EARTHED-TECH

It’s fair to say HR departments have been more focused on dealing with redundancies than new hires in the last couple of years.

But as the economy begin to emerge from recession and businesses look to the recovery, the challenge of dealing with new employees will return. And this next generation of workers will be more demanding than any of their predecessors, especially in terms of technology.

Unprecedented levels of technical literacy, the rise of remote working and focus on sustainability mean younger workers will have very definite ideas on how they’re expected to be treated by potential employers.

Projecting ahead to what businesses and HR departments will face in the Britain of 2020, insurance company Friends Provident expects to see the emergence of demanding “elite workers”.

“By 2020, the balance of power between employees and employers will have shifted in favour of elite workers. This means employers will require more robust and rigorous HR strategies to shape the future success of the business,” says Friends Provident human resources director Gillian Fox.

And it will be the job of HR departments to put the policies in place to attract these elite workers and retain them: “Only by fostering a culture that truly allows talented employees to prosper will employers be able to attract, recruit and, more importantly, retain this powerful band of employees,” she said.

Consultant Accenture has been analysing the emergence of this new generation, also dubbed “Millennials” – and companies that fail to tune their corporate culture to meet the needs of these future workers, aged between 14 and 27, will suffer in the long run, it predicts.

For more go to Silicon.com

Cynics might argue that the raison d’etre of the advertising industry is to distort the truth. Ad agencies would say they are simply ” enhancing paradigms”.

This grey area between the positive portrayal of what you are selling and outright lying was undeniably exploited during the early days of the environmental boom, as company after company sought to promote their newly minted green credentials. But the proliferation of so-called “greenwash” over the last five years has only served to alienate consumers and prompted governments and industry regulators to take increasingly tough action against those firms that overstate their green credentials.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has wrapped a lot of knuckles in recent years over green advertising claims which do not stand up to scrutiny. For example, Renault recently fell foul of the ASA after viewer’s complained about its use of “zero emissions” in an ad for an electric car, while the long running campaign for a third runway at Heathrow has been pulled up for an ad which stated that the expansion would not “make Heathrow any noisier or dirtier”.

Even the government has not escaped scrutiny and was rebuked for a series of controversial ads calling on people to curb their carbon emissions.

According to the Greenwash Guide from sustainable marketing consultancy Futerra, utilities have traditionally been hit with most reprimands by the ASA with car companies and holiday firms also consistently guilty of violating green ad guidelines.

But ultimately the report identifies the advertising industry and the newspapers and TV stations carry their ads as lying at the root of the problem. “None of the UK’s biggest advertising agencies claim to have training or guidelines for their staff on what is a justified green claim,” it states. “And none of the main publications in the UK who sell advertising space have their own standard.”

For more go to: BusinessGreen

The head of an influential US think-tank has warned that the failure of countries to cooperate on cybercrime is harming efforts to combat the problem.

Speaking to eWEEK Europe UK at the Infosecurity Europe 2010 conference, Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the IT think-tank the Ponemon Institute, warned that the fight against cybercrime requires international cooperation, but that the process was failing currently.

Specifically, Ponemon said that most countries were failing to even bridge the divide between business and government on cybercrime issues – let alone talk to one another about the problem.

“Basically what we are finding is that the business government cooperartion is nearly non-existent,” he said. “It does vary from country to country but it is nearly non-existent.”

Cooperation Non-Existent

According to Ponemon – also professor for ethics and privacy at Carnegie Mellon University’s CIO Institute – while no country had a good record on sharing cybercrime information between the public and private sector, the UK faired better than some.

“In the UK for example you will find that at least the various commercial organisations will let businesses know when they have evidence of a threat but that doesn’t happen in the US,” he said. “What we find in the US is government handling their problems and business handling their problems. We have models of collaboration such as CERT but that only deals with a certain type of issue.”

For more go to: eWEEK Europe UK

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has claimed that new powers mean it is no longer a “toothless tiger”, and is pushing for prison sentences to be introduced for professional data thieves.

Speaking on the first day of the Infosecurity Europe conference in London on Tuesday, David Smith, ICO deputy commissioner, said that although the organisation had been granted new powers recently, it was keen for persistent and professional data thieves to be punished with jail sentences.

Smith identified groups including private investigators and internal employees who sell company data as targets for prison time. “Those who con information out of you, who work for you and/or sell information on the black market … all these are are criminal offences already but we argue they should be prison offences,” said Smith.

The ICO recently took part in a government consultation on the issue of prison sentences but said that the issue would have to be resolved by the new government.

“The government consulted us on this. That consultation finished in January and the government is still analysing the response to that consultation. Nothing will happen before the election and we will wait and see what happens,” he said.

No New Prisons

However, the ICO’s plans to impose jail time on data thieves could face problems from potential cuts to public sector spending, with some of the parties hoping to scale back prison time for so-called minor crimes. The Liberal Democrats in particular oppose the building of new prisons. Writing in the Guardian last month, Liberal [3] Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne said that prison was not the answer to curbing crime.

“Tories and Labour are pledging to send more people to prison for longer just because it sounds tough. Liberal Democrats would not build more prisons,” he wrote. “We are the only party brave enough to suggest that rigorous community sentences are more effective than short prison sentences.”

On the issue of the election and working with the future government, Smith said [4] that data protection would continue to be a major issue for whichever party or parties got into power.

“We have a new government and I am a public servant so am not going to make any comment on that, “ he said. “All the parties mention things on information rights within their proposals and this will be an issue and is relevant to all parties whatever colour the government is – or if we have a multi-coloured government.”

For more go to: eWEEK Europe UK

Latest for BusinessGreen.com

A long-standing centre-left government has been ousted by centre-right opposition. No, it’s not a flash forward to May 7, but the result of last week’s Hungarian election, which saw Viktor Orban yesterday declare victory for his centre-right Fidesz party.

Close to the geographic centre of Europe, the politics played out in the central European state of Hungary could be seen as a good barometer for the political fortunes across the region – and further afield. And that also goes for environmental policies.

Indeed, the role of the Hungarian government in the recent carbon credit recycling scandal has put an international spotlight on the country’s environmental policies – the ramifications of which have shaken carbon markets around the world.

Hungary, like many of its neighbours, has been hit especially hard by the global recession, and was forced to accept a £15.6bn loan from the IMF in October 2008 – the first EU country to do so. The financial conditions imposed by the IMF have further curtailed whatever wiggle room was left to the socialist government given the crippling effects of the financial crisis.

However, carbon recycling aside, cash-strapped Hungary has a pretty good stance on environmental policies and might provide some valuable guidance on how to develop environmental policies when you really can’t afford to.

For example, Hungary recently became the first country in the world to appoint an environmental ombudsman. Sworn in just over a year ago, Dr Sandor Fulop is the Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner For Future Generations. A former public prosecutor, Fulop also served as the director of a not-for-profit environmental law firm, the Environmental Management and Law Association (EMLA), and has lectured in environmental law since 1997.

For more go to: BusinessGreen.com

Latest feature for Silicon.com

The last 18 months have no doubt been challenging for sales and marketing pros, with customers reluctant to spend during the economic downturn.

Yet advances in technology mean there are now many new, effective ways to connect with customers and partners.

Here we look at the tech trends taking hold in sales and marketing departments.

All eyes on social networking
The rise of social networking has provided a new channel for innovative companies to reach their customers. Some of the more traditionally minded marketing departments may have struggled to understand how social tools mesh with their existing web plans but others have been happy to experiment.

“Facebook is central to our social media strategy,” says Robin Auld, marketing director of Domino’s Pizza UK & Ireland.

The latest addition to this strategy is a Superfans application on the company’s Facebook profile page. Loyal fans of Domino’s on Facebook are rewarded with a promotional code which can be used to get discounts on pizza deliveries. “This application will enable us to leverage the importance of brand advocates in growing our customer base,” explains Auld.

According to recent research from analyst Forrester, use of social networking tools by marketing departments is set to increase throughout 2010 and beyond as companies search for ways to reach out to, and extend, their customer base.

“Social technologies allow for accessible innovation where the risks and costs are not as high, but the return is significant,” says Forrester Research vice president and research director Christine Overby.

For more go to Silicon.com

From our new eWEEK Europe UK writer Teresa Green

Business secretary Lord Mandelson may be about to add MC to his already extensive list of titles.

In a press release issued this week, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills said it planned to increase its efforts to combat the threat of illegal downloading and file-sharing by releasing a single highlighting the problems featuring Mandelson himself on vocals.

Fight For Your Right – To Profits

While the news that Mandelson plans to rap on the track may surprise some, it is believed that the business secretary is a secret fan of hard-core hip-hop acts including Dr Dre, Eminem, and Snoop Dogg. According to sources close to the BIS, the idea of Mandelson rapping on the track was first suggested by David Geffen during a meeting between the two last year in Corfu.

The track in question is believed to be a cover of the popular Beastie Boys track “Fight For Your Right” with Mandelson replacing the word “Party” with “Profits”, to reflect the hard times which record labels have found themselves in of late, thanks to the rise of illegal downloads.

Fight For Your Right (To Profits), featuring MC Mandelson, will be released on Geffen records to coincide with enforcement of the Digital Economy Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, and the UK release of Apple’s iPad later this month.

For more go to eWEEK Europe UK

Latest column for NHS Resource Centre:

Improving efficiency is all about doing more with the same or less. In the run up to the election, the oppostion is keen to present the last 13 years of Labour government as doing exactly the opposite.

Its allegation is that the government has been throwing fistfuls of cash about with no obvious results but noise, heat and wasted energy.The government, meanwhile, is trying to make the case that its spending has had tangible benefits.

The health service, for example, has never been in better shape according to health secretary Andy Burnham. Speaking after last week’s Budget he said: “After a decade of record investment, the NHS is today more resilient, has more capacity and provides better care than ever before.”

The political scrapping is only going to intensify in the run up to the election. Yet, if economic experts are right, whoever gets into power is going to have very little wiggle room when it comes to policy change.

Given the size of the UK’s deficit, future commitments to voters may look very like Henry Ford’s commitment to car buyers. Ford said they could have any colour they liked, as long as it was black. Ministers may find themselves saying: “You can have any new spending commitments you like, as long as they don’t cost anything.”

For more go to: NHS Resource Centre

The head of information policy and security at the UK Highways Agency has urged caution when it comes to the adoption of hosted or cloud applications such as Google Apps and Windows Live, which he believes should not be used for critical tasks at present.

Speaking at the  European Computer Audit, Control and Security (EuroCac) conference in Budapest this week, Ray Butler, a former information systems auditor at HM Customs for more than 25 years, told an audience of audit and IT specialists that hosted applications were still an unknown quantity in terms of security.

Asked by eWEEK Europe UK whether he believed web office applications such as Google Docs were inherently more insecure than local applications, Butler said that it depended on the circumstances but he wouldn’t advise using such tools for confidential or critical information.

“It depends doesn’t it. I work collaboratively, not in Google Docs but in Huddle and Microsoft Office Live,” he said. “But I wouldn’t use it for anything that would screw me up or my organisation up if it got lost or improperly released or anything simply because I don’t know how good the security is.”

For more go to: eWEEK Europe UK

Microsoft is facing an ongoing legal challenge in Argentina from an open source company which alleges the software giant used its Windows Starter Edition to dominate the country’s operating system market.

Argentinian software company Pixart SRL launched the lawsuit in September 2008 but the possibility of the case being heard has become more likely in recent weeks, according to the company’s lawyer Dr Uriel Blustein of Estudio Blustein & Asociados.

“It is a suit filed in the ‘National commission for Fair Trading’, for an alleged abuse of dominant position,” Dr Blustein told eWEEK Europe in an email this week. “The Commission in is the process of deciding whether the trial will take place,” (i.e. whether there is enough evidence to justify an investigation).

Don’t cry for us Argentina, says Microsoft

Pixart alleges that the market share of its Debian-based Linux distribution, Rxart, has been undermined by uncompetitive pricing practices from Microsoft. In a document outlining its case against Microsoft, Pixart argues that the existence of PCs pre-installed with a cut-down version of Microsoft Windows XP, known as Microsoft Stater Edition, was effectively used to undercut machines loaded with Rxart.

“Microsoft decided in late 2007 to pursue a policy of aggressive pricing subsidies to try to recover the market economically and financially suffocating Pixart SRL, mainly through a version of the operating system called ’starter edition’,” the document states.

Pixart claims to have had an installed base of around 320,000 units in 2005 but that base has been gradually eroded by the existence of Windows Starter Edition, and more recently Windows Vista Home Basic.

For more go to: eWEEK Europe UK