IBM

Did you ever wonder if we would make things better if we didn't have bad guys? How about keeping bad things from happening to good people? Or good people saying bad/dumb things?

Fortunately, none of those things are going to happen!

Way back in 1931, Aldous Huxley created a furor over the controlled world in his book "Brave New World." In 1949, George Orwell saw a similar world controlled by technology with "1984."

The two authors sent scholars and technologist back to the drawing board to analyze the possibilities and explain:

• Why it couldn't happen
• What to do to prevent it from happening
• What happens if it happens

They continue to discuss the pros and cons of today's always plugged in, always on harm/good of today's instant ability to "hit the button and take down anyone" approach to leaving a company (Goldman Sachs, Google) with a bang.

Unless you're like us and really like the insanely brilliant ads, you probably don't waste much of your precious time wondering if Steve Jobs and Chiat-Day's Lee Clow and Steve Hayden could really see the future or were just playing on our insecurities, our fears. Read more

"Power is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't." – Margaret Thatcher, "The Iron Lady," Pathe International (2011)

A year ago, we were late in leaving for the office and noticed a lot of fathers were escorting their kids to the grade school.

Last week, it seemed as though the numbers hadn't changed much.

With the business community being cautiously optimistic, it made us wonder if we'll ever get back to the point where mom stays home handling the myriad of family/household activities and dad returns to the grind.

During the recession, men accounted for more than 71 percent of the job losses.

The latest unemployment figures stand at 9.8 percent for men 20 or over and 8 percent for their female counterparts, with women making up 47 percent of the total labor force.

Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, said that their studies indicate that the man of the house isn't finding a job as quickly as he hoped and if/when he does, it is for a lower salary.

"Work isn't working very well for men," she noted.

In addition to having more women in the workforce worldwide, we're seeing a growing number of high-profile women running and influencing companies as well as very active mentoring organizations such as Women 2.0.Read more

"Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*!" – Dr. Strangelove in "Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," Columbia Pictures (1964)

At last month's Black Hat, DefCon events…you could almost smell the cyber napalm in the morning.

While there are a lot of good things about Las Vegas (business-friendly policies), it's a logical location for a hacking, malware, cyber penetration convention. After all, it was founded on a fundamental human frailty … personal greed, beating the odds.

HINT: It's impossible to beat the odds!

Unfortunately, you also can't beat the odds when it comes to protecting personal, corporate and government secrets. Malicious and pain-in-the-behind bad guy hacking, hacktivism wins more often than the good guys. It's why no one with half a brain uses any of the ATM machines when the nearly 9,000 "attendees" are in town. They're hacked just for the heckovit!

It was here that Aruba wanted to demonstrate the strength of their cryptographic technology and wireless technology by provisioning the two events.

Now that takes … well, you know!Read more

Trying to figure out what tech trend (necessity) to buy is one of the biggest challenges people face today. Finding fads is easy…just look in the rearview mirror!

Or, for people who know us, when we believe something is sound, logical, that it's gotta' win…they bet on the other horse! Picking the winners from the losers is even more difficult for the boss who has to invest his company's time/money, his reputation. In the early days of the computer/communications/consumer industry, it was easy. Directions came from engineers. What did "ordinary folks" know about the mysteries of technology? They stumbled through the installation/user's guide.

But the smart folks sometimes came up "a little" short:

• Tom Watson of IBM said there was probably only a market for four or five mainframe computers worldwide. They sold millions and are still used as the backbone of organizations and governments. The industry is now having a hard time finding talent to manage/maintain the hummers.
• Ken Olson, the founder of DEC (Digital Equipment), said the microcomputer was a fad, a toy.
• Larry Ellison, Oracle, dismissed the cloud as vaporware. And while companies, individuals struggle to define it, figure out how to use it/make it safe, he's now got the biggest, baddest cloud in town.

You get the idea.Read more