Current News
CIO and CSO Cost Control Driven by Financial Crisis 10/09/2008 - For the
last few weeks we have seen stock markets around the world contract, driven by
failures of Freddie Mac and Fannie May, trade deficits, soaring oil prices and
ever-tightening lending markets. Oil prices have been falling (which is a good),
gold prices are rising (which is bad) , and inflation will soar with the $700
billion dollar bailout.

CIOs and
CSOs are now under extreme pressure to control expenses in their enterprises as
executive management struggles to maintain earnings in an increasingly
challenging market. CIOs and CSOs are being forced to focus on their top
initiatives next year while cutting costs.
Enterprises are setting themselves up for a classic battle that
between forces that are trying to cut expenses while others see the need for
continued, and maybe even increased, spending on information technology and
security to improve productivity and mitigate the growing frequency and
intensity of potential threats.
The
challenge is to translate the value of the organization's investment in
information technology and security into the business value that it delivers to
the organization. Whether that value is improved productivity, fewer data
breaches, reduced shrinkage or whatever metric you happen to use in your
industry, be sure to make that argument now before any cuts are mandated by
uninformed leaders whose actions could significantly increase the risk to your
business. - more
Backup Policy Must Take Traveling Users Into Consideration 10/03/2008 - Distributed organizations are prime data loss candidates:
Organizations, such as school districts, small city and county offices,
non-profit organizations and franchise networks, are more likely to be PC-centric with little to no
applications running on a server. In addition, these organizations are likely to
have very little to no IT support resources. Key IT tasks such as backup of data
or patch updates rests on the individual PC users and is frequently not done. As
a result, loss of data due to a disk crash or a paralyzing computer virus attack
is likely to be very expensive and painful for such
organizations.
The
proliferation of laptops has put more organizations at risk: Janco
predicts that laptops will account for more than 50 percent of the PC market in
2009 and expects that overall notebook sales in the U.S. will surpass desktop
sales in that same year. Every year hundreds of thousands of laptops are either
stolen or left behind in taxicabs or at hotel rooms. Last year alone, 300,000
laptops were reported lost or stolen in the U.S., with less than 2 percent ever
recovered. A laptop theft is not just a loss of a thousand dollars of
hardware - it is the missing data that can really set one back by days, in
addition to potential security issues. An organization that automatically backs
up data from all PCs ensures that an organization/person can quickly recover
from a stolen or lost laptop and be up and running in no time. - more
PCI Audit Program Launched by Janco 10/01/2008 - PCI DSS security requirements apply to all "system
components." A system component is defined as any network component, server, or
application that is included in or connected to the cardholder data environment.
The cardholder data environment is that part of the network that possesses
cardholder data or sensitive authentication data.
Included in the standard audit program are two
policies (one paragraph long) which need to be implemented to meet PCI DSS
security requirements. The policies are for "Sensitive Data" and "Record
Management (Retention and Disposition)" -- the ones provided in the standard
package are shorthand versions of the full polices contained in other
Janco products which are available individually or in the premium and gold
versions of the PCI Audit program.
Both the Premium Version and the Gold Version
include copies of Cornerbowl Software's award winning product Network Event
Viewer.
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on...
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IT Silos and IT Infrastructure, Strategy, and Charter 09/24/2008 - Many enterprises profess to dislike Information Technology
silos of any kind but they seem to have trouble eliminating them. Sometimes
the disease is worse than the cure, with efforts to eliminate silos simply
resulting in new ones. For instance, in an effort to access data contained in
unstructured sources like spreadsheets and Word docs, companies invest in
enterprise content management (ECM) systems. Yet (silo alert!) they often end up
buying and using systems from multiple vendors. If they want these systems to be
able to communicate with each other, they have to throw lots of time and money
at data integration projects. Help is on the way, however, with a set of
standards created with the aim of making content management systems
interoperable. - more
IT Spending Contributed to Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy 09/15/2008 - By
Janco's best estimates there were over 230 IT professionals who made over
$250,000 a year. Many of those jobs
will just go away. Add to that the
180 plus IT professionals at Merrill Lynch making over $250,000 a year and there
will be a glut of top IT professionals that will be on the street by the end of
the year.
 
Lehman Brothers' Information and Communications Technology (ITC)
costs rose 18% in 2007 from 2006 to reach $1.145 billion, reflecting increased
costs from the continued expansion of its investment management systems,
according to filings by the bank. In the quarter ended Aug. 31, the New
York-based company spent $309 million on technology and communications, up from
$282 million in the same period last year.
Sorting out the future of Lehman Brothers' IT financials could
prove easier than winding down its ITC investments. Meanwhile, Lehman Brothers'
bankruptcy is likely to have a profound spillover effect to the IT
industry. - more
Google Chrome Raises Privacy Issues 09/03/2008 - One of the taunted features of the new Google browser is the Most
Visited Screen. While that may be
a great feature for many it does raise some security concerns in that it leaves
a very large trail of where someone has been.
The
security concerns are multiple:
-
The "Big Brother" aspect that a machine now has gone beyond the text
log file to one that is a visual log which could invade the privacy of someone
who is looking up some medical records or financial
records
-
The prospect that someone who wants to "steal your identity" can now
know what sites that you have visited so they can get information from you
easier.
-
The prospect that Google will have a way to capture the information on
places that you go so they could sell directed "spam-class"
advertizing.
- more
Network Based Backup Are a Solution Many Need 09/03/2008 - Today's enterprises must support employees and
computer resources that are distributed throughout the world to meet demands of
the global marketplace. When critical data is no longer hosted at just one
physical location, the challenge of backing up and securing data is magnified.
Traditional approaches involve deploying tape backup equipment and processes to
each location hosting data, and hiring or contracting local resources to manage
these resources. This can be a tenuous proposi¬tion at best, while for some
enterprises it is a completely unrealistic option.
Network-based
backup is the general solution that now is becoming feasable, in many cases
through use of existing WAN links without any bandwidth upgrades. Network-based
backup allows for consolidation of data into the data center, where it can be
placed onto tape or other secondary storage media. Backup data is then more
secure, and easily accessible in the event of a restoration event. The
backup method should optimize the regular transfer of backup data over the
WAN into the data center, and accelerate commercial backup software packages by
eliminating the transfer of redundant data and minimizing the effects of latency
on data transfer. The approach should eliminate data redundancy across
applications or servers as well, going well beyond other data reduction
mechanisms found in other storage replication products. - more
Programmers Targeted More Than System Analysts By Outsourcing 08/30/2008 - Studies done at the Wharton School in 2008 indicated that about 15%
of firms in the US engage in some offshoring outsourcing activity, and that
about 30% of these firms oursource offshore IT workers, making it by far the
most frequently outsourced offshore class of services work. In 2008 about 8% of
IT workers reported having ever been displaced due to outsourcing, more than
twice the percentage of any other type of employee studied. This rate implies an annual displacement
rate of about 1-2% per year, only a small fraction of the roughly 40% annual
worker turnover rate in the US economy.
Wharton also supported the proposition that the skill composition
of IT work is at least partly responsible for both the higher rates of
IT-related oursourcing as well as a greater likelihood that IT offshore
outsourcing leads to the displacement of domestic workers than offshoring
of work in other professions. IT
jobs tend to have less need for physical presence and are therefore more often
moved overseas for cost savings. This not only makes IT jobs more likely to be
offshored, but also substantially increases the likelihood that the offshoring
of location independent IT services is accompanied by a displacement of domestic
IT workers. However, even within IT occupations there is substantial
heterogeneity programmers and software developers are more likely to be
displaced, while systems analysts who more frequently interact with other
functional areas and are more reliant on interpersonal skills are more likely to
be retained. - more
IE 8 to be Released in November -- Maybe 08/21/2008 - Rumor has it
that Microsoft's IE 8 will be released in November. To support that it looks like IE 8 Beta
2 will be released by the end of August.
When it
ships, IE 8 will work on Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and
Windows Server 2008 systems only. According to Microsoft, IE 8 is supposed tp be
Microsoft's most standards-compliant release of its browser to date. Microsoft
is undoing much of the non-standards-based coding it had included in previous IE
releases,. As of yet, it is not
known yet how many existing sites and applications that are IE specific will not
render correctly with IE 8. But Microsoft has been trying to get the word out to
developers to check for compatibility before the final IE 8 release goes
live.
 - more
Disk and Network Monitoring Tools Are Need by Most Enterprises 08/15/2008 - The ability to identify and monitor resource usage
and network traffic helps to eliminate many problems before they become
critical. System downtime is often reduced when these tools are in place.
JANCO has found that even before that application performance suffers, tools
which help to identify resources use (when acted upon) significantly improve
service levels. In addition Janco has found that administrative overhead
increases as staff scramble find, deploy, and reallocate resources. Meanwhile
the organizations work is being disrupted.

Janco has found that fewer than 40% of all
organizations practice capacity management and planning as an ongoing management
discipline. This is often due to the labor-intensive nature of the capacity
management discipline and the lack of automated tools. Although often
associated with storage, capacity management addresses the entire end-to-end IT
infrastructure of servers, switches, various appliances, network bandwidth, and
applications. Effective capacity management must keep pace with the growth of
all the elements of the IT infrastructure, not just storage. It also must take
into account business and market factors that can impact infrastructure
performance and availability. - more
Microsoft & Time-Warner Both Get Failing Grades 08/08/2008 - Janco Browser and Operating System Market Share
White Paper shows that Microsoft has lost almost 25% of the browser market in a
little over 3 years. At the same time in almost 2 years Microsoft's Vista
OS has less than 15% of the Market. At to that the abandonment of Netscape
by Time-Warner while they still have over 10% of the market brings into question
the ability of large multi-billion dollar corporations to manage technological
innovation. Victor Janulaitis, the CEO of Janco said, "With the
abandonment of Netscape by AOL and the release by Microsoft of Vista
Service Pack 1 have shown that large corporations can not drive users.
Rather users will go in the direction that they feel will make them more
productive."
 - more
Security Needs To Be Defined Into The Core Of Every System 08/07/2008 - Many
companies do not know that their corporate assets may be exposed even with
firewalls and IDs. This exposure results when web applications are not developed
with security in mind. You need to consider security, not only from an
operations perspective, but as an integral part of the entire development
lifecycle, starting when you develop your web applications. You should also use
structured development processes. Strong, repeatable development processes
produce better quality code in less time than unstructured processes. They also
result in efficiency and effectiveness for your
organization.

Many development organizations view security as
a one-time activity during the development process. In these cases, security
becomes the responsibility of one group within the organization, such as the QA
team or internal audit department. Once the group signs off on an application,
the organization considers it secure. However, web applications are not static
systems. Changes to web applications create risk, and what was once secure can
now be vulnerable. If security is a onetime activity, a vulnerability that
enters the system after the audit can go undetected. Instead, you need to view
application security as a process, included throughout the development lifecycle
in order to create secure web applications. Add security into the practices of
every team member associated with developing and running your web
applications. - more
Regulatory Compliance of Security is CIOs Major Concern 08/06/2008 - State-level data breach notification legislation has fueled a shift in
the way organizations view the security of sensitive information such as
customer social security numbers, electronically protected health data, and
other personally identifying information. No corporate department is more
closely tied to the protection of this data than IT. For example, the theft of
laptop computers managed by IT is responsible for nearly 50% of all data
breaches.

A study by
Reserarch Concepts has found:
-
Data breach prevention is a top priority: More than 80% of those
surveyed rated protecting corporate data as an important initiative. By
comparison, only 38% of those surveyed ranked complying with governmental
regulations as very important.
-
Data breach is common and costly: Fully 25% of those surveyed indicated
that their organization had experienced a data breach in the past and more
than 60% of IT managers felt that a data breach would cost their organization
in excess of $10,000. Nearly 65% were very concerned that a data breach would
result in public embarrassment and media scrutiny for their
organization.
-
Preventative measures are consistently undermined by employees:
According to IT professionals surveyed, less than one in 100 employees
consistently follow company data and computer security policy. More worrying
is the fact that 72% of respondents felt that employees were responsible for
the majority of data breaches. - more
PCI Audit Is Mandated by Visa and Mastercard 08/05/2008 - The
PCI standardwhich merges requirements from the Visa Cardholder Information
Security Program (CISP), the MasterCard Site Data Protection (SDP) program, and
other payment vendorstargets merchants and service providers that store,
process, or transmit cardholder data. Besides stipulations related to network
security, access control, third-party assessment, and vulnerability management,
the PCI Standard requires companies to protect cardholder data and other
sensitive information that they store or transmit across public networks. If
your company accepts a high volume of credit cards, chances are that you have
already felt the sting of PCI requirements.

Janco had a detail PCI Audit program included
in its templates.
Although you can't entirely avoid card-related
risk and compliance issues, you can lessen their impact by limiting storage of
credit card numbers and reducing the overall scope of the PCI Standard on your
organization. By eliminating all card numbers or only holding limited card data
in a very small subset of your entire network, you can greatly narrow risk
exposure and potentially reduce the impact of the PCI Standard on your
organization. - more
Application Optimization is Difficult - Metrics Are Needed 08/01/2008 - The development of applications that are not designed to run
efficiently over the WAN is a major cause of poor application performance.
Additional complication factors include:

- Server Consolidation - Server consolidation typically results
in protocols such as CIFS (Common Internet File System) running over the WAN.
CIFS, which was designed to run over a LAN, is a chatty protocol. In
particular, the way that CIFS works is that it decomposes all files into
smaller blocks prior to transmitting them. The server sends each of these data
blocks to the client where it is verified and an acknowledgement is sent back
to the server. The server must wait for an acknowledgement prior to sending
the next data block. As a result opening a file that would take a fraction of
a second before consolidating servers would take tens of seconds after the
servers have been consolidated.
- Decentralized Work Force - Branch office workers need access
to the same applications as do workers in a headquarters facility. However,
the combination of consolidating servers into centralized data centers while
simultaneously decentralizing the work force means that the vast majority of
workers now access applications over a WAN instead of a LAN. The fact that
there is a movement both to consolidate data centers and to move to a
single-hosting model for applications has the effect of increasing the
distance between remote users and the applications they need to access. This
increased distance translates into additional WAN latency, jitter and packet
loss. The impact of increasing the distance between the user and the
application is often not well understood.
- Globalization - Combining globalization with server
consolidation and a decentralized work force results in an even longer WAN
link, and hence more WAN latency, between the remote users and the
applications they need to access.
- Voice over IP (VoIP) - Users have come to expect 100% voice
availability, fast call set-up and excellent quality. However, VoIP is very
sensitive to network parameters such as delay, jitter and packet loss. As a
result, when run over a packet network, voice does not always perform as well
as it does when run on a circuit-switched network.
- Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) - In a Web services based
application, the Web services that comprise the application typically run on
servers that are housed within multiple data centers. As a result of housing
the Web services in multiple data centers, the WAN impacts multiple traffic
flows and hence has a greater overall impact on the performance of a Web
services-based application than it does on the performance of traditional
n-tier applications.
- more
LAN Security Risks Defined 07/22/2008 - This
Security Audit program contains over 400 unique tasks divided into 11 areas of
audit focus which are the divided into 38 separate task groupings. The audit
program is one that either an external auditor, internal auditor can use to
validate the compliance of the Information Technology and the enterprise to the
ISO 27000 Series (ISO27001 and ISO27002), Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and
PCI-DSS.

The 11
areas of audit focus objectives are:
-
Corporate Security
Management
-
Systems Development and
Maintenance
-
Information Access Control
Management
-
Compliance Management
-
Human Resource Security
Management
-
Information Security
Incident Management
-
Communications and
Operations Management
-
Organizational Asset
Management
-
Physical and Environmental
Security Management
-
Security Policy Management
-
Disaster Recovery Plan and
Business Continuity
- more
Bad Assumptions are Made by Many IT Professionals 07/17/2008 - In good times and bad there are number of assumptions that many IT
professional make that are just wrong. The four worst assumptions to make
are:

- Assumption: A job search will take no time at all or I
have nothing to worry about.
Reality: There is no
guarantee how long it will take to find a new position many have found that an
easy job search can take between 3 to 6 months... Finding the right
opportunity is easy. You might find the right position but there is no way to
ensure that you are even offered the job. Many hiring managers may take
several weeks to respond to your application. After all, they have full-time
jobs with demands of their own, and hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes to
review.
- Assumption: I am so skilled and in so in demand that I
need to send out only a few resumes.
Reality: Finding
a job is a numbers game and the more resumes you send out and the more peers
that know that you are looking the greater the chances are that you will find
and be offer the right job. A hiring manager may receive countless resumes for
an open position. That is why it not smart to hold out for the "perfect" job,
which you might not find - which might not even exist or which you are not
offered. At the same time as you send out resumes, networking with
members of your professional network is one way to maximize your time and
effort. Many hiring managers give preference to personal recommendations and
may move your resume to the top of the pile if someone you know puts in a good
word for you.
- Assumption: The resume and cover letter sent out are
perfect and need no changes
Reality: Each cover letter
should be customized for the enterprise, the hiring manager, and the position
desired. Enterprises look for results and view them as the reason that
they most often hire IT Professionals. At the same time the results
should be directed towards the position that you are looking for.
A resume is employment and education chronology and should be no
longer than 1 page and the cover letter so be directed to the enterprise and
should stand out in a positive way to the hiring manger. After reading
both the hiring manger needs to be left with the thought that "I need to know
more about this candidate.
- Assumption: My skills are in high demand and are needed
by almost every company.
Reality: You are one of many
supply and demand are driven by factors outside of your control. A
common mistake may IT professionals make is overestimating their
marketability. Although they may think their skill set is solid but they may
not be the best of the best. Value and results performance are what
drive success in IT and the hiring manager needs to see that you provide the
best value for the salary in any given position. - more
PDF Now an ISO Standard Along With Office Ipen XML 07/02/2008 - The Portable Document Format (PDF) is now an ISO International
Standard - ISO 32000-1. This move follows a decision by Adobe Systems
Incorporated, original developer and copyright owner of the format, to
relinquish control to ISO, who is now in charge of publishing the specifications
for the current version (1.7) and for updating and developing future
versions.

Adobe said that it is committed to open architecture and by
passing the copyright to ISO they now have a product that competes with
Microsofts Office Open XML, a proprietary XML-based document format it built
for its Office 2007 productivity suite, to the ISO. The ISO approved OOXML on
April 1 in a controversial vote that is still being contested by some of the
standards bodies that took part in it. - more
IANA and ICANN Sites Hacked by 06/27/2008 - Muslim hackers yesterday defaced the Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA) site. IANA is the organization responsible for managing
the DNS root zone and assigning the DNS operators for the Internet's top-level
domains, such as .com and .org. DNS, which translates the domains and URLs -
such as e-janco.com - into IP addresses.
A group calling itself "NetDevilz" claimed responsibility for the hack, which
Thursday morning temporarily redirected visitors to the sites for IANA and ICANN
(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
Users who tried to reach iana.com, iana-servers.com, icann.com and icann.net
were shunted to an illegitimate site. According to a screen capture of the
defacement snapped by zone-h.org, the bogus site simply displayed a taunting
message claiming ownerhship of the assignment processes. - more
Average Worker Wastes 28% of The Day 06/14/2008 - Based on a study published in the New York Times, a typical
worker in information based job wastes 28% of their day with unimportant and
personal e-mails, text messages, voice mails. According to the
ITProductivity.org an Information Technology think tank most organizations
would be able to help their bottom line by doing the following:
- Install a robust firewall and SPAM filter at the front end of
the corporate mail server
- Improve SPAM filters on both desktops and smart
phones
- Provide company owned laptops and smart phones that have
robust SPAM filtering software and
- Limit the accessibility to POP and non-company mail
servers
- more
35% of Businesses Do Not Open Doors After a Disaster 06/13/2008 - It is impossible to deny how important disaster recovery and
business continuity are in today's digital economy. In a survey conducted
by FEMA fully 35% of all businesses that are impacted by a disaster never
re-open their doors.
Without systems in place to keep applications and data flowing
after a natural disaster or other interruption, a business risks losses that
extend far beyond a manufacturing plant or data center. Many businesses incur
ongoing financial loses, damage to a businesses' reputation, and possible
regulatory and legal sanctions. In a worst-case scenario like 35% of the
companies that FEMA estimated, a company can find its existence
threatened.
How can an organization tackle disaster recovery and business
continuity issues effectively? How can it develop a strategy that reduces risk
and increases the likelihood of success? And how can it devise a roadmap for
coping with constant change? There are no easy answers, but the Disaster
Recovery Planning Template with the Security Manual Template are a step in
the right direction.
- more
IT Hit by Tough Economic Times 06/12/2008 - Hiring and spending has slowed down in IT as businesses try
to control costs in tough economic times
Park City, UT - The prospect for
IT professionals is not good. Janco has found that IT compensation growth
remains flat, hiring is limited to key replacements, and discretionary spending
has been cut back and in many cases eliminated. The CEO of Janco said, "As we
collected compensation data for our mid-year 2008 IT Salary Survey we found that
at the end of the first quarter businesses turned off the faucet for IT
spending. Many businesses, in response to economic projections, slowed down and
halted discretionary spending for software and hardware as well as placed hiring
requisitions on a slow track."
The summary findings in Janco 2008 Mid-Year IT Salary
Survey are:
- Hiring demand is now the lowest it has been since 2004. Many
enterprises have stopped hiring except for key replacements and those
positions are being replaced at lower salary levels.
- Enterprises have slowed down and in many cases eliminated
discretionary spending by IT. This has resulted in fewer projects being
initiated, consultants use being reduced (if not eliminated), and a slow-down
of initiatives that had already been approved.
- In the last twelve (12) months the increases in compensation
for most IT Professionals were lower than increases in the cost of
living.
- The mean increase in compensation for CIO's was less that
1.5%. The mean compensation for CIOs in large enterprises now is $179,823 and
$171,755 for CIOs in mid-sized enterprises. (Large enterprises have over
$500 million in revenue and mid-sized have are $100 to $499 million in
revenue).
- The mean compensation (which includes bonuses) for all
Executive IT positions surveyed now is $144,645 in large enterprises and
$131,763 in mid-sized enterprises.
- Positions that were in high demand in the 4th quarter of 2007
such as CSOs and others to develop new Web 2.0 applications are now back to
normal hiring patterns.
- Administrative positions in some IT functions are now being
looked at as those that are expendable
- more
Google Yahoo Merger Protested 06/11/2008 - The American Corn Growers Association asked Congress, via letters to John
Conyers and Patrick Leahy, to look closely at any potential search advertising
tie-in with the top two search providers Google and Yahoo.
They said that Without competition, the free enterprise system suffers. It is
true across all segments of industry, and that includes the business of
agriculture.
The American Corn Growers Association
represents part of a thriving industry knows it has to adapt and change to
survive market conditions through the years.
An AGCA spokesperson said it is no different for the family farmers out
there, who have come to use search advertising as a way to mitigate risks
associated with supplying customers and their businesses. Fewer providers, they
fear, means higher prices. - more
Bank of NY Mellon Loses 4.5 Million Records 06/09/2008 - The Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon lost multiple sets of unencrypted
backup tapes containing private data belonging to 4.5 million individuals.
Third-party vendors misplaced the tapes during transport to off-site locations.
According to the bank, the tapes "included shareowner and plan participant
account information, such as name, mailing address, Social Security number, and
transaction activity."
Responding to the bank's delay in reporting one incident, which was not
disclosed for over three (3) months, the Connecticut Governor said: "The
disastrous effects of identity theft are virtually instantaneous in today's
computerized world, and the lag time between the theft and the notification only
aggravates what is an already outrageous situation."
BNY Mellon's chief risk officer said the bank now plans to improve
security related to backup tapes. From Computerworld - "To bolster its security
controls, the bank said it will now require that any confidential data written
on tapes or CDs for transport must be encrypted or transported with undisclosed
additional data protections. Further, when "technically feasible," the bank will
demand that encrypted confidential data be delivered to off-site facilities
electronically".
After exposing 4.5 million people to identity theft, it seems the notion of
tape encryption suddenly popped into their heads. - more
PDAs, Laptops, WiFi, and Internet Cafés Make Vacation Like Work 06/03/2008 - With the advent of wide-scale connectivity around the globe people now do
have the ability to get away from it all. In two recent trips the CEO of
Janco was able to connect while in the Amazon via a Internet Café that
was driven by a satellite dish and a diesel generator and in Belarus via a
public WiFi connection.
One in
four workers said they plan to stay connected with work while they are on
vacation this summer, a percentage that has nearly doubled in the last two
years, according to a survey released by CareerBuilder. The bulk of these
hyper-connected workers were in the IT industry. Beat out only by sales workers,
37 percent of IT workers said they planned to check in while away.
Yet while IT workers also led the way in the requirement to be connected in
the off-hours - 19 percent said working, checking voice mail and/or e-mail while
on vacation was mandated by their employers - the reverse of this is that four
in five IT workers are checking in with their jobs while on vacation on their
own volition.
The Solutions Research Group study found that 68 percent of Americans feel
anxious when they are not connected in one way or another. This disconnect
anxiety (feelings of disorientation and nervousness when a person is
deprived of Internet or wireless access for a period of time) affects all age
groups, describing their feelings when offline as dazed, tense, inadequate and
even panicked. The study also found that 63 percent of BlackBerry users
admitted to having sent a message from the bathroom.
In fact, this concept of "technology addiction" has gone so far that U.S.
psychiatrists are considering adding this "compulsive-impulsive" disorder to the
next release of the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders) in 2011. - more
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