Business owners constantly have to come to grips with developments in IT services, especially as it relates to maintaining security and up-to-date virus protection. But over the last few years with the increasing presence of social media sites and the almost fanatical usage of Facebook and Twitter, a new issue is emerging.

There is no doubting the popularity of these sites, and it seems that more and more emerge every week. In fact, Wikipedia lists over 160 current sites without including dating and specialist community sites.

Employers have to face the difficulty of managing employee access to these sites during work time, without impacting on morale and without ignoring the possible business benefits that can be derived in using social media sites. Read the rest of this entry »

The major IT research firms advocated 10 top strategic technologies which would conquer the global business in the coming years. So, all the firms should make sure to encompass these strategic technologies in their strategic planning to avoid disruption to the business enterprises. All the business organizations should invest more to understand these strategic technologies; because these technologies are going to have major impact on the organization’s long term plans, initiatives and programs. Enormous efforts should be made by the organizations to deploy these technologies to their highest potential. These technologies include:

Cloud Computing

Investing on huge infrastructures, servers, databases, applications (both software and Hardware) platforms, networks and highly trained professionals to maintain them is a cumbersome task. Instead all these services are hosted by a provider and all you need is an internet to access these services through the cloud on pay -per -use basis. Cloud computing delivers; software as a service (Saas), Platform as a service (Paas) and Infrastructure as a service (Iaas).It is cheaper, quick,up-to-date, scalable, mobile service solution. Read the rest of this entry »

The internet is now so embedded in our daily lives that all generations are becoming digitally fluent. This has had a massive impact on the way we acquire knowledge and e-learning is on the rise across the all areas of education from school to university and workplace learning. A recent Chartered Institute of Personnel Development survey showed that 80 per cent of public sector organizations use e-learning and 49 per cent of private sector businesses. In higher education, 79 per cent of students access course-specific materials at least once a week and Web 2.0 is used to discuss coursework (73 per cent use social sites), source material and communicate with both peers and lecturers .

It is now accepted that for technology to be used effectively in the learning process it must be led by firm educational principles rather than being driven by technology as an end in itself. This has led some experts to suggest that the term e-learning is replaced with something perceived as more inclusive such as interactive flexible learning . It’s also crucial to design learning solutions which users can get the best from instinctively. Expert Dr Matt Jones of the University of Swansea’s Future Interaction Technology Lab says that IT systems now play such a central role in modern life that ensuring they are designed so that their users interact more effectively with them is of paramount importance. Read the rest of this entry »