Social Media for Financial Services and Managing all that Data

December 15, 2011 Leave a Comment

If you’re like me, you don’t think of Financial Services and Social Media in the same sentence all that much.  In fact, if you’re like me and have worked at super secretive hedge funds and the sort, you would never think of social media and financial services. Financial Communications SocietyThe very idea is like oil and water, a complete oxymoron. But, some financial service organizations are starting to change their outlook. The Financial Communications Society assembled a wonderful panel at the Union League Club of Chicago to discuss this very topic.

The symposium consisted of fabulous expert speakers and led by Alecia Dantico, our moderator. Eric Rehl of Robert W. Baird and Pat Allen of Rock the Boat Marketing, contributed incredibly valuable insights into content development, intra-organization social media management and tools and strategies to help with social media campaigns. Ruth Wagner of cmp.ly discussed technologies to help facilitate social media compliance through legal disclosure. Finally, I discussed the need to partner with I.T. in an organization to develop a wholistic strategy for the development and management of social media.

The consensus from the audience seemed to indicate that I.T. was a inhibiter to accomplishing social media goals rather than a partner. Unfortunately, that is a common theme in many companies that has come from a long history of an adversarial relationship between I.T. and other departments. For any company to be successful, they need to see I.T. as a partner and leverage technology as a competitive advantage in accomplishing the goals of the business. Adversarial relationships between I.T. and other teams in the organization stalls out progress (a.k.a. revenue). That’s when I.T. becomes a cost center as opposed to the business enabler and competitive advantage that I.T. should be.

All in all, a great panel and I learned a lot from the other speakers. If you need help with your social media strategy, compliance or I.T. strategy, don’t hesitate to contact me or the other speakers on the panel.

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. — John Wooden

FCS 102011 Lisa Genesen Photog 21 6277051550 la

Panelists from left to right:  Eric Rehl, Pat Allen, Brian Greenberg, Alecia Dantico and Ruth Wagner.

Filed under blogging, I.T., social media Tagged with , , , , ,

Are your data backup systems secure?

June 23, 2011 Leave a Comment

My most recent article “Are your Backup Systems Secure?” has been published at the InfoSec Institute’s InfoSec Resources site.

In this article, I approach data security and the integrity of data backup systems from a whole systems perspective. I show you how you can, in your own systems, look at different vectors of data storage and the relationship we have with data from different points of view. You’ll also find a feedback loop illustration of one way to approach data lifecycle management as well as:

  • Factors to consider before you move to a tapeless data backup system
  • Encryption challenges and opportunities-related to keeping your off-site data secure
  • Approaches for backup tape reduction and legacy storage technology elimination

Read it there now! → http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/are-your-backup-systems-secure

Filed under backup, cloud, data protection, data storage, I.T., storage Tagged with

Data2.0 Conference

March 28, 2011 Leave a Comment

data2.0It’s the countdown to the Data 2.0 Conference, Monday, April 4, 2011, at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco.  I’ll be there moderating several panels on data storage management, data2.0 and legal implications as well as augmented business intelligence.  I hope that you can join us to discover how the online data revolution will shape and transform the world of technology for years to come.

Data 2.0 is about the rise of data accessibility.  Do you know what new innovations are possible with the growing abundance of social, geo, government and advertising data?  Hear speakers from Google, NAVTEQ, and comScore alongside Jay Adelson, CEO of SimpleGeo; Gil Elbaz, CEO of Factual; Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir; and 50 other data companies at the full-day conference. The event will culminate in a data startup pitch contest, judged by Robert Scoble and five Silicon Valley venture capitalists.

The conference will also feature the launch on-stage of the $3 million Heritage Health Prize, the world’s largest data challenge.  At least 6 data companies will be launching new products and features; send an email to info@data2con.com if you are interested in launching.

Click here to Register for the Data 2.0 Conference

Use the discount code “data2on11” to get 25% off the standard conference registration.  Hurry, tickets are selling fast!

Filed under backup, data protection, data storage, disaster recovery, eDiscovery, I.T., startups, storage

Rise of the Digital Information Age

February 11, 2011 Leave a Comment

In 2002, digital data storage surpassed non-digital for the first time. By 2007, 94 percent of all information on the planet was in digital form. These were among the conclusions of researchers at the University of Southern California who tried to quantify the amount of data in the world.

The Rise of the Digital Information Age

Source: Researchers at the University of Southern California took four years — 1986, 1993, 2000 and 2007 — and extrapolated numbers from roughly 1,100 sources of information.
Credit: Todd Lindeman and Brian Vastag/ The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2011/02/11/GR2011021100614.html

See the related article at the Washington Post:

Exabytes: Documenting the ‘digital age’ and huge growth in computing capacity

Filed under data storage, I.T.

Seven questions every CIO should be able to answer about eDiscovery and legal holds.

January 21, 2011 1 Comment

Introduction

Electronic Discovery, eDiscovery, Legal Holds, Electronically Stored Information (ESI) and Data Preservation are just a few of an increasing family of terms that CIO’s and IT Managers are hearing more and more every day. Particularly since the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) came about at the end of 2006 have internal legal counsel and IT departments started a new dialogue as to what responsibilities, and capabilities an organization has in regards to preserving data required for legal discovery. Even more challenging are the tasks IT staff are being asked to perform in terms of actually doing the electronic preservation.

What we have seen in recent years is where the necessity of data preservation is driving organizations to create new processes and procedures as well as vendors to develop new technologies that allow companies to preserve data in systems that otherwise never had been designed to conduct legal holds. Considering the scores of systems that we find throughout a company, to discuss the risks and challenges of data preservation of each type of system would be far too much to encompass in just one article. However, I will cover the most common and important aspects of data preservation and electronic discovery that companies have to address with particular emphasis on backup systems. Backup systems, as you will see, pose some of the most significant challenges and risks, in both financial and legal spaces when it comes to managing legal holds. Effective solutions for managing legal holds is currently provided by only a couple vendors for this complex and all too often, over-looked high risk area.

Read more of this post

Filed under data storage, eDiscovery, I.T.

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