Keep Up with Technology

A lot of the critical technology trends that dominated the business world in 2010 will continue to accelerate in 2011 while several new trends will develop enough momentum to become significant.
5. The enterprise warms to Apple and Android
In 2010, a surprising number of enterprises embarked on iPhone deployments after an extended period of internal testing and convincing Apple to update iOS to improve security and IT manageability. This even included a number of companies in the highly-security-conscious financial services industry, which has previously been a BlackBerry stronghold.
The iPhone testing also opened the door for enterprise iPad trials and deployments. That momentum will likely continue in 2011, since BlackBerry — the enterprise smartphone incumbent — has done little to erode the iPhone’s massive usability advantage.
Ironically, the iPhone/iPad breakthrough will also open the door for many enterprises to experiment with Android smartphone and tablet deployments as well, since like the iPhone Android also connects through Exchange ActiveSync and Google has been making similar modifications in security and manageability to please enterprise IT departments. Plus, Android phones are available at steeper discounts and devices such as the Motorola Droid Pro offer hardware keyboards to accommodate BlackBerry veterans.
4. The shrinking private data center
It would have been easy to add cloud computing to this list, but that term has become such a widely-used cliche that it doesn’t have much meaning. It’s also part of a larger move to resources delivered over the Internet that transcends just one trend and actually touches many different aspects of today’s IT departments.
One of the most direct consequences of the cloud is that IT departments are shrinking their private data centers as they move to purchasing some of their apps through third party companies that deliver them over the Internet (e.g. Salesforce.com).
A couple other factors are also driving data center consolidation and shrinkage. The distributed server movement of the 1990s is clearly over as companies are buying bigger (but far fewer) server boxes and then using virtualization to divide them into as many logical servers as they need.
The next stage of this trend will come in 2-3 years when some businesses move toward renting server capacity on demand rather than running their own servers at all.
3. IT consumerization marches on
Last year, I had IT consumerization as No. 5 on my list of trends to watch. For 2011, it’s only going to accelerate as more employees choose to use their own tools rather than the ones provided by their companies, and more IT departments support worker-owned devices as a cost-saving mechanism that can reduce or postpone hardware purchases.
The other factor that will impact consumerization in 2011 will be the spread of multi-touch tablets. The growing legions of workers with iPads and Android tablets will want to use these devices for work and many IT departments will make room in their employee policies for these devices using similar guidelines to those for workers who use their personal smartphones to access corporate apps and data.
2. Desktop thinning
I will not predict that 2011 will be the year that thin clients replace a lot of desktop PCs. That false promise has been proclaimed for over a decade but has only become a reality in a few niche industries and never gained mass acceptance. It’s not going to happen this year either.
However, we are going to begin to see a lot more companies experimenting with desktop virtualization. By taking the company’s standard software image (the default OS configuration and all of the company apps) and putting them on a virtual machine, the IT department can enable a new level of flexibility that appeals to both IT administrators and workers. The virtualized desktop is hosted on a server and can be accessed from a company PC (even an old underpowered one), a worker’s personal PC, a thin client device, and even some tablets and smartphones. While the end user controls the access device, IT has complete control over the software and settings in the virtual machine. With the rise of IT consumerization, the appeal should be obvious here.
We could also see a surprising number of companies run large-scale experiments with Google Chrome OS systems, which are little more than bootable Web browsers. The number of enterprises that are already considering this and starting to test it might surprise you. We’re talking about big names like American Airlines, Kraft Foods, and Virgin Airlines. Google’s partnership with Citrix and the fact that it is strongly considering an enterprise version of Chrome OS are indicators that the company sees a lot of potential for this product in the business market.
1. Business units absorb more IT
The biggest trend of 2011 will be the continued decline of the traditional centralized IT department. More companies will continue to align their IT professionals with individual business units rather than in a central services group. The demand for corporate-savvy IT professionals who can serve as business analysts and project managers will continue to grow.
Meanwhile, many of the technical roles in IT — from server administrators to help desk technicians to network engineers to software developers — will get outsourced to companies that specialize in those areas. Keep in mind, that “outsource” in this context doesn’t necessarily mean “off-shoring” to another country. In many cases, local companies or at least local branches of larger companies will be the beneficiaries of this shift in IT labor. It’s simply a matter of companies sticking to their core competencies, and for most companies IT is not a core competency. This is especially true in small and medium organizations, but plenty of big companies are thinking along the same lines.
In return for giving up some control, these organizations will get 24/7/365 service and a fleet of IT professionals with more specialized skills at their disposal. This doesn’t mean that there will be a net loss of IT jobs in the market, but many of the jobs will shift from individual companies to service providers that work for lots of different companies. Again, the exception to the rule will be business analysts and project managers who will be able to bridge the gap between IT expertise and practical business solutions.
Honorable mentions
•           Real-time dashboards
•           Corporate blogging and the social enterprise
•           Data storage explosion (cont.)
•           App-ification of the traditional Web site
•         Enterprise search

When You Deserve The Best

Many folks struggle with the idea of being deserving. They feel that there is something wrong about them. That's why they feel they don't deserve happiness, love, wealth, you name it. Here are three things to avoid when trying to change your life. When you are trying to feel you do deserve all the best.

1. Avoid comparing yourself with others, especially if they have more than you of whatever. You are unique and your situation does not match anyone else's. See yourself as an individual with your own special range of influence, which you truly have.

2. Avoid comparing your present life with your life as a child. You were essentially powerless as a child, as is every child. What was then when, you were a child, does not control what can be when you are an adult.

3. Avoid negative thinking. It is said that people have between 50,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day - - most of them negative. If most of your thoughts are negative, and they will be unless you make a concerted effort to change them, just think how you are perpetuating negativity in your life.

So, there is another side to this coin of thinking you deserve all the best. Here are three things to seek in your daily life - - leading to a better feeling about what you deserve.

A. Seek to define yourself as who you really are. One idea you need to distinctly consider is this: You are a child of the Universe. Yes, if you will, you are divine. Therefore, you deserve all the best.

B. Seek to know that what occurred in the past, whatever is was, need not limit you now. The past is gone. As much as is possible, forget it. Live in this moment. Make the most of this moment.

C. Seek to express yourself positively. You start that by be conscious (aware) of your thoughts when you take a minute, make a minute, to consider what you are thinking. Sounds peculiar, I know. But in order to halt the negativity in your thoughts, you must be come aware of those thoughts. Then, when you discover negativity, replace it immediately with positivity.

Now, take these things to avoid and things to seek and apply them to life now. I believe you will feel immediately more deserving.

Most Commonly Forgotten Items

When people come and go from our hotel here are some of the most common items left at home and what we find they leave when they depart. 

5  Swim suits

4  Toiletries (shampoo, toothpaste, razors, etc.)

3  Pillows

2  Clothes

1  Cell phone chargers

I’m sure the number one answer comes as no surprise. In fact, cell phone chargers are the number one item left behind in hotels worldwide. A study last year by Holiday Inn and Holiday Express in the UK revealed 42,000 cell phone chargers left behind in their hotels in one year. What’s more surprising is their collective value: nearly $1 million!

What Else Did They Leave?

Forget the most common items, what’s more entertaining is discovering what area visitors forgot in the closet, stashed in the safe and inexplicably left behind. Our survey of Traverse City area hotels revealed several stories, ranging from the odd to the downright embarrassing. Here’s our list of the top five.

 Top 5 Most Unusual Items Hotel Guests Left Behind

#5  Adult toys

As you might expect, underwear and lingerie are often discovered after check-out. And more than a few hotels reported adult toys among the mix. We’ll spare you the EEEW factor and other details. This is a family-friendly website after all.

#4  False teeth

OK, I understand that you have to remove them for cleaning, and could accidentally leave them behind in a glass on the sink or something. But honestly, how do you forget them? And how often do you leave them behind that you can’t remember the last time you had them??

#3  A walker

Discovering a walker accidentally misplaced, or folded neatly in the closet may not be all that unexpected. But finding one sitting in the parking lot at the center of a handicapped space gives it a ranking on my strange-o-meter. As Alanis says, "isn’t it ironic?"

#2  A police-issue 9mm handgun

Placed in the safe for security it was left behind. Unfortunately for the officer, that’s a big no-no. The hotel reported it and the officer got in big trouble with the department.

#1  Cremated urn of ashes

This one I just can’t paraphrase. An anonymous hotel found, "An urn of cremated ashes, yes of a person. When contacted the son said ‘throw him in the dumpster’. We tracked down a daughter who was happy to accept." Strangely enough that same survey respondent also listed "human leg and hip bones from a doctor who does replacement surgeries." Truth is stranger than fiction.

Sleeping Through Meetings

I was walking by one of my meetings and popped my head in to check and make sure everything was refreshed and looking good.  Our meeting space comfortably holds quite a crowd so frequent checks help insure we consistently have everything for our meeting goers.  In this case I had to stifle myself due to the man in the back of the room.   He was head down, arms crossed and I’m sure two breaths away from snoring. 

This really got me thinking.  I’ve been in meetings before that have been dry or tough to get through but I thank coffee or soda for getting me through those tough times, but how many people catch some Z’s in meetings? 

You can find in the news how council members sleep through meetings or Youtube videos of people falling asleep there is a ton of stuff showing people falling asleep in meetings.  So the guy in my meeting was not unusual but comical just like the girl in the video. 

So what is the reason for people falling asleep?  Is it a dry, monotone speaker, lack of sleep, not enough coffee?  If you find yourself in a meeting and need to stay awake here are a couple of tips to use to keep your peepers open:

•  Pretend to take notes. Writing things down will make you look fastidious, efficient and incredibly interested. Rather than notes, however, your pad of paper can be filled with an array of fun activities.

•  Play word games. This is as easy as picking a word, such as "corporate" and seeing how many other words you can make from the letters. "Corporate" gives you: rat, rate, poor, coop, crop and crap, just to name a few.

•  Count words. Certain speakers, in their monotone, may be prone to repeating certain words, utterance or phrases. It's fun and easy to count how many times Nancy in marketing says "newfangled," Vance in budget says "earmarked" or George from human resources utters "Um."

•  Rate neckties. Start with a list merely rating all the different ties in attendance from 1-10. The list can then be broken down to rate the most colorful, the most original and one you would do nothing but hang yourself with.

•  As mentioned, always keep one ear open to what the suits are rambling on about in case someone decides to ask your opinion.
•  Don't doodle. Doodling on your notepad may be fun, but someone is bound to glance over and note your pages are filled with eyeballs, smiley men or other funky little illustrations. Whatever you are writing cannot be read from far away.
•  If you must doodle, don't draw evil caricatures of the people in attendance. Someone is bound to see.
•  Don't play tic-tac-toe with the person next to you. That's just too obvious.