Ideal Business Consultants

Top Executives in Critical Infrastructure Cite Need for Improvement in Managing Cyber Risks

Anthony Isabel — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:19:43 +0000

New Global Research Reveals Industry and Geographic Variations in How Corporate Boards Understand and Manage IT Risks

The Carnegie Mellon Governance of Enterprise Security: CyLab 2012 Report is the first survey to examine how corporate boards and executives are managing cyber risks across geographical regions and byvarious industry sectors. Sponsored by RSA, The Security Division of EMC, this is the third report conducted by CyLab Adjunct Distinguished Fellow, Jody Westby. The report examines responses to a survey of senior executives and corporate board members from the Forbes Global 2000 list. The repo

US economy picks up after early spring slump

Christian Reynolds — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:57:28 +0000

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABERAP Economics Writer By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER Published Wednesday, May 16, 2012 Updated Wednesday, May 16, 2012 | | | | tool goes here

WASHINGTON — Maybe the U.S. economy’s strength this winter wasn’t just weather-related after all.

Home construction is near a three-year high. And factory outpu

Metals – Brazil – Gerdau planning 80Mt/y iron ore port in Rio de Janeiro state

Jorja McKinney — Sun, 06 May 2012 01:17:51 +0000

Iron/Steel

Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau (NYSE: GGB) is planning to build its own port terminal at Sepetiba Bay near the company’s Cosigua mill in Rio de Janeiro state, CFO Osvaldo Schirmer said during a conference call to discuss Q1 results.

The port terminal will be implemented in two phases and will be able to export 70Mt/y of iron ore and to receive 10Mt/y of mineral coal to meet the demand from the company’s steel plants in Brazil’s southeastern region, according to the CFO.

The port being planned is part of Gerdau’s strategy to expand production at its mines in Minas Gerais state from current 6.5Mt/y to 11.5Mt/y and achieve iron-ore self-sufficiency by 2014.

PPC: The Perils of Set it & Forget It

Anthony Isabel — Sat, 05 May 2012 10:41:57 +0000

Managing and optimizing PPC campaigns can seem, at first glance, like a simple, straightforward process. Once you’ve done all the hard work –setting up a campaign, selecting keywords, creating ad groups, writing ad copy, establishing bid rates – shouldn’t it just run? Clients sometimes ask us to do the setup, then expect to just sit back and let the leads flow in. Why, they ask, do you need to keep tweaking it if you’ve set it up well in the first place?

The short answer can be summed up in 2 words: Google & Competitors. Neither one

Analysts don’t predict doomsday for insurers

Jorja McKinney — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 01:07:20 +0000

WASHINGTON – Within the debate over the law that overhauls the U.S. health care system, speculation swirls about a doomsday scenario for the health insurance industry.

As the Supreme Court pondered the legal merits of the Affordable Care Act last week, Justice Antonin Scalia mentioned the possibility of “bankrupting insurance companies and the whole system … tumbling down.”

Outside the court, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota whipped up a crowd of Tea Party protesters, predicting “chaos on an economic spectacle like we have never seen.”

The doomsday theory plays out like this: The high court eliminates only the individual mandate within the health care law that requires all Americans to buy insurance or face a fine.

Info. Technology – Mexico – SCT launches digital agenda

Jorja McKinney — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:41:22 +0000

Mexico’s communications and transportation ministry (SCT) has launched the digital agenda to boost the country’s ICT development, SCT head Dionisio Pйrez-Jбcome announced during local IT association Canieti’s general assembly.

The country’s Agenda Digital.mx includes feedback and recommendations from all the different players involved in developing the ICT industry, according to Pйrez-Jбcome.

The agenda establishes goals to be met by 2015 and is divided into six lines of action:

1. Implementing strategies to continue increasing internet penetration in the country, promoting competition in the telecommunications market, and supporting a social coverage policy.

Excerpts from Tuesday’s Supreme Court health care arguments

Christian Reynolds — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:31:56 +0000

Excerpts from Tuesdays Supreme Court arguments over whether the provision in President Barack Obamas health care law that forces Americans to carry health care insurance or pay a penalty is constitutional:

___

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I thought a major, major point of your argument was that the people who dont participate in this market are making it much more expensive for the people who do; that is, they will get, a good number of them will get services that they cant afford at the point where they need them, and the result is that everybody elses premiums get raised. Its not your free choice just to do something for yourself.

Open Networking Summit 2012 Announces its 2012 Exhibitors

Anthony Isabel — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:52:27 +0000

After receiving overwhelming interest, Open Networking Summits, Inc. has announced the final 30 demonstrations that will showcase the latest OpenFlow and Software Defined Networking (SDN) technologies at the 2012 event. With 21 corporate exhibitors and 10 academic tabletop demonstrators, the exhibition hall in the Grand Ballroom at the Santa Clara, Calif. Marriott, will provide attendees with an unmatched opportunity to see the future of networking.

This year’s Open Networking Summit exhibitors will highlight how OpenFlow and SDN can help network operators and owners. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage and learn from numerous organizations, small and large, who have seen success in deploying OpenFlow and SDN into their products and services. H

Report: Springs still fighting to rebound from recession

Jorja McKinney — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:56:12 +0000

Colorado Springs is still struggling to fully escape the shadow of the recession, according to a report by the Brookings Institution.

The Mountain Monitor, a quarterly report produced by the nonprofit Brookings Institution and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, studies 10 large metropolitan areas in Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The latest report, released Wednesday, found the economic recovery was firmly under way in the fourth quarter in the Intermountain West — but with the pace varying widely.

Colorado Springs “continued to struggle to rebound overall,” the report said. Though the Springs saw job gains in the third quarter, a 0.1 percent contraction in the fourth quarter eroded some of those gains, the report found. And w

Why Now Is the Time to Ask For Customer Reviews

Anthony Isabel — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:05:36 +0000

Google made some important changes to Place Pages last week, including a more focused approach to showing what your customers think in reviews. In the past, your Google Place Page displayed customer reviews from across the web, showing full text of what your customers said on review sites like Yelp, InsiderPages, Yahoo, TripAdvisor and more. In addition to full reviews, they were also including ‘snippets’ of reviews in the local search listings next to Google Maps. As of last week, however, your Place Page will only display what people have said about you on Google, while reviews on other sites will be referenced only through a single link to Yelp, Yahoo, etc. If you don’t already have lots of customer reviews filled out by Place Page visitors, this would be a good time to start collecting them.

Google’s recent changes

The recent changes to Place Pages make for a cleaner look and a clearer call to action (note the 2 glaring red buttons suggesting visitors “Write a review”), so Google is making your job easier. They are also paving the way for what Google describes on its Maps blog as the long-term vision for local search:

Bringing you more personalized results when you search for local places — because we understand that information from the people you know is most meaningful;
Integrating some of the great information that’s been buried on Place pages into your web search experience across all Google platforms;
Giving you more ways to rate, discover and share places you love faster and easier than ever, wherever you are, and on whichever device you choose.

The timing of this change, coming so shortly on the heels of the recent Google+ social media introduction, suggests they’ll likely be integrating the 2 more closely as part of the “more personalized results” goal. See my blog post on Google+ First Impressions for more speculation on this.

Why customer reviews are important

NOTE: despite the fact that Google is no longer displaying reviews from other sites, there’s no reason to believe they’ve stopped giving value to those reviews in their local ranking algorithm. So, don’t discount the importance of having reviews in a variety of places. See Mike Blumenthal’s post on this topic.

Getting your business reviewed

Every business loves to see happy customers write good reviews, unsolicited. But you’re likely to get far better results if you go a step further and ASK your customers for a review. Depending on your type of business and customer touchpoints, there are lots of ways to ask. The first rule is to make it easy and com

Top 4 Credit Cards to Build Credit

Anthony Isabel — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:48:38 +0000

Experiencing financial hardship and seeing your credit take a turn for the worse is a stressful and frustrating time for anyone to endure. Many people think they won’t be able to recover or qualify for credit ever again.

The good news is that is simply not true; with the right plan you can rebuild and eventually restore your credit rating.

Did you know there are card issuers that offer credit cards to build credit specifically for those who have bad ratings or even filed for bankruptcy?

These types of cards are designed for high risk individuals and even though the interest rates are much higher it gives you the opportunity to start re-establishing your credit.

To minimize the risk you present to a card issuer you can always apply for secured credit cards to build credit.

With a secured credit card your deposit equals your credit limit but it doesn’t work like a debit card. The

General Mills’ 3Q profit dips slightly, in line with expectations

Jorja McKinney — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:13:48 +0000

General Mills’ quarterly profit slipped a bit as the big food maker continued to grapple with high ingredient costs, but its earnings Wednesday were still in line with Wall Street expectations.

Like many packaged food makers, General Mills has passed down its own cost increases to retailers and ultimately consumers. But once again during the company’s third quarter, consumers showed resistance to those price hikes as U.S. sales volume, as measured in pounds, fell 3 percent.

“We’ve lost some volume as consumers saw these higher prices,” General Mills Chief Executive Ken Powell said in an interview Wednesday with the Star Tribune.

In a conference call with analysts Wednesday, Powell said “Clearly, it’s been a tough year.

Mobile medicine revolution

Christian Reynolds — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 03:10:19 +0000

(CNN) — AT&T and Vodafone are names we generally associate with calling plans rather than with healthcare.

Saving money and seeking debt relief goes hand in hand – Steps to follow

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:52:33 +0000

With the personal finances going haywire, most US consumers are trying their best to make sure that they don’t get mowed down by the approaching recession. As the financial analysts are warning the entire nation about bucking up their finances, the debtors have grown cautious about each and every financial move that they take. As there is a wide array of debt relief options, you shouldn’t feel that getting help from any one of them or enrolling yourself in a debt relief program is the ultimate solution to your financial woes. You have to save your dollars in order to be able to repay your debt obligations on time without getting help from any professional financial company. Read more…