Normal logic would cause a CIO to consider hunkering down and focusing on survival until business conditions improve. However, enterprises must continue to make strategic investments in Information Technology. Survival is clearly important, but by making survival your primary focus, you risk missing opportunities.

CIOs and IT organizations that position themselves for the eventual upturn will look at IT as an enabler of business efficiency and growth. In this turbulent economy, it becomes more critical to invest differently in IT. The key is to invest in areas that really improve IT efficiency and discipline. This focus will enable IT not only to survive this difficult financial period, but also to quickly shift its profile toward enabling true business growth.

Laptops can and do get lost or stolen. In studies conducted by several security firms, it has been found that over 50% of all lost or stolen laptops disappear at airport security checkpoints an departure gates. Unfortunately almost 70% of these laptops are never recovered.

The time to set the groundwork for the termination of an outsource contract is when the original contract is negotiated.  If it is not done then, the outsourcer has no reason to do more than the contract requires.

Key issues to consider are:

• Ownership of fixed assests
• Ownership and return of data
• Documentation and other intellectual property
• Staffing turnover from outsourcer to enterprise
• Support outsourcer is to provide in the turnover process

Janulaitis said, "CIOs need to act well in advance of the recovery, and the end of a recession is often recognized only months after the fact. The most progressive CIOs and enterprises will turn to recovery mode before competitors by implementing a recovery plan right now."

Janulaitis added, "...Most IT functions are operating at very high productivity levels and do not have any extra capacity to use when the recovery starts. Once the recovery occurs there were be huge demand for initiatives, projects, and staffing. CIOs who react too late will find they will not be able to meet the demands placed on them."

The CIO Infrastructure Planning Tool Kit directs CIO how to get there organization in order by helping them meet several key objectives. Updating the organization infrastructure with IT Service Management (ITSM) and Metrics in mind; updating the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and how it will be applied with new initiatives; defining all of the responsibilities of the IT staff and support staff members; creating current job descriptions in place; and identifying the resources that will have to be hire (employees) or retain (contractors) once the recovery starts.

The CIO Infrastructure Planning kit comes in three versions: standard, silver, and gold. The gold version contains the IT Infrastructure, Strategy, & Charter Template, the latest Janco IT Salary Survey, the IT Service Management for SOA Template, 220 IT Job Descriptions, the Internet and IT Job Descriptions HandiGuide , and a Functional Specification Template. These templates and job descriptions all come in MS WORD and are fully editable. More information can be found at http://www.e-janco.com/CIOInfrastructurePlanningToolKit.html.

The increasing flood of data can lead to a host of problems, like added time and system slowdowns due to the sheer volume of data; added cost, in new equipment and especially in management overhead, to provide for all this data accumulation; and the added business risk that comes with larger data stores.

The temptation is to accommodate added data by increasing the number of servers and disk drives. But simply adding servers is not the answer – in fact, without planning, the direct attachment of additional drives or servers can create islands of storage, resulting in greater management requirements. Such an unplanned and reactive approach to storage is inefficient, raising costs while limiting flexibility and the capacity to respond to new business opportunities.

• Employee access cards
• Logon codes
• Computers and laptops
• Routers and networking equipment
• Printers
• Cameras, digital or analog, with company-sensitive photographs
• Data - sales, customer information, employee information
• Company Smartphones/ PDAs
• VoIP phones, IP PBXs (digital version of phone exchange boxes), related servers
• VoIP or regular phone call recordings and records
• Email
• Logs of employees daily schedule and activities
• Web pages, especially those that ask for customer details and those that are backed by web scripts that query a database
• Web server computer
• Security cameras                                                
• Access points (i.e., any scanners that control room entry)

Turnaround time for copyright applications has slowed from six to 18 months and the Copyright Office is behind some 500,000 applications.

Workers say the "new" electronic system is slow and prone to crashing. Managers say the challenge has been retraining the staff to use the system. In addition, 45% of the copyright applications are still submitted in paper format, which must be painstakingly entered by hand into the "new" electronic system.

The staff is spending so much time handling the paper applications it does not have enough time to process electronic applications, which has created delays for online claims now. It now takes six months to process electronic claims when it should take one month.

Since the problem appears to be the volume of paper applications, the office plans to raise the fees for paper applications from $45 to $65 in August while keeping the fee for electronic filing at $35.

"If you're just starting your testing of Vista, with the [Windows 7] Release Candidate and the quality of that offering, I would switch over and do your testing on the [Windows 7] Release Candidate, and use that going forward," said Bill Veghte, Microsoft's senior vice president for Windows business.

That same day, other Microsoft managers said work on Windows 7 should wrap up in August, which would indicate availability on new PCs and at retail stores as early as mid-October if the company uses the same pace as Windows XP eight years ago.

Microsoft delivered Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) to the public on May 4, but made it available to developers and IT professionals several days earlier.

In the current economic conditions the focus of the CIO's Metrics should be:

• Increase/preserve/accelerate revenue
• Decrease/avoid/delay cost
• Reduce business risk
• Enhance business capabilities

The community, called New Town at St. Charles, already has 800 homes built with architectural styles of a traditional American small town.

There are 2,000 residents with five businesses serviced by a combination of microwave, WiMax backhaul, Wi-Fi and related technology. The wireless technologies are used to provide Internet services to homes and businesses. It also provides video surveillance to the town's businesses.

The earlier measure died after being folded into a comprehensive immigration reform bill that was killed without coming up for a vote. Lawmakers are aiming to introduce a new bill.

The widespread layoffs being caused by the economic recession may help lawmakers this time around. Earlier this year, for instance, lawmakers succeeded at getting H-1B hiring restrictions on financial services firms that receive federal bailout money into the massive economic stimulus bill signed into law by President Barack Obama.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting visa applications for the federal fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.  The weak economy is expected to reduce the number of applications, the prevailing view among immigration attorneys and supporters of efforts to raise the annual visa cap is that more than enough to meet the limit of 65,000 regular visas will again be filed quickly. High demand is expected as well for the 20,000 visas set aside for foreign workers with advanced degrees from U.S. universities.

Among those driving the demand will be foreign graduates who did not win visas in last year's lottery distribution of visas but were able to continue working in the U.S. on extension of their student visas. Foreigners who graduated last spring and are still working on their student visas will also be eligible to apply for H-1B visas.

Visa said that it was dropping Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and RBS WorldPay Inc. from its PCI-compliant list. The company added that it would "consider" restoring Heartland and RBS WorldPay if they are recertified as compliant by third-party assessors.

1.       Do not have a disaster recovery and business continuity plan integrated with a backup/archiving program.

2.       Ignore warning signs

3.       Do not document changes

4.       Do not use logging processes

5.       Do not install updates

6.       Save money by not purchasing upgrades

7.       Do not manage passwords well

8.       Never say no to anyone

9.       Never say yes to anyone

10.   Do not train a replacement

Build and maintain a secure network

• Create a firewall to secure cardholder data.
• Go beyond vendor defaults for passwords and other security parameters.

Protect cardholder data

• Protect stored data.
• Encrypt data transmission.

Maintain a vulnerability management program

• Employ and update anti-virus software.
• Develop and maintain application security.

Implement strong access control measures

• Restrict access to cardholder data on a need-to-know basis.
• Assign a unique ID to each authorized user.
• Restrict physical access to cardholder data.

Regularly monitor and test networks

• Track and monitor access to network resources and data.
• Regularly test security systems and processes.

Maintain an information security policy

• Develop and maintain policy-based security protocols.

In a survey of 50 CIO's Janco found the primary reasons that outsourcing fails are:

• Not defining an infrastructure for managing and delivering services
• Focusing on cost savings versus quality of service provided
• Lacking metrics and service level agreements
• Choosing the wrong outsourcing vendor – one that does not have the proper experience with enterprises of your size or your industry
• Activating an outsourcing contract without proper planning for what to be done, by whom, when
• Outsourcing core competitive advantage functions that that drive sales and or customer service
• Poor communication channels and chain of command definition between the outsource provider and the enterprise
• Organizational conflicts due to personalities and or different organizational cultures

CIOs are now challenged more than any time in the past with the economic earthquake around the globe CIOs have to be smarter, creative and innovative. The only way for CIOs to survive the world economic reset in a knowledge age is to capitalize on our human capital, put their staffÂ’s creativity to work, stoke our innovative furnace. There are many ways to fuel the creative fires - from management techniques, to team building, and effectively leveraging existing and emerging technological investments.  However, the key is infrastructure.  CIOs that have a one that address metrics, change management, version control, system development methodology, service management, and human resources have a better chance to make it through these tough times.

Typically, if a CIO does not spend all they planned then can accrue that money for future use.  However, time is different.  Every hour that reserved for projects is lost forever if it is not used that way.

In this troubled times, there is a huge demand for IT projects, it is critical that staff time is utilized efficiently.  Historically CIOs approved projects, and then they waited for those championing the projects to bring them forward.  The issue with that approach is that many managers are busy they tend to wait until the last possible moment to get things going.  In the mean time, that time set aside for projects is going unused.

CIOs should encourage business manager and other champions to getting things moving sooner and telling them the resources are available now. 

The primary questions they are trying to answer for their management are:

• What positive impact can technology play in the current economic conditions to improve revenues, reduce expenses, improve product and service delivery?
• What are the greatest opportunities for IT productivity improvements?  
• Which fixed costs can be reduced without affecting the service level delivered by IT?
• What are the challenges and opportunities of outsourcing and how do we address them?

CIOs and  CTOs feel that if they can answer these questions they have a chance to be drivers in survival of their enterprises.

According to a DHS description of the program, the SSA database against which the matching is done contains more than 425 million records, while the DHS's immigration databases hold more than 60 million records. In most cases, employers get search results in seconds.

Only about 100,000 employers out of more than 7 million in the U.S. are currently signed up for the program.

Recent enhancements to the system include a photo-screening tool for biometric verification and the availability of naturalization data that can confirm the citizenship status of recently naturalized U.S. citizens. In May 2009, all federal contractors and subcontractors will have to start using the program when hiring new employees.

• 75% of network devices are out of compliance with corporate policy
• 30% of network devices are End-of-Sale (EOS) and 20% are End-of-Life (EOL)
• 25% of all devices are undocumented and unprotected by maintenance contracts

Computers today are an integral part of day-to-day business, commerce, and personal life. E-mail and instant messages are heavily used for communications. Enterprise administrative business processes depend upon computer automation, record keeping, and dependable, confidential, and quick access to reliable information. The enterprise operational processes make use of computers for communication with employees, vendors, supplies, and customers.

Everyone has a stake in ensuring that the computing infrastructure continues to operate reliably and that it preserves the confidentiality and integrity of the information it handles - both our own and that of those we serve. Between PDAs, SmartPhones, laptop computers, and desktop computer many of our users have up five devices each that they use.  Each device contributes to our network's security. Each operator of those devices has a necessary and important part in preserving the integrity of the network, just as every citizen has a necessary and important part in preserving a society.

Every day, people on the Internet are reaching out and touching our computers in attempts to violate our privacy, use our resources, dupe us into helping them perform a crime, or steal information. Every one of the devices on the enterprise network is an attractive target for criminals. Serious crimes have been committed on, by, and through five-year-old laptops.

High-profile security breaches have made network access control one of the most important concerns for corporate and government network managers. It is your job to reduce the chance of security breaches. Do you know what attacks intruders use and how to counter them? As hackers become more sophisticated, so must you. The Janco Security Manual Template gives you the foundation security policies and procedures to protect your network from attack.

• Reduced productivity - If they are doing something that is not work related they are costing the enterprise.
• Security problems - Malware hides on websites and can install itself as users browse infected pages.
• Legal risks - When users download inappropriate material to their computers other employees may take serious offense which in turn can create legal liabilities for managers.
• Wasted bandwidth - Internet connections cost money. If half your bandwidth is taken up with non-work related web traffic, the enterprise is paying for capacity that is not available to it.
• Unlicensed software - When users download and install software from the internet, they create a legal risk. If an enterprise uses illegal copies of software, it may face a civil suit and company directors risk criminal penalties.
• Reputation risk - Social networking can create opportunities for employees to leak confidential information or spread damaging rumors online.