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Here at TMCnet today we produced our weekly technology and communications podcast. With us as special guest was Aculab's David Duffett, tied in from Milton Keynes, UK.

Topics for this week's podcast included:

+ EasyVoIP, a free VoIP developer tool from Aculab and Pronexus.

+ The new Texas law that, if signed by the governor, will make it much easier for telecommunications companies like SBC and Verizon to deliver IPTV services in the state.

+ Qualcomm's purchase of Flarion, and what it could mean for WiMAX.

+ VoIPCheap, a provider offering free VoIP calling in the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands, as well as inexpensive calling elsewhere -- just requires an easy download.

+ Beware the Jerk-O-Meter. How would you like it if your cell or VoIP phone could tell you whether your friend on the other end of the line is really listening and interested in your call?

Hope you'll visit our podcast page and listen to the mp3 version or subscribe to our podcast feed!

AB -- 8/12/05

I was complaining to my computer today (a lot of good that does), because it often seems to have something better to do than to help me with my work.

I kind of wish that, when my computer is busy with its own internal issues, a message would pop up on the screen:

"Sorry, I can't help you right now.
Please find something else to do
while I am taking care of my own problems."

AB -- 8/12/05

I just saw an interesting writeup from Tom Cross, TMCnet's Security and Emerging Technologies Columnist, about how his TECHtionary animations are used by companies as a resource for customer support.

I think these tutorials are a great educational resource and are one of the best uses of Flash that I am aware of. But the following quote from one of Tom's clients presents an application of TECHtionary that I wasn't really aware of previously:

"In regard to the enormous costs associated with customer support, it’s not the 1st call or even the 2nd call that causes support costs to skyrocket. It is the continuous changes in customer staff turnover, new-hires and increasingly non-English speaking employees that break-the-bank. Supporting all these types of customers rapidly evaporates profit. The TECHtionary Phoneset installation animations you have done on Cisco, ShoreTel, NEC, Polycomm and others save enormous amounts of time because support calls don’t come in one-at-a-time. We get large bursts of support calls forcing too many callers to end up in the queue with long wait times or leaving voice mail. The TECHtionary Phoneset animations provide a “pictionary” approach to many common support questions for customers who speak any language. This reduces the number and length of calls saving us thousands and gives us the ability to scale our business cost-effectively while maintaining even increasing customer satisfaction."

-- Comments from Mark Sharp, CEO, Vimenture -- A Master Agency for ICG, NGT, Qwest and others

You really have to see TECHtionary animations to get a sense of their value. Here are some great examples:

Animated Sales brochure example:
http://www.techtionaryna.com/infomercial/module3.swf

Virtual Product tutorial example:
http://www.techtionaryna.com/00/wifi-dualmode.swf

Animated User/installation manual example: http://www.techtionaryna.com/infomercial/module2.swf

Business process animation -- many examples:
http://www.techtionaryna.com/it/index_in.html

More information about Tom Cross and TECHtionary are available at:

http://www.techtionary.com

AB -- 8/8/05

I just received a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit that they have published the results of a survey showing that executives at large companies feel "unable to exploit large volumes of corporate information." Since the report was sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services, it is perhaps no surprise that the survey finds that "67% of companies cite knowledge management/business intelligence solutions as important to achieving their strategic goals" for the next three years. But in all fairness, one could certainly argue the value of KM and BI in their own rights.

The report is called "Know How: Managing Knowledge for Competitive Advantage," and is available on the Tata Web site from this page:

http://www.uk-tcs.com/news-130705.htm

See today's press release on TMCnet at this page:

Companies turn to knowledge management to solve information overload

As with CRM, I've always been annoyed at the characterization of knowledge management as primarily a technology problem. Knowledge resides in the living minds of people, and managing and sharing knowledge in an organization is at least as much about human processes and corporate culture as it is about technology.

According to today's announcement, Tata's CEO, S. Ramadorai, would evidently agree with me on that. It quotes him as saying that "knowledge management is about more than effective IT. It has three critical and complementary components: people and culture; infrastructure and technology; and processes and information flow. Without addressing corporate culture as well as IT, or using technology to make information actionable, knowledge management projects are likely to fail."

Today's press release includes some key findings that are worth noting -- I quote them below:

• Too much information impedes decision-making. Over half (55%) of executives say that IT’s failure to prioritise information is the main barrier to effective decision-making. Consolidating information and providing consistent performance indicators are regarded as the most important step firms can take to improve the speed and quality of decision-making.

• Good customer information remains elusive. Knowledge about customers, their preferences and their behaviour is the overwhelming focus for improving the quality of information in large organisations over the next three years. The focus of CRM initiatives is now shifting from automating processes and collecting data to enabling more sophisticated analysis of customer requirements and buying habits.

• For managers, relevant information is more important than “information anywhere”. When asked where IT needs to improve most to help managers make better decisions, the top two priorities are to make it easier to analyse and drill down into information (40%) and improve the quality of data (31%). Only 12% of executives see ensuring access to information anywhere as a priority for improvement.

• Corporate culture is as important as IT for effective knowledge management. The biggest obstacles to knowledge sharing in large organisations are organisational, rather than IT-related. Half of executives say that internal barriers between departments hamper information sharing. Ignorance of what knowledge exists, or of where to find it, is another major barrier according to 41% of respondents. In some cases, a simple solution such as keeping a regularly updated record of who knows what can be more effective than throwing IT at the problem, according to the report.

• Effective knowledge management pays. Executives increasingly see knowledge management as a vital tool for competitive advantage. One case study in the report shows how Schlumberger, an oil services company, achieved a return on investment of $200m in a single year from a recent knowledge management initiative.

AB -- 7/13/05

TMCnet's latest podcast is now available to download or add to your podcast player. Our podcasts cover the week's most compelling stories in the communications and technology space. This week's podjockeys were TMCnet's Executive Editor Bob Liu, TMC President Rich Tehrani, and myself, TMCnet Editorial Director Al Bredenberg.

Here's what you'll hear about in this week's podcast:

• Cisco promotes its Intelligent Networking initiative.
• CRM Wars -- Salesforce.com advances its non-Microsoft operating system. But is it really an operating system? Competitors Siebel and Salesboom lash out!
• Solar Sail Spacecraft Fails -- An attempt to test the solar sail concept fizzles when its booster rocket fails.
• 1.3 Million Pennies -- A Louisiana man makes the largest-ever cash-in of pennies -- we think his wife is happy it's all over!
• Pod Slurping -- The latest trend in corporate espionage -- watch out for the cleaning guy with those white earbuds
• Tom Cruise Gets Squirted -- Did he deserve it?

As a top technology educator, TMC produces podcasts that are both educational and fun -- please go to our podcast page to listen or subscribe.

AB -- 6/26/05

I'm intrigued by the implications of this kind of announcement, which appeared today:

GroveSite Launches 4.0 at Collaborative Technologies 2005: Wiki-Style Collaboration is Good for Projects

On the surface, one usually thinks of a Wiki as a kind of collectively written encyclopedia. But I've heard a lot about them as tools for collaboration, knowledge management and project management. Seems to me that one of the possible advantages to using an enhanced Wiki-type applications is that it could allow for the storage and sharing of unstructured information, as well as management of and access to it.

Here is a quote describing what GroveSite does:

"Over the lifetime of a project, today's cross-functional multi-enterprise teams will generate volumes of unstructured information -- ideas, issues, documents and discussions. This unstructured, subjective information impacts the project's success or failure, yet most traditional project management tools only handle structured information such as project tasks, timelines and status.

"GroveSite 4.0 is designed to bridge this gap, giving nontechnical team leaders the ability to manage both structured and unstructured information; it combines core project management functionality with wiki-like team collaboration. GroveSite 4.0's enhanced project management tools include project import/export, task dependencies, milestones, late alerts, issue tracking and Gantt charts. GroveSite has also upgraded its search functionality to include content and file search for all users."

AB -- 6/20/05

TMCnet Communications and Technology Podcast for 06-10-05: VoIP Expert David Duffett of Aculab - Rich Tehrani Reviews SUPERCOMM 2005 Service Provider Conference - Oops! CitiGroup Loses Customer Data - Apple Switching to Intel Processors

By Al Bredenberg

This week's TMCnet Communications and Technology Podcast was the most exciting and most interesting to date. Best thing about it was our guest podjockey, David Duffett of Aculab, who conferenced in from Milton Keynes, UK, and added immeasurably to the fun and raucousness of this week's podcast -- oh yeah, and to the insight and analysis of the latest trends in VoIP, communications and technology.

On this podcast: Rich Tehrani, David Duffett, Michelle Pasquerello and Al Bredenberg.

Tune in to the June 10, 2005, TMCnet Communications and Technology Podcast to enjoy the following thought-provoking topics:

• Insights from TMC President Rich Tehrani on SUPERCOMM, the communications technology event for service providers, just concluded in Chicago.
• David Duffett ("The Voice of IP") on Aculab's newly-released Prosody X, the new VoIP media processing card designed from the beginning 'with IP at its heart.'
• CitiGroup's "Big Oops" -- How did the financial service giant lose account information for 3.9 million of its customers?
• Apple announces its intention to go over to Intel processors -- has Steve Jobs given in to the Dark Side
• and much more!

Visit our podcast page right now to listen or subscribe -- it's fun and informative!

AB -- 6/10/05

I get many, many pitches from public relations pros trying to get me interested in stories. Usually I don't have time to get too interested, but every once in awhile one catches my eye. This one from Michelle Owens representing Credant Technology, a mobile data security firm, is kind of fun -- and the content of the pitch itself is worth quoting here:

Yesterday this amazing announcement emerged from the office of the Massachusetts Attorney General:

AG Reilly Files Lawsuit, Obtains Emergency Order Shutting Down Internet Spam Gang Believed to Be One of the World’s Largest Spam Operations

AG Tom Reilly filed a lawsuit against someone with the ominous name Leo Kuvayev and six associates. Reilly's office got an emergency court order to shut down two Internet companies run by Kuvayev's outfit and their network of dozens of Web sites allegedly responsible for a massive illegal spam email operation. The AG's office calls Kuvayev the "ring-leader" of the operation and says he supposedly resides in Newton and uses a Boston post office box for a business address.

The two businesses shut down by the AG are 2K Services Ltd. and Ecash Pay Ltd.  Besides the two businesses and Kuvayev, Reilly's suit names other associates: Vladislav Khokholkov, Anna Orlova, Pavel Tkachuk, Michelle Marco, Dennis Nartikoev, and Pavel Yashin.

Reilly's office describes Kuvayev's operation as "a complicated web of Internet sites and domain names selling a variety of illegal products including counterfeit drugs, pirated software, pornography, mortgage loans and phony designer watches." Today's release says that officials from Microsoft set up "trap email accounts" in June and July of 2004 to identify the spammers.

Investigators say that Kuvayev's group tried to avoid detection by regularly switching Web sites and domain names. Investigators tracked the operation to Russia, Monaco, Australia, France, China, Korea, Brazil and Taiwan. Kuvayev also recruited a network of affiliates who were compensated for driving traffic to his sites.

Radicati Market Stats regularly reports on email security issues. Their report from yesterday says that they expect that in 2005 "spam traffic will compose 53% of corporate e-mail traffic and 74% of consumer e-mail traffic.  In total, spam will comprise 57% of worldwide e-mail traffic." A previous report from the group estimates that worldwide email traffic is 76.8 billion messages a day. At more than half that volume, spam email traffic amounts to a mind-boggling deluge.

Somewhat related as an email security issue is virus traffic. Radicati says worldwide virus traffic is about 900 million messages a day. The source of this plague? "Most viruses are designed to propagate themselves either through e-mail, or by using a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network.  In 2005, 86% of viruses used e-mail as a self-propagation medium, while 49% used P2P networks," says Radicati.

AB -- 5/12/05

Just read an interesting article in Time magazine about Iranian bloggers. Writer Nahid Siamdoust says there are an estimated 100,000 Iranian blogs and that Persian ranks with French for the number-two spot as most-used language in the blogosphere. The article is at:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1056278,00.html

Although some bloggers are public figures, such as former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, others are underground commentators critical of the Iranian government. Siamdoust says more than 20 online activists were detained last year and beaten.

BTW, for a while now, Time has been running a regular Blogwatch feature under its Notebook section.

AB -- 5/4/05