Is stress impacting your team?

It is generally understood that stress can be both good and bad. Positive or good stress can help make life interesting and helps us do a good job. Stress can be a source of positive motivation to succeed or it can be a dark cloud that hinders morale, relationships and performance. The latter is what I call bad stress. Bad stress can ultimately be destructive to a person’s body. This type of stress will impact the productivity-and in the end, the success-of your team. Here are some techniques that I have learned for identifying the stress signals and managing the impact to your team. First, let’s get a better understanding of stress.

What is Stress?

Stress is a natural response to the challenges, changes and pressures of life. Bad stress is the negative and unpleasant condition which may be experienced when a person perceives that they are unable to meet the demands and pressures placed upon them. This type of stress may be associated with a wide range of ill health effects, both psychological and physical. It can have a significant impact on your team’s ability to be successful if not managed properly. Its affect can seriously impact a person’s concentration, energy level, health, mood and productivity.

What are some of the causes of negative stress?

Virtually every company today is trying to do more with less. Unfortunately, the “less” usually means less people. In the past, work that was done by two or three people is performed by one today. This situation can be coupled with corporate downsizing; an increase in merger activity; increased business travel; negative impacts on company financials; a significant increase in regulatory requirements; in increase in company security requirements; and, of course, hundreds of emails a day. These are just some of the work stressors. This list does not take into account the stressors that individuals experience outside of the work environment.

How is stress impacting your ability to succeed?

The first thing to keep in mind is that stress is inevitable. Times are changing and the power of negative stress is not going away. The second thing to remember is that significant increases in stress will cost both you and your company. Finally, the impacts of negative stress are not restricted to a profession, type of company, industry or geographical location. There are studies that have indicated that approximately sixty percent of absenteeism is related to stress. Many of these absences progress into short and long term disability leaves. It is difficult to get things done when the people are not available to do the work. The opposite situation is what some health officials call presenteeism. These are the people who are experiencing increased stress levels yet come to work. These individuals will generally demonstrate reduced productivity and energy levels.

What are some of the common signs?

It is easy for a manager to overlook the signs of stress that can ultimately impact their ability to get the job done. There are a number of signs that can indicate that stress levels are going to impact your team. Some are physical, some are not. One sign that is generally easy to recognize is when people who are your top performers seem to produce less even though nothing in the environment appeared to have changed. A number of health organizations have outlined a few of the more common signs. They are frequent complaints of headaches (migraines), backaches, shoulder and neck aches; cracked voice and dry mouth; complaints of indigestion problems and excessive episodes of acid reflux; rapid or excessive weight loss (for no apparent reason); feeling helpless and depressed; and defensive. In addition, the person can easily get upset or angered; they will tend to withdraw from others; and they may experience frequent emotional outbursts. This is just a sample. Many health organizations indicate that these signs may appear where they were not demonstrated by these individuals in the past. You should contact a reputable health services organization and get a more exhaustive list of things to observe. For example, HELPGUIDE.org has a fairly complete list on their website.

What can you do?

First, you must recognize that some people thrive on stressful environments. These people operate at their peak performance when faced with a stressful situation. Therefore, you should be aware of the normal behavior patterns of your team members so that a change in that pattern is obvious. When you observe a change that could affect the health of your team member, you should consider transferring the employee to less stressful work assignment; give the individual assistance to do the work; or give the individual a ‘buddy’ to encourage confidence. In addition, consider the following:

• Ensure team members take time off to avoid too many long days on the job.
• Make certain individuals are aware of your company’s employee assistance program (EAP). This organization can work with them on stress-related or personal problems.
• Ensure opportunities for them to pursue skill-development and professional-development programs.
• Encourage them to participate in stress-reduction workshops that may be available.
• Work with team members on their workload management skills and assist them in assessing their priorities.

Most of all ensure that you provide leadership support to those individuals.

Stress does not have to impact your team’s ability to succeed. However, it is important to be aware of the signs and manage the stress levels that can hinder you and your team’s success.

Have the stress levels changed in your company?

• Stress has increased
  
• Stress has decreased
  
• No, stress level remains the same

Developer efficiency myths and truths

If you read the ads in development-related magazines or on Web sites, you would think that solving development inefficiency is a great path to making big bucks — and I believe that it is. There are tons of products on the market that claim to improve developer efficiency, from different languages to IDEs, automated build tools to automated build environments. I will try to bust some myths, bring to light a few truths, and show some partial truths regarding developer efficiency.

Myths about what leads to developer efficiency

#1: Drag ‘n Drop IDEs are the be-all and end-all.

Drag ‘n Drop IDEs are great… for building UIs. Outside of using a Drag ‘n Drop IDE as a graphical code generator for UI-specific tasks, they universally stink. Unless you are writing an application so basic that the IDE’s assumptions about how code should be written won’t hurt things, chances are you will rip out at least half of the code that the Drag ‘n Drop IDE put there for you. Go ahead, use Visual Studio or Eclipse — they are great IDEs. But be wary of trying to drag ‘n drop your way to a complete application.

#2: Slumber parties at the office equal more quality work completed.

I call a workaholic programmer who regularly pulls all-nighters The Martyr. It is tempting to think that putting in more hours equals more work, but most developers are spun out by 5:00 PM. Development is brain-taxing work, and you cannot do it when you’re tired or improperly nourished. A late night here and there may pay off, but chances are, the quality of the work done past 6:00 PM or 7:00 PM is low, and the next day your efficiency will be in the toilet. Avoid the late night work whenever possible — you are not nearly as efficient as you’d like to think.

#3: Caffeine, nicotine, and sugar are your friends.

Caffeine, cigarettes, and sugary beverages contain chemicals that might provide a temporary boost in awareness, alertness, and concentration. But the 30-minute jolt that a can of Mountain Dew might give you is followed by a much longer crash that dulls your senses and fatigues your body. This is why you see people with trash cans full of soda bottles, cigarette packs, and coffee cups; they need to continually ingest the chemical(s) of their choice to find a balance. Trust me, I have been there myself (regrettably, I started drinking coffee again a month ago, but I am still cigarette and sugar free). Try to replace the coffee with water, the sugar with fruit, and find a way to quit smoking. Not only will you stop feeling the nasty side effects of coming down, but you will also have much fewer interruptions when you do not need to leave your desk constantly.

Truths about what leads to developer efficiency

#1: Environment matters

No, I am not talking about Al Gore or Greenpeace. If you are in an office, I bet good money that there is a standard fluorescent light bulb over your head. It probably cost the builder $45 or less to install; meanwhile, full-spectrum task lights can easily cost over $100.

Ever notice how many IT pros turn the lights out in the office? It is because fluorescent lights are horrible on your eyes when you’re using a PC; turning the lights off reduces the immediate stress on your eyes that causes the 2:00 PM headache. The problem is that your eyes dilate even more when you turn the lights off, letting even more of the eyeball killing monitor light damage them. In other words, the short term “fix” does long term damage. Go ahead, buy the $100 task lamp; it is cheaper than a new pair of glasses or contacts, and it will improve your efficiency significantly since you won’t be in pain by mid-afternoon.

#2: Practice makes perfect

A lot of developers think that warming a chair for 10 years makes them a better programmer. The fact is that someone who spends time reading about new ideas and trying them out on their own time is going to learn valuable lessons that they can apply in their day-to-day work. If you want to become more efficient, I suggest spending time working on a project (at home or set aside an hour or two a week at the office) that is related to work but that uses techniques that are new to you. You will discover that learning new techniques always pays a huge dividend.

#3: Limit interruptions

Your manager is making you less efficient. Every time he or she stops at your desk for a quick status update or e-mails you a memo reminding the team of the dress code policy, your concentration is broken. Even a slight distraction of a minute or two can take many more minutes to recover from and get back in “the zone.” Add that up over the course of a day, and you could be losing up to an hour’s worth of time where you are fully “in the problem” due to your manager or a coworker interrupting your thought process.

Close the door (if you have one), put blinders on so people near you don’t bother you, and close your e-mail and IM clients. Limit opening your communications software to a few times a day (after a meal, a restroom break, or other similar time is perfect, since you have already lost your train of thought anyway). If it is really important, they can pick up the phone and call you.

Partial truths about what leads to developer efficiency

#1: Code generators may lead to more work on your end.

If you are doing a ton of rote tasks, like creating the accessors for a class that represents a 200 element XML schema, code generators are great. Drag ‘n Drop IDEs make short work of generating UI code, but unless your task is extremely generic, you will probably spend more time tweaking the generated code than it would have taken you to just write it yourself. For specialized tasks, sometimes a text editor that supports regex find/replace or a spreadsheet program like Excel can do a task in a few moments where pricey code generators fall flat.

#2: Language matters some of the time.

Sometimes language matters, and sometimes it doesn’t — it is completely situational. For example, many of the languages that can be written extremely quickly thanks to type inference or syntactic tricks are often difficult to follow when they are maintained. The two minutes worth of typing saved can cause an hour of wasted time down the road. The current mainstream languages (Java, VB.NET, and C#) are all so similar (VB.NET is slightly more verbose) that none of them are particularly more efficient to work with. Some languages do have unique properties and advantages that can significantly impact development time. For instance, try writing something that is as pure logic (or math) as a weather forecasting system in C#, and you’ll be sorry. On the flip side, a typical Windows desktop application written in Fortran will probably take forever. Library support matters too; some languages, despite being weaker, in and of themselves, have library support that makes up for it.

#3: Personal life

Developers who get phone calls from friends and family for a total of two hours a day are probably not going to get much done. However, locking people down is not going to fix the issue of personal calls either. For many people (particularly those with children), a five minute phone call might save a trip home. In an ideal world, developers would not let their personal life and issues affect their work. In the real world, an argument with a spouse, money worries, the kids’ grades, and so on can and will spillover into someone’s work time.

So, for all you managers out there, while personal telephone calls represent an obvious inefficiency, it’s fairly useless to have a programmer in the office who has something heavy on his or her mind. They won’t be able to concentrate anyway, so go ahead and let them do what they need to do within reason.

Are you a developer??? cheers Aurobindo

Add meaning to Web pages with microformats

One thing that makes the Web so interesting is that it’s constantly changing, as new technologies and techniques are introduced on an almost daily basis. A technology that has gathered steam the past couple years is microformats. Microformats allow you to add context to existing information contained within a Web page.

The semantic Web

The semantic Web is an evolving extension of the Web. It says that Web content can be expressed not only in natural language, but also in a format that can be read and used by software agents. This allows the software agents to more easily find, share, and integrate information.

While the semantic Web is designed for machines first, microformats are designed for humans first. The goal of microformats is to create a web of data that anyone can publish, consume, and so forth. There is a low barrier to entry for the microformats concept, so anyone with an understanding of XHTML can easily publish their own microformats.

What are microformats?

Microformats provide a more formalized technology for adding commonly used semantics to today’s Web. Microformats are a set of open data formats that use existing technology and standards, most notably XHTML. The microformats site makes the following assertions about the technology:

• Microformats are a way of thinking about data.
• Microformats are design principles for formats.
• Microformats are adapted to current behaviors and usage patterns.
• Microformats are highly correlated with semantic XHTML.
• Microformats are a set of simple data formats that many are actively developing and implementing.

A key concept is the usage of existing technologies (such as XHTML) that have been well tested. This allows developers to focus on the data as opposed to the technology.

Microformats in practice

A common application of microformats is providing contact or event data. The hCard microformats specification provides a guideline for including contact data within a Web page.

The hCard standard is a simple, open, and distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places. It closely follows the vCard standard. The hCard standard defines specific elements for defining pieces of data.

The different data elements are specified using the class attribute (all class names are lowercase). The complete contact card is comprised by the vCard class, so this class is applied to a DIV element that contains the complete contact information. Individual data elements on the card are designated with the appropriate class name. For example, a person’s state is designated by the region class.

The following listing provides a look at a possible hCard for myself. It lists my name, organization (TechRepublic.com), city (Louisville), state (Kentucky), and country (USA).

Tony Patton
TechRepublic.com

Louisville,
KY
USA

I could easily include this data in a Web page since it is standard XHTML. The data could be easily read by other applications that understand the hCard format. Also, the data could easily be formatted for presentation using standard CSS since the data is contained within basic XHTML.

The hCard Creator tool provides an easy way to assemble the appropriate hCard for a contact. Another common use of microformats is for providing information about events. This is accomplished with the hCalendar format.

The hCalendar specification is an open standard based on the iCalendar standard. The hCalendar format follows the approach used by the hCard standard; that is, class names are used to tag data elements.

The complete event is contained within a DIV element and assigned the vevent class name. Individual aspects of the calendar entry are contained within this DIV element. The start and end dates are marked by the dtstart and dtend class names with the title attribute containing the full date. The following illustrates a sample event for last week’s Web Development column.

November 6th,
 2007
Web Development
Weekly Web Development column.

Does seniority equal entitlement?

I was speaking with a colleague the other day about a recent reorganization we were aware of at another company that essentially replaced the head of a department with that person’s subordinate. My colleague noted that was a shame because the person demoted (he wasn’t let go) had seniority over the person who assumed his duties.

My reaction was “What does seniority have to do with the ability to manage effectively and drive a unit to success?” Seniority is one of those areas in work life that I am really torn on. I believe that hard work, commitment, and loyalty should be rewarded but longevity in a position is not necessarily proof of that. Because of poor management practices, there are times when a person with less than stellar performance remains around for a long time because she’s trouble and rather than deal with her, management passes her around. Over time this employee not only remains with the organization but often climbs the ladder as well!

I’m not implying that this was the case with the employee my colleague and I were speaking of, just that when you begin to talk about seniority, the waters can get muddy really fast.

There’s no doubt that an employee’s longevity in an organization can be beneficial. However, does being around a long time mean that one should be automatically promoted should the opportunity arise?

My answer is no. While I think it should play a factor in the decision making, I don’t believe it should be weighted so heavily as to make the outcome inevitable. I stand by the argument that the most qualified person for the position should be in the position - period. This is, of course, ignoring office politics (which is the elephant in the room that I am conveniently ignoring right now).

Those readers who are unionized are probably reading the above and having a conniption fit right about now. Organized labor is often heavily slanted towards seniority and one must “pay his dues” (no pun intended) before getting a shot at a promotion. Perhaps even more importantly, they place a great deal of emphasis on seniority when it comes to reductions in force, with a first-in, last-out type of mentality thta can result in less senior employees “bumped” out of their positions.

While I understand the safeguards this provides (it curtails management from cutting higher-wage employees and replacing them with lower-paid less senior employees), there’s an underlying unfairness in it all. Being someplace for a long time should not equate to entitlement at any level of the organization.

Having said all of the above, in a perfect world, the most qualified person for a position would fill a position when it becomes available. However we don’t live in that perfect world nor is determining who is best qualified anything close to an exact science. In fact, it’s closer to an art than a science.

Now, let’s talk about that elephant in the room. Politics can and does encompass everything from personal likes and dislikes, organizational power, organizational and personal values and beliefs, contracts, policy and procedures, just to name a few. These factors add to the complexity of the promotion/retention process. Seniority can and often does fall into the area of organizational and personal beliefs or explicit rules based on a contract.

If the rules are explicit regarding seniority, the process is simplified. But I’ll argue that the results are not optimal for the organization.

If the rules are not explicit, then the results vary and can lead to optimal hires for an organization or not, depending on the culture of the organization and the tendency for management to view seniority as an entitlement.

We’re all familiar with the Peter Principle, that people rise to their level of incompetence, is strongly rooted in promotion by seniority. Being around for a long time doesn’t necessarily equal being best qualified for a position. I will reiterate that there is some value in longevity, but it should not be over emphasized.

It’s a problem when employees who haven’t been “around long enough” are not even considered for a higher position.” That practice can be detrimental for the organization and demoralizing for staff. People don’t want to see someone get promoted who is less qualified than they are, no matter how long they’ve been with the organization.

Obviously this is not clear cut issue, but in the realm of management and leadership, longevity may or may not make you wise and it should not be a guarantee for promotion. Agree or disagree? Have you been passed over for promotion because someone more senior got the position and you felt better qualified? Let me know what you think.

Protect Your Info

With the wheel came the getaway car, with the printing press came counterfeiting, and now scam artists continue to keep up with technology by exploiting the Internet's anonymity to approach victims over the Web. While Internet fraud is nothing new, would-be swindlers have found a new avenue by which to reach victims: Online job postings.

While offline activities set the precedent for this type of fraud, the move to the Web allows con artists to reach vast numbers of potential victims. Often their goal is identity theft, and cons can be sneaky. Taking advantage of job seekers' desire to please potential employers, they ask for all sorts of personal information: your name, birth date, credit information -- all the things they need to steal your identity and spend your money.

The best protection is constant vigilance when searching for jobs. Since the point of the scam is to prey on your hopes for a great job and to hit you where you least expect it, being wary about even the most legitimate-sounding requests for your personal information is always warranted.

"There's an old saying that you should never buy anything you can't see from someone you don't know," says Paul Barada, Monster's Salary Negotiation Expert. While it's legitimate for employers in the early stages of the hiring process to ask you for information about your education, training and qualifications related to a prospective job, "you don't provide proprietary information until you're farther down the road."

And he means so far down the road that you're standing at the HR manager's desk, and even then, there should almost never be an occasion to give out your bank or credit card information. As his best piece of advice on what to do to avoid being fleeced by a bogus job ad, Barada says you should ask someone who approaches you for his contact information, and then independently look up the company's phone number and call them to verify that the company is legitimate and the person who approached you actually works there in a legitimate capacity.

Also look at the details, because they may reveal a thief. If someone approaching you under the guise of a well-known business asks you to reply to them through a third-party address that doesn't bear the company's name or trademark, that's a clue to a possible con. While many large recruiting firms may ask applicants to do this, it pays to make sure the person you're working with is legit. Also look at phone numbers and letterhead. Do they line up with the company's mailing address, other phone numbers and images?

Even given the current job market, Barada advises job seekers not to let their desire to please employers overpower their better judgment. "(Job seekers) shouldn't perceive themselves to be totally at the mercy of prospective employers," he says. "It's not worth losing your identity."

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the government agency responsible for receiving and processing identity-theft complaints, even if you've been very careful about keeping your personal information safe, you can further minimize your risk by regularly checking your credit record and making sure the information is correct. You can order a report from one of the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian or TransUnion. It also pays to follow up on a late bill from a credit card company, as people who fraudulently use your card number will often change the billing address so you won't find the extra charges until much later.

If you find that you've been a victim of identity fraud, the FTC recommends you do three things immediately:

1. Contact the fraud departments of each of the three major credit bureaus, and ask them to flag your account so no new charges can be made without your approval.

2. Alert all the financial institutions with which you have accounts and close anything that has been accessed illegally. Put new passwords on the ones you keep open, and password-protect your new accounts with different codes.

3. Report the crime to the appropriate police department and get a copy of the report for your files.

You can also file a complaint directly with the FTC, and calls may be warranted to the Social Security Administration, (800) 269-0271, and the Internal Revenue Service, (800) 829-0433, depending on what information you gave out.

In addition, there are other authorities to whom you may report possible fraud on the Internet, such as the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

How to Evaluate Your Company's Health Insurance Offerings

Whether your open-enrollment package hits your desk in a 9-by-12 packet or invades your PC in data packets, those promotional materials, charts and check-offs describing your health insurance choices can drown you in a sea of disclaimers, exceptions and other maddening complications.

The trouble is that when you’re neck-deep in the details of your lesser-of-evils healthcare choices, it’s too easy to lose sight of what should be your guiding question: Which plan will best enable you to stay well and get the highest-value care when you’re sick?

So let’s take a look at the big picture, with the help of a few health insurance experts. If you want to dig deeper, check out the US Department of Health and Human Services’ “Questions and Answers About Health Insurance: A Consumer Guide.”

Put Quality First

Here’s a radical idea: Even if you devote most of your healthcare anxiety to containing its enormous and growing cost, you should consider quality of care before anything else. What could be more expensive -- in money, time, suffering and stress -- than failing to receive optimal care for a medical problem?

If you’ve got a primary-care physician or specialist you like, you might make that preference a driving force when choosing an insurer.

“A lot of smart people work back from the provider they want,” says James Walsh, an insurance expert and president of Silver Lake Publishing, which publishes books advising consumers on insurance issues. “Go to the practitioner and ask them what insurance companies they accept.”

But don’t stop there. Look for a report card on your employer’s health plans at the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Caveat: This group gets some funding from healthcare companies. Also check with your state insurance department for complaints against health plans.

Finally, examine the performance of the full range of a particular health plan’s care providers. “Check to see if your health plan’s Web site provides health outcomes ratings of hospitals and specialists,” says Joseph Mondy, an assistant vice president at insurer Cigna HealthCare.

Avoid Plans that Spurn Wellness and Prevention

Wellness programs and coverage for preventive care are on the upswing, but many health plans still give them short shift.

And the quality of these programs is a matter of life and death. If all health plans provided the same disease-prevention and wellness programs and best-practice treatments as the nation’s top 10 percent of health plans, each year up to 81,000 deaths could be avoided, according to a Consumer Reports’ summary of research into health plans.

Whatever plan you choose, be sure it covers prevention, rather than making you pay for routine exams and screenings as some high-deductible health plans do, often in exchange for lower premiums. “First-dollar coverage for preventive and wellness programs is a very important feature,” says Robert Cimasi, president of Health Capital Consultants in St. Louis.

Now Tackle the Cost Beast

Before choosing a plan, most of us need to consider its cost. But don’t take just the payroll deduction into account. Make sure you factor in all of these potential costs:

• Employee-paid premiums.
• Deductibles.
• Copayments.
• Coinsurance, which requires you to pay a percentage of the total cost of care.
• Maximum annual out-of-pocket expense.
• Healthcare services the insurer doesn’t cover.

Does your company give you a way to compare your alternatives dynamically? If so, take advantage. “Leading health plans offer online financial modeling tools to estimate your annual costs based on the plans offered, your family demographics and past medical bills,” Mondy says.

If you’re considering a consumer-driven healthcare plan, be sure you understand how it works. “With a high-deductible plan and a medical savings account, you’ll be paying out of pocket, so you’ve got to be a smart shopper,” Walsh says.

And if you use -- or plan to open -- a tax-advantaged health savings account to pay your out-of-pocket expenses, “be aware of how much of that money can be rolled over if you don’t use it” during the plan year, Cimasi says.

Also, “make sure that if you want to see healthcare providers out of network, those providers will accept a PPO rate, which might be $60 for a doctor visit instead of $250,” he says.

According to Walsh, healthcare providers and plan administrators may be more flexible than you might think. Whether you’re hoping your employer will consider adding an insurance program to its offerings or that your physician will work out a payment schedule with you, “it’s all very negotiable,” Walsh says.

Certification: Certified Ethical Hacker

The phrase "ethical hacker" can seem like an oxymoron. Transform it into a bona fide credential, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and you compound the dissonance. Can a hacker -- a geek who disrupts computer systems -- really be ethical and certified, too?

In fact, the idea isn't as ludicrous as it sounds. Ethical hacking has roots in the corporate world -- specifically, IBM -- so anyone who questions this concept's seriousness should think again.

An ethical hacker works to identify vulnerabilities in computer systems so they can be made less susceptible to criminal hackers' malicious attacks. Without breaking laws or stealing data, ethical hackers uncover weaknesses by attacking IT systems using the same under-the-radar techniques criminal hackers employ.

"It's really like being a bodyguard," says Jay Bavisi, president of the International Council of E-Commerce Consultants, also known as the EC-Council, the organization behind the CEH credential.

Think Like a Hacker

While the first use of the term appears to date from a 1995 Computerworld interview with an IBM technologist, ethical hacking has been around since the early days of computing, according to an IBM Systems Journal article by Charles C. Palmer.

"Just as in sports or warfare, knowledge of the skills and techniques of your opponent is vital to your success," writes Palmer, who worked with IBM Global Services to start IBM's ethical hacking practice. "Ethical hackers have to know the techniques of the criminal hackers, how their activities might be detected and how to stop them.

Far from being reformed hackers with criminal histories, ethical hackers, in fact, pledge not to break the law or steal information. "The Certified Ethical Hacker certification is designed to help people to determine who is trustworthy and who is not," says Craig Bogdon, senior network engineer at Sage InfoSec, who earned the CEH credential.

Beat Hackers at Their Own Game

The CEH certification was established as a vendor-neutral credential to train IT professionals in hackers' thinking and techniques. Techies can then use that knowledge to uncover vulnerabilities in their employers' or clients' systems.

Before beginning their training, though, CEH candidates, who are expected to have two years of information security-related experience, must sign an agreement stating they will not use the skills they learn for illegal or malicious attacks.

According to Bavisi, the credential is most appropriate for information technology managers, system administrators, network administrators and other IT workers involved in security.

CEH training is typically an intense, five-day course that emphasizes the creative, ever-changing ways hackers gain access to IT systems. "Labs take students through real-world scenarios, which require them to use creativity and demonstrate the ability to solve unusual problems," says Steven DeFino, a course instructor at New Horizons Computer Learning Centers in Salt Lake City.

CEH courses are offered at EC-Council-authorized training centers around the world. Topics covered include:

• Perimeter defenses.
• Hacking tools.
• Session hijacking.
• Password cracking.
• Firewall evasion.
• Intrusion detection.

The Ethical Edge

Techies have varied reasons for pursuing the CEH certification. For Steven Whittekiend, an IT manager for Washington City, Utah, who took the course at New Horizons, learning about security flaws will help with "peace of mind as we expand our IT services and store more sensitive data for remote access."

Bogdon says he continues to use the tools and techniques he learned during his CEH training when performing security audits of clients' networks. He characterizes the credential as an "in-the-trenches view of information security," with the emphasis on learning how to break into computer systems in the manner of hackers.

With so many commodity certifications in IT, the CEH credential is one that allows techies to stand out.

"The CEH has a certain marketing cachet," Bogdon says. "It tends to get people's attention and prompt them to ask questions." Such interest gives Bogdon an opening to explain to potential clients how ethical hackers and his company's network security audit services can help protect their IT assets.

7 Steps to Stop Meeting Madness & Have More Effective Meetings

Do you block your calendar so no one can schedule you? Do you schedule or attend weekly team meetings even when there's nothing to talk about? If so, you might be one of the millions of people who suffer from meeting madness. No purple pill can cure your ills, but these eight simple steps will get you on the road to recovery:

1. Start and end your meetings on time.
Some companies run on their own time. Everyone (except the new guy, of course) knows that meetings start 10 minutes late. But those minutes add up to a whole lot of wasted time ... and money. Use the new PayScale Meeting Miser to track the cost of your meeting and help you start effective team meeting practices.

2. Invite the right people.
If you are trying to organize an effective meeting, keep it small and limited to the people who need to be there. On the flipside, if you clearly don't belong in a meeting (you're a graphic designer in a room full of number junkies talking about year-end reports), politely excuse yourself.

3. Have an agenda ... and stick to it.
According to April Callis, senior change management consultant at Navigator Management Partners in Columbus, Ohio, preparation is the key to an effective meeting.

"Take the time to research issues and send the research in advance so that participants are ready to discuss and decide, not just listen," she says.

You should always know exactly why you're calling a meeting and what you plan to accomplish. Before the meeting, send out an agenda and ask for questions or additions. Once you're in the meeting, stick to the agenda. You can take your discussion of America's Next Top Model "offline." Don't become an ineffective meeting poster child.

4. Banish electronics from meetings.
Cell phones, laptops, electric toothbrushes. It may be tough in today's technology-driven workplace, but asking attendees to leave all battery-operated devices outside the conference room will help you focus on the topic at hand and result in more effective meetings.

5. Take meeting minutes.
A meeting is worthless if no one remembers what was said and decided (assuming, of course, something was decided). If you can't take minutes, assign someone else to do it.

6. Speak up.
It's the meeting organizer's job to keep the meeting moving. If someone is rambling or, worse yet, repeating something someone else just said, ask questions to clarify, then move on. Also, don't hesitate to point out contradictions to previously made decisions. These are all very effective team meeting practices.

7. Follow up.
Send meeting minutes out immediately after the meeting with action items and next steps. And think twice about scheduling a follow-up meeting. Your co-workers will thank you. To help you keep a record of attendees, the PayScale Meeting Miser lets you to share a meeting time and cost summary with the click of a button.

5 laws for CRM success

Purchasing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System? Here’s some bad news: you’ll probably fail. It may very well be a disappointment. You could be wasting your money. At best, you may only have a glorified rolodex. My company services over 500 small- and medium-sized clients that use the CRM applications we support (GoldMine and Microsoft CRM). We’ve had lot of successes but also a good share of disasters too. I got sick of the bad projects and one day sat down to try and figure out why our great projects were so great. Here’s what I found.

1. One individual stepped up to the plate.

Every project needs an internal champion. The projects that succeeded had one. I’m talking about a really good administrative person. Someone who has a brain and isn’t afraid to use it. Or a baseball bat too if necessary. The champion is not afraid to make mistakes. Or yell and scream if necessary. The champion is authorized by management to get the job done…and evaluated on its success. The champion should know everything about the system. He/she should get all the advanced training they need. The champion is responsible for the accuracy of the CRM database. The outside consultants are used to back up the champion. If you don’t have someone like this in place then you will fail, fail, fail!

2. There were black and white deliverables.

Don’t try to “get more sales” or “service our customers better.” That’s a joke. You buy a piece of equipment to cut metal. You purchase a truck to deliver your product. What’s the specific thing that your CRM system should be doing? How about two to three needed reports that you’re not getting? How about replacing two databases with one combined system? Come up with an exact deliverable and have your CRM consultant tell you just how much it will cost to deliver it. Justify this investment by how much more sales or fewer expenses will result. Pay them when you see it and it’s working. My best clients go into their implementations with a clear, measurable goal in mind.

3. We’re not “girly-men.”

Schwarzenegger doesn’t like them, and neither do I. This is not a win-win situation. You’re not trying to make people happy. You’re putting in a system to help you generate more sales from existing and new customers. Your competitors are doing it. Don’t listen to those whining salespeople who don’t want to use this system - CRM applications are standard stuff nowadays. The strongest managers I know look at CRM as just a tool to use to get them the information they need so they can manage their sales and service groups effectively. People don’t like change. Everyone’s got their own system. Well, it’s not about them, is it? It’s about the company. If you’re a girly-man with your direct reports, then avoid putting in a CRM system. Take your people to the opera instead.

4. We took small steps at a reasonable pace.

No one turned the place upside down. Our successful clients took the attitude that their CRM implementation would take place over a long period of time and broke the project down into chunks. Many figured out early that a test group of users (especially users with the right attitude) was the right place to start. This way they could get their feet wet and work out the kinks. And assuming success, the test group of users could help spread the gospel - train other employees and help with issues. Each phase would be about 30 days or so. And of course these phases were part of an overall plan. By doing it this way, management could make sure things were going according to plan and give themselves the opportunity to cut their losses if things weren’t really happening they way they hoped.

5. We weren’t afraid to fail.

Look, some really great and successful companies just don’t embrace CRM. Their culture isn’t right for it. They’ve succeeded without it. Some of our clients’ CRM failures really weren’t failures at all. Management knew that CRM was a new concept for their company and were willing to take a chance (remember about taking those small steps) on it. CRM systems fail all the time and for many reasons beyond management’s control. Don’t be afraid to walk away from something that’s just not a good fit. If it was an affordable learning exercise, then it really wasn’t a failure at all.

Some thoughts on passing as an extrovert

A lot of professional project management consultants choose to pass rather than reveal their true colors. We choose to pretend to welcome people to our cubes, to speak up during the unending roll of meetings, and to actually leave our space in order to find out what is going on. In other words, we choose to pass as extroverts rather than the introverts we truly are. In some cases this transformation is so extreme that our friends and family would not recognize us inside the business environment.

It gets worse. Almost all of the business advice is written by extroverts for extroverts. The structure of business emphasizes the skills of extroverts (e.g. willingness to communicate trivial details, ability to endure the company of a number of people for hours on end) rather than the talents introverts bring to the table. So, where is the reference for the rest of us?

So, what is a dedicated project manager who also happens to be an introvert to do? I don’t mean in terms of passing. I mean what do we do in terms of genuinely aligning our personal preferences with the needs of our project teams? How do we stop pretending and start really getting involved?

First, we have to accept that an introvert who leads does not do so in the same way that an extrovert does. An extrovert leads by using his charisma and ability to connect to draw others into his circle. It’s kind of like encountering a jamming field inside of which the target’s mind doesn’t work quite right. An introvert leads by understanding and assisting others in understanding what needs to be done.

Second, we have to toss the PMBOK in the circular file. Yes, I know it’s popular with project management wonks and introverts of all descriptions. It gives us a handy reference and the ability to create hundreds of useless documents to hide behind. At it’s worst, we can use the thing as a “cookbook”, a step-by-step guide to miserable failure.

The seductive allure of process, any process, needs to be discarded in favor of honest self-reflection and analysis. Most processes serve to record information for extroverts, who have memories like mayflies anyway. What we need is to focus our attention on understanding what is happening, why it is occurring, and how we can get our teams to act in a way that will restore blessed silence as quickly as possible.

To do this we need data. Lots of data. Fortunately most modern introverts are class-A infovores, and we have access to wellsprings of information exceeding our ancestors’ fondest dreams. While the extroverts go out and glad-hand, we have the ability to figure out what’s really going on. Don’t let your lack of knowledge regarding “accounting” or “technology” or “fruit-juice” stop you either; it’s all data and it all obeys structured rules regarding its analysis. Learn the rules, sort the data into models, and work it out.

Finally, get out of the front lines. We are introverts, not extroverts. It’s not necessary for us to speak with everyone, all the time, everyday. Find an extrovert on the team, appoint him “team leader” or some such nonsense, and let him speak up and field questions. This kind of front-office/back-office approach to project management (whether done with a team leader or two project managers) can produce impressive results.

Good luck, my fellow introverts, and remember: it is no longer considered ok to growl at the person who comes into your cube for the fifteenth time that day to discuss his potted plants.