I help publicize it. You say that 'reported' gaps were addressed faster than unreported ones, can you give some examples? Yes. I call it the Anderson Cooper effect. I remember watching him report that a number of FEMA trailers were sitting in Arkansas or Tennessee unused. A couple days later, I watched him report that because of the news story and publicity, the trailers were getting moved to the Gulf Coast and being put to use. It's that kind of publicity that often broke through the red-tape and led to problems and gaps in services getting addressed. Did you sign any contract/agreement which bound to confidentiality while in volunteer service for the RC?I'm sure I signed an agreement that I'd follow a code of conduct, rules, etc. However, during a crisis, critical supply shortages on some days (i.e. no salts, meals) .... staying quiet is not an option or a service to the public, even if it means getting sent home. Regardless, lives were at stake, we were providing a public function (ESF-6 of the National Response Plan) and the Red Cross was getting reimbursed by the Federal Government for billions of dollars of aid. The big rule was that we could not compromise the privacy of the clients/survivors at our site and that is something I did not do. When I asked my supervisors to document why they were sending me home in my evaluation, they would not. I was given high marks and was told I was getting sent home because my three-week service term had expired.. a direct contradiction of what I was told by the public affairs coordinator who told me that if I talked before calling public affairs, I'd get fired. What does the Disaster Accountability Project do? The mission of the Disaster Accountability Project is to provide accountability and oversight before, during, and after disasters through monitoring and policy research. We focus on both immediate and long-term disaster accountability and oversight. Our Disaster Accountability Monitor network attempts to verify reports that we receive via the hotline. We publicize reported gaps in services in an effort to make sure that they are addressed by the responsible organizations or agencies. After Katrina, publicized gaps in services were more likely to be addressed than those that were not. Long-Term, our website is tracking the hundreds (soon thousands) of post-Katrina recommendations to improve the nation's disaster prevention, response, relief, and recovery systems. While we are going through reports, collecting recommendations on our website, and tracking their progress, we have a public-engagement tool that allows the public to help track recommendations and submit that information. We will do our best to verify the information we receieve and post it as soon as possible. Right now, our top priority is recruiting Disaster Accountability Monitors and Bloggers and fundraising to hire a staff person and maintain the site. How are the reports on your website verified? We do not endorse them. But we are looking to see what has been done about the recommendations in each report. Given our nation's lack of preparedness, I think it makes sense that we consider as many options as possible and I'd like to hold our leaders accountable to that. Each recommendation on our website has citation information and with that, anyone can access the report the recommendation came from.... and people can decide for themselves how much weight they want to give each recommendation. How is the Disaster Accountability Project funded? Good question. We're not. The idea for this project was conceived in Fall 2005, planned between February - July 2007, and officially launched in August 2007. Hiring a staff position is now a top priority and we need funding to both achieve that goal and maintain the Project. Please help!www.disasteraccountability.org  [img_assist|nid=19734|title=|desc=Photo courtesy of www.ecbt.org|link=url,http://www.ecbt.org/parents/disasterrecoverystory.cfm|align=left|width=640|height=312]http://www.content-wire.com/accountability-project-public-emergency-response1169510400Content Wireadminaccess control,addressed,checks,content creators,content management,Content Management,content repository,database management,Drupal,email,improvements,Information Management,management requirements,new release,profiles,repository,smart,text search,usability,user profiles,visibility,web content,web content management,web pages,web usersDRUPAL NEW RELEASEUsability improvements * Administration pages: completely retooled the administration page. It now has a default task view with an option to hide descriptions (think advanced view) and a ‘by module’ view with links to configuration options. * Settings pages: settings are now split up into smaller pages, making it easier to find the options you need. * Tables: the content, user and comment lists now include a smart ‘check all’ checkbox and allow range selecting by holding ’shift’. * Capitalization and typography: attention has been paid to properly and consistently format labels and text across Drupal. New features added * Status page and requirement checking: added a status report page with detailed PHP/MySQL/Drupal information and requirement checking. * Web-based installer: added web-based installer that checks run-time requirements and that supports pre-made install profiles or distributions with better support for database table prefixes. It is also localizable. * Core theme: introduced a new default core theme, called Garland (and a fixed width version Minnelli). Garland uses the new color module to change the theme’s entire color scheme on the fly. * Custom content types: core now includes part of the Content Construction Kit and allows you to set up arbitrary types out of the box. For more fields, install the full CCK package from the contributions repository. * URL filter: integrated the URL filter module into the filter module. This will cause web and e-mail addressed to be automatically hyperlinked. * Blocks per role: extended the block visibility settings with a role specific setting and retained the option to control blocks by PHP snippets.. * Edit block titles: Drupal 5 makes it possible to customize or overwrite all block titles, even set block titles to empty. * User management improvements: Added support for auto-complete forms to user profiles. The ability to filter users by role, permission and status to help better manage users. Made email verification of user accounts optional. * Improved module administration: Modules are listed by category and origin, their versions are displayed, and their dependencies are listed in the module descriptions as required or optional. * More logging reports: Drupal now provides detailed reports on search terms, ‘page not found’ and ‘access denied’ errors to help improve your site. * CSS preprocessor: All (cacheable) stylesheets are now aggregated into one compressed file, which makes your site faster, especially for first time visitors. * Performance tuning: Key parts such as Drupal’s session and process mechanism have been optimized for faster page loading across the board. www.drupal.orghttp://www.content-wire.com/drupal-new-release-01160521200Content Wireadminaddressed,application developers,application development,architecture,benefit,Business,business applications,business content,business development,business partners,business process,business process management,business users,Companies,content delivery,content integration,content management,Content Management,content management application,content management applications,content management capabilities,content management solution,content technology,data access,data management,Data Management,delivery solution,Development,development environment,dynamic content,dynamic content management,flexibility,functionality,management application,management applications,management capabilities,management environment,management functionality,management technology,Microsoft,new business,new data,new technology,open architecture,presence,Technology,technology allows,technology companies,technology integration,users experience,web applications,web content,web content management,web server,web users,workflowFree Content Management SolutionQuantum Art announced QP7.Express, a free single-user version of its award-winning content application server. Integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio, QP7.Express delivers the same content inventory management and content delivery capabilities that are offered in Quantum Art’s commercial products, and is packaged as a personal content management solution. The single-user version is right for end-user companies or their development partners that do not require workflow or permissions management to set up their web presences. With QP7.Express, the company is giving free access to our award-winning content management technology to anyone who wants to build a .NET- driven website. We encourage business users to talk to their web developers about QP7.Express and experience a new way of publishing online content and adding interactive applications to their websites. QP7.Express operates on the same principles as other Quantum Art products, separating the content delivery and publishing process from the underlying data. This approach has been proven to provide greater interface scalability, ease-of-use, and flexibility in developing content-driven web applications, allowing developers to manage and publish content anywhere, in any format. As a personal content management solution, QP7.Express lets .NET developers and site administrators create new functionality, efficiently manage component libraries, and add dynamic content to any existing website. In addition, integration with Microsoft Visual Studio, allows programmers to leverage QP7.Express as a development environment to address solution architecture, code management and performance optimization in .NET web application development. Developers can rely on an Open Development Community for pre-built .NET components for QP7 http://odc.quantumart.comhttp://www.content-wire.com/free-content-management-solution1156978800Content Wireadminaddressed,application developers,application development,beneficial,categorization,categorization software,CMS,content delivery,content management,Content Management,content management application,content management platform,content management software,content management solutions,content management system,content management systems,creating a website,delivery platform,deploy,developer community,Development,development environment,Drupal,Information Management,information portal,Internet,internet,knowledge management,Knowledge Management,management application,management environment,management platform,management solutions,necessarily,open source,Open Source Content Management Systems,open source world,patent,People,perspective,portal platform,portal solutions,portals,software developers,software platform,source of information,specifically,user interface,web based,Web CMS,web content,web content management,web content management system,web portal,web users,WorldOpen Source CMS Guide in PrintContent Management Systems (CMS) are becoming increasingly popular thanks to the variety of solutions that require no coding skills to upload and manage website content. Many prefer to use open-source CMS that can be downloaded for free without obligation. But all CMS require some degree of technical knowledge, and open source ones are often unsupported Many users, independently from their technical background, may need to go through a learning curve if they want to get hands on the application, especially if they want to install and use the most advanced features. There are different ways to go about it. The most common is to start working as part of the developers community, sign up for the forum and get involved. Get your hands dirty. Most developers and users learn as they go, and their main user guide is the documentation to be found on the relevant websites. That is generally the most comprehensive and up to date source of user information. Some however, especially beginners and non tech people, may still need the support of a manual printed on paper. Not many Open Source CMS have their own book on paper. Drupal is a popular CMS that has been around for a number of years, and recently its 4.7 version was released. The book entitled "Drupal: Creating Blogs, Forums, Portals and Community Websites" written by David Mercer, published by PACKT is actually a physical publication, that guides users through the installation and configuration of Drupal in a Windows environment (because it is expected that the Linux community are sorted out already). More and more people, irrespective of their roles and background, are learning about open source CMS. This book may be right for them. Thirathep Chonmaitree an IT lecturer and would be Drupal adept downloaded the application and used the book as a guide to help him along. He answers some of our questions: Summarise what's the book about This book is the guide in creating online systems using Drupal. It explains how to set up Drupal on your machine and also guide you through the basic concept of Drupal in setting up the blogs, forums, portal, etc. Is the book written to support any particular environment? The author does specifically focus on Windows platform. The instructions in this book focus on Window platform only, however, the author actually touches on Unix platform a little bit in the installation chapter. The book does not really tell the reader upfront about this though, this should be displayed in the title area perhaps. It might be better if this would be obvious for the readers. Intended Audience? The manual is not specifically addressed to a technical audience, as no specific pre-requisite level competence is recommended, but as the chapters unfold it becomes clear that some Windows administrator knowledge would be highly beneficial in order to run the necessary commands with confidence This book has 10 chapters with one appendix, divided into different parts. First part is the introduction, including installation and setting up Drupal on your machine. Here readers will find some background and philosophy about the open source community . Then comes the basic information on how to set up a web site , then in the third part users can find how to install the most advanced features. All chapters that related to each part can be shuffled together within the same content and the continuous of the topic. In chapter one, the author actually put the reader into the world of Drupal with his easy-to-understand introduction. Chapter 2 and 3 are dedicated to explain the the development environment including the installation and configuration. He then adds some functionally into your basic site from chapter 3 with the guidelines in chapter 4. An explanation of permissioning and roles can be found in chapter 5. The remainder of the book is dedicated to advanced features including delivery, categorization, enriched features and more. The book also touches upon user interface and website look and feel, and includes flexinode and AdSense. Lastly, the instruction on how to run your website safe and sound is in Chapter 10. In the appendix reader learns how to deploy your Drupal web site and how to safely import all the necessary files to the host. Is the book useful? The book is definitely useful for beginners and the novices of the internet, also to those who are systematic in their approach to application development. How could it be more useful? One important point of having a book like this one is to have some tips and tricks for user to get excited with. It is deliberately important to advance the knowledge of the novice user in knowing more and more later on. The tips and tricks are the juice of the knowing soul. Once the users get their feet wet, more knowledge will be required and the demand will come. With this book, it does not have that drive in bursting the curiosity of the reader to know more. Are there enough illustrations? The illustrations seem secondary since it is not a step-by-step instruction book of Drupal. Are the instructions for installation and development sufficient to get the job done? The instructions are not really clear enough. The reader needs to find some more information based on each environment in order to set up Drupal smoothly. Does the book give any additional knowledge to what is available on the web? Definitely not!!! The website does have a lot more uptodate information about Drupal than the book. The drupal.org web site actually has a wide range of coverage in the installation tip and trick into setting up Drupal. Compare this book to other manuals you may have used before There is the different approach in writing the manual. It depends on the author's perspective of getting information across to the reader. Each author who wrote software manual has his own perspective of the audience and the difficulty level in mind. Is this book enough to get started? Yes, I think so. The beginner should actually receive enough knowledge in creating a web site using Drupal. What other knowledge would be beneficial? A little bit of system administration and web site developer knowledge would be beneficial but not necessarily required in relating to the content of this book. Should readers buy this book? Yes, no, why? Yes if you are a beginner. This book gears its content in helping someone gets started on the web site development using Drupal. No if you are serious CMS developer. You cannot find high technical description about CMS of Drupal in this book. www.packtpub.comhttp://www.content-wire.com/open-source-cms-guide-print1156114800Content Wireadminaddressed,assets,assets management,Business,business processes,competitive advantage,consulting firm,critical business,global technology,knowledge management,Knowledge Management,management consulting,management technology,management tools,multipoint control units,partnership,perspective,research firm,researcher,Technology,technology research,World Law Profession Gets to Grip with KnowledgeWhile law firms have embraced knowledge management as a critical function, knowledge management organizations are often isolated and face challenges in engaging others within the firm in implementing initiatives. According to a global study of law firm knowledge management practices. conducted by ALM Research in partnership with Curve Consulting, law firms are increasingly using a variety of technology tools, business practices and processes to identify, capture, disseminate and use knowledge assets to further their professional and business objectives. The survey addressed the current state of knowledge management in major law firms throughout the world, based on results from 71 firms from the U.S. and abroad, with an average size of more than 610 full-time lawyers. The study examines a variety of aspects of law firm knowledge management, including strategy, budgets, staff compensation, and technology products used. The survey, designed by Curve Consulting's Gretta Rusanow, addresses these issues from a global perspective, reporting and analyzing responses by group, country and region, as well as by firm size. Among the findings -- The top three objectives of knowledge management were identified as improving the quality of client service (71 percent), leveraging expertise (49 percent) and gaining a competitive advantage. (48 percent) -- Almost 40 percent of firms will spend more than $1 million on knowledge management in 2006. -- The average knowledge management organization in a European law firm was more than ten times the size of the average knowledge management organization in a US law firm. -- The scope of the knowledge managed within law firms has broadened, although there is still a strong emphasis on managing knowledge related to the practice of law and little emphasis on managing knowledge relating to the "business of law." www.almresearchonline.com <script type="text/javascript">google_ad_client = "pub-7258139694566163";google_ad_width = 300;google_ad_height = 250;google_ad_format = "300x250_as";google_ad_type = "text_image";google_ad_channel ="";google_color_border = "CC99CC";google_color_bg = "E7C6E8";google_color_link = "000000";google_color_url = "00008B";google_color_text = "663366";</script><script type="text/javascript" src=" http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script>http://www.content-wire.com/law-profession-gets-grip-knowledge1156114800Content Wireadminaddressed,assets,assets management,Business,business processes,competitive advantage,confusion,consulting firm,critical business,global technology,knowledge management,Knowledge Management,large corporations,management consulting,management technology,management tools,partnership,perspective,possibilities,public sector,research firm,senior vice president,Technology,technology research,WorldLaw Profession Gets to Grip with KnowledgeWhile law firms have embraced knowledge management as a critical function, knowledge management organizations are often isolated and face challenges in engaging others within the firm in implementing initiatives. According to a global study of law firm knowledge management practices. conducted by ALM Research in partnership with Curve Consulting, law firms are increasingly using a variety of technology tools, business practices and processes to identify, capture, disseminate and use knowledge assets to further their professional and business objectives. The survey addressed the current state of knowledge management in major law firms throughout the world, based on results from 71 firms from the U.S. and abroad, with an average size of more than 610 full-time lawyers. The study examines a variety of aspects of law firm knowledge management, including strategy, budgets, staff compensation, and technology products used. The survey, designed by Curve Consulting's Gretta Rusanow, addresses these issues from a global perspective, reporting and analyzing responses by group, country and region, as well as by firm size. Among the findings -- The top three objectives of knowledge management were identified as improving the quality of client service (71 percent), leveraging expertise (49 percent) and gaining a competitive advantage. (48 percent) -- Almost 40 percent of firms will spend more than $1 million on knowledge management in 2006. -- The average knowledge management organization in a European law firm was more than ten times the size of the average knowledge management organization in a US law firm. -- The scope of the knowledge managed within law firms has broadened, although there is still a strong emphasis on managing knowledge related to the practice of law and little emphasis on managing knowledge relating to the "business of law." www.almresearchonline.comhttp://www.content-wire.com/law-profession-gets-grip-knowledge-01137110400Content Wireadminaccounting,addressed,best practices,blog,Business,business case,business process,business user,Companies,corporations,delivery solution,Democracy,global reach,global technology,Google,help companies,human rights,Human Rights,initially,Internet,internet,Microsoft,next generation,People,Politics,respect to,target,Technology,technology companiesWhen Technology meets PoliticsReporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) has started a <a href="http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16121"> campaign</a> with the aim to influence interational technology providers to operate in respect of human rights, in particular when it comes to internet, democracy and freedom of expression. Julien Pain of RSF answers some questions. Is the petition concerned with any other aspect of human rights, and international trade? Don't you think service and goods providers worldwide should be made to abide to an ethical code of conduct by international law? With this campaign, we're only targeting companies working in the Internet sector, and especially Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco, Fortinet, Secure Computing, and to a lesser extent Google. These are all American companies. So far these are the ones we know about which collaborate on online censorship with repressive regimes. What evidence are you basing your case on? For example, Yahoo, we have <a href="http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050501_1.htm">Shi Tao's verdict</a> Microsoft: we tested their blog tool. Cisco : we have a brochure where they discribe tools to help the Chinese police If such an important case is likely to have an impact, shouldt the provision apply to any company irrespective of nationality? It does. It's mentioned in our press release : These recommendations are addressed to the US government and US legislators because all the companies named in this document are based in the United States. Nonetheless, they concern all democratic countries and have therefore been sent to European Union officials and to the Secretary General of the OECD as well. What international legal instruments /organisms can be used to enforce a human right provision? The issue can be taken by the UN Global Compact. But the best solution would be an OECD recommendation, that would be then applyed by all OECD members How long can a legislatory process like you suggest take ? First, we're asking for self regulation. We want companies to draft a code of conduct. If they don't do it, then a legislation would be drafted. Reporters Without Borders is convinced that a law regulating the activities of Internet companies should only be drafted as a last resort, and we recommend a two-step approach. Initially, a group of congressmen should formally ask Internet corporations to reach an agreement among themselves on a code of conduct that includes the recommendations we make at the end of this document. The companies would be urged to use the help of organisations specialised in freedom of expression in drafting the document. The request would include a deadline for the companies to submit their draft code of conduct to the congressmen concernedIn the event that no satisfactory code of conduct has been drawn up when the deadline expires, or the proposed code has not been accepted by a sufficient number of representative companies, the congressmen would set about drafting a law that would aim to ensure that US companies respect freedom of expression when they are operating in repressive countries and elsewhere. Sounds like it could take years Well. I'm an optimist. If there's enough polical will, they can speed up the process US representatives, and even the state department, are concerned about this issue. It gives a bad image of the US What are you doing to promote your cause internationally, and what response do you expect? I'd be happy if 10 000 people sign our petition. Though I know it's gonna be hard to reach that many people.Then I hope our lobbying before US representatives will be fruitful. We'll see what they are ready to do Is there any way that you can target specific user groups, setting up a Yahoo or Google campaign for example? We are working on that, we have started asking bloggers with an interst in human rights to sign the petiion and start posting about it. What can individuals do to support ethical business practices in general, or more specifical, to support your campaign They can sign or petition. Link or write letters to these companies. Shareholders of these companies could also send letter to the Investor relation desks and warn them that they will sell their shares if these companies do not take recommendations into account www.rsf.org (remote desk: Paola Di Maio)http://www.content-wire.com/when-technology-meets-politics1132790400Content Wireadminaddressed,application developers,content management,content technology,contextual,corporate data,customers need,data access,Day Software,dynamic content,enterprise applications,enterprise content,enterprise search,Enterprise Web,Google,hackers,information technology,large enterprises,match,new data,new technology,proprietary,proprietary technology,queries,search engine,search software,search technology,Social Technology,software applications,software developers,target,targets,Technology,web applications,web content,web pagesCombatting "Google Hacking" AttacksIncreasingly, hackers are concentrating their efforts on web-based applications - shopping carts, forms, login pages, and dynamic content. A Gartner Group study determined that 75% of cyber attacks are done at the web application level. Web applications are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and are a passageway to valuable data: customer and employee databases, transaction information and proprietary corporate data. Many enterprises have addressed network security issues and have implemented firewall technology but have not yet protected their "crown jewels" – data that can be compromised via web application hacks. The first reported instance of a Web application attack was perpetrated in 2000. While making online transactions with a large bank, a 17 year-old Norwegian boy noticed that the URLs of the pages he was viewing displayed his account number as one of the parameters. He substituted his account number with the account numbers of random bank customers and immediately gained access to customer accounts and personal details. Myriad other hackers have followed in his footsteps, exploiting hundreds of different techniques to compromise web applications and exploit what is fast becoming the biggest Achilles heel in an organization's security strategy. "Web applications are now the prime target for hackers. A quick hack of a vulnerable web application can give instant access to valuable data such as customer credit cards and employee social security numbers" said Nick Galea, CEO of Acunetix. "New hacking techniques emerge every day. Auditing one's web applications should be the number one security concern for every enterprise." Acunetix, a security software company focused exclusively web applications and sites, announced its next-generation version of Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner, detecting system vulnerabilities that are frequently exploited. Acunetix Scanner, say developers, automatically audits website security. The software crawls an entire website, launches popular web attacks (SQL Injection, Cross Site scripting, Google hacking, etc.) and identifies vulnerabilities that need to be fixed. Prevention of Google Hacking Google hacking is the term used when a hacker tries to find exploitable targets and sensitive data by using search engines. The Google Hacking Database (GHDB) is a hacker database of queries that can identify sensitive data. Although Google blocks some of the better known Google hacking queries, nothing stops a hacker from crawling sites and launching the Google Hacking Database queries directly onto the crawled content. The tool launches all the queries found in the Google hacking database onto the crawled content of enterprise websites thus finding any sensitive data or exploitable targets before a "search engine hacker" does. . www.acunetix.com <script type="text/javascript">google_ad_client = "pub-7258139694566163";google_ad_width = 300;google_ad_height = 250;google_ad_format = "300x250_as";google_ad_type = "text_image";google_ad_channel ="";google_color_border = "CC99CC";google_color_bg = "E7C6E8";google_color_link = "000000";google_color_url = "00008B";google_color_text = "663366";</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script>http://www.content-wire.com/combatting-google-hacking-attacks1128812400Content Wireadminaddressed,architecture,biotech,complexity,content analysis,content management,Content Management,content management tools,content repository,Content Technologies,content technology,dynamic content,dynamic content management,elements,entities,Google,implementation issues,investments,knowledge management,Knowledge Management,Knowledge Representation,lifecycle,management environment,management requirements,management technology,management tools,marketing,Marketing,migration,new technology,People,perspective,relationship,relationship management,relationships,repository,search technology,Standards,Technology,unprecedented,unprecedented search,WorldUser Centric Content ManagementSome content management practitioners are suspicious about words such as 'knowledge' and 'abstraction' . They can become very defensive when a technical discussion revolves around intangible concepts, because it's like entering a metaphysical dimension which cannot be grasped, and that can be perceived as distant, alien even, to real IT issues. Of course 'the user' is important, but it's kind of an indirect consequence, a byproduct, or a spectator, rather than the main actor. Maybe this is why in a <a href="http://www.aiim.org/poster/puzzleposter.html"> poster that ‘aiims’ </a> at representing and depicting the content management universe, the user is not contemplated. Maybe this is why, irrespective of how good a poster is, it always appears awkwardly flat. Because relevance, context and impact of each entity are determined by the user and its usage of the content When users are not represented, and usage not sufficiently defined, then technology becomes the self referencing and self gratifying exercise that so many IT people live on. Content lifecycle phases and their supporting technologies, should be represented differently depending on which category of user is being addressed. When the user is placed at the center of the world, the entire perspective changes. All around the user, is content, in various manifestations, each admittedly with lots of quirks. Everything else that exist - from protocol to repository, from script to tools - must be positioned in relation to usage , and aimed at supporting the content-user interaction. A systematic analysis of this vision, enables the expert to determine the weight and impact of CM technologies and tools, and a dynamic the pattern that, otherwise, remains elusive. Synchronizing all the components of a user centric model reveals usage patterns that demonstrate and quantify the effectiveness, or lack of effectiveness of the technology tools and techniques adopted. Content Management is elusive, because of its extreme complexity deriving from new tools, new behaviours, and unprecedented patterns of interaction between users and technologies require a sophisticated modeling tool to be determined in their state of flux. Key to User Centric Content Management Model, is the right identification of various user classes, and their simultaneous representation to which correspond different patterns of interaction, and different supporting tools. This 'multiuser environment' is not sufficiently addressed nor specified in typical implementations. Key elements of a User Centric Content Model Classes of Users (attributes, behaviours, skills)Classes of Content (file types, structured, unstructured etc)Usage (user - content interaction) Policy (rules, protocols, procedures)Technology (architecture, tools, standards) Each class of user will yield a different usage pattern, each pattern should be the basis for requirements specification. Requirements, lets not forget, are implementation independent. Whatever satisfies user requirements economically, should be shortlisted as a possible technology choice, everything else, should be avoided or minimised. Essential Classes <li> User (Superclass) Human non <li> IT (class) (creatives, admins, hr, marketing, content managers, others) <li> Human IT (class) (programmers, dbase managers, sys integrators etc)<li> Machine (class) (parsers, search engines, agents etc)<li> Other Content (superclass) <li>Content Type (class) (File type , structured, unstructured, semistructured)<li>Other <li>Content usage Various classes of usage depending on the user/content interaction, each usage should be modeled and represented differently Usage determines: policy and technical requirement specification Architecture is the overall representation of all patterns of usageAll other entities should be a function of the essential entities above, and their relationships to each other should be modeled based on the emerging dependencies where the causal relationship is 'Usage'. <a href=" http://www.content-wire.com/OnlineForm/Index.cfm?cls=1&cl=3"> Contact the Author</a> <script type="text/javascript">google_ad_client = "pub-7258139694566163";google_ad_width = 300;google_ad_height = 250;google_ad_format = "300x250_as";google_ad_type = "text_image";google_ad_channel ="";google_color_border = "CC99CC";google_color_bg = "E7C6E8";google_color_link = "000000";google_color_url = "00008B";google_color_text = "663366";</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script>http://www.content-wire.com/user-centric-content-management1121900400Content Wireadminaddressed,automation,Business,business applications,business content,business information,business process,business process management,business solutions,collaboration,Companies,content management,Content Management,content management application,content management applications,content management solutions,content offerings,content technology,corporate data,data management,Data Management,help companies,IBM,Information Management,information technology,leading technology,management application,management applications,management solutions,management technology,multilingual content,Technology,technology companies,technology solutions,transformation,XML,XML content managementContent Management Acquires E-formsIBM signed an agreement to acquire PureEdge Solutions, a developer of electronic forms (or e-forms), which help companies customize the employee interface to business applications and enables the capture, process, and display of business data. IBM will integrate PureEdge e-forms into its portfolio of collaboration technology, including IBM Workplace and Lotus offerings. PureEdge technology takes back-end corporate data and applications - such as inventory figures, customer data or pricing information - and presents it to end-users in a standardized, customizable template. PureEdge e-forms are based on XML. Full XML compliance is one of the reasons why PureEdge is one of the leading providers of e-forms and business process automation solutions. www.software.ibm.com <script type="text/javascript">google_ad_client = "pub-7258139694566163";google_ad_width = 300;google_ad_height = 250;google_ad_format = "300x250_as";google_ad_type = "text_image";google_ad_channel ="";google_color_border = "CC99CC";google_color_bg = "E7C6E8";google_color_link = "000000";google_color_url = "00008B";google_color_text = "663366";</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script>http://www.content-wire.com/content-management-acquires-e-forms1113778800Content Wireadminaddressed,competitive advantage,customer service,data services,inevitably,key industry,market opportunity,market research,recent research,relationships,rollout,sectors,software applicationsConsolidation of Payroll Services MarketAccording to a recent study from IDC, the Western European payroll services market is valued at nearly $10 billion, making it a substantial services opportunity. However, the market is also undergoing considerable change. This change has been particularly apparent in the demand for fully managed payroll services - with a growing trend towards services that include not only support of the payroll application environment and call center based support of the employee but also expansion into non-payroll HR services such as pensions administration and recruitment. With multinational clients increasingly seeking pan-European service providers, able to support employees in multiple European countries, and with demand for HR services expanding beyond payroll outsourcing into end-to-end HR BPO, those payroll providers able to deliver service support outside of their core domestic market are rapidly emerging as the winners. As the largest single transaction component of HR BPO contracts, payroll has become the critical battleground, with the resulting competition from HR BPO providers in the high-end payroll outsourcing market driving greater commoditization and price pressure. "Consolidation of the European payroll services market remains a probable rather than a remote possibility," said Mike Friend, research manager in IDC's European Services group. "The country-specific and fragmented nature of the European market currently means that the largest of the national payroll providers are generating revenues in the order of $100 million per annum but few have successfully seized the revenue-generating opportunities outside of their own domestic markets. The importance of achieving processing scale in order to drive down transaction costs makes consolidation both a market growth as well as a competitive strategy that will be complemented by the judicious use of nearshore and offshore processing centers." Difficult operating conditions will continue to be a feature of the European payroll market, in which low growth rates, commoditization, and increasing competition from in-house payroll functions, pure payroll, software, and HR BPO providers will exert a downward price pressure. IDC therefore offers the following key recommendations: · Payroll service providers should identify profitable industry and market sectors where real value add at a premium fee can be delivered to the customer. · Where the market is highly commoditized, payroll service providers should migrate clients to standardized applications and services and exit unprofitable client relationships. · With customer and government concerns regarding data privacy and data protection being addressed and safeguards now in place to allow employee data to be processed offshore, customer resistance to offshore service provisioning will inevitably decrease. Payroll providers should be prepared to meet the threat posed by competitors leveraging low-cost nearshore and offshore locations, from which to deliver payroll-processing services, by establishing their own offshore centers.http://www.content-wire.com/consolidation-payroll-services-market1109116800Content Wireadminaddressed,benefit,best practices,data management,Data Management,data services,deploy,effective communication,elements,global network,global technology,Indonesia,Information Management,Information Network International,information technology,infrastructure,infrastructures,Internet,internet,Maldives,management infrastructure,management solutions,management technology,management tools,marketing,member countries,mobile data,mobile phone,mobile phones,mobile services,network infrastructure,project management,provide tools,schema,senior research,Social Networks,Social Technology,source of information,Sri Lanka,stake,Standards,strategic technology,Technology,technology allows,technology solutions,telecommunications,telecommunications services,time it takes,voice services,voice transport,WorldThe Tsunami - A Wake-Up Call for Technological CooperationAt first glance the only thing that the sinking of the Titanic last century and the South-East Asian earthquake and tsunami of this century would appear to have in common is the fact that they both involved the sea. However, there are striking similarities in the outpouring of humanity and the calls for the introduction of an early warning system that followed. In both instances the technology existed that might have prevented such a loss of life. In the case of the Titanic, the SOS messages sent by the Titanic's radio operator went unheeded by ships that were within rescue distance because, at the time, it was not mandatory for ships at sea to monitor round-the-clock radiotelegraph broadcasts for distress signals. This changed following the sinking of the Titanic, when political will and global standards were put in place to ensure that radio distress signals would be listened to every hour of every day. The <a href= "http://www.itu.int/newsroom">ITU</a> expects the same result from the events of 26 December. As was the case almost a century ago, the information and communication technologies exist today that could have mitigated such an enormous loss of life. Even some of the necessary technical standards are in place to ensure these technologies could be put to better use in disasters. For example, two years ago, ITU Member States took a decision that allows for prioritization of calls in an emergency. This means that when disaster strikes, telecom networks can be effectively cleared of non-urgent telephone calls. International agreements such as these will be essential to make any early-warning disaster system developed by the international community both practical and effective. But there are still many areas that would benefit from "best practices" on what to do from the time a warning of an impending natural disaster is issued to relief operations, including the information flow between seismic data centres to authorities, authorities-to-authorities and authorities-to citizens. Potentially, one of the most effective technological tools available to warn citizens maybe the mobile phone, which is becoming increasingly available and affordable in both the developed and developing world. Among its many technological strengths is the fact that a warning message - either voice or text - can be broadcast to a specific geographic mobile 'cell' to warn of a pending disaster. However, to utilize information and communication technologies for disaster prevention two things are necessary: political will and international cooperation. For now there appears to be an abundance of both. The first step is to identify what went wrong in the communication chain and put in place the standards and procedures needed to avoid another tragedy of this scope. The loss of life from the sinking of the Titanic, however tragic, resulted in sea travel and transport becoming much safer for all. However, it appears the critical lessons from a century ago about the importance of technology in disaster prevention must be relearned if we are to use today's infinitely more sophisticated telecommunication systems to make the world safer from disasters in this century. Post-Tsunami Telecommunication Links Strengthened ' The second Preparatory Meeting for Phase Two of the World Summit on the Information Society included a special session on Telecoms for Disaster Relief. The session focused on key elements of the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations, which came into effect on 8 January. Until now, regulatory barriers that make it extremely difficult to import and rapidly deploy telecommunications equipment for emergencies often impeded the trans-border use of telecommunication equipment by humanitarian organizations. In the absence of an agreed multilateral framework that temporarily waived formalities, delays meant the loss of lives. "In emergency situations, telecommunication saves lives," said Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations specialized agency for telecommunications, which, along with the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has been a driving force in drafting and promoting the Convention. The special session, held in Salle XI of the Palais des Nations in Geneva, 18h15 - 19h30 22 February, included an overview of ITU work in Telecoms for Disaster Relief, which is outlined below. 250 000 USD Allocated for Tsunami Telecommunications Relief ITU will provide 250 000 (USD) from its TELECOM Surplus Fund for a project that will provide expert services to the earthquake and tsunami-hit countries - Indonesia, Maldives and Sri Lanka - to carry out an assessment of the current status of the telecommunications infrastructure in the affected areas, prepare a telecommunication infrastructure rehabilitation plan, and help develop a national plan for emergency communications as part of the Tsunami Early Warning System for the Indian Ocean. As well, in the event of other natural disasters or major telecommunication network failures, ITU will assist governments in preparing technical specifications and investment projects needed for infrastructure procurement while helping to prepare the documentation required to source funding for the investment projects. ITU Ships 14 Portable Satellite Terminals to Sri Lanka ITU, with its partner Inmarsat, has responded to the urgent communication needs in the Tsunami affected countries by providing free portable satellite terminals for emergency use, while they rebuild their telecommunication infrastructures. 14 of these terminals have been sent to Sri Lanka as well as an expert on their deployment. The creation of disaster resistant telecommunications networks has always been a strategic imperative to mitigate the effects of natural disasters. Whether for the telegraph, the radio and television and more recently the Internet, ITU work has developed hundreds of included technical standards to reduce degradation or disruption of communication networks as a result of disasters. During ITUs 140 year history, disasters have served to remind us that the most effective approach to telecommunication deployment is one that is highly focused and takes into account four distinct communication channels. These are: - First, citizen to authority: ITU has and will continue to focus on providing 'last mile' telecommunications solutions for disaster prevention, mitigation and relief. These solutions, which facilitate communications between citizens and authorities in times of emergency include special numbers such as 911 in North America or 112 in Europe. These telephone numbers provide instant connections to emergency response teams. While initiatives such as these may pose some regulatory challenges, they can be overcome with conditions on telecommunication licensing. - Next, communications from authority to authority: ITU is committed to help countries establish sound communication systems between national agencies involved in disaster management - monitoring centres, police, fire brigades, field rescue teams. - Thirdly, authority to citizen: This may be the most critical communication step of all, if citizens are to be warned of an impending disaster and to get instructions on how they should respond. The events in South Asia have shown that any gap in the communication chain from the time of the warning to the time of the rescue can cause terrible loss of lives. Until recently, radio and television broadcasts have been the essential communication tools for authority-to-citizen warnings. Internet web sites, and SMS 'cell broadcast' messages to mobile phones, are now playing an increasingly important role. - Finally, citizen to citizen: The social concerns of those in the affected regions must be addressed, as well as the anxiety of their relatives who want information as to their health and safehttp://www.content-wire.com/tsunami-wake-call-technological-cooperation1106092800Content Wireadminaddressed,Business,business content,business need,business process,business process management,business processes,business solutions,business user,content integration,content management,Content Management,content management solution,content management solutions,content repository,content technology,corporate marketing,decision support,decisions,email,email marketing,enterprise content,enterprise content management,intelligent content management,lifecycle,management market,management requirements,management solutions,management technology,market research,market share,marketing,Marketing,new business,new research,new technology,phrases,records management,Records Management,regulatory compliance,repository,return on investment,server market,single point,single solution,Technology,technology integration,technology research,technology solutions,time it takes,time to market,value proposition,workflow,worldwide marketEmail Management Improves Business ProcessesAn estimated 35 billion emails are generated every business day, up from 10 billion emails daily just five years ago. Employees use email for communication and as a workflow tool to track decisions, request approvals, or to collaborate on documents. Business decisions, official memos and other valuable records encapsulated in email messages provide a record of business transactions. Today, many organizations implementing storage-based email management strategies can actually increase organizational and compliance risks by creating a “digital landfill” where these records are stored, but not always easily found or disposed of. This approach also fails to address the potential for return on investment gained from leveraging email content in driving business processes. According to Forrester Research’s September 2004 research note titled “Message Archiving Becomes Part of ECM and Storage” – “the message archiving market is on a path of transition from standalone solutions to integrated message archiving and records management (RM) products.” The report also states, “integration with an ECM universal content repository reduces the number of repositories an enterprise must manage, and makes it easier for firms to implement RM policies consistently. Message archiving and RM will merge to the point where a single solution is used to manage all forms of records - whether they are documents, transactions, or messages.” Forrester Research predicts the worldwide email message archiving market will grow from $197 million in 2003 to a peak in 2006 of $994 million with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38 percent for the period 2003 to 2008. FileNet Corporation this week announces the general availability of FileNet Email Manager, a new FileNet P8-based suite that helps organizations easily capture, organize, monitor, retrieve, retain and share email content for improved decision making processes and adherence to regulatory compliance requirements. Email Manager is designed to help organizations manage the growth in corporate email and support their need to comply with government regulations for managing email as business records. FileNet Email Manager is the first solution that is designed to make email content an active element of an organization’s business processes while helping to simplify and automate the declaration of email messages as business records. FileNet Email Manager’s rules-based technology takes an intelligent approach to determining the value of an email’s content. Rather than simply storing every email, FileNet Email Manager applies predetermined business rules at the server level to automatically assign the proper lifecycle criteria, enabling the automated enforcement of compliance with limited user interaction or user-related errors. “We believe email management and related corporate compliance needs are best addressed through a combined enterprise content and business process management solution,” said Martyn Christian, chief marketing officer for FileNet. “Applying a storage-only approach to the problem can be a costly proposition that overlooks the true business value available from email content. We believe FileNet Email Manager is the only solution with the ability to leverage an organization’s records and business process management investment. It does so by placing email content in the context of business processes and, at the same time, reducing the risks associated with the enforcement of records policies through a tightly integrated records management solution.” www.filenet.comhttp://www.content-wire.com/email-management-improves-business-processes1102896000Content Wireadminaddressed,assets,Brazil,China,decisions,digital rights management,economy,Economy,EVER,market leaders,market research,market share,new economy,new research,newspapers,People,Politics,recent research,WorldEco economy: THE FOOD SECURITY CHALLENGEOn hearing his political opponent described as a modest chap, Winston Churchill reputedly responded that “he has much to be modest about.” Having just completed a book dealing with the increasingly complex issue of world food security, I too feel that I have a lot to be modest about. Assessing the world food prospect was once rather straightforward, largely a matter of extrapolating, with minor adjustments, historically recent agricultural supply and demand trends. Now suddenly that is all changing. It is no longer just a matter of trends slowing or accelerating; in some cases they are reversing direction. Grain harvests that were once rising everywhere are now falling in some countries. Fish catches that were once rising are now falling. Irrigated area, once expanding almost everywhere, is now shrinking in some key food-producing regions. Short term measures Beyond this, some of the measures that are used to expand food production today, such as overpumping aquifers, almost guarantee a decline in food production tomorrow when the aquifers are depleted and the wells go dry. The same can be said for overplowing and overgrazing. We have entered an era of discontinuity on the food front, an era where making reliable projections is ever more difficult. New research shows that a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature leads to a decline in wheat, rice, and corn yields of 10 percent. In a century where temperatures could rise by several degrees Celsius, harvests could be devastated. Although climate change is widely discussed, we are slow to grasp its full meaning. Everyone knows the earth’s temperature is rising, but commodity analysts often condition their projections on weather returning to “normal,” failing to realize that with climate now in flux, there is no normal to return to. Falling water tables are also undermining food security. Water tables are now falling in countries that contain more than half the world’s people. While there is a broad realization that we are facing a future of water shortages, not everyone has connected the dots to see that a future of water shortages will be a future of food shortages. Who will feed China? Perhaps the biggest agricultural reversal in recent times has been the precipitous decline in China’s grain production since 1998. Ten years ago, in Who Will Feed China?, I projected that China’s grain production would soon peak and begin to decline. But I did not anticipate that it would drop by 50 million tons between 1998 and 2004. Since 1998 China has covered this decline by drawing down its once massive stocks of grain. Now stocks are largely depleted and China is turning to the world market. Its purchase of 8 million tons of wheat to import in 2004 could signal the beginning of a shift from a world food economy dominated by surpluses to one dominated by scarcity. Overnight, China has become the world’s largest wheat importer. Yet it will almost certainly import even more wheat in the future, not to mention vast quantities of rice and corn. It is this potential need to import 30, 40, or 50 million tons of grain a year within the next year or two and the associated emergence of a politics of food scarcity that is likely to put food security on the front page of newspapers. At the other end of the spectrum is Brazil, the only country with the potential to expand world cropland area measurably. But what will the environmental consequences be of continuing to clear and plow Brazil’s vast interior? Will the soils sustain cultivation over the longer term? Will the deforestation in the Amazon disrupt the recycling of rainfall from the Atlantic Ocean to the country’s interior? And how many plant and animal species will Brazil sacrifice to expand its exports of soybeans? Food security, which was once the near-exclusive province of ministries of agriculture, now directly involves several departments of government. In the past, ministries of transportation did not need to think about food security when formulating transport policies. But in densely populated developing countries today, the idea of having a car in every garage one day means paving over a large share of their cropland. Many countries simply do not have enough cropland to pave for cars and to grow food for their people. Consider Energy Or consider energy. Energy ministers do not attend international conferences on food security. But they should. The decisions they make in deciding which energy sources to develop will directly affect atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and future changes in temperature. In fact, the decisions made in ministries of energy may have a greater effect on long-term food security than those made in ministries of agriculture. Future food security now depends on the combined efforts of the ministries of agriculture, energy, transportation, health and family planning, and water resources. It also depends on strong leadership—leadership that is far better informed on the complex set of interacting forces affecting food security than most political leaders are today. From Lester Brown's new book <a href="http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/Contents.htm">Outgrowing the Earth</a>http://www.content-wire.com/eco-economy-food-security-challenge1097535600Content Wireadminaddressed,benefit,best practices,Business,business benefit,business content,business opportunities,business processes,business solutions,conflict,content management,Content Management,content management solutions,content technology,effective communication,failure,global content,global news,global technology,industry news,intranets,knowledge base,knowledge management,Knowledge Management,knowledge workers,management market,management solutions,management technology,market leaders,marketing,Marketing,Media,new business,new technology,news content,news site,news sites,Organizations and Associations,portal solutions,sales and marketing,science,senior technology,speech,speech technology,tap,Technology,technology solutions,virtual,web content,web content management,web portal,WorldNew knowledge portal launchedThe site is being built and supported by global communication leaders, associations, schools and businesses linked to the common goals of elevating the profession and sharing best practices that can make all forms of communication more effective. Communitelligence brings together the vast world of communications – associations, events, training, jobs, news, trends, knowledge, leaders, topic experts and businesses serving this market. Communitelligence centers around dozens of expert-led communities on communication topics ranging from skills such as writing, visual literacy and public speaking … to managing the communications function, conflict communications, knowledge management and intranets. “There are no limits being placed on the number of communities, or topics addressed,” says John Gerstner, president of Communitelligence, Inc. “Our only requisite is that each community must be led by a knowledgeable and passionate topic expert committed to building comprehensive, ever-evolving wisdom-sharing communities.” “To build a sustainable virtual ecosystem, we believe we must tap the one energy source that is absolutely and forever renewable – the creativity of the human mind,” adds Gerstner. “That’s why we’ve designed the site to maximize the opportunities and ease for leaders, members and even communications students to contribute content. Our first student intern is Christine Cifelli, a speech communications/PR senior at James Madison University, who is working on the internal communications community. “We believe sustainable Web sites, like sustainable earthly communities, must have built in sensors and adaptive mechanisms that allow it to evolve with changing climate and environmental conditions. To grow and evolve, there must be processes for every site member to find and digest valuable nutrients (knowledge, solutions). But just as on Earth, all inhabitants must also understand they have a responsibility to contribute to the nutrient base of the site. Thus our site motto: ‘Because all of us are smarter than one of us.’” “Because all of us communicate every day, the art and science of communication is below most of our radar screens,” says Robert Holland, of Holland Communication Solutions, and co-leader of the Communitelligence Internal Communications community. “But how well we communicate as individuals and organizations greatly impacts our success or failure – not only of our organizations but our families, and our most prized institutions. “The sobering fact is that many of our human and institutional catastrophes could be squarely blamed on ‘communication breakdowns’,” says Holland. “Ineffective communication, in fact, could be blamed for NASA’s 2003 space shuttle disaster, the 1999 Columbine School shootings, and the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center. And on a more personal scale, think of all the misunderstandings in our daily work and personal lives that could be avoided if only we communicated better.” Knowledge management has been a buzz-word around business and IT circles for a half-dozen years or so, and is finally being recognized as an organizational differentiator. Communitelligence takes global knowledge sharing to individuals whose livelihood depends on how well they communicate and manage that function in their organizations. That includes as many as two million workers in the U.S. alone, according to 2002 U.S. Census figures. “Because the technology of communication has changed so dramatically within the last several years, it makes perfect sense for the profession most in touch with the New Media would be the pioneers of a new form of professional knowledge sharing,” says Carl Friedmann, leader of the Communitelligence Knowledge Sharing community and editor of the Knowledge Management Review, published in the U.K. “The beauty is you don’t really have to be a communications professional to reap the benefit of this growing store of knowledge,” says Holly Schroeder, consultant and leader of the Communitelligence Web Marketing community. “What you have on the site is the best the industry has to offer, and the technology provides members with real-time knowledge and insight into the art and science of communications.” www.communitelligence.comhttp://www.content-wire.com/new-knowledge-portal-launched